​

We came home from Mr. Boythorn's after six pleasant weeks. We were often in the park, and in the woods, and seldom passed the Lodge where we had taken shelter without looking in to speak to the keeper's wife; but we saw no more of Lady Dedlock, except at church on Sundays. There was company at Chesney Wold; and although several beautiful faces surrounded her, her face retained the same influence on me as at first. I do not quite know, even now, whether it was painful or pleasurable; whether it drew me towards her, or made me shrink from her. I think I admired her with a kind of fear; and I know that in her presence my thoughts always wandered back, as they had done at first, to that old time of my life.

I had a fancy, on more than one of these Sundays, that what this lady so curiously was to me, I was to her—I mean that I disturbed her thoughts as she influenced mine, though in some different way. But when I stole a glance at her, and saw her so composed and distant and unapproachable, I felt this to be a foolish weakness. Indeed, I felt the whole state of my mind in reference to her to be weak and unreasonable; and I remonstrated with myself about it as much as I could.

One incident that occurred before we quitted Mr. Boythorn's house, I had better mention in this place.

I was walking in the garden with Ada, when I was told that some one wished to see me. Going into the breakfast-room where this person was waiting, I found it to be the French maid who had cast off her shoes and walked through the wet grass, on the day when it thundered and lightened.

“Mademoiselle,” she began, looking fixedly at me with her too-eager eyes, though otherwise presenting an agreeable appearance, and speaking neither with boldness nor servility, “I have taken a great liberty in coming here, but you know how to excuse it, being so amiable, mademoiselle.”

“No excuse is necessary,” I returned, “if you wish to speak to me.”

“That is my desire, mademoiselle. A thousand thanks for the permission. I have your leave to speak. Is it not?” she said, in a quick natural way.

“Certainly,” said I.

“Mademoiselle, you are so amiable! Listen then, if you please. I have left my Lady. We could not agree. My Lady is so high; so very high. Pardon! Mademoiselle, you are right!” Her quickness anticipated what I might have said presently, but as yet had only thought. “It is not for me to come here to complain of my Lady. But I say she is so high, so very high. I will say not a word more. All the world knows that.”

“Go on, if you please,” said I.

