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

to stay away; but we knew on the other hand

that she felt it a part of her duty to him to be sparing of her

visits at our house. My guardian’s delicacy had soon perceived

this and had tried to convey to her that he thought she was right.

 

“Dear, unfortunate, mistaken Richard,” said I. “When will he awake

from his delusion!”

 

“He is not in the way to do so now, my dear,” replied my guardian.

“The more he suffers, the more averse he will be to me, having made

me the principal representative of the great occasion of his

suffering.”

 

I could not help adding, “So unreasonably!”

 

“Ah, Dame Trot, Dame Trot,” returned my guardian, “what shall we

find reasonable in Jarndyce and Jarndyce! Unreason and injustice

at the top, unreason and injustice at the heart and at the bottom,

unreason and injustice from beginning to end—if it ever has an

end—how should poor Rick, always hovering near it, pluck reason

out of it? He no more gathers grapes from thorns or figs from

thistles than older men did in old times.”

 

His gentleness and consideration for Richard whenever we spoke of

him touched me so that I was always silent on this subject very

soon.

 

“I suppose the Lord Chancellor, and the Vice Chancellors, and the

whole Chancery battery of great guns would be infinitely astonished

by such unreason and injustice in one of their suitors,” pursued my

guardian. “When those learned gentlemen begin to raise moss-roses

from the powder they sow in their wigs, I shall begin to be

astonished too!”

 

He checked himself in glancing towards the window to look where the

wind was and leaned on the back of my chair instead.

 

“Well, well, little woman! To go on, my dear. This rock we must

leave to time, chance, and hopeful circumstance. We must not

shipwreck Ada upon it. She cannot afford, and he cannot afford,

the remotest chance of another separation from a friend. Therefore

I have particularly begged of Woodcourt, and I now particularly beg

of you, my dear, not to move this subject with Rick. Let it rest.

Next week, next month, next year, sooner or later, he will see me

with clearer eyes. I can wait.”

 

But I had already discussed it with him, I confessed; and so, I

thought, had Mr. Woodcourt.

 

“So he tells me,” returned my guardian. “Very good. He has made

his protest, and Dame Durden has made hers, and there is nothing

more to be said about it. Now I come to Mrs. Woodcourt. How do

you like her, my dear?”

 

In answer to this question, which was oddly abrupt, I said I liked

her very much and thought she was more agreeable than she used to

be.

 

“I think so too,” said my guardian. “Less pedigree? Not so much

of Morgan ap—what’s his name?”

 

That was what I meant, I acknowledged, though he was a very

harmless person, even when we had had more of him.

 

“Still, upon the whole, he is as well in his native mountains,”

said my guardian. “I agree with you. Then, little woman, can I do

better for a time than retain Mrs. Woodcourt here?”

 

No. And yet—

 

My guardian looked at me, waiting for what I had to say.

 

I had nothing to say. At least I had nothing in my mind that I

could say. I had an undefined impression that it might have been

better if we had had some other inmate, but I could hardly have

explained why even to myself. Or, if to myself, certainly not to

anybody else.

 

“You see,” said my guardian, “our neighbourhood is in Woodcourt’s

way, and he can come here to see her as often as he likes, which is

agreeable to them both; and she is familiar to us and fond of you.”

 

Yes. That was undeniable. I had nothing to say against it. I

could not have suggested a better arrangement, but I was not quite

easy in my mind. Esther, Esther, why not? Esther, think!

 

“It is a very good plan indeed, dear guardian, and we could not do

better.”

 

“Sure, little woman?”

 

Quite sure. I had had a moment’s time to think, since I had urged

that duty on myself, and I was quite sure.

 

“Good,” said my guardian. “It shall be done. Carried

unanimously.”

 

“Carried unanimously,” I repeated, going on with my work.

 

It was a cover for his book-table that I happened to be

ornamenting. It had been laid by on the night preceding my sad

journey and never resumed. I showed it to him now, and he admired

it highly. After I had explained the pattern to him and all the

great effects that were to come out by and by, I thought I would go

back to our last theme.

 

“You said, dear guardian, when we spoke of Mr. Woodcourt before Ada

left us, that you thought he would give a long trial to another

country. Have you been advising him since?”

 

“Yes, little woman, pretty often.”

 

“Has he decided to do so?”

 

“I rather think not.”

 

“Some other prospect has opened to him, perhaps?” said I.

 

“Why—yes—perhaps,” returned my guardian, beginning his answer in

a very deliberate manner. “About half a year hence or so, there is

a medical attendant for the poor to be appointed at a certain place

in Yorkshire. It is a thriving place, pleasantly situated—streams

and streets, town and country, mill and moor—and seems to present

an opening for such a man. I mean a man whose hopes and aims may

sometimes lie (as most men’s sometimes do, I dare say) above the

ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough

after all if it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good

service leading to no other. All generous spirits are ambitious, I

suppose, but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road,

instead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is of the kind I

care for. It is Woodcourt’s kind.”

