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Charles Dickens
Chapter 48
Charles Dickens
 
 
1       We were now down in Westminster. We had turned back to follow her,
2  having encountered her coming towards us; and Westminster Abbey was
3  the point at which she passed from the lights and noise of the
4  leading streets. She proceeded so quickly, when she got free of
5  the two currents of passengers setting towards and from the bridge,
6  that, between this and the advance she had of us when she struck
7  off, we were in the narrow water-side street by Millbank before we
8  came up with her. At that moment she crossed the road, as if to
9  avoid the footsteps that she heard so close behind; and, without
10  looking back, passed on even more rapidly.

11       A glimpse of the river through a dull gateway, where some waggons
12  were housed for the night, seemed to arrest my feet. I touched my
13  companion without speaking, and we both forbore to cross after her,
14  and both followed on that opposite side of the way; keeping as
15  quietly as we could in the shadow of the houses, but keeping very
16  near her.

17       There was, and is when I write, at the end of that low-lying
18  street, a dilapidated little wooden building, probably an obsolete
19  old ferry-house. Its position is just at that point where the
20  street ceases, and the road begins to lie between a row of houses
21  and the river. As soon as she came here, and saw the water, she
22  stopped as if she had come to her destination; and presently went
23  slowly along by the brink of the river, looking intently at it.

24       All the way here, I had supposed that she was going to some house;
25  indeed, I had vaguely entertained the hope that the house might be
26  in some way associated with the lost girl. But that one dark
27  glimpse of the river, through the gateway, had instinctively
28  prepared me for her going no farther.

29       The neighbourhood was a dreary one at that time; as oppressive,
30  sad, and solitary by night, as any about London. There were
31  neither wharves nor houses on the melancholy waste of road near the
32  great blank Prison. A sluggish ditch deposited its mud at the
33  prison walls. Coarse grass and rank weeds straggled over all the
34  marshy land in the vicinity. In one part, carcases of houses,
35  inauspiciously begun and never finished, rotted away. In another,
36  the ground was cumbered with rusty iron monsters of steam-boilers,
37  wheels, cranks, pipes, furnaces, paddles, anchors, diving-bells,
38  windmill-sails, and I know not what strange objects, accumulated by
39  some speculator, and grovelling in the dust, underneath which -
40  having sunk into the soil of their own weight in wet weather - they
41  had the appearance of vainly trying to hide themselves. The clash
42  and glare of sundry fiery Works upon the river-side, arose by night
43  to disturb everything except the heavy and unbroken smoke that
44  poured out of their chimneys. Slimy gaps and causeways, winding
45  among old wooden piles, with a sickly substance clinging to the
46  latter, like green hair, and the rags of last year's handbills
47  offering rewards for drowned men fluttering above high-water mark,
48  led down through the ooze and slush to the ebb-tide. There was a
49  story that one of the pits dug for the dead in the time of the
50  Great Plague was hereabout; and a blighting influence seemed to
51  have proceeded from it over the whole place. Or else it looked as
52  if it had gradually decomposed into that nightmare condition, out
53  of the overflowings of the polluted stream.

54       As if she were a part of the refuse it had cast out, and left to
55  corruption and decay, the girl we had followed strayed down to the
56  river's brink, and stood in the midst of this night-picture, lonely
57  and still, looking at the water.

58       There were some boats and barges astrand in the mud, and these
59  enabled us to come within a few yards of her without being seen.
60  I then signed to Mr. Peggotty to remain where he was, and emerged
61  from their shade to speak to her. I did not approach her solitary
62  figure without trembling; for this gloomy end to her determined
63  walk, and the way in which she stood, almost within the cavernous
64  shadow of the iron bridge, looking at the lights crookedly
65  reflected in the strong tide, inspired a dread within me.

66       I think she was talking to herself. I am sure, although absorbed
67  in gazing at the water, that her shawl was off her shoulders, and
68  that she was muffling her hands in it, in an unsettled and
69  bewildered way, more like the action of a sleep-walker than a
70  waking person. I know, and never can forget, that there was that
71  in her wild manner which gave me no assurance but that she would
72  sink before my eyes, until I had her arm within my grasp.

73       At the same moment I said 'Martha!'

74       She uttered a terrified scream, and struggled with me with such
75  strength that I doubt if I could have held her alone. But a
76  stronger hand than mine was laid upon her; and when she raised her
77  frightened eyes and saw whose it was, she made but one more effort
78  and dropped down between us. We carried her away from the water to
79  where there were some dry stones, and there laid her down, crying
80  and moaning. In a little while she sat among the stones, holding
81  her wretched head with both her hands.