“Assuredly; mademoiselle, I am thankful for your politeness. ​ moiselle, I have an inexpressible desire to find service with a young lady who is good, accomplished, beautifid. You are good, accomplished, and beautiful as an angel. Ah, could I have the honor of being your domestic ! " " I am sorry " I began. " Do not dismiss me so soon, mademoiselle ! " she said, with an involuntary contraction of her fine black eyebrows. "Let me hope, a moment ! Mademoiselle, I know this service would be more retired than that which I have quitted. Well ! I wish that. I know this service would be less distinguished than that which I have quitted. Well ! I wish that. I know that I shoidd win less, as to wages, here. Good. I am content." " I assure you," said I, quite embarrassed by the mere idea of ha"dng such an attendant, " that I keep no maid " " Ah, mademoiselle, but why not ? Why not, when you can have one so devoted to you ? Who would be enchanted to serve you ; Avho would be so true, so zealous, and so faithful, every day ! Mademoiselle, I wish with all my heart to serve you. Do not speak of money at present. Take me as 1 am. For nothing ! " She Avas so singularly earnest that I drew back, almost afraid of her. Without appearing to notice it, in her ardor, she still pressed herself upon me ; speaking in a rapid subdued voice, though always with a certain grace and propriety, " Mademoiselle, I come from the South country, where we are quick, and where we like and dislike very strong. My Lady was too high for me ; I was too high for her. It is done — past — finished ! Eeceive me as your domestic, and I will serve you well. I wiR do more for you, than you figure to yourself now. Chut ! mademoiselle, I ^vill — no matter, I will do my utmost possible, in all things. If you accept my service, you will not repent it. Mademoiselle, you will not repent it, and I will serve you well. You don't know how well ! " There was a lowering energy in her face, as she stood looking at me while I explained the impossibility of my engaging her (without thinking it necessary to say how very little I desired to do so), which seemed to bring visibly before me some woman from the streets of Paris in the reign of terror. She heard me out without interruption ; and then said, with her pretty accent, and in her mildest voice : " Hey, mademoiselle, I have received my ansAver ! I am sorry of it. But I must go elsewhere, and seek what I have not found here. WiU you gTaciously let me kiss your hand? " She looked at me more intently as she took it, and seemed to take note, with her momentaiy touch, of every vein in it. "I fear I sm'prised you, mademoiselle, on the day of the storm ? " she said, with a parting curtsey, I confessed that she had surprised us all. " I took an oath, mademoiselle," she said, smiling, " and I wanted to «tamp it on my mind, so that I might keep it faithfully. And I will ! Adieu, mademoiselle ! " So ended our conference, which I was very glad to bring to a close. I supposed she went away from the village, for I saw her no more ; and nothing else occuiTcd to disturb our tranquil sunmier pleasures, until six weeks were out, and we returned home as I began just now by saying. ​At that time, and for a good many weeks after that time, Richard was constant in his visits. Besides coming every Saturday or Sunday, and remaining with us until Monday morning, he sometimes rode out on horseback unexpectedly, and passed the evening with us, and rode back again early next day. He was as vivacious as ever, and told us he was very industrious ; but I was not easy in my mind about him. It appeared to me that his industry was all misdirected, I could not find that it led to anything, but the formation of delusive hopes in connexion with the suit already the pernicious cause of so much sorrow and ruin. He had got at the core of that mystery now, he told us ; and nothing could be plainer than that the Avill under which he and Ada were to take, I don't know how many thousands of pounds, must be finally established, if there were any sense or justice in the Com*t of Chancery — but O what a great if that sounded in my ears — and that this happy conclusion could not be much longer delayed. He proved this to himself by all the weary argimients on that side he had read, and every one of them sunk him deeper in the infatuation. He had even begun to hamit the Court. He told us how he saw Miss Flite there daily ; how they talked together, and he did her little kindnesses ; and how, while he laughed at her, he pitied her from his heart. But he never thought — never, my poor, dear, sanguine Eichard, capable of so much happiness then, and Avith such better things before him ! — what a fatal link was riveting between his fresh youth and her faded age ; between his fi'ee hopes and her caged birds, and her hungiy garret, and her wandering mind. Ada loved him too well, to mistrust him much in anything he said or did ; and my guardian, though he frequently complained of the east Avind and read more than usual in the Growlery, preser^'^ed a strict silence on the subject. So, I thought, one day when I went to London to meet Caddy Jellyby, at her solicitation, I would ask Eichard to be in waiting for me at the coach-office, that we might have a little talk together. I found him there when I arrived, and we walked away arm in arm. " Well, Eichard," said I, as soon as I could begin to be grave with him, " are you beginning to feel more settled now" ? " " yes, mv dear ! " returned Eichard, " I am all right enough." "But settled?" said I, " How do you mean, settled ?" returned Eichard, with his gay laugh. " Settled in the law," said I. " O aye," replied Eichard, " I'm aU right enough." " You said that before, my dear Eichard." " And you don't think it's an answer, eh ? Well 1 Perhaps it's not. Settled ? You mean, do I feel as if I were settling down?" " Yes." Why, no, I can't say I am settling down," said Eichard, strongly emphasising ' down,' as if that expressed the difficulty ; " because one can't settle down while this business remains in such an unsettled state. When I say this busmess, of coui-se I mean the — forbidden subject." " Do you think it will ever be in a settled state ?" said I. " Not the least doubt of it," answered Eichard. We walked a little way without speaking; and presently Eichard addressed me in his frankest and most feeling manner, thus : " My dear Esther, I understand you, and I wish to Heaven I were a Q 2 ​ more constant sort of fellow. I don't mean constant to Ada, for I love her dearly — better and better every day — but constant to myself. (Some- how, I mean something that I can't very well express, but you'll make it out). If I were a more constant sort of fellow, I should have held on, either to Badger, or to Kenge and Carboy, like grim Death ; and should have begun to be steady and systematic by this time, and shouldn't be in debt, and " " Are you in debt, Richard ? " " Yes," said Richard, " I am a little so, my dear. ' Also I have taken rather too much to billiards, and that sort of thing. Now the murder's out ; you despise me, Esther, don't you ? '* " You know I don't," said I. " You are kinder to me than I often am to myself," he returned. " My dear Esther, I am a very unfortunate dog not to be more settled, but how can I be more settled ? If you lived in an unfinished house, you couldn't settle down in it ; if you were condemned to leave everything you undertook, unfinished, you would find it hard to apply yourself to anything ; and yet that's my unhappy case. I was born into this unfinished contention with all its chances and changes, and it began to unsettle me before I quite knew the difi'erence between a suit at law and a suit of clothes ; and it has gone on unsettling me ever since ; and here I am now, conscious sometimes that I am but a worthless feUow to love my confiding cousin Ada." We were in a solitary place, and he put his hand before his eyes and sobbed as he said the words. " Eichard ! '* said I, " do not be so moved. You have a noble nature, and Ada's love may make you worthier every day." " I know, my dear," lie replied, pressing my aim, " I know all that. You mustn't mind my being a little soft now, for I have had all this upon my mind for a long time ; and have often meant to speak to you, and have sometimes wanted opportunity and sometimes courage. I know what the thought of Ada ought to do for me, but it doesn't do it. I am too unsettled even for that. I love her most devotedly ; and yet I do her wrong, in doing myself wrong, every day and hour. But it can't last for ever. We shall come on for a final hearing, and get judgment in our favour ; and then you and Ada shaU see what I can really be ! " It had given me a pang to hear him sob, and see the tears start out between his fingers ; but that was infinitely less aftecting to me, than the hopefid animation with which he said these words. "I have looked well into the papers, Esther — I have been deep in them for months " — he continued, recovering his cheerfulness in a moment, " and you may rely upon it that we shall come out triumphant. As to years of delay, there has been no want of them. Heaven knows ! and there is the greater probability of our bringing the matter to a speedy close ; in fact, it's on the paper now. It wiU be all right at last, and then you shall see ! " Recalling how he had just now placed Messrs. Kenge and Carboy in the same category with Mr. Badger, I asked him when he intended to be articled in Lincoln's Inn ? "There again ! I think not at all, Esther," he returned with an effort. " I fancy I have had enough of it. Having worked at Jarndyce and ​ Jarndyce like a galley slave, I have slaked my thirst for the lav? and satisfied myself that 1 shouldn't like ii^ Besides, I find it unsettles me more and more to be so constantly upon the scene of action. So what," continued Tlichard, confident again by this time, '"'do I naturally tiu'n my thoughts to ?" " I can't imagine," said I. (Mt^^ "Don't look so serious," returned itichard, *•' because it's the best think I can do, my dear Esther, I am certain. It's not as if I wanted a profession for life. These proceedings will come to a termination, and then I am provided for. No. I look upon it as a pursuit which is in its nature more or less unsettled, and therefore suited to my temporary condition — I may say, precisely suited. What is it that I naturally turn my thoughts to ? " I looked at him, and sliook my head. " What," said Richard, in a tone of perfect conviction, but the armv!" "The army?" said I.

• ' The army, of course. What I have to do, is, to get a commission ;

