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

class="calibre1">“I shall be very happy,” returns the iron gentleman, “to give my

best attention to anything Lady Dedlock does me the honour to say.”

 

As he turns towards her, he finds that the impression she makes

upon him is less agreeable than on the former occasion. A distant

supercilious air makes a cold atmosphere about her, and there is

nothing in her bearing, as there was before, to encourage openness.

 

“Pray, sir,” says Lady Dedlock listlessly, “may I be allowed to

inquire whether anything has passed between you and your son

respecting your son’s fancy?”

 

It is almost too troublesome to her languid eyes to bestow a look

upon him as she asks this question.

 

“If my memory serves me, Lady Dedlock, I said, when I had the

pleasure of seeing you before, that I should seriously advise my

son to conquer that—fancy.” The ironmaster repeats her expression

with a little emphasis.

 

“And did you?”

 

“Oh! Of course I did.”

 

Sir Leicester gives a nod, approving and confirmatory. Very

proper. The iron gentleman, having said that he would do it, was

bound to do it. No difference in this respect between the base

metals and the precious. Highly proper.

 

“And pray has he done so?”

 

“Really, Lady Dedlock, I cannot make you a definite reply. I fear

not. Probably not yet. In our condition of life, we sometimes

couple an intention with our—our fancies which renders them not

altogether easy to throw off. I think it is rather our way to be

in earnest.”

 

Sir Leicester has a misgiving that there may be a hidden Wat

Tylerish meaning in this expression, and fumes a little. Mr.

Rouncewell is perfectly good-humoured and polite, but within such

limits, evidently adapts his tone to his reception.

 

“Because,” proceeds my Lady, “I have been thinking of the subject,

which is tiresome to me.”

 

“I am very sorry, I am sure.”

 

“And also of what Sir Leicester said upon it, in which I quite

concur”—Sir Leicester flattered—“and if you cannot give us the

assurance that this fancy is at an end, I have come to the

conclusion that the girl had better leave me.”

 

“I can give no such assurance, Lady Dedlock. Nothing of the kind.”

 

“Then she had better go.”

 

“Excuse me, my Lady,” Sir Leicester considerately interposes, “but

perhaps this may be doing an injury to the young woman which she

has not merited. Here is a young woman,” says Sir Leicester,

magnificently laying out the matter with his right hand like a

service of plate, “whose good fortune it is to have attracted the

notice and favour of an eminent lady and to live, under the

protection of that eminent lady, surrounded by the various

advantages which such a position confers, and which are

unquestionably very great—I believe unquestionably very great,

sir—for a young woman in that station of life. The question then

arises, should that young woman be deprived of these many

advantages and that good fortune simply because she has”—Sir

Leicester, with an apologetic but dignified inclination of his head

towards the ironmaster, winds up his sentence—“has attracted the

notice of Mr Rouncewell’s son? Now, has she deserved this

punishment? Is this just towards her? Is this our previous

understanding?”

 

“I beg your pardon,” interposes Mr. Rouncewell’s son’s father.

“Sir Leicester, will you allow me? I think I may shorten the

subject. Pray dismiss that from your consideration. If you

remember anything so unimportant—which is not to be expected—you

would recollect that my first thought in the affair was directly

opposed to her remaining here.”

 

Dismiss the Dedlock patronage from consideration? Oh! Sir

Leicester is bound to believe a pair of ears that have been handed

down to him through such a family, or he really might have

mistrusted their report of the iron gentleman’s observations.

 

“It is not necessary,” observes my Lady in her coldest manner

before he can do anything but breathe amazedly, “to enter into

these matters on either side. The girl is a very good girl; I have

nothing whatever to say against her, but she is so far insensible

to her many advantages and her good fortune that she is in love—or

supposes she is, poor little fool—and unable to appreciate them.”

 

Sir Leicester begs to observe that wholly alters the case. He

might have been sure that my Lady had the best grounds and reasons

in support of her view. He entirely agrees with my Lady. The

young woman had better go.

 

“As Sir Leicester observed, Mr. Rouncewell, on the last occasion

when we were fatigued by this business,” Lady Dedlock languidly

proceeds, “we cannot make conditions with you. Without conditions,

and under present circumstances, the girl is quite misplaced here

and had better go. I have told her so. Would you wish to have her

sent back to the village, or would you like to take her with you,

or what would you prefer?”

 

“Lady Dedlock, if I may speak plainly—”

 

“By all means.”

 

“—I should prefer the course which will the soonest relieve you of

the incumbrance and remove her from her present position.”

 

“And to speak as plainly,” she returns with the same studied

carelessness, “so should I. Do I understand that you will take her

with you?”

 

The iron gentleman makes an iron bow.

 

“Sir Leicester, will you ring?” Mr. Tulkinghorn steps forward from

his window and pulls the bell. “I had forgotten you. Thank you.”

He makes his usual bow and goes quietly back again. Mercury,

swift-responsive, appears, receives instructions whom to produce,

skims away, produces the aforesaid, and departs.

 

Rosa has been crying and is yet in distress. On her coming in, the

ironmaster leaves his chair, takes her arm in his, and remains with

her near the door ready to depart.

