Inspector Bucket of the Detective has not yet struck his greatblow, as just now chronicled, but is yet refreshing himself withsleep preparatory to his field-day, when through the night andalong the freezing wintry roads a chaise and pair comes out ofLincolnshire, making its way towards London.
Railroads shall soon traverse all this country, and with a rattleand a glare the engine and train shall shoot like a meteor over thewide night-landscape, turning the moon paler; but as yet suchthings are non-existent in these parts, though not whollyunexpected. Preparations are afoot, measurements are made, groundis staked out. Bridges are begun, and their not yet united piersdesolately look at one another over roads and streams like brickand mortar couples with an obstacle to their union; fragments ofembankments are thrown up and left as precipices with torrents ofrusty carts and barrows tumbling over them; tripods of tall polesappear on hilltops, where there are rumours of tunnels; everythinglooks chaotic and abandoned in full hopelessness. Along thefreezing roads, and through the night, the post-chaise makes itsway without a railroad on its mind.
Mrs. Rouncewell, so many years housekeeper at Chesney Wold, sitswithin the chaise; and by her side sits Mrs. Bagnet with her greycloak and umbrella. The old girl would prefer the bar in front, asbeing exposed to the weather and a primitive sort of perch more inaccordance with her usual course of travelling, but Mrs. Rouncewellis too thoughtful of her comfort to admit of her proposing it. Theold lady cannot make enough of the old girl. She sits, in herstately manner, holding her hand, and regardless of its roughness,puts it often to her lips. "You are a mother, my dear soul," saysshe many times, "and you found out my George's mother!""Why, George," returns Mrs. Bagnet, "was always free with me,ma'am, and when he said at our house to my Woolwich that of all thethings my Woolwich could have to think of when he grew to be a man,the comfortablest would be that he had never brought a sorrowfulline into his mother's face or turned a hair of her head grey, thenI felt sure, from his way, that something fresh had brought his ownmother into his mind. I had often known him say to me, in pasttimes, that he had behaved bad to her.""Never, my dear!" returns Mrs. Rouncewell, bursting into tears.
"My blessing on him, never! He was always fond of me, and lovingto me, was my George! But he had a bold spirit, and he ran alittle wild and went for a soldier. And I know he waited at first,in letting us know about himself, till he should rise to be anofficer; and when he didn't rise, I know he considered himselfbeneath us, and wouldn't be a disgrace to us. For he had a lionheart, had my George, always from a baby!"The old lady's hands stray about her as of yore, while she recalls,all in a tremble, what a likely lad, what a fine lad, what a gaygood-humoured clever lad he was; how they all took to him down atChesney Wold; how Sir Leicester took to him when he was a younggentleman; how the dogs took to him; how even the people who hadbeen 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 broadstomacher heaves, and the quaint upright old-fashioned figure bendsunder 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--notwithout passing the back of her hand across her own motherly eyes--and presently chirps up in her cheery manner, "So I says to Georgewhen I goes to call him in to tea (he pretended to be smoking hispipe outside), 'What ails you this afternoon, George, for gracioussake? I have seen all sorts, and I have seen you pretty often inseason and out of season, abroad and at home, and I never see youso melancholy penitent.' 'Why, Mrs. Bagnet,' says George, 'it'sbecause I AM melancholy and penitent both, this afternoon, that yousee me so.' 'What have you done, old fellow?' I says. 'Why, Mrs.
Bagnet,' says George, shaking his head, 'what I have done has beendone 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 awidowed mother; I say no more.' Now, ma'am, when George says to methat it's best not tried to be undone now, I have my thoughts as Ihave often had before, and I draw it out of George how he comes tohave such things on him that afternoon. Then George tells me thathe has seen by chance, at the lawyer's office, a fine old lady thathas brought his mother plain before him, and he runs on about thatold lady till he quite forgets himself and paints her picture to meas she used to be, years upon years back. So I says to George whenhe has done, who is this old lady he has seen? And George tells meit's Mrs. Rouncewell, housekeeper for more than half a century tothe Dedlock family down at Chesney Wold in Lincolnshire. Georgehas frequently told me before that he's a Lincolnshire man, and Isays to my old Lignum that night, 'Lignum, that's his mother forfive and for-ty pound!'"All this Mrs. Bagnet now relates for the twentieth time at leastwithin 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 ladyabove the hum of the wheels.