and — there I am, you know ! " said Richard. And then he showed me, proved by elaborate calculations in his pocket- book, that supposing he had contracted, say two hundred pounds of debt in six months, out of the army ; and that lie contracted no debt at all within a coiTesponding period, in the army — as to which he had quite made up his mind; this step must involve a saving of four hundred pounds in a year, or two thousand pounds in five years — which was a considerable sum. And then he spoke, so ingenuously and sincerely, of the sacrifice he made in withdrawing himself for a time from Ada, and of the earnestness with which he aspired — as in thought he always did, I know full well — to repay her love, and to ensure her happiness, and to conquer what was amiss in himself, and to acquire the very soid of decision, that he made my heart ache keenly, sorely. For, I tliought how would this end, how could this end, when so soon and so surely all his manly qualities were touched by the fatal blight that ruined everything it rested on ! I spoke to Richard with all the earnestness I felt, and all the hope I could not quite feel then ; and implored him, for Ada's sake, not to put any trust in Chancery. To all I said, Richard readily assented ; riding over the Court and everything else in his easy way, and drawing the brightest pictures of the character he was to settle into — alas, when the grievous suit should loose its hold upon him ! We had a long talk, but it always came back to that, in substance. At last, we came to Soho Square, where Caddy Jellyby had appointed to wait for me, as a quiet place in the neighbourhood of Xewman-street. Caddy w^as in the garden in the centre, and hurried out as soon as I appeared. After a few cheerful words, Richard left us together. " Prince has a pupil over the way, Esther," said Caddy, " and got the key for us. So, if you will walk round and round here with me, we can lock ourselves in, and I can tell you comfortably what I wanted to see your dear good face about." " Very well, my dear," said I. " Nothing coidd be better." So Caddy, after affectionately squeezing the dear good face as she called it, locked the gate, and took my arm, and we began to walk round the garden verv cosily. ​" You see, Esther," said Caddy, who thoroughly enjoyed a little con- fidence, " after you spoke to me about its being wrong to many without Ma's knowledge, or even to keep ]Ia long in the dark respecting our engagement — though I don't believe Ma cares much for me, I must say — I thought it right to mention your opinions to Prince. In the first place, because I want to profit by everything you tell me ; and in the second place, because I have no secrets from Prince." " I hope he approved, Caddy ? " " O, my dear ! I assure you he would approve of anything you could say. You have no idea what an opinion he has of you ! " '"Indeed?" " Esther, it's enough to make anybody but me jealous," said Caddy, laughing and shaking her head ; " but it only makes me joyful, for you are the first friend I ever had, and the best friend I ever can have, and nobody can respect and love you too much to please me." "Upon my word, Caddy," said I, "you are in the general conspiracy to keep me in a good humour. Well, my dear? " " Well ! I am going to tell you," replied Caddy, crossing her hands confidentially upon my arm. " So we talked a good deal about it, and so I said to Prince, ' Prince, as Miss Summerson ' " " I hope you didn't say ' Miss Summerson ? ' " " No. I didn't ! " cried Caddy, greatly pleased, and with the brightest of faces. " I said, ' Esther.' I said to Prince, ' As Esther is decidedly of that opinion, Prince, and has expressed it to me, and always hints it when she writes those kind notes, which you are so fond of hearing me read to you, I am prepared to disclose the truth to Ma whenever you think proper. And I think. Prince,' said I, ' that Esther tliinks that I should be in a better, and truer, and more honorable position altogether, if you did the same to your Papa.' " "Yes, my dear," said I. " Esther certainly does think so." "So I was right, you see ! " exclaimed Caddy. "Well! this troubled Prince a good deal ; not because he had the least doubt about it, but because he is so considerate of the feelings of old Mr. Turveydrop ; and he had his apprehensions that old Mr. Turveydrop might break his heart, or faint away, or l^e very much overcome in some affecting manner or other, if he made such an announcement. He feared old Mr. Turvey- drop might consider it undutiful, and might receive too great a shock. Eor, old Mr. Turveydrop's deportment is very beautiiiil you know, Esther," added Caddy ; " and his feelings are extremely sensitive." " Are they, my dear ? " " O, extremely sensitive. Prince says so. Now, this has caused my darling child — I didn't mean to use the expression to you, Esther," Caddy apologised, her face suftused mth blushes, " but I generally caU Prince my darling child." I laughed ; and Caddy laughed and blushed, and went on. " This has caused him, Esther " " Caused whom, my dear? " " you tiresome thing ! " said Caddy, laughing, with her pretty face on fire. " My darling child, if you insist upon it ! — This has caused him weeks of uneasiness, and has made him delay, from day to day, in a very anxious manner. At last he said to me, ' Caddy, if Miss Sum​ merson, who is a great favourite with my father, could be prevailed upon to be present when I broke the subject, I think I could do it.' So I promised I would ask yo^^- And I made np my mind, besides," said Caddy, looking at me hopefidly, but timidly, " that if you consented, I would ask you afterwards to come with me to ]Ia. This is what I meant, when I said in my note that I had a great favour and a great assistance to beg of you. And if you thought you could grant it, Esther, Ave should both be very grateful." " Let me see, Caddy," said I, pretending to consider. " Eeally I think I coidd do a greater thing than that, if the need were pressing. I am at yom- service and the darling child's, my dear, whenever you like." Caddy was quite transported by this reply of mine ; being, I believe, as susceptible to the least kindness or encouragement as any tender heart that ever beat in this world ; and after another turn or two round the garden, during which she put on an entirely new pair of gloves, and made herself as resplendent as possible that she might do no avoidable discredit to the IMaster of Deportment, we went to NcAvman Street direct. Prince was teaching, of course. We found him engaged Avith a not very hopeful pupil — a stubborn little girl with a sulky forehead, a deep voice, and an inanimate dissatisfied mamma — whose case was certainly not rendered more hopeful by the confusion into which we threw her preceptor. The lesson at last came to an end, after proceeding as discordantly as possible ; and when the little girl had changed her shoes, and had had her white muslin extinguished in shawls, she was taken away. After a few words of preparation, we then went in search of Mr. Turveydrop ; whom we found, grouped with his hat and gloves, as a model of Deportment, on the sofa in his private apartment — the only comfortable room in the house. He appeared to have dressed at his leisure, in the intervals of a light collation ; and his dressing-case, brushes, and so forth, all of quite an elegant kind, lay about. " Father, Miss Sunnnerson ; Miss Jellyby." " Charmed 1 Enchanted !" said Mr. Turveydrop, rising with his high- shouldered bow. "Permit me!" handing chairs. "Be seated!" kissing the tips of his left fingers. "Overjoyed!" shutting his eyes and rolling. "My little retreat is made a Paradise." Ee-composing himself on the sofa, like the second gentleman in Eiu'ope.