82       'Oh, the river!' she cried passionately. 'Oh, the river!'

83       'Hush, hush!' said I. 'Calm yourself.'

84       But she still repeated the same words, continually exclaiming, 'Oh,
85  the river!' over and over again.

86       'I know it's like me!' she exclaimed. 'I know that I belong to it.
87  I know that it's the natural company of such as I am! It comes from
88  country places, where there was once no harm in it - and it creeps
89  through the dismal streets, defiled and miserable - and it goes
90  away, like my life, to a great sea, that is always troubled - and
91  I feel that I must go with it!'
92  I have never known what despair was, except in the tone of those
93  words.

94       'I can't keep away from it. I can't forget it. It haunts me day
95  and night. It's the only thing in all the world that I am fit for,
96  or that's fit for me. Oh, the dreadful river!'

97       The thought passed through my mind that in the face of my
98  companion, as he looked upon her without speech or motion, I might
99  have read his niece's history, if I had known nothing of it. I
100  never saw, in any painting or reality, horror and compassion so
101  impressively blended. He shook as if he would have fallen; and his
102  hand - I touched it with my own, for his appearance alarmed me -
103  was deadly cold.

104       'She is in a state of frenzy,' I whispered to him. 'She will speak
105  differently in a little time.'

106       I don't know what he would have said in answer. He made some
107  motion with his mouth, and seemed to think he had spoken; but he
108  had only pointed to her with his outstretched hand.

109       A new burst of crying came upon her now, in which she once more hid
110  her face among the stones, and lay before us, a prostrate image of
111  humiliation and ruin. Knowing that this state must pass, before we
112  could speak to her with any hope, I ventured to restrain him when
113  he would have raised her, and we stood by in silence until she
114  became more tranquil.

115       'Martha,' said I then, leaning down, and helping her to rise - she
116  seemed to want to rise as if with the intention of going away, but
117  she was weak, and leaned against a boat. 'Do you know who this is,
118  who is with me?'

119       She said faintly, 'Yes.'

120       'Do you know that we have followed you a long way tonight?'

121       She shook her head. She looked neither at him nor at me, but stood
122  in a humble attitude, holding her bonnet and shawl in one hand,
123  without appearing conscious of them, and pressing the other,
124  clenched, against her forehead.

125       'Are you composed enough,' said I, 'to speak on the subject which
126  so interested you - I hope Heaven may remember it! - that snowy
127  night?'

128       Her sobs broke out afresh, and she murmured some inarticulate
129  thanks to me for not having driven her away from the door.

130       'I want to say nothing for myself,' she said, after a few moments.
131  'I am bad, I am lost. I have no hope at all. But tell him, sir,'
132  she had shrunk away from him, 'if you don't feel too hard to me to
133  do it, that I never was in any way the cause of his misfortune.'
134  'It has never been attributed to you,' I returned, earnestly
135  responding to her earnestness.

136       'It was you, if I don't deceive myself,' she said, in a broken
137  voice, 'that came into the kitchen, the night she took such pity on
138  me; was so gentle to me; didn't shrink away from me like all the
139  rest, and gave me such kind help! Was it you, sir?'

140       'It was,' said I.

141       'I should have been in the river long ago,' she said, glancing at
142  it with a terrible expression, 'if any wrong to her had been upon
143  my mind. I never could have kept out of it a single winter's
144  night, if I had not been free of any share in that!'

145       'The cause of her flight is too well understood,' I said. 'You are
146  innocent of any part in it, we thoroughly believe, - we know.'

147       'Oh, I might have been much the better for her, if I had had a
148  better heart!' exclaimed the girl, with most forlorn regret; 'for
149  she was always good to me! She never spoke a word to me but what
150  was pleasant and right. Is it likely I would try to make her what
151  I am myself, knowing what I am myself, so well? When I lost
152  everything that makes life dear, the worst of all my thoughts was
153  that I was parted for ever from her!'

154       Mr. Peggotty, standing with one hand on the gunwale of the boat,
155  and his eyes cast down, put his disengaged hand before his face.

156       'And when I heard what had happened before that snowy night, from
157  some belonging to our town,' cried Martha, 'the bitterest thought
158  in all my mind was, that the people would remember she once kept
159  company with me, and would say I had corrupted her! When, Heaven
160  knows, I would have died to have brought back her good name!'

