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

and showed me a

folded piece of paper inside as the appointment of which she spoke.

 

“Another secret, my dear. I have added to my collection of birds.”

 

“Really, Miss Flite?” said I, knowing how it pleased her to have

her confidence received with an appearance of interest.

 

She nodded several times, and her face became overcast and gloomy.

“Two more. I call them the Wards in Jarndyce. They are caged up

with all the others. With Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life,

Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning,

Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon,

Gammon, and Spinach!”

 

The poor soul kissed me with the most troubled look I had ever seen

in her and went her way. Her manner of running over the names of

her birds, as if she were afraid of hearing them even from her own

lips, quite chilled me.

 

This was not a cheering preparation for my visit, and I could have

dispensed with the company of Mr. Vholes, when Richard (who arrived

within a minute or two after me) brought him to share our dinner.

Although it was a very plain one, Ada and Richard were for some

minutes both out of the room together helping to get ready what we

were to eat and drink. Mr. Vholes took that opportunity of holding

a little conversation in a low voice with me. He came to the

window where I was sitting and began upon Symond’s Inn.

 

“A dull place, Miss Summerson, for a life that is not an official

one,” said Mr. Vholes, smearing the glass with his black glove to

make it clearer for me.

 

“There is not much to see here,” said I.

 

“Nor to hear, miss,” returned Mr. Vholes. “A little music does

occasionally stray in, but we are not musical in the law and soon

eject it. I hope Mr. Jarndyce is as well as his friends could wish

him?”

 

I thanked Mr. Vholes and said he was quite well.

 

“I have not the pleasure to be admitted among the number of his

friends myself,” said Mr. Vholes, “and I am aware that the

gentlemen of our profession are sometimes regarded in such quarters

with an unfavourable eye. Our plain course, however, under good

report and evil report, and all kinds of prejudice (we are the

victims of prejudice), is to have everything openly carried on.

How do you find Mr. C. looking, Miss Summerson?”

 

“He looks very ill. Dreadfully anxious.”

 

“Just so,” said Mr. Vholes.

 

He stood behind me with his long black figure reaching nearly to

the ceiling of those low rooms, feeling the pimples on his face as

if they were ornaments and speaking inwardly and evenly as though

there were not a human passion or emotion in his nature.

 

“Mr. Woodcourt is in attendance upon Mr. C., I believe?” he

resumed.

 

“Mr. Woodcourt is his disinterested friend,” I answered.

 

“But I mean in professional attendance, medical attendance.”

 

“That can do little for an unhappy mind,” said I.

 

“Just so,” said Mr. Vholes.

 

So slow, so eager, so bloodless and gaunt, I felt as if Richard

were wasting away beneath the eyes of this adviser and there were

something of the vampire in him.

 

“Miss Summerson,” said Mr. Vholes, very slowly rubbing his gloved

hands, as if, to his cold sense of touch, they were much the same

in black kid or out of it, “this was an ill-advised marriage of Mr.

C.‘s.”

 

I begged he would excuse me from discussing it. They had been

engaged when they were both very young, I told him (a little

indignantly) and when the prospect before them was much fairer and

brighter. When Richard had not yielded himself to the unhappy

influence which now darkened his life.

 

“Just so,” assented Mr. Vholes again. “Still, with a view to

everything being openly carried on, I will, with your permission,

Miss Summerson, observe to you that I consider this a very ill-advised marriage indeed. I owe the opinion not only to Mr. C.‘s

connexions, against whom I should naturally wish to protect myself,

but also to my own reputation—dear to myself as a professional man

aiming to keep respectable; dear to my three girls at home, for

whom I am striving to realize some little independence; dear, I

will even say, to my aged father, whom it is my privilege to

support.”

 

“It would become a very different marriage, a much happier and

better marriage, another marriage altogether, Mr. Vholes,” said I,

“if Richard were persuaded to turn his back on the fatal pursuit in

which you are engaged with him.”

 

Mr. Vholes, with a noiseless cough—or rather gasp—into one of his

black gloves, inclined his head as if he did not wholly dispute

even that.

 

“Miss Summerson,” he said, “it may be so; and I freely admit that

the young lady who has taken Mr. C.‘s name upon herself in so ill-advised a manner—you will I am sure not quarrel with me for

throwing out that remark again, as a duty I owe to Mr. C.‘s

connexions—is a highly genteel young lady. Business has prevented

me from mixing much with general society in any but a professional

character; still I trust I am competent to perceive that she is a

highly genteel young lady. As to beauty, I am not a judge of that

myself, and I never did give much attention to it from a boy, but I

dare say the young lady is equally eligible in that point of view.

She is considered so (I have heard) among the clerks in the Inn,

and it is a point more in their way than in mine. In reference to

Mr. C.‘s pursuit of his interests—”

 

“Oh! His interests, Mr. Vholes!”