• ' Again you fmd us, Miss Summerson," said he, " using oiu* little arts

to polish, polish ! Again the sex stimulates us, and rewards us, by the condescension of its lovely presence. It is much in these times (and we have made an awfully degenerating business of it since the days of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent — my patron, if I may presume to say so) to experience that Deportment is not wholly trodden under foot by mechanics. That it can yet bask in the smile of Beauty, my dear madam." I said nothing, which I thought a suitable reply ; and he took a pinch of snuff. " My dear son," said Mr. Turveydrop, " you have four schools this afternoon. I woidd recommend a hasty sandwich." " Thank you, father," returned Prince, " I will be sui-e to be pimctual. My dear father, may I beg you to prepare your mind for what I am going to say ! " ​" Good Heaven ! " exclaimed the model, pale and aghiast, as Prince and Caddy, hand in hand, bent down before him. " What is this ? Is this lunacy ! Or what is this ? "

" Father," returned Prince, with great submission, " I love this young lady, and we are engaged." " Engaged ! " cried Mr. Turveydrop, reclining 'on the sofa, and shutting out the sight with his hand. " An arrow launched at my brain, by my own child ! " " We have been engaged for some time, father," faltered Prince ; " and Miss Summerson, hearing of it, advised that we should declare the fact to you, and was so very kind as to attend on the present occasion. Miss Jellyby is a young lady who deeply respects you, father." Mr. Turveydrop uttered a groan. " No, pray don't ! Pray don't, father," urged his son. " Miss Jellyby is a young lady who deeply respects you, and our first desire is to consider your comfort." Mr. Turveydrop sobbed. " No, pray don't, father! " cried his son. " Boy," said Mr. Turveydrop, "it is well that your sainted mother is spared this pang. Strike deep, and spare not. Strike home, sir, strike home ! " " Pray, don't say so, father," implored Prince, in tears, " it goes to my heart. I do assure you, father, that our first wish and intention is to consider your comfort. Caroline and I do not forget our duty — what is my duty is Caroline's, as we have often said together — and, with your approval and consent, father, we will devote ourselves to making your life agreeable." " Strike home," mmmured Mr. Turveydrop. " Strike home ! " But he seemed to listen, I thought, too. " My dear father," returned Prince, " we well know what little com- forts you are accustomed to, and have a right to ; and it will always be our study, and our pride, to provide those before anything. If you will bless us with your approval and consent, father, we shall not think of being married until it is quite agreeable to you ; and when we «r<? married, we shall always make you — of course — our first consideration. You must ever be the Head and Master here, father ; and we feel how truly unnatural it would be in us, if we failed to know it, or if we failed to exert ourselves in every possible way to please you." Mr. Turveydrop underwent a severe internal struggle, and came upright on the sofa again, with his cheeks puffing over his stiff cravat : a perfect model of parental deportment. "My son!" said Mr. Turveydrop. "My children! I cannot resist your prayer. Be happy !" His benignity, as he raised his future daughter-in-law and stretched out his hand to his son (who kissed it with affectionate respect and gratitude), was the most confusing sight I ever saw. "My children," said Mr. Turveydrop, paternally encircling Caddy with his left arm as she sat beside him, and putting his right hand gracefully on his hip. " My son and daughter, your happiness shall be my care. I will watch over you. You shall always live with me ; "

meaning, of course, I will always live with you; " this house is henceforth ​ ​as much yours as mine; consider it your home. May you long live to share it with me!”

The power of his Deportment was such, that they really were as much overcome with thankfulness as if, instead of quartering himself upon them for the rest of his life, he were making some munificent sacrifice in their favour.

“For myself, my children,” said Mr. Turveydrop, “I am falling into the sear and yellow leaf, and it is impossible to say how long the last feeble traces of gentlemanly Deportment may linger in this weaving and spinning age. But, so long, I will do my duty to society, and will show myself, as usual, about town. My wants are few and simple. My little apartment here, my few essentials for the toilet, my frugal morning meal, and my little dinner, will suffice. I charge your dutiful affection with the supply of these requirements, and I charge myself with all the rest.”

They were overpowered afresh by his uncommon generosity.

“My son,” said Mr. Turveydrop, “for those little points in which you are deficient—points of Deportment which are born with a man—which may be improved by cultivation, but can never be originated—you may still rely on me. I have been faithful to my post, since the days of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent; and I will not desert it now. No, my son. If you have ever contemplated your father's poor position with a feeling of pride, you may rest assured that he will do nothing to tarnish it. For yourself, Prince, whose character is different (we cannot be all alike, nor is it advisable that we should), work, be industrious, earn money, and extend the connexion as much as possible.”

“That you may depend I will do, dear father, with all my heart,” replied Prince.

“I have no doubt of it,” said Mr. Turveydrop. “Your qualities are not shining, my dear child, but they are steady and useful. And to both of you, my children, I would merely observe, in the spirit of a sainted Wooman on whose path I had the happiness of casting, I believe, some ray of light,—take care of the establishment, take care of my simple wants, and bless you both!”

Old Mr. Tuveydrop then became so very gallant, in honor of the occasion, that I told Caddy we must really go to Thavies Inn at once if we were to go at all that day. So we took our departure, after a very loving farewell between Caddy and her betrothed; and during our walk she was so happy, and so full of old Mr. Turveydrop's praises, that I would not have said a word in his disparagement for any consideration.

The house in Thavies Inn had bills in the windows announcing that it was to let, and it looked dirtier and gloomier and ghasther than ever. The name of poor Mr. Jellyby had appeared in the list of Bankrupts, but a day or two before; and he was shut up in the dining-room with two gentlemen, and a heap of blue bags, account-books, and papers, making the most desperate endeavours to understand his affairs. They appeared to me to be quite beyond his comprehension; for when Caddy took me into the dining-room by mistake, and we came upon Mr. Jellyby in his spectacles, forlornly fenced into a corner by the great dining-table and the two gentlemen, he seemed to have given up the whole thing, and to be speechless and insensible.

​Going up-stairs to Mrs. Jellyby's room (the children were all screaming in the kitchen, and there was no servant to be seen), we found that lady in the midst of a voluminous correspondence, opening, reading, and sorting letters, with a great accumulation of torn covers on the floor. She was so pre-occupied that at first she did not know me, though she sat looking at me with that curious, bright-eyed, far-off look of hers.

“Ah! Miss Summerson!” she said at last. “I was thinking of something so different! I hope you are well. I am happy to see you. Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Clare quite well?”

I hoped in return that Mr. Jellyby was quite well.

“Why, not quite, my dear,” said Mrs. Jellyby, in the calmest manner. “He has been unfortunate in his affairs, and is a little out of spirits. Happily for me, I am so much engaged that I have no time to think about it. We have, at the present moment, one hundred and seventy families. Miss Summerson, averaging five persons in each, either gone or going to the left bank of the Niger.”

I thought of the one family so near us, who were neither gone nor going to the left bank of the Niger, and wondered how she could be so placid.

“You have brought Caddy back, I see,” observed Mrs. Jellyby, with a glance at her daughter. “It has become quite a novelty to see her here. She has almost deserted her old employment, and in fact obliges me to employ a boy.”