 

“And will he get this appointment?” I asked.

 

“Why, little woman,” returned my guardian, smiling, “not being an

oracle, I cannot confidently say, but I think so. His reputation

stands very high; there were people from that part of the country

in the shipwreck; and strange to say, I believe the best man has

the best chance. You must not suppose it to be a fine endowment.

It is a very, very commonplace affair, my dear, an appointment to a

great amount of work and a small amount of pay; but better things

will gather about it, it may be fairly hoped.”

 

“The poor of that place will have reason to bless the choice if it

falls on Mr. Woodcourt, guardian.”

 

“You are right, little woman; that I am sure they will.”

 

We said no more about it, nor did he say a word about the future of

Bleak House. But it was the first time I had taken my seat at his

side in my mourning dress, and that accounted for it, I considered.

 

I now began to visit my dear girl every day in the dull dark corner

where she lived. The morning was my usual time, but whenever I

found I had an hour or so to spare, I put on my bonnet and bustled

off to Chancery Lane. They were both so glad to see me at all

hours, and used to brighten up so when they heard me opening the

door and coming in (being quite at home, I never knocked), that I

had no fear of becoming troublesome just yet.

 

On these occasions I frequently found Richard absent. At other

times he would be writing or reading papers in the cause at that

table of his, so covered with papers, which was never disturbed.

Sometimes I would come upon him lingering at the door of Mr.

Vholes’s office. Sometimes I would meet him in the neighbourhood

lounging about and biting his nails. I often met him wandering in

Lincoln’s Inn, near the place where I had first seen him, oh how

different, how different!

 

That the money Ada brought him was melting away with the candles I

used to see burning after dark in Mr. Vholes’s office I knew very

well. It was not a large amount in the beginning, he had married

in debt, and I could not fail to understand, by this time, what was

meant by Mr. Vholes’s shoulder being at the wheel—as I still heard

it was. My dear made the best of housekeepers and tried hard to

save, but I knew that they were getting poorer and poorer every

day.

 

She shone in the miserable corner like a beautiful star. She

adorned and graced it so that it became another place. Paler than

she had been at home, and a little quieter than I had thought

natural when she was yet so cheerful and hopeful, her face was so

unshadowed that I half believed she was blinded by her love for

Richard to his ruinous career.

 

I went one day to dine with them while I was under this impression.

As I turned into Symond’s Inn, I met little Miss Flite coming out.

She had been to make a stately call upon the wards in Jarndyce, as

she still called them, and had derived the highest gratification

from that ceremony. Ada had already told me that she called every

Monday at five o’clock, with one little extra white bow in her

bonnet, which never appeared there at any other time, and with her

largest reticule of documents on her arm.

 

“My dear!” she began. “So delighted! How do you do! So glad to

see you. And you are going to visit our interesting Jarndyce

wards? TO be sure! Our beauty is at home, my dear, and will be

charmed to see you.”

 

“Then Richard is not come in yet?” said I. “I am glad of that, for

I was afraid of being a little late.”

 

“No, he is not come in,” returned Miss Flite. “He has had a long

day in court. I left him there with Vholes. You don’t like

Vholes, I hope? DON’T like Vholes. Dangerous man!”

 

“I am afraid you see Richard oftener than ever now,” said I.

 

“My dearest,” returned Miss Flite, “daily and hourly. You know

what I told you of the attraction on the Chancellor’s table? My

dear, next to myself he is the most constant suitor in court. He

begins quite to amuse our little party. Ve-ry friendly little

party, are we not?”

 

It was miserable to hear this from her poor mad lips, though it was

no surprise.

 

“In short, my valued friend,” pursued Miss Flite, advancing her

lips to my ear with an air of equal patronage and mystery, “I must

tell you a secret. I have made him my executor. Nominated,

constituted, and appointed him. In my will. Ye-es.”

 

“Indeed?” said I.

 

“Ye-es,” repeated Miss Flite in her most genteel accents, “my

executor, administrator, and assign. (Our Chancery phrases, my

love.) I have reflected that if I should wear out, he will be able

to watch that judgment. Being so very regular in his attendance.”

 

It made me sigh to think of him.

 

“I did at one time mean,” said Miss Flite, echoing the sigh, “to

nominate, constitute, and appoint poor Gridley. Also very regular,

my charming girl. I assure you, most exemplary! But he wore out,

poor man, so I have appointed his successor. Don’t mention it.

This is in confidence.”

 

She carefully opened her reticule a little way