"Bless you, and thank you," says Mrs. Rouncewell. "Bless you, andthank you, my worthy soul!""Dear heart!" cries Mrs. Bagnet in the most natural manner. "Nothanks to me, I am sure. Thanks to yourself, ma'am, for being soready to pay 'em! And mind once more, ma'am, what you had best doon 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 clearhimself of a charge of which he is as innocent as you or me. Itwon't do to have truth and justice on his side; he must have lawand lawyers," exclaims the old girl, apparently persuaded that thelatter form a separate establishment and have dissolved partnershipwith truth and justice for ever and a day.
"He shall have," says Mrs. Rouncewell, "all the help that can begot for him in the world, my dear. I will spend all I have, andthankfully, to procure it. Sir Leicester will do his best, thewhole family will do their best. I--I know something, my dear; andwill make my own appeal, as his mother parted from him all theseyears, and finding him in a jail at last."The extreme disquietude of the old housekeeper's manner in sayingthis, her broken words, and her wringing of her hands make apowerful impression on Mrs. Bagnet and would astonish her but thatshe refers them all to her sorrow for her son's condition. And yetMrs. Bagnet wonders too why Mrs. Rouncewell should murmur sodistractedly, "My Lady, my Lady, my Lady!" over and over again.
The frosty night wears away, and the dawn breaks, and the post-chaise comes rolling on through the early mist like the ghost of achaise departed. It has plenty of spectral company in ghosts oftrees and hedges, slowly vanishing and giving place to therealities of day. London reached, the travellers alight, the oldhousekeeper in great tribulation and confusion, Mrs. Bagnet quitefresh and collected--as she would be if her next point, with no newequipage and outfit, were the Cape of Good Hope, the Island ofAscension, 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-coloured dress, much of the staid calmness which is its usualaccompaniment. A wonderfully grave, precise, and handsome piece ofold china she looks, though her heart beats fast and her stomacheris ruffled more than even the remembrance of this wayward son hasruffled it these many years.
Approaching the cell, they find the door opening and a warder inthe act of coming out. The old girl promptly makes a sign ofentreaty to him to say nothing; assenting with a nod, he suffersthem to enter as he shuts the door.
So George, who is writing at his table, supposing himself to bealone, does not raise his eyes, but remains absorbed. The oldhousekeeper looks at him, and those wandering hands of hers arequite enough for Mrs. Bagnet's confirmation, even if she could seethe mother and the son together, knowing what she knows, and doubttheir relationship.
Not a rustle of the housekeeper's dress, not a gesture, not a wordbetrays her. She stands looking at him as he writes on, allunconscious, and only her fluttering hands give utterance to heremotions. But they are very eloquent, very, very eloquent. Mrs.
Bagnet understands them. They speak of gratitude, of joy, ofgrief, of hope; of inextinguishable affection, cherished with noreturn since this stalwart man was a stripling; of a better sonloved less, and this son loved so fondly and so proudly; and theyspeak in such touching language that Mrs. Bagnet's eyes brim upwith tears and they run glistening down her sun-brown face.
"George Rouncewell! Oh, my dear child, turn and look at me!"The trooper starts up, clasps his mother round the neck, and fallsdown on his knees before her. Whether in a late repentance,whether in the first association that comes back upon him, he putshis hands together as a child does when it says its prayers, andraising them towards her breast, bows down his head, and cries.
"My George, my dearest son! Always my favourite, and my favouritestill, where have you been these cruel years and years? Grown sucha man too, grown such a fine strong man. Grown so like what I knewhe must be, if it pleased God he was alive!"She can ask, and he can answer, nothing connected for a time. Allthat time the old girl, turned away, leans one arm against thewhitened wall, leans her honest forehead upon it, wipes her eyeswith her serviceable grey cloak, and quite enjoys herself like thebest of old girls as she is.
"Mother," says the trooper when they are more composed, "forgive mefirst of all, for I know my need of it."Forgive him! She does it with all her heart and soul. She alwayshas done it. She tells him how she has had it written in her will,these many years, that he was her beloved son George. She hasnever believed any ill of him, never. If she had died without thishappiness--and she is an old woman now and can't look to live verylong--she would have blessed him with her last breath, if she hadhad her senses, as her beloved son George.