“I am sure, Ma,———” began Caddy.

“Now you know, Caddy,” her mother mildly interposed, “that I do employ a boy, who is now at his dinner. What is the use of your contradicting?”

“I was not going to contradict. Ma,” returned Caddy. “I was only going to say, that surely you wouldn't have me be a mere drudge all my life.”

“I believe, my dear,” said Mrs. Jellyby, still opening her letters, casting her bright eyes smilingly over them, and sorting them as she spoke, “that you have a business example before you in your mother. Besides. A mere drudge? If you had any sympathy with the destinies of the human race, it would raise you high above any such idea. But you have none. I have often told you, Caddy, you have no such sympathy.”

“Not if it's Africa, Ma, I have not.”

“Of course you have not. Now, if I were not happily so much engaged, Miss Summerson,” said Mrs. Jellyby, sweetly casting her eyes for a moment on me, and considering where to put the particular letter she had just opened, “this would distress and disappoint me. But I have so much to think of, in connexion with Borrioboola Gha, and it is so necessary I should concentrate myself, that there is my remedy, you see.”

As Caddy gave me a glance of entreaty, and as Mrs. Jellyby was looking far away into Africa straight through my bonnet and head, I thought it a good opportunity to come to the subject of my visit, and to attract Mrs. Jellyby's. attention.

“Perhaps,” I began, “you will wonder what has brought me here to interrupt you.”

“I am always delighted to see Miss Summerson,” said Mrs. Jellyby, ​pursuing her employment with a placid smile. “Though I wish,” and she shook her head, “she was more interested in the Borrioboolan project.”

“I have come with Caddy,” said I, “because Caddy justly thinks she ought not to have a secret from her mother; and fancies I shall encourage and aid her (though I am sure I don't know how), in imparting one.”

“Caddy,” said Mrs. Jellyby, pausing for a moment in her occupation, and then serenely pursuing it after shaking her head, “you are going to tell me some nonsense.”

Caddy untied the strings of her bonnet, took her bonnet off, and letting it dangle on the floor by the strings, and crying heartily, said, “Ma, I am engaged.”

“O, you ridicidous child!” observed Mrs. Jellyby, with an abstracted air, as she looked over the dispatch last opened; “what a goose you are!”

“I am engaged. Ma,” sobbed Caddy, “to young Mr. Turveydrop, at the Academy; and old Mr. Turveydrop (who is a very gentlemanly man indeed) has given his consent, and I beg and pray you'll give us yours, Ma, because I never could be happy without it. I never, never could!” sobbed Caddy, quite forgetful of her general complainings, and of everything but her natural affection.

“You see again, Miss Summerson,” observed Mrs. Jellyby, serenely, “what a happiness it is to be so much occupied as I am, and to have this necessity for self-concentration that I have. Here is Caddy engaged to a dancing-master's son—mixed up with people who have no more sympathy with, the destinies of the human race, than she has herself! This, too, when Mr. Gusher, one of the first philanthropists of our time, has mentioned to me that he was really disposed to be interested in her!”

“Ma, I always hated and detested Mr. Gusher!” sobbed Caddy.

“Caddy, Caddy!” returned Mrs. Jellyby, opening another letter with the greatest complacency. “I have no doubt you did. How could you do otherwise, being totally destitute of the sympathies with which he overflows! Now, if my public duties were not a favourite child to me, if I were not occupied with large measures on a vast scale, these petty details might grieve me very much, Miss Summerson. But can I permit the film of a silly proceeding on the part of Caddy (from whom I expect nothing else), to interpose between me and the great African continent? No. No.” repeated Mrs. Jellyby, in a calm clear voice, and with an agreeable smile as she opened more letters and sorted them. “No, indeed.”

I was so unprepared for the perfect coolness of this reception, though I might have expected it, that I did not know what to say. Caddy seemed equally at a loss. Mrs. Jellyby continued to open and sort letters; and to repeat occasionally, in quite a charming tone of voice, and with a smile of perfect composure, “No, indeed.”

“I hope, Ma,” sobbed poor Caddy at last, “you are not angry?”

“O Caddy, you really are an absurd girl,” returned Mrs. Jellyby, “to ask such questions, after what I have said of the preoccupation of my mind.”

“And I hope. Ma, you give us your consent, and wish us well?” said Caddy.

“You are a nonsensical child, to have done anything of this kind,” ​said Mrs. Jellyby; “and a degenerate child, when you might have devoted yourself to the great public measure. But the step is taken, and I have engaged a boy, and there is no more to be said. Now, pray, Caddy,” said Mrs. Jellyby—for Caddy was kissing her, “don't delay me in my work, but let me clear off this heavy batch of papers before the afternoon post comes in!”

I thought I could not do better than take my leave; I was detained for a moment by Caddy's saying,

“You won't object to my bringing him to see you, Ma?”

“O dear me, Caddy,” cried Mrs. Jellyby, who had relapsed into that distant contemplation, “have you begun again? Bring whom?”

“Him, Ma.”

“Caddy, Caddy!” said Mrs. Jellyby, quite weary of such little matters. “Then you must bring him some evening which is not a Parent Society night, or a Branch night, or a Ramification night. You must accommodate the visit to the demands upon my time. My dear Miss Summerson, it was very kind of you to come here to help out this silly chit. Good bye! When I tell you that I have fifty-eight new letters from manufacturing families anxious to understand the details of the Native and Coffee Cultivation question, this morning, I need not apologise for having very little leisure.”

I was not surprised by Caddy's being in low spirits, when we went down-stairs; or by her sobbing afresh on my neck, or by her saying she would far rather have been scolded than treated with such indifference, or by her confiding to me that she was so poor in clothes, that how she was ever to be married creditably she didn't know. I gradually cheered her up, by dwelling on the many things she would do for her unfortunate father, and for Peepy, when she had a home of her own; and finally we went down-stairs into the damp dark kitchen, where Peepy and his little brothers and sisters were grovelling on the stone floor, and where we had such a game of play with them, that to prevent myself from being quite torn to pieces I was obliged to fall back on my fairy tales. From time to time, I heard loud voices in the parlor over-head; and occasionally a violent tumbling about of the furniture. The last effect I am afraid was caused by poor Mr. Jellyby's breaking away from the dining-table, and making rushes at the window with the intention of throwing himself into the area, whenever he made any new attempt to understand his affairs.

