第 113 页

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.

‘I have come to see,’ she said, ‘James Steerforth’s fancy; the girl who

ran away with him, and is the town-talk of the commonest people of her

native place; the bold, flaunting, practised companion of persons like

James Steerforth. I want to know what such a thing is like.’

There was a rustle, as if the unhappy girl, on whom she heaped these

taunts, ran towards the door, and the speaker swiftly interposed herself

before it. It was succeeded by a moment’s pause.

When Miss Dartle spoke again, it was through her set teeth, and with a

stamp upon the ground.

‘Stay there!’ she said, ‘or I’ll proclaim you to the house, and the

whole street! If you try to evade me, I’ll stop you, if it’s by the

hair, and raise the very stones against you!’

A frightened murmur was the only reply that reached my ears. A silence

succeeded. I did not know what to do. Much as I desired to put an end to

the interview, I felt that I had no right to present myself; that it was

for Mr. Peggotty alone to see her and recover her. Would he never come?

I thought impatiently.

‘So!’ said Rosa Dartle, with a contemptuous laugh, ‘I see her at last!

Why, he was a poor creature to be taken by that delicate mock-modesty,

and that hanging head!’

‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake, spare me!’ exclaimed Emily. ‘Whoever you are,

you know my pitiable story, and for Heaven’s sake spare me, if you would

be spared yourself!’

‘If I would be spared!’ returned the other fiercely; ‘what is there in

common between US, do you think!’

‘Nothing but our sex,’ said Emily, with a burst of tears.

‘And that,’ said Rosa Dartle, ‘is so strong a claim, preferred by one

so infamous, that if I had any feeling in my breast but scorn and

abhorrence of you, it would freeze it up. Our sex! You are an honour to

our sex!’

‘I have deserved this,’ said Emily, ‘but it’s dreadful! Dear, dear lady,

think what I have suffered, and how I am fallen! Oh, Martha, come back!

Oh, home, home!’

Miss Dartle placed herself in a chair, within view of the door, and

looked downward, as if Emily were crouching on the floor before her.

Being now between me and the light, I could see her curled lip, and her

cruel eyes intently fixed on one place, with a greedy triumph.

‘Listen to what I say!’ she said; ‘and reserve your false arts for your

dupes. Do you hope to move me by your tears? No more than you could

charm me by your smiles, you purchased slave.’

‘Oh, have some mercy on me!’ cried Emily. ‘Show me some compassion, or I

shall die mad!’

‘It would be no great penance,’ said Rosa Dartle, ‘for your crimes. Do

you know what you have done? Do you ever think of the home you have laid

waste?’

‘Oh, is there ever night or day, when I don’t think of it!’ cried Emily;

and now I could just see her, on her knees, with her head thrown back,

her pale face looking upward, her hands wildly clasped and held out,

and her hair streaming about her. ‘Has there ever been a single minute,

waking or sleeping, when it hasn’t been before me, just as it used to

be in the lost days when I turned my back upon it for ever and for ever!

Oh, home, home! Oh dear, dear uncle, if you ever could have known the

agony your love would cause me when I fell away from good, you never

would have shown it to me so constant, much as you felt it; but would

have been angry to me, at least once in my life, that I might have had

some comfort! I have none, none, no comfort upon earth, for all of them

were always fond of me!’ She dropped on her face, before the imperious

figure in the chair, with an imploring effort to clasp the skirt of her

dress.

Rosa Dartle sat looking down upon her, as inflexible as a figure of

brass. Her lips were tightly compressed, as if she knew that she

must keep a strong constraint upon herself--I write what I sincerely

believe--or she would be tempted to strike the beautiful form with

her foot. I saw her, distinctly, and the whole power of her face and

character seemed forced into that expression.---Would he never come?

‘The miserable vanity of these earth-worms!’ she said, when she had so

far controlled the angry heavings of her breast, that she could trust

herself to speak. ‘YOUR home! Do you imagine that I bestow a thought

on it, or suppose you could do any harm to that low place, which money

would not pay for, and handsomely? YOUR home! You were a part of the

trade of your home, and were bought and sold like any other vendible

thing your people dealt in.’