"Mother, I have been an undutiful trouble to you, and I have myreward; but of late years I have had a kind of glimmering of apurpose in me too. When I left home I didn't care much, mother--Iam afraid not a great deal--for leaving; and went away and 'listed,harum-scarum, making believe to think that I cared for nobody, nonot I, and that nobody cared for me."The trooper has dried his eyes and put away his handkerchief, butthere is an extraordinary contrast between his habitual manner ofexpressing himself and carrying himself and the softened tone inwhich 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. Abroad, at one timeI 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 again,perhaps I didn't think much about it. So on, from year to year,through a service of ten years, till I began to get older, and toask 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 was growing older too?"This almost overturns the trooper afresh, but he sets himself upwith a great, rough, sounding clearance of his throat.
"Heaven forgive me, mother, but I thought there would be smallconsolation then in hearing anything about me. There were you,respected and esteemed. There was my brother, as I read in chanceNorth Country papers now and then, rising to be prosperous andfamous. There was I a dragoon, roving, unsettled, not self-madelike him, but self-unmade--all my earlier advantages thrown away,all my little learning unlearnt, nothing picked up but whatunfitted me for most things that I could think of. What businesshad I to make myself known? After letting all that time go by me,what good could come of it? The worst was past with you, mother.
I knew by that time (being a man) how you had mourned for me, andwept for me, and prayed for me; and the pain was over, or wassoftened down, and I was better in your mind as it was."The old lady sorrowfully shakes her head, and taking one of hispowerful hands, lays it lovingly upon her shoulder.
"No, I don't say that it was so, mother, but that I made it out tobe so. I said just now, what good could come of it? Well, my dearmother, some good might have come of it to myself--and there wasthe meanness of it. You would have sought me out; you would havepurchased my discharge; you would have taken me down to ChesneyWold; you would have brought me and my brother and my brother'sfamily together; you would all have considered anxiously how to dosomething for me and set me up as a respectable civilian. But howcould any of you feel sure of me when I couldn't so much as feelsure of myself? How could you help regarding as an incumbrance anda discredit to you an idle dragooning chap who was an incumbranceand a discredit to himself, excepting under discipline? How couldI look my brother's children in the face and pretend to set them anexample--I, the vagabond boy who had run away from home and beenthe grief and unhappiness of my mother's life? 'No, George.' Suchwere my words, mother, when I passed this in review before me: 'Youhave made your bed. Now, lie upon it.'"Mrs. Rouncewell, drawing up her stately form, shakes her head atthe old girl with a swelling pride upon her, as much as to say, "Itold you so!" The old girl relieves her feelings and testifies herinterest in the conversation by giving the trooper a great pokebetween the shoulders with her umbrella; this action she afterwardsrepeats, at intervals, in a species of affectionate lunacy, neverfailing, 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 bestamends was to lie upon that bed I had made, and die upon it. And Ishould have done it (though I have been to see you more than oncedown at Chesney Wold, when you little thought of me) but for my oldcomrade's wife here, who I find has been too many for me. But Ithank her for it. I thank you for it, Mrs. Bagnet, with all myheart and might."To which Mrs. Bagnet responds with two pokes.
And now the old lady impresses upon her son George, her own dearrecovered boy, her joy and pride, the light of her eyes, the happyclose of her life, and every fond name she can think of, that hemust be governed by the best advice obtainable by money andinfluence, that he must yield up his case to the greatest lawyersthat can be got, that he must act in this serious plight as heshall 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 andsuffering 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 alate beginning and do it. Mrs. Bagnet, you'll take care of mymother, I know?"A very hard poke from the old girl's umbrella.
"If you'll bring her acquainted with Mr. Jarndyce and MissSummerson, she will find them of her way of thinking, and they willgive her the best advice and assistance.""And, George," says the old lady, "we must send with all haste foryour brother. He is a sensible sound man as they tell me--out inthe world beyond Chesney Wold, my dear, though I don't know much ofit 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 upmy mmd to it. He has proved himself so different from me and hasdone so much to raise himself while I've been soldiering that Ihaven't brass enough in my composition to see him in this place andunder this charge. How could a man like him be expected to haveany pleasure in such a discovery? It's impossible. No, keep mysecret from him, mother; do me a greater kindness than I deserveand 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 toask that too--but keep it now, I do entreat you. If it's everbroke to him that his rip of a brother has turned up, I couldwish," says the trooper, shaking his head very doubtfully, "tobreak it myself and be governed as to advancing or retreating bythe way in which he seems to take it."As he evide............