As I rode quietly home at night after the day's bustle, I thought a good deal of Caddy's engagement, and felt confirmed in my hopes, (in spite of the elder Mr. Turveydrop) that she would be the happier and better for it. And if there seemed to be but a slender chance of her and her husband ever finding out what the model of Deportment really was, why that was all for the best too, and who would wish them to be wiser? I did not wish them to be any wiser, and indeed was half ashamed of not entirely believing in him myself. And I looked up at the stars, and thought about travellers in distant countries and the stars they saw, and hoped I might always be so blest and happy as to be useful to some one in my small way.

They were so glad to see me when I got home, as they always were, that I could have sat down and cried for joy, if that had not been a method of making myself disagreeable. Everybody in the house, from the lowest ​to the highest, showed me such a bright face of welcome, and spoke so cheerily, and was so happy to do anything for me, that I suppose there never was such a fortunate little creature in the world.

We got into such a chatty state that night, through Ada and my guardian drawing me out to tell them all about Caddy, that I went on prose, prose, prosing, for a length of time. At last I got up to my own room, quite red to think how I had been holding forth; and then I heard a soft tap at my door. So I said, “Come in!” and there came in a pretty little girl, neatly dressed in mourning, who dropped a curtsey.

“If you please, miss,” said the little girl, in a soft voice, “I am Charley.”

“Why, so you are,” said I, stooping down in astonishment, and giving her a kiss. “How glad I am to see you, Charley!”

“If you please, miss,” pursued Charley, in the same soft voice, “I'm your maid.”

“Charley?”

“If you please, miss, I'm a present to you, with Mr. Jarndyce's love.”

I sat down with my hand on Charley's neck, and looked at Charley.

“And O, miss,” says Charley, clapping her hands, with the tears starting down her dimpled cheeks, “Tom's at school, if you please, and learning so good! And little Emma, she's with Mrs. Blinder, miss, a being took such care of! And Tom, he would have been at school—and Emma, she would have been left with Mrs. Blinder—and me, I should have been here—all a deal sooner, miss; only Mr. Jarndyce thought that Tom and Emma and me had better get a little used to parting first, we was so small. Don't cry, if you please, miss!”

“I can't help it, Charley.”

“No, miss, nor I can't help it,” says Charley. “And if you please, miss, Mr. Jarndyce's love, and he thinks you'll like to teach me now and then. And if you please, Tom and Emma and me is to see each other once a month. And I'm so happy and so thankful, miss,” cried Charley with a heaving heart, “and I'll try to be such a good maid!”

“O Charley dear, never forget who did all this!”

“No, miss, I never will. Nor Tom won't. Nor yet Emma. It was all you, miss.”

“I have known nothing of it. It was Mr. Jarndyce, Charley.”

“Yes, miss, but it was all done for the love of you, and that you might be my mistress. If you please, miss, I am a little present with his love, and it was all done for the love of you. Me and Tom was to be sure to remember it.”

Charley dried her eyes, and entered on her functions: going in her matronly little way about and about the room, and folding up everything she could lay her hands upon. Presently, Charley came creeping back to my side, and said:

“O don't cry, if you please, miss.”

And I said again, “I can't help it, Charley.”

And Charley said again, “No, miss, nor I can't help it.” And so, after all, I did cry for joy indeed, and so did she.

​

As soon as Richard and I had held the conversation, of which I have given an account, Richard communicated the state of his mind to Mr. Jarndyce. I doubt if my guardian were altogether taken by surprise, when he received the representation; though it caused him much uneasiness and disappointment. He and Richard were often closeted together, late at night and early in the morning, and passed whole days in London, and had innumerable appointments with Mr. Kenge, and labored through a quantity of disagreeable business. While they were thus employed, my guardian, though he underwent considerable inconvenience from the state of the wind, and rubbed his head so constantly that not a single hair upon it ever rested in its right place, was as genial with Ada and me as at any other time, but maintained a steady reserve on these matters. And as our utmost endeavours could only elicit from Richard himself sweeping assurances that everything was going on capitally, and that it really was all right at last, our anxiety was not much relieved by him.

We learnt, however, as the time went on, that a new application was made to the Lord Chancellor on Richard's behalf, as an Infant and a Ward, and I don't know what; and that there was a quantity of talking; and that the Lord Chancellor described him, in open court, as a vexatious and capricious infant; and that the matter was adjourned and re-adjourned, and referred, and reported on, and petitioned about, until Richard began to doubt (as he told us) whether, if he entered the army at all, it would not be as a veteran of seventy or eighty years of age. At last an appointment was made for him to see the Lord Chancellor again in his private room, and there the Lord Chancellor very seriously reproved him for trifling with time, and not knowing his mind—“a pretty good joke, I think,” said Richard, “from that quarter!”—and at last it was settled that his application should be granted. His name was entered at the Horse Guards, as an applicant for an Ensign's commission; the purchase-money was deposited at an Agent's; and Richard, in his usual characteristic way, plunged into a violent course of military study, and got up at five o'clock every morning to practise the broadsword exercise.

Thus, vacation succeeded term, and term succeeded vacation. We sometimes heard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, as being in the paper or out of the paper, or as being to be mentioned, or as being to be spoken to; and it came on, and it went off. Richard, who was now in a Professor's house in London, was able to be with us less frequently than before; my guardian still maintained the same reserve; and so time passed until the commission was obtained, and Richard received directions with it to join a regiment in Ireland.

He arrived post-haste with the intelligence one evening, and had a long conference with my guardian. Upwards of an hour elapsed before my ​guardian put his head into the room where Ada and I were sitting, and said, “Come in, my dears!” We went in, and found Richard, whom we had last seen in high spirits, leaning on the chimney-piece, looking mortified and angry.

“Rick and I, Ada,” said Mr. Jarndyce, “are not quite of one mind. Come, come, Rick, put a brighter face upon it!”

“You are very hard with me, sir,” said Richard, “The harder, because you have been so considerate to me in all other respects, and have done me kindnesses that I can never acknowledge. I never could have been set right without you, sir.”

“Well, well!” said Mr. Jarndyce, “I want to set you more right yet. I want to set you more right with yourself.”

“I hope you will excuse my saying, sir,” returned Richard in a fiery way, but yet respectfully, “that I think I am the best judge about myself.”