 

“Pardon me,” returned Mr. Vholes, going on in exactly the same

inward and dispassionate manner. “Mr. C. takes certain interests

under certain wills disputed in the suit. It is a term we use. In

reference to Mr. C,‘s pursuit of his interests, I mentioned to you,

Miss Summerson, the first time I had the pleasure of seeing you, in

my desire that everything should be openly carried on—I used those

words, for I happened afterwards to note them in my diary, which is

producible at any time—I mentioned to you that Mr. C. had laid

down the principle of watching his own interests, and that when a

client of mine laid down a principle which was not of an immoral

(that is to say, unlawful) nature, it devolved upon me to carry it

out. I HAVE carried it out; I do carry it out. But I will not

smooth things over to any connexion of Mr. C.‘s on any account. As

open as I was to Mr. Jarndyce, I am to you. I regard it in the

light of a professional duty to be so, though it can be charged to

no one. I openly say, unpalatable as it may be, that I consider

Mr. C.‘s affairs in a very bad way, that I consider Mr. C. himself

in a very bad way, and that I regard this as an exceedingly ill-advised marriage. Am I here, sir? Yes, I thank you; I am here,

Mr. C., and enjoying the pleasure of some agreeable conversation

with Miss Summerson, for which I have to thank you very much, sir!”

 

He broke off thus in answer to Richard, who addressed him as he

came into the room. By this time I too well understood Mr.

Vholes’s scrupulous way of saving himself and his respectability

not to feel that our worst fears did but keep pace with his

client’s progress.

 

We sat down to dinner, and I had an opportunity of observing

Richard, anxiously. I was not disturbed by Mr. Vholes (who took

off his gloves to dine), though he sat opposite to me at the small

table, for I doubt if, looking up at all, he once removed his eyes

from his host’s face. I found Richard thin and languid, slovenly

in his dress, abstracted in his manner, forcing his spirits now and

then, and at other intervals relapsing into a dull thoughtfulness.

About his large bright eyes that used to be so merry there was a

wanness and a restlessness that changed them altogether. I cannot

use the expression that he looked old. There is a ruin of youth

which is not like age, and into such a ruin Richard’s youth and

youthful beauty had all fallen away.

 

He ate little and seemed indifferent what it was, showed himself to

be much more impatient than he used to be, and was quick even with

Ada. I thought at first that his old light-hearted manner was all

gone, but it shone out of him sometimes as I had occasionally known

little momentary glimpses of my own old face to look out upon me

from the glass. His laugh had not quite left him either, but it

was like the echo of a joyful sound, and that is always sorrowful.

 

Yet he was as glad as ever, in his old affectionate way, to have me

there, and we talked of the old times pleasantly. These did not

appear to be interesting to Mr. Vholes, though he occasionally made

a gasp which I believe was his smile. He rose shortly after dinner

and said that with the permission of the ladies he would retire to

his office.

 

“Always devoted to business, Vholes!” cried Richard.

 

“Yes, Mr. C.,” he returned, “the interests of clients are never to

be neglected, sir. They are paramount in the thoughts of a

professional man like myself, who wishes to preserve a good name

among his fellow-practitioners and society at large. My denying

myself the pleasure of the present agreeable conversation may not

be wholly irrespective of your own interests, Mr. C.”

 

Richard expressed himself quite sure of that and lighted Mr. Vholes

out. On his return he told us, more than once, that Vholes was a

good fellow, a safe fellow, a man who did what he pretended to do,

a very good fellow indeed! He was so defiant about it that it

struck me he had begun to doubt Mr. Vholes.

 

Then he threw himself on the sofa, tired out; and Ada and I put

things to rights, for they had no other servant than the woman who

attended to the chambers. My dear girl had a cottage piano there

and quietly sat down to sing some of Richard’s favourites, the lamp

being first removed into the next room, as he complained of its

hurting his eyes.

 

I sat between them, at my dear girl’s side, and felt very

melancholy listening to her sweet voice. I think Richard did too;

I think he darkened the room for that reason. She had been singing

some time, rising between whiles to bend over him and speak to him,

when Mr. Woodcourt came in. Then he sat down by Richard and half

playfully, half earnestly, quite naturally and easily, found out

how he felt and where he had been all day. Presently he proposed

to accompany him in a short walk on one of the bridges, as it was a

moonlight airy night; and Richard readily consenting, they went out

together.

 

They left my dear girl still sitting at the piano and me still

sitting beside her. When they were gone out, I drew my arm round

her waist. She put her left hand in mine (I was sitting on that

side), but kept her right upon the keys, going over and over them

without striking any note.

 

“Esther, my dearest,” she said, breaking silence, “Richard is never

so well and I am never so easy about him as