 

“You are taken charge of, you see,” says my Lady in her weary

manner, “and are going away well protected. I have mentioned that

you are a very good girl, and you have nothing to cry for.”

 

“She seems after all,” observes Mr. Tulkinghorn, loitering a little

forward with his hands behind him, “as if she were crying at going

away.”

 

“Why, she is not well-bred, you see,” returns Mr. Rouncewell with

some quickness in his manner, as if he were glad to have the lawyer

to retort upon, “and she is an inexperienced little thing and knows

no better. If she had remained here, sir, she would have improved,

no doubt.”

 

“No doubt,” is Mr. Tulkinghorn’s composed reply.

 

Rosa sobs out that she is very sorry to leave my Lady, and that she

was happy at Chesney Wold, and has been happy with my Lady, and

that she thanks my Lady over and over again. “Out, you silly

little puss!” says the ironmaster, checking her in a low voice,

though not angrily. “Have a spirit, if you’re fond of Watt!” My

Lady merely waves her off with indifference, saying, “There, there,

child! You are a good girl. Go away!” Sir Leicester has

magnificently disengaged himself from the subject and retired into

the sanctuary of his blue coat. Mr. Tulkinghorn, an indistinct

form against the dark street now dotted with lamps, looms in my

Lady’s view, bigger and blacker than before.

 

“Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock,” says Mr. Rouncewell after a pause

of a few moments, “I beg to take my leave, with an apology for

having again troubled you, though not of my own act, on this

tiresome subject. I can very well understand, I assure you, how

tiresome so small a matter must have become to Lady Dedlock. If I

am doubtful of my dealing with it, it is only because I did not at

first quietly exert my influence to take my young friend here away

without troubling you at all. But it appeared to me—I dare say

magnifying the importance of the thing—that it was respectful to

explain to you how the matter stood and candid to consult your

wishes and convenience. I hope you will excuse my want of

acquaintance with the polite world.”

 

Sir Leicester considers himself evoked out of the sanctuary by

these remarks. “Mr. Rouncewell,” he returns, “do not mention it.

Justifications are unnecessary, I hope, on either side.”

 

“I am glad to hear it, Sir Leicester; and if I may, by way of a

last word, revert to what I said before of my mother’s long

connexion with the family and the worth it bespeaks on both sides,

I would point out this little instance here on my arm who shows

herself so affectionate and faithful in parting and in whom my

mother, I dare say, has done something to awaken such feelings—

though of course Lady Dedlock, by her heartfelt interest and her

genial condescension, has done much more.”

 

If he mean this ironically, it may be truer than he thinks. He

points it, however, by no deviation from his straightforward manner

of speech, though in saying it he turns towards that part of the

dim room where my Lady sits. Sir Leicester stands to return his

parting salutation, Mr. Tulkinghorn again rings, Mercury takes

another flight, and Mr. Rouncewell and Rosa leave the house.

 

Then lights are brought in, discovering Mr. Tulkinghorn still

standing in his window with his hands behind him and my Lady still

sitting with his figure before her, closing up her view of the

night as well as of the day. She is very pale. Mr. Tulkinghorn,

observing it as she rises to retire, thinks, “Well she may be! The

power of this woman is astonishing. She has been acting a part the

whole time.” But he can act a part too—his one unchanging

character—and as he holds the door open for this woman, fifty

pairs of eyes, each fifty times sharper than Sir Leicester’s pair,

should find no flaw in him.

 

Lady Dedlock dines alone in her own room to-day. Sir Leicester is

whipped in to the rescue of the Doodle Party and the discomfiture

of the Coodle Faction. Lady Dedlock asks on sitting down to

dinner, still deadly pale (and quite an illustration of the

debilitated cousin’s text), whether he is gone out? Yes. Whether

Mr. Tulkinghorn is gone yet? No. Presently she asks again, is he

gone YET? No. What is he doing? Mercury thinks he is writing

letters in the library. Would my Lady wish to see him? Anything

but that.

 

But he wishes to see my Lady. Within a few more minutes he is

reported as sending his respects, and could my Lady please to

receive him for a word or two after her dinner? My Lady will

receive him now. He comes now, apologizing for intruding, even by

her permission, while she is at table. When they are alone, my

Lady waves her hand to dispense with such mockeries.

 

“What do you want, sir?”

 

“Why, Lady Dedlock,” says the lawyer, taking a chair at a little

distance from her and slowly rubbing his rusty legs up and down, up

and down, up and down, “I am rather surprised by the course you

have taken.”

 

“Indeed?”

 

“Yes, decidedly. I was not prepared for it. I consider it a

departure from our agreement and your promise. It puts us in a new

position, Lady Dedlock. I feel myself under the necessity of

saying that I don’t approve of it.”

 

He stops in his rubbing and looks at her, with his hands on his

knees. Imperturbable and unchangeable as he is, there is still an

indefinable freedom in his manner which is new and which does not

escape this woman’s observation.

 

“I do not quite understand you.”

 

“Oh, yes you do, I think. I think you do. Come, come, Lady

Dedlock,