“I hope you will excuse my saying, my dear Rick,” observed Mr. Jarndyce with the sweetest cheerfulness and good humour, “that it's quite natural in you to think so, but I don't think so. I must do my duty, Rick, or you could never care for me in cool blood; and I hope you will always care for me, cool and hot.”

Ada had turned so pale, that he made her sit down in his reading-chair, and sat beside her,

“It's nothing, my dear,” he said, “it's nothing, Rick and I have only had a friendly difference, which we must state to you, for you are the theme. Now you are afraid of what's coming.”

“I am not indeed, cousin John,” replied Ada, with a smile, “if it is to come from you.”

“Thank you, my dear. Do you give me a minute's calm attention, without looking at Rick, And, little woman, do you likewise. My dear girl,” putting his hand on hers, as it lay on the side of the easy-chair, “you recollect the talk we had, we four, when the little woman told me of a little love-affair?”

“It is not likely that either Richard or I can ever forget your kindness that day, cousin John.”

“I can never forget it,” said Richard.

“And I can never forget it,” said Ada.

“So much the easier what I have to say, and so much the easier for us to agree,” returned my guardian, his face irradiated by the gentleness and honor of his heart, “Ada, my bird, you should know that Rick has now chosen his profession for the last time, All that he has of certainty will be expended when he is fully equipped. He has exhausted his resources, and is bound henceforward to the tree he has planted.”

“Quite true that I have exhausted my present resources, and I am quite content to know it. But what I have of certainty, sir,” said Richard, “is not all I have.”

“Rick, Rick!” cried my guardian, with a sudden terror in his manner, and in an altered voice, and putting up his hands as if he would have stopped his ears, “for the love of God, don't found a hope or expectation on the family curse! Whatever you do on this side the grave, never give one lingering glance towards the horrible phantom that has haunted us so many years. Better to borrow, better to beg, better to die!”

​We were all startled by the fervor of this warning. Richard bit his lip and held his breath, and glanced at me, as if he felt, and knew that I felt too, how much he needed it.

“Ada, my dear,” said Mr. Jarndyce, recovering his cheerfulness, “these are strong words of advice; but I live in Bleak House, and have seen a sight here. Enough of that. All Richard had, to start him in the race of life, is ventured. I recommend to him and you, for his sake and your own, that he should depart from us with the understanding that there is no sort of contract between you. I must go further. I will be plain with you both. You were to confide freely in me, and I will confide freely in you. I ask you wholly to relinquish, for the present, any tie but your relationship.”

“Better to say at once, sir,” returned Richard, “that you renounce all confidence in me, and that you advise Ada to do the same.”

“Better to say nothing of the sort, Rick, because I don't mean it.”

“You think I have begun ill, sir,” retorted Richard. “I have, I know.”

“How I hoped you would begin, and how go on, I told you when we spoke of these things last,” said Mr. Jarndyce, in a cordial and encouraging manner. “You have not made that beginning yet; but there is a time for all things, and yours is not gone by—rather, it is just now fully come. Make a clear beginning altogether. You two (very young, my dears) are cousins. As yet, you are nothing more. What more may come, must come of being worked out, Rick; and no sooner.”

“You are very hard with me, sir,” said Richard. “Harder than I could have supposed you would be.”

“My dear boy,” said Mr. Jarndyce, “I am harder with myself when I do anything that gives you pain. You have your remedy in your own hands. Ada, it is better for him that he should be free, and that there should be no youthful engagement between you. Rick, it is better for her, much better; you owe it to her. Come! Each of you will do what is best for the other, if not what is best for yourselves.”

“Why is it best, sir?” returned Richard, hastily. “It was not, when we opened our hearts to you. You did not say so, then.”

“I have had experience since. I don't blame you, Rick—but I have had experience since.”

“You mean of me, sir.”

“Well! Yes, of both of you,” said Mr. Jarndyce, kindly. “The time is not come for your standing pledged to one another. It is not right, and I must not recognise it. Come, come, my young cousins, begin afresh! Byegones shall be byegones, and a new page turned for you to write your lives in.”

Richard gave an anxious glance at Ada, but said nothing.

“I have avoided saying one word to either of you, or to Esther,” said Mr. Jarndyce, “until now, in order that we might be open as the day, and all on equal terms. I now affectionately advise, I now most earnestly entreat, you two, to part as you came here. Leave all else to time, truth, and stedfastness. If you do otherwise, you will do wrong; and you win have made me do wrong, in ever bringing you together.”

A long silence succeeded.

“Cousin Richard," said Ada, then, raising her blue eyes tenderly to ​his face, “after what our cousin John has said, I think no choice is left us. Your mind may be quite at ease about me; for you will leave me here under his care, and will be sure that I can have nothing to wish for; quite sure, if I guide myself by his advice. I—I don't doubt, cousin Richard,” said Ada, a little confused, “that you are very fond of me, and I—I don't think you will fall in love with anybody else. But I should like you to consider well about it, too; as I should like you to be in all things very happy. You may trust in me, cousin Richard. I am not at all changeable; but I am not unreasonable, and should never blame you. Even cousins may be sorry to part; and in truth I am very, very sorry, Richard, though I know it's for your welfare. I shall always think of you affectionately, and often talk of you with Esther, and—and perhaps you will sometimes think a little of me, cousin Richard. So now,” said Ada, going up to him and giving him her trembling hand, “we are only cousins again, Richard—for the time perhaps—and I pray for a blessing on my dear cousin, wherever he goes!”

It was strange to me that Richard should not be able to forgive my guardian, for entertaining the very same opinion of him which he himself had expressed of himself in much stronger terms to me. But, it was certainly the case. I observed, with great regret, that from this hour he never was as free and open with Mr. Jarndyce as he had been before. He had every reason given him to be so, but he was not; and, solely on his side, an estrangement began to arise between them.

In the business of preparation and equipment he soon lost himself, and even his grief at parting from Ada, who remained in Hertfordshire, while he, Mr. Jarndyce, and I, went up to London for a week. He remembered her by fits and starts, even with bursts of tears; and at such times would confide to me the heaviest self-reproaches. But, in a few minutes he would recklessly conjure up some undefinable means by which they were both to be made rich and happy for ever, and would become as gay as possible.

