One evening, at this hour,he told me that he had found Martha waiting near his lodging on the preceding night when he came out, and that she had asked him not to leave London on any account, until he should have seen her again.
‘Did she tell you why?’ I inquired.
‘I asked her, Mas’r Davy,’ he replied,‘but it is but few words as she ever says,and she on’y got my promise and so went away.’
‘Did she say when you might expect to see her again?’ I demanded.
‘No, Mas’r Davy,’ he returned,drawing his hand thoughtfully down his face.‘I asked that too; but it was more (she said) than she could tell. ’
As I had long forborne to encourage him with hopes that hung on threads,I made no other comment on this information than that I supposed he would see her soon. Such speculations as it engendered within me I kept to myself, and those were faint enough.
I was walking alone in the garden, one evening,about a fortnight afterwards.I remember that evening well. It was the second in Mr.Micawber’s week of suspense.There had been rain all day,and there was a damp feeling in the air.The leaves were thick upon the trees,and heavy with wet; but the rain had ceased,though the sky was still dark;and the hopeful birds were singing cheerfully.As I walked to and fro in the garden,and the twilight began to close around me,their little voices were hushed;and that peculiar silence which belongs to such an evening in the country when the lightest trees are quite still, save for the occasional droppings from their boughs, prevailed.
There was a little green perspective of trellis-work and ivy at the side of our cottage, through which I could see, from the garden where I was walking, into the road before the house. I happened to turn my eyes towards this place, as I was thinking of many things; and I saw a figure beyond, dressed in a plain cloak. It was bending eagerly towards me, and beckoning.
‘Martha!’ said I, going to it.
‘Can you come with me?’ she inquired, in an agitated whisper.‘I have been to him, and he is not at home.I wrote down where he was to come,and left it on his table with my own hand.They said he would not be out long.I have tidings for him. Can you come directly?’
My answer was, to pass out at the gate immediately.She made a hasty gesture with her hand,as if to entreat my patience and my silence,and turned towards London, whence,as her dress betokened,she had come expeditiously on foot.
I asked her if that were not our destination?On her motioning Yes,with the same hasty gesture as before,I stopped an empty coach that was coming by,and we got into it.When I asked her where the coachman was to drive,she answered, ‘Anywhere near Golden Square!And quick!’--then shrunk into a corner,with one trembling hand before her face,and the other making the former gesture,as if she could not bear a voice.
Now much disturbed, and dazzled with conflicting gleams of hope and dread,I looked at her for some explanation.But seeing how strongly she desired to remain quiet,and feeling that it was my own natural inclination too,at such a time, I did not attempt to break the silence.We proceeded without a word being spoken.Sometimes she glanced out of the window,as though she thought we were going slowly,though indeed we were going fast;but otherwise remained exactly as at first.
We alighted at one of the entrances to the Square she had mentioned,where I directed the coach to wait,not knowing but that we might have some occasion for it.She laid her hand on my arm,and hurried me on to one of the sombre streets,of which there are several in that part,where the houses were once fair dwellings in the occupation of single families,but have, and had, long degenerated into poor lodgings let off in rooms.Entering at the open door of one of these,and releasing my arm,she beckoned me to follow her up the common staircase,which was like a tributary channel to the street.
The house swarmed with inmates. As we went up,doors of rooms were opened and people’s heads put out;and we passed other people on the stairs,who were coming down. In glancing up from the outside,before we entered, I had seen women and children lolling at the windows over flower-pots; and we seemed to have attracted their curiosity, for these were principally the observers who looked out of their doors. It was a broad panelled staircase, with massive balustrades of some dark wood; cornices above the doors, ornamented with carved fruit and flowers; and broad seats in the windows. But all these tokens of past grandeur were miserably decayed and dirty; rot, damp, and age, had weakened the flooring, which in many places was unsound and even unsafe. Some attempts had been made, I noticed, to infuse new blood into this dwindling frame, by repairing the costly old wood-work here and there with common deal; but it was like the marriage of a reduced old noble to a plebeian pauper, and each party to the ill-assorted union shrunk away from the other. Several of the back windows on the staircase had been darkened or wholly blocked up. In those that remained, there was scarcely any glass; and, through the crumbling frames by which the bad air seemed always to come in, and never to go out, I saw, through other glassless windows, into other houses in a similar condition, and looked giddily down into a wretched yard, which was the common dust-heap of the mansion.
We proceeded to the top-storey of the house.Two or three times, by the way,I thought I observed in the indistinct light the skirts of a female figure going up before us. As we turned to ascend the last flight of stairs between us and the roof, we caught a full view of this figure pausing for a moment, at a door. Then it turned the handle, and went in.
‘What’s this!’ said Martha, in a whisper. ‘She has gone into my room. I don’t know her!’
I knew her. I had recognized her with amazement, for Miss Dartle.
I said something to the effect that it was a lady whom I had seen before,in a few words, to my conductress;and had scarcely done so,when we heard her voice in the room, though not,from where we stood, what she was saying. Martha,with an astonished look, repeated her former action,and softly led me up the stairs; and then,by a little back-door which seemed to have no lock,and which she pushed open with a touch,into a small empty garret with a low sloping roof,little better than a cupboard. Between this,and the room she had called hers,there was a small door of communication,standing partly open. Here we stopped,breathless with our ascent,and she placed her hand lightly on my lips.I could only see, of the room beyond,that it was pretty large; that there was a bed in it;and that there were some common pictures of ships upon the walls.I could not see Miss Dartle,or the person whom we had heard her address. Certainly,my companion could not, for my position was the best.A dead silence prevailed for some moments.Martha kept one hand on my lips,and raised the other in a listening attitude.
‘It matters little to me her not being at home,’ said Rosa Dartle haughtily, ‘I know nothing of her.It is you I come to see.’
‘Me?’ replied a soft voice.
At the sound of it, a thrill went through my frame. For it was Emily’s!
‘Yes,’ returned Miss Dartle,‘I have come to look at you. What?You are not ashamed of the face that has done so much?’
The resolute and unrelenting hatred of her tone,its cold stern sharpness, and its mastered rage,presented her before me,as if I had seen her standing in the light.I saw the flashing black eyes,and the passion-wasted figure; and I saw the scar,with its white track cutting through her lips,quivering and throbbing as she spoke.