‘Oh, not that!’ cried Emily. ‘Say anything of me; but don’t visit

my disgrace and shame, more than I have done, on folks who are as

honourable as you! Have some respect for them, as you are a lady, if you

have no mercy for me.’

‘I speak,’ she said, not deigning to take any heed of this appeal, and

drawing away her dress from the contamination of Emily’s touch, ‘I speak

of HIS home--where I live. Here,’ she said, stretching out her hand with

her contemptuous laugh, and looking down upon the prostrate girl, ‘is a

worthy cause of division between lady-mother and gentleman-son; of grief

in a house where she wouldn’t have been admitted as a kitchen-girl; of

anger, and repining, and reproach. This piece of pollution, picked up

from the water-side, to be made much of for an hour, and then tossed

back to her original place!’

‘No! no!’ cried Emily, clasping her hands together. ‘When he first came

into my way--that the day had never dawned upon me, and he had met me

being carried to my grave!--I had been brought up as virtuous as you or

any lady, and was going to be the wife of as good a man as you or any

lady in the world can ever marry. If you live in his home and know him,

you know, perhaps, what his power with a weak, vain girl might be. I

don’t defend myself, but I know well, and he knows well, or he will know

when he comes to die, and his mind is troubled with it, that he used all

his power to deceive me, and that I believed him, trusted him, and loved

him!’

Rosa Dartle sprang up from her seat; recoiled; and in recoiling struck

at her, with a face of such malignity, so darkened and disfigured by

passion, that I had almost thrown myself between them. The blow, which

had no aim, fell upon the air. As she now stood panting, looking at

her with the utmost detestation that she was capable of expressing, and

trembling from head to foot with rage and scorn, I thought I had never

seen such a sight, and never could see such another.

‘YOU love him? You?’ she cried, with her clenched hand, quivering as if

it only wanted a weapon to stab the object of her wrath.

Emily had shrunk out of my view. There was no reply.

‘And tell that to ME,’ she added, ‘with your shameful lips? Why don’t

they whip these creatures? If I could order it to be done, I would have

this girl whipped to death.’

And so she would, I have no doubt. I would not have trusted her with the

rack itself, while that furious look lasted. She slowly, very slowly,

broke into a laugh, and pointed at Emily with her hand, as if she were a

sight of shame for gods and men.

‘SHE love!’ she said. ‘THAT carrion! And he ever cared for her, she’d

tell me. Ha, ha! The liars that these traders are!’

Her mockery was worse than her undisguised rage. Of the two, I would

have much preferred to be the object of the latter. But, when she

suffered it to break loose, it was only for a moment. She had chained

it up again, and however it might tear her within, she subdued it to

herself.

‘I came here, you pure fountain of love,’ she said, ‘to see--as I began

by telling you--what such a thing as you was like. I was curious. I am

satisfied. Also to tell you, that you had best seek that home of yours,

with all speed, and hide your head among those excellent people who are

expecting you, and whom your money will console. When it’s all gone, you

can believe, and trust, and love again, you know! I thought you a broken

toy that had lasted its time; a worthless spangle that was tarnished,

and thrown away. But, finding you true gold, a very lady, and

an ill-used innocent, with a fresh heart full of love and

trustfulness--which you look like, and is quite consistent with your

story!--I have something more to say. Attend to it; for what I say I’ll

do. Do you hear me, you fairy spirit? What I say, I mean to do!’

Her rage got the better of her again, for a moment; but it passed over

her face like a spasm, and left her smiling.

‘Hide yourself,’ she pursued, ‘if not at home, somewhere. Let it be

somewhere beyond reach; in some obscure life--or, better still, in some

obscure death. I wonder, if your loving heart will not break, you have

found no way of helping it to be still! I have heard of such means

sometimes. I believe they may be easily found.’

A low crying, on the part of Emily, interrupted her here. She stopped,

and listened to it as if it were music.

‘I am of a strange nature, perhaps,’ Rosa Dartle went on; ‘but I can’t

breathe freely in the air you breathe. I find it sickly. Therefore, I

will have it cleared; I will have it purified of you. If you live here

tomorrow, I’ll have your story and your character proclaimed on the

common stair. There are decent women in the house, I am told; and it

is a pity such a light as you should be among them, and concealed. If,