It was a busy time, and I trotted about with him all day long, buying a variety of things, of which he stood in need. Of the things he would have bought, if he had been left to his own ways, I say nothing. He was perfectly confidential with me, and often talked so sensibly and feelingly about his faults and his vigorous resolutions, and dwelt so much upon the encouragement he derived from these conversations, that I could never have been tired if I had tried.

There used, in that week, to come backward and forward to our lodging, to fence with Richard a person who had formerly been a cavalry soldier; he was a fine bluff-looking man, of a frank free bearing, with whom Richard had practised for some months. I heard so much about him, not only from Richard, but from my guardian too, that I was purposely in the room, with my work, one morning after breakfast when he came.

“Good morning, Mr. George,” said my guardian, who happened to be alone with me. “Mr. Carstone will be here directly. Meanwhile, Miss Summerson is very happy to see you, I know. Sit down.”

He sat down, a little disconcerted by my presence, I thought; and, without looking at me, drew his heavy sunburnt hand across and across his upper lip.

“You are as punctual as the sun,” said Mr. Jarndyce.

​“Military time, sir,” he replied. “Force of habit. A mere habit in me, sir. I am not at all business-like.”

“Yet you have a large establishment, too, I am told?” said Mr. Jarndyce.

“Not much of a one, sir. I keep a shooting gallery, but not much of a one.”

“And what kind of a shot, and what kind of a swordsman, do you make of Mr. Carstone?” said my guardian.

“Pretty good, sir,” he replied, folding his arms upon his broad chest, and looking very large. “If Mr. Carstone was to give his full mind to it, he would come out very good.”

“But he don't, I suppose?” said my guardian.

“He did at first, sir, but not afterwards, Not his full mind. Perhaps he has something else upon it—some young lady, perhaps.” His bright dark eyes glanced at me for the first time.

“He has not me upon his mind, I assure you, Mr. George,” said I, laughing, “though you seem to suspect me.”

He reddened a little through his brown, and made me a trooper's bow. “No offence, I hope, miss. I am one of the Roughs.”

“Not at all,” said I. “I take it as a compliment.”

If he had not looked at me before, he looked at me now, in three or four quick successive glances. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said to my guardian, with a manly kind of diffidence, “but you did me the honor to mention the young lady's name———”

“Miss Summerson.”

“Miss Summerson,” he repeated, and looked at me again.

“Do you know the name?” I asked.

“No, miss. To my knowledge, I never heard it. I thought I had seen you somewhere.”

“I think not,” I returned, raising my head from my work to look at him; and there was something so genuine in his speech and manner, that I was glad of the opportunity. “I remember faces very well.”

“So do I, miss!” he returned, meeting my look with the fulness of his dark eyes and broad forehead. “Humph! What set me off", now, upon that!”

His once more reddening through his brown, and being disconcerted by his efforts to remember the association, brought my guardian to his relief.

“Have you many pupils, Mr. George?”

“They vary in their number, sir. Mostly, they're but a small lot to live by.”

“And what classes of chance people come to practise at your gallery?”

“All sorts, sir. Natives and foreigners. From gentlemen to 'prentices. I have had French women come, before now, and show themselves dabs at pistol-shooting. Mad people out of number, of course—but they go everywhere, where the doors stand open.”

“People don't come with grudges, and schemes of finishing their practice with live targets, I hope?” said my guardian, smiling.

“Not much of that, sir, though that has happened. Mostly they come for skill—or idleness. Six of one, and half a dozen of the other. I beg your pardon,” said Mr. George, sitting stiffly upright, and squaring an ​elbow on each knee, “but I believe you're a Chancery suitor, if I have heard correct?”

“I am sorry to say I am.”

“I have had one your compatriots in my time, sir.”

“A Chancery suitor?” returned my guardian. “How was that?”

“Why, the man was so badgered and worried, and tortured, by being knocked about from post to pillar, and from pillar to post,” said Mr. George, “that he got out of sorts. I don't believe he had any idea of taking aim at anybody; but he was in that condition of resentment and violence, that he would come and pay for fifty shots, and fire away till he was red hot. One day I said to him, when there was nobody by, and he had been talking to me angrily about his wrongs, ‘If this practice is a safety-valve, comrade, well and good; but I don't altogether like your being so bent upon it, in your present state of mind; I'd rather you took to something else.’ I was on my guard for a blow, he was that passionate; but he received it in very good part, and left off directly. We shook hands, and struck up a sort of a friendship.”

“What was that man?” asked my guardian, in a new tone of interest.

“Why, he began by being a small Shropshire farmer, before they made a baited bull of him,” said Mr. George.

“Was his name Gridley?”

“It was, sir.”

Mr. George directed another succession of quick bright glances at me, as my guardian and I exchanged a word or two of surprise at the coincidence; and I therefore explained to him how we knew the name. He made me another of his soldierly bows, in acknowledgment of what he called my condescension.

“I don't know,” he said, as he looked at me, “what it is that sets me off again—but—bosh, what's my head running against!” He passed one of his heavy hands over his crisp dark hair, as if to sweep the broken thoughts out of his mind; and sat a little forward, with one arm akimbo and the other resting on his leg, looking in a brown study at the ground.

“I am sorry to learn that the same state of mind has got this Gridley into new troubles, and that he is in hiding,” said my guardian.

“So I am told, sir,” returned Mr. George, still musing and looking on the ground. “So I am told.”

“You don't know where?”

“No, sir,” returned the trooper, lifting up his eyes and coming out of his reverie. “I can't say anything about him. He will be worn out soon, I expect. You may file a strong man's heart away for a good many years, but it will tell all of a sudden at last.”

Richard's entrance stopped the conversation. Mr. George rose, made me another of his soldierly bows, wished my guardian a good day, and strode heavily out of the room.

This was the morning of the day appointed for Richard's departure. We had no more purchases to make now; I had completed all his packing early in the afternoon; and our time was disengaged until night, when he was to go to Liverpool for Holyhead. Jarndyce and Jarndyce being again expected to come on that day, Richard proposed to me that we should go down to the Court and hear what passed. As it was his last day, and he was eager to go, and I had never been there, I gave my ​Page:Bleak House.djvu/334 ​Page:Bleak House.djvu/335 ​Page:Bleak House.djvu/336 ​Page:Bleak House.djvu/337 ​Page:Bleak House.djvu/338 ​Page:Bleak House.djvu/339 ​Page:Bleak House.djvu/340