Bleak House - Charles Dickens (read this if txt) 📗
- Author: Charles Dickens
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be.”
“No, never, Esther.”
“Why then, my dear,” said I, “there can be nothing amiss—and why
should you not speak to us?”
“Nothing amiss, Esther?” returned Ada. “Oh, when I think of all
these years, and of his fatherly care and kindness, and of the old
relations among us, and of you, what shall I do, what shall I do!”
I looked at my child in some wonder, but I thought it better not to
answer otherwise than by cheering her, and so I turned off into
many little recollections of our life together and prevented her
from saying more. When she lay down to sleep, and not before, I
returned to my guardian to say good night, and then I came back to
Ada and sat near her for a little while.
She was asleep, and I thought as I looked at her that she was a
little changed. I had thought so more than once lately. I could
not decide, even looking at her while she was unconscious, how she
was changed, but something in the familiar beauty of her face
looked different to me. My guardian’s old hopes of her and Richard
arose sorrowfully in my mind, and I said to myself, “She has been
anxious about him,” and I wondered how that love would end.
When I had come home from Caddy’s while she was ill, I had often
found Ada at work, and she had always put her work away, and I had
never known what it was. Some of it now lay in a drawer near her,
which was not quite closed. I did not open the drawer, but I still
rather wondered what the work could he, for it was evidently
nothing for herself.
And I noticed as I kissed my dear that she lay with one hand under
her pillow so that it was hidden.
How much less amiable I must have been than they thought me, how
much less amiable than I thought myself, to be so preoccupied with
my own cheerfulness and contentment as to think that it only rested
with me to put my dear girl right and set her mind at peace!
But I lay down, self-deceived, in that belief. And I awoke in it
next day to find that there was still the same shade between me and
my darling.
Enlightened
When Mr. Woodcourt arrived in London, he went, that very same day,
to Mr. Vholes’s in Symond’s Inn. For he never once, from the
moment when I entreated him to be a friend to Richard, neglected or
forgot his promise. He had told me that he accepted the charge as
a sacred trust, and he was ever true to it in that spirit.
He found Mr. Vholes in his office and informed Mr. Vholes of his
agreement with Richard that he should call there to learn his
address.
“Just so, sir,” said Mr. Vholes. “Mr. C.‘s address is not a
hundred miles from here, sir, Mr. C.‘s address is not a hundred
miles from here. Would you take a seat, sir?”
Mr. Woodcourt thanked Mr. Vholes, but he had no business with him
beyond what he had mentioned.
“Just so, sir. I believe, sir,” said Mr. Vholes, still quietly
insisting on the seat by not giving the address, “that you have
influence with Mr. C. Indeed I am aware that you have.”
“I was not aware of it myself,” returned Mr. Woodcourt; “but I
suppose you know best.”
“Sir,” rejoined Mr. Vholes, self-contained as usual, voice and all,
“it is a part of my professional duty to know best. It is a part
of my professional duty to study and to understand a gentleman who
confides his interests to me. In my professional duty I shall not
be wanting, sir, if I know it. I may, with the best intentions, be
wanting in it without knowing it; but not if I know it, sir.”
Mr. Woodcourt again mentioned the address.
“Give me leave, sir,” said Mr. Vholes. “Bear with me for a moment.
Sir, Mr. C. is playing for a considerable stake, and cannot play
without—need I say what?”
“Money, I presume?”
“Sir,” said Mr. Vholes, “to be honest with you (honesty being my
golden rule, whether I gain by it or lose, and I find that I
generally lose), money is the word. Now, sir, upon the chances of
Mr. C.‘s game I express to you no opinion, NO opinion. It might be
highly impolitic in Mr. C., after playing so long and so high, to
leave off; it might be the reverse; I say nothing. No, sir,” said
Mr. Vholes, bringing his hand flat down upon his desk in a positive
manner, “nothing.”
“You seem to forget,” returned Mr. Woodcourt, “that I ask you to
say nothing and have no interest in anything you say.”
“Pardon me, sir!” retorted Mr. Vholes. “You do yourself an
injustice. No, sir! Pardon me! You shall not—shall not in my
office, if I know it—do yourself an injustice. You are interested
in anything, and in everything, that relates to your friend. I
know human nature much better, sir, than to admit for an instant
that a gentleman of your appearance is not interested in whatever
concerns his friend.”
“Well,” replied Mr. Woodcourt, “that may be. I am particularly
interested in his address.”
“The number, sir,” said Mr. Vholes parenthetically, “I believe I
have already mentioned. If Mr. C. is to continue to play for this
considerable stake, sir, he must have funds. Understand me! There
are funds in hand at present. I ask for nothing; there are funds
in hand. But for the onward play, more funds must be provided,
unless Mr. C. is to throw away what he has already ventured, which
is wholly and solely a point for his consideration. This, sir, I
take the opportunity of stating openly to you as the friend of Mr.