161       Long unused to any self-control, the piercing agony of her remorse
162  and grief was terrible.

163       'To have died, would not have been much - what can I say? - I
164  would have lived!' she cried. 'I would have lived to be old, in
165  the wretched streets - and to wander about, avoided, in the dark -
166  and to see the day break on the ghastly line of houses, and
167  remember how the same sun used to shine into my room, and wake me
168  once - I would have done even that, to save her!'

169       Sinking on the stones, she took some in each hand, and clenched
170  them up, as if she would have ground them. She writhed into some
171  new posture constantly: stiffening her arms, twisting them before
172  her face, as though to shut out from her eyes the little light
173  there was, and drooping her head, as if it were heavy with
174  insupportable recollections.

175       'What shall I ever do!' she said, fighting thus with her despair.
176  'How can I go on as I am, a solitary curse to myself, a living
177  disgrace to everyone I come near!' Suddenly she turned to my
178  companion. 'Stamp upon me, kill me! When she was your pride, you
179  would have thought I had done her harm if I had brushed against her
180  in the street. You can't believe - why should you? - a syllable
181  that comes out of my lips. It would be a burning shame upon you,
182  even now, if she and I exchanged a word. I don't complain. I
183  don't say she and I are alike - I know there is a long, long way
184  between us. I only say, with all my guilt and wretchedness upon my
185  head, that I am grateful to her from my soul, and love her. Oh,
186  don't think that all the power I had of loving anything is quite
187  worn out! Throw me away, as all the world does. Kill me for being
188  what I am, and having ever known her; but don't think that of me!'

189       He looked upon her, while she made this supplication, in a wild
190  distracted manner; and, when she was silent, gently raised her.

191       'Martha,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'God forbid as I should judge you.
192  Forbid as I, of all men, should do that, my girl! You doen't know
193  half the change that's come, in course of time, upon me, when you
194  think it likely. Well!' he paused a moment, then went on. 'You
195  doen't understand how 'tis that this here gentleman and me has
196  wished to speak to you. You doen't understand what 'tis we has
197  afore us. Listen now!'

198       His influence upon her was complete. She stood, shrinkingly,
199  before him, as if she were afraid to meet his eyes; but her
200  passionate sorrow was quite hushed and mute.

201       'If you heerd,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'owt of what passed between
202  Mas'r Davy and me, th' night when it snew so hard, you know as I
203  have been - wheer not - fur to seek my dear niece. My dear niece,'
204  he repeated steadily. 'Fur she's more dear to me now, Martha, than
205  she was dear afore.'

206       She put her hands before her face; but otherwise remained quiet.

207       'I have heerd her tell,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'as you was early left
208  fatherless and motherless, with no friend fur to take, in a rough
209  seafaring-way, their place. Maybe you can guess that if you'd had
210  such a friend, you'd have got into a way of being fond of him in
211  course of time, and that my niece was kiender daughter-like to me.'

212       As she was silently trembling, he put her shawl carefully about
213  her, taking it up from the ground for that purpose.

214       'Whereby,' said he, 'I know, both as she would go to the wureld's
215  furdest end with me, if she could once see me again; and that she
216  would fly to the wureld's furdest end to keep off seeing me. For
217  though she ain't no call to doubt my love, and doen't - and
218  doen't,' he repeated, with a quiet assurance of the truth of what
219  he said, 'there's shame steps in, and keeps betwixt us.'

220       I read, in every word of his plain impressive way of delivering
221  himself, new evidence of his having thought of this one topic, in
222  every feature it presented.

223       'According to our reckoning,' he proceeded, 'Mas'r Davy's here, and
224  mine, she is like, one day, to make her own poor solitary course to
225  London. We believe - Mas'r Davy, me, and all of us - that you are
226  as innocent of everything that has befell her, as the unborn child.
227  You've spoke of her being pleasant, kind, and gentle to you. Bless
228  her, I knew she was! I knew she always was, to all. You're
229  thankful to her, and you love her. Help us all you can to find
230  her, and may Heaven reward you!'

231       She looked at him hastily, and for the first time, as if she were
232  doubtful of what he had said.

233       'Will you trust me?' she asked, in a low voice of astonishment.

234       'Full and free!' said Mr. Peggotty.

235       'To speak to her, if I should ever find her; shelter her, if I have
236  any shelter to divide with her; and then, without her knowledge,
237  come to you, and bring you to her?' she asked hurriedly.

238       We both replied together, 'Yes!'

239       She lifted up her eyes, and solemnly declared that she would devote
240  herself to this task, fervently and faithfully. That she would
241  never waver in it, never be diverted from it, never relinquish it,
242  while there was any chance of hope. If she were not true to it,
243  might the object she now had in life, which bound her to something
244  devoid of evil, in its passing away from her, leave her more
245  forlorn and more despairing, if that were possible, than she had
246  been upon the river's brink that night; and then might all help,
247  human and Divine, renounce her evermore!

