Bleak House - Charles Dickens (read this if txt) 📗

happily and justly become the

dear companion of his remaining life, superior to all lighter

chances and changes than death, even then he could not have me bind

myself irrevocably while this letter was yet so new to me, but even

then I must have ample time for reconsideration. In that case, or

in the opposite case, let him be unchanged in his old relation, in

his old manner, in the old name by which I called him. And as to

his bright Dame Durden and little housekeeper, she would ever be

the same, he knew.

 

This was the substance of the letter, written throughout with a

justice and a dignity as if he were indeed my responsible guardian

impartially representing the proposal of a friend against whom in

his integrity he stated the full case.

 

But he did not hint to me that when I had been better looking he

had had this same proceeding in his thoughts and had refrained from

it. That when my old face was gone from me, and I had no

attractions, he could love me just as well as in my fairer days.

That the discovery of my birth gave him no shock. That his

generosity rose above my disfigurement and my inheritance of shame.

That the more I stood in need of such fidelity, the more firmly I

might trust in him to the last.

 

But I knew it, I knew it well now. It came upon me as the close of

the benignant history I had been pursuing, and I felt that I had

but one thing to do. To devote my life to his happiness was to

thank him poorly, and what had I wished for the other night but

some new means of thanking him?

 

Still I cried very much, not only in the fullness of my heart after

reading the letter, not only in the strangeness of the prospect—

for it was strange though I had expected the contents—but as if

something for which there was no name or distinct idea were

indefinitely lost to me. I was very happy, very thankful, very

hopeful; but I cried very much.

 

By and by I went to my old glass. My eyes were red and swollen,

and I said, “Oh, Esther, Esther, can that be you!” I am afraid the

face in the glass was going to cry again at this reproach, but I

held up my finger at it, and it stopped.

 

“That is more like the composed look you comforted me with, my

dear, when you showed me such a change!” said I, beginning to let

down my hair. “When you are mistress of Bleak House, you are to be

as cheerful as a bird. In fact, you are always to be cheerful; so

let us begin for once and for all.”

 

I went on with my hair now, quite comfortably. I sobbed a little

still, but that was because I had been crying, not because I was

crying then.

 

“And so Esther, my dear, you are happy for life. Happy with your

best friends, happy in your old home, happy in the power of doing a

great deal of good, and happy in the undeserved love of the best of

men.”

 

I thought, all at once, if my guardian had married some one else,

how should I have felt, and what should I have done! That would

have been a change indeed. It presented my life in such a new and

blank form that I rang my housekeeping keys and gave them a kiss

before I laid them down in their basket again.

 

Then I went on to think, as I dressed my hair before the glass, how

often had I considered within myself that the deep traces of my

illness and the circumstances of my birth were only new reasons why

I should be busy, busy, busy—useful, amiable, serviceable, in all

honest, unpretending ways. This was a good time, to be sure, to

sit down morbidly and cry! As to its seeming at all strange to me

at first (if that were any excuse for crying, which it was not)

that I was one day to be the mistress of Bleak House, why should it

seem strange? Other people had thought of such things, if I had

not. “Don’t you remember, my plain dear,” I asked myself, looking

at the glass, “what Mrs. Woodcourt said before those scars were

there about your marrying—”

 

Perhaps the name brought them to my remembrance. The dried remains

of the flowers. It would be better not to keep them now. They had

only been preserved in memory of something wholly past and gone,

but it would be better not to keep them now.

 

They were in a book, and it happened to be in the next room—our

sitting-room, dividing Ada’s chamber from mine. I took a candle

and went softly in to fetch it from its shelf. After I had it in

my hand, I saw my beautiful darling, through the open door, lying

asleep, and I stole in to kiss her.

 

It was weak in me, I know, and I could have no reason for crying;

but I dropped a tear upon her dear face, and another, and another.

Weaker than that, I took the withered flowers out and put them for

a moment to her lips. I thought about her love for Richard,

though, indeed, the flowers had nothing to do with that. Then I

took them into my own room and burned them at the candle, and they

were dust in an instant.

 

On entering the breakfast-room next morning, I found my guardian

just as usual, quite as frank, as open, and free. There being not

the least constraint in his manner, there was none (or I think

there was none) in mine. I was with him several times in the

course of the morning, in and out, when there was no one there, and

I thought it not unlikely that he might speak to me about the

letter, but he did not say a word.

 

So, on the next morning, and the next, and for at least a week,

over which time Mr. Skimpole prolonged his stay. I expected, every

day, that my guardian might speak to me about the letter, but he

never did.

 

I thought then, growing uneasy, that I ought to write an answer. I

tried over and over again in my own room at night, but I could not

write an answer that at all began like a good answer, so I thought

each night I would wait one more day. And I waited seven more

days, and he never said a word.

 

At last, Mr. Skimpole having departed, we three were one afternoon

going out for a ride; and I, being dressed before Ada and going

down, came upon my guardian, with his back towards me, standing at

the drawing-room window looking out.

 

He turned on my coming in and said, smiling, “Aye, it’s you, little

woman, is it?” and looked out again.

 

I had made up my mind to speak to him now. In short, I had come

down on purpose. “Guardian,” I said, rather hesitating and

trembling, “when would you like to have the answer to the letter

Charley came for?”

 

“When it’s ready, my dear,” he replied.

 

“I think it is ready,” said I.

 

“Is Charley to bring it?” he asked pleasantly.

 

“No. I have brought it myself, guardian,” I returned.

 

I put my two arms round his neck and kissed him, and he said was

this the mistress of Bleak House, and I said yes; and it made no

difference presently, and we all went out together, and I said

nothing to my precious pet about it.