C. Without funds I shall always be happy to appear and act for Mr.
C. to the extent of all such costs as are safe to be allowed out of
the estate, not beyond that. I could not go beyond that, sir,
without wronging some one. I must either wrong my three dear girls
or my venerable father, who is entirely dependent on me, in the
Vale of Taunton; or some one. Whereas, sir, my resolution is (call
it weakness or folly if you please) to wrong no one.”
Mr. Woodcourt rather sternly rejoined that he was glad to hear it.
“I wish, sir,” said Mr. Vholes, “to leave a good name behind me.
Therefore I take every opportunity of openly stating to a friend of
Mr. C. how Mr. C. is situated. As to myself, sir, the labourer is
worthy of his hire. If I undertake to put my shoulder to the
wheel, I do it, and I earn what I get. I am here for that purpose.
My name is painted on the door outside, with that object.”
“And Mr. Carstone’s address, Mr. Vholes?”
“Sir,” returned Mr. Vholes, “as I believe I have already mentioned,
it is next door. On the second story you will find Mr. C.‘s
apartments. Mr. C. desires to be near his professional adviser,
and I am far from objecting, for I court inquiry.”
Upon this Mr. Woodcourt wished Mr. Vholes good day and went in
search of Richard, the change in whose appearance he began to
understand now but too well.
He found him in a dull room, fadedly furnished, much as I had found
him in his barrack-room but a little while before, except that he
was not writing but was sitting with a book before him, from which
his eyes and thoughts were far astray. As the door chanced to be
standing open, Mr. Woodcourt was in his presence for some moments
without being perceived, and he told me that he never could forget
the haggardness of his face and the dejection of his manner before
he was aroused from his dream.
“Woodcourt, my dear fellow,” cried Richard, starting up with
extended hands, “you come upon my vision like a ghost.”
“A friendly one,” he replied, “and only waiting, as they say ghosts
do, to be addressed. How does the mortal world go?” They were
seated now, near together.
“Badly enough, and slowly enough,” said Richard, “speaking at least
for my part of it.”
“What part is that?”
“The Chancery part.”
“I never heard,” returned Mr. Woodcourt, shaking his head, “of its
going well yet.”
“Nor I,” said Richard moodily. “Who ever did?” He brightened
again in a moment and said with his natural openness, “Woodcourt, I
should be sorry to be misunderstood by you, even if I gained by it
in your estimation. You must know that I have done no good this
long time. I have not intended to do much harm, but I seem to have
been capable of nothing else. It may be that I should have done
better by keeping out of the net into which my destiny has worked
me, but I think not, though I dare say you will soon hear, if you
have not already heard, a very different opinion. To make short of
a long story, I am afraid I have wanted an object; but I have an
object now—or it has me—and it is too late to discuss it. Take
me as I am, and make the best of me.”
“A bargain,” said Mr. Woodcourt. “Do as much by me in return.”
“Oh! You,” returned Richard, “you can pursue your art for its own
sake, and can put your hand upon the plough and never turn, and can
strike a purpose out of anything. You and I are very different
creatures.”
He spoke regretfully and lapsed for a moment into his weary
condition.
“Well, well!” he cried, shaking it off. “Everything has an end.
We shall see! So you will take me as I am, and make the best of
me?”
“Aye! Indeed I will.” They shook hands upon it laughingly, but in
deep earnestness. I can answer for one of them with my heart of
hearts.
“You come as a godsend,” said Richard, “for I have seen nobody here
yet but Vholes. Woodcourt, there is one subject I should like to
mention, for once and for all, in the beginning of our treaty. You
can hardly make the best of me if I don’t. You know, I dare say,
that I have an attachment to my cousin Ada?”
Mr. Woodcourt replied that I had hinted as much to him. “Now
pray,” returned Richard, “don’t think me a heap of selfishness.
Don’t suppose that I am splitting my head and half breaking my
heart over this miserable Chancery suit for my own rights and
interests alone. Ada’s are bound up with mine; they can’t be
separated; Vholes works for both of us. Do think of that!”
He was so very solicitous on this head that Mr. Woodcourt gave him
the strongest assurances that he did him no injustice.
“You see,” said Richard, with something pathetic in his manner of
lingering on the point, though it was off-hand and unstudied, “to
an upright fellow like you, bringing a friendly face like yours
here, I cannot bear the thought of appearing selfish and mean. I
want to see Ada righted, Woodcourt, as well as myself; I want to do
my utmost to right her, as well as myself; I venture what I can
scrape together to extricate her, as well as myself. Do, I beseech
you, think of that!”
Afterwards, when Mr. Woodcourt came to
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