248       She did not raise her voice above her breath, or address us, but
249  said this to the night sky; then stood profoundly quiet, looking at
250  the gloomy water.

251       We judged it expedient, now, to tell her all we knew; which I
252  recounted at length. She listened with great attention, and with
253  a face that often changed, but had the same purpose in all its
254  varying expressions. Her eyes occasionally filled with tears, but
255  those she repressed. It seemed as if her spirit were quite
256  altered, and she could not be too quiet.

257       She asked, when all was told, where we were to be communicated
258  with, if occasion should arise. Under a dull lamp in the road, I
259  wrote our two addresses on a leaf of my pocket-book, which I tore
260  out and gave to her, and which she put in her poor bosom. I asked
261  her where she lived herself. She said, after a pause, in no place
262  long. It were better not to know.

263       Mr. Peggotty suggesting to me, in a whisper, what had already
264  occurred to myself, I took out my purse; but I could not prevail
265  upon her to accept any money, nor could I exact any promise from
266  her that she would do so at another time. I represented to her
267  that Mr. Peggotty could not be called, for one in his condition,
268  poor; and that the idea of her engaging in this search, while
269  depending on her own resources, shocked us both. She continued
270  steadfast. In this particular, his influence upon her was equally
271  powerless with mine. She gratefully thanked him but remained
272  inexorable.

273       'There may be work to be got,' she said. 'I'll try.'

274       'At least take some assistance,' I returned, 'until you have
275  tried.'

276       'I could not do what I have promised, for money,' she replied. 'I
277  could not take it, if I was starving. To give me money would be to
278  take away your trust, to take away the object that you have given
279  me, to take away the only certain thing that saves me from the
280  river.'

281       'In the name of the great judge,' said I, 'before whom you and all
282  of us must stand at His dread time, dismiss that terrible idea! We
283  can all do some good, if we will.'

284       She trembled, and her lip shook, and her face was paler, as she
285  answered:

286       'It has been put into your hearts, perhaps, to save a wretched
287  creature for repentance. I am afraid to think so; it seems too
288  bold. If any good should come of me, I might begin to hope; for
289  nothing but harm has ever come of my deeds yet. I am to be
290  trusted, for the first time in a long while, with my miserable
291  life, on account of what you have given me to try for. I know no
292  more, and I can say no more.'

293       Again she repressed the tears that had begun to flow; and, putting
294  out her trembling hand, and touching Mr. Peggotty, as if there was
295  some healing virtue in him, went away along the desolate road. She
296  had been ill, probably for a long time. I observed, upon that
297  closer opportunity of observation, that she was worn and haggard,
298  and that her sunken eyes expressed privation and endurance.

299       We followed her at a short distance, our way lying in the same
300  direction, until we came back into the lighted and populous
301  streets. I had such implicit confidence in her declaration, that
302  I then put it to Mr. Peggotty, whether it would not seem, in the
303  onset, like distrusting her, to follow her any farther. He being
304  of the same mind, and equally reliant on her, we suffered her to
305  take her own road, and took ours, which was towards Highgate. He
306  accompanied me a good part of the way; and when we parted, with a
307  prayer for the success of this fresh effort, there was a new and
308  thoughtful compassion in him that I was at no loss to interpret.

309       It was midnight when I arrived at home. I had reached my own gate,
310  and was standing listening for the deep bell of St. Paul's, the
311  sound of which I thought had been borne towards me among the
312  multitude of striking clocks, when I was rather surprised to see
313  that the door of my aunt's cottage was open, and that a faint light
314  in the entry was shining out across the road.

315       Thinking that my aunt might have relapsed into one of her old
316  alarms, and might be watching the progress of some imaginary
317  conflagration in the distance, I went to speak to her. It was with
318  very great surprise that I saw a man standing in her little garden.

319       He had a glass and bottle in his hand, and was in the act of
320  drinking. I stopped short, among the thick foliage outside, for
321  the moon was up now, though obscured; and I recognized the man whom
322  I had once supposed to be a delusion of Mr. Dick's, and had once
323  encountered with my aunt in the streets of the city.

324       He was eating as well as drinking, and seemed to eat with a hungry
325  appetite. He seemed curious regarding the cottage, too, as if it
326  were the first time he had seen it. After stooping to put the
327  bottle on the ground, he looked up at the windows, and looked
328  about; though with a covert and impatient air, as if he was anxious
329  to be gone.

330       The light in the passage was obscured for a moment, and my aunt
331  came out. She was agitated, and told some money into his hand. I
332  heard it chink.

333       'What's the use of this?' he demanded.

334       'I can spare no more,' returned my aunt.

335       'Then I can't go,' said he. 'Here! You may take it back!'

336       'You bad man,' returned my aunt, with great emotion; 'how can you
337  use me so? But why do I ask? It is because you know how weak I
338  am! What have I to do, to free myself for ever of your visits, but
339  to abandon you to your deserts?'

340       'And why don't you abandon me to my deserts?' said he.

341       'You ask me why!' returned my aunt. 'What a heart you must have!'

342       He stood moodily rattling the money, and shaking his head, until at
343  length he said:

344       'Is this all you mean to give me, then?'

345       'It is all I CAN give you,' said my aunt. 'You know I have had
346  losses, and am poorer than I used to be. I have told you so.
347  Having got it, why do you give me the pain of looking at you for
348  another moment, and seeing what you have become?'

349       'I have become shabby enough, if you mean that,' he said. 'I lead
350  the life of an owl.'

351       'You stripped me of the greater part of all I ever had,' said my
352  aunt. 'You closed my heart against the whole world, years and
353  years. You treated me falsely, ungratefully, and cruelly. Go, and
354  repent of it. Don't add new injuries to the long, long list of
355  injuries you have done me!'

356       'Aye!' he returned. 'It's all very fine - Well! I must do the best
357  I can, for the present, I suppose.'

358       In spite of himself, he appeared abashed by my aunt's indignant
359  tears, and came slouching out of the garden. Taking two or three
360  quick steps, as if I had just come up, I met him at the gate, and
361  went in as he came out. We eyed one another narrowly in passing,
362  and with no favour.

363       'Aunt,' said I, hurriedly. 'This man alarming you again! Let me
364  speak to him. Who is he?'

365       'Child,' returned my aunt, taking my arm, 'come in, and don't speak
366  to me for ten minutes.'

367       We sat down in her little parlour. My aunt retired behind the
368  round green fan of former days, which was screwed on the back of a
369  chair, and occasionally wiped her eyes, for about a quarter of an
370  hour. Then she came out, and took a seat beside me.

371       'Trot,' said my aunt, calmly, 'it's my husband.'

372       'Your husband, aunt? I thought he had been dead!'

373       'Dead to me,' returned my aunt, 'but living.'

374       I sat in silent amazement.

375       'Betsey Trotwood don't look a likely subject for the tender
376  passion,' said my aunt, composedly, 'but the time was, Trot, when
377  she believed in that man most entirely. When she loved him, Trot,
378  right well. When there was no proof of attachment and affection
379  that she would not have given him. He repaid her by breaking her
380  fortune, and nearly breaking her heart. So she put all that sort
381  of sentiment, once and for ever, in a grave, and filled it up, and
382  flattened it down.'

383       'My dear, good aunt!'

384       'I left him,' my aunt proceeded, laying her hand as usual on the
385  back of mine, 'generously. I may say at this distance of time,
386  Trot, that I left him generously. He had been so cruel to me, that
387  I might have effected a separation on easy terms for myself; but I
388  did not. He soon made ducks and drakes of what I gave him, sank
389  lower and lower, married another woman, I believe, became an
390  adventurer, a gambler, and a cheat. What he is now, you see. But
391  he was a fine-looking man when I married him,' said my aunt, with
392  an echo of her old pride and admiration in her tone; 'and I
393  believed him - I was a fool! - to be the soul of honour!'

394       She gave my hand a squeeze, and shook her head.

395       'He is nothing to me now, Trot- less than nothing. But, sooner
396  than have him punished for his offences (as he would be if he
397  prowled about in this country), I give him more money than I can
398  afford, at intervals when he reappears, to go away. I was a fool
399  when I married him; and I am so far an incurable fool on that
400  subject, that, for the sake of what I once believed him to be, I
401  wouldn't have even this shadow of my idle fancy hardly dealt with.
402  For I was in earnest, Trot, if ever a woman was.'

403       MY aunt dismissed the matter with a heavy sigh, and smoothed her
404  dress.

405       'There, my dear!' she said. 'Now you know the beginning, middle,
406  and end, and all about it. We won't mention the subject to one
407  another any more; neither, of course, will you mention it to
408  anybody else. This is my grumpy, frumpy story, and we'll keep it
409  to ourselves, Trot!'

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