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

I should not have been surprised, brother, if you had

considered it anything but welcome news to hear of me.”

 

“We will show you at home what kind of news we think it, George,”

returns his brother. “This is a great day at home, and you could

not have arrived, you bronzed old soldier, on a better. I make an

agreement with my son Watt to-day that on this day twelvemonth he

shall marry as pretty and as good a girl as you have seen in all

your travels. She goes to Germany to-morrow with one of your

nieces for a little polishing up in her education. We make a feast

of the event, and you will be made the hero of it.”

 

Mr. George is so entirely overcome at first by this prospect that

he resists the proposed honour with great earnestness. Being

overborne, however, by his brother and his nephew—concerning whom

he renews his protestations that he never could have thought they

would have been half so glad to see him—he is taken home to an

elegant house in all the arrangements of which there is to be

observed a pleasant mixture of the originally simple habits of the

father and mother with such as are suited to their altered station

and the higher fortunes of their children. Here Mr. George is much

dismayed by the graces and accomplishments of his nieces that are

and by the beauty of Rosa, his niece that is to be, and by the

affectionate salutations of these young ladies, which he receives

in a sort of dream. He is sorely taken aback, too, by the dutiful

behaviour of his nephew and has a woeful consciousness upon him of

being a scapegrace. However, there is great rejoicing and a very

hearty company and infinite enjoyment, and Mr. George comes bluff

and martial through it all, and his pledge to be present at the

marriage and give away the bride is received with universal favour.

A whirling head has Mr. George that night when he lies down in the

state-bed of his brother’s house to think of all these things and

to see the images of his nieces (awful all the evening in their

floating muslins) waltzing, after the German manner, over his

counterpane.

 

The brothers are closeted next morning in the ironmaster’s room,

where the elder is proceeding, in his clear sensible way, to show

how he thinks he may best dispose of George in his business, when

George squeezes his hand and stops him.

 

“Brother, I thank you a million times for your more than brotherly

welcome, and a million times more to that for your more than

brotherly intentions. But my plans are made. Before I say a word

as to them, I wish to consult you upon one family point. How,”

says the trooper, folding his arms and looking with indomitable

firmness at his brother, “how is my mother to be got to scratch

me?”

 

“I am not sure that I understand you, George,” replies the

ironmaster.

 

“I say, brother, how is my mother to be got to scratch me? She

must be got to do it somehow.”

 

“Scratch you out of her will, I think you mean?”

 

“Of course I do. In short,” says the trooper, folding his arms

more resolutely yet, “I mean—TO—scratch me!”

 

“My dear George,” returns his brother, “is it so indispensable that

you should undergo that process?”

 

“Quite! Absolutely! I couldn’t be guilty of the meanness of

coming back without it. I should never be safe not to be off

again. I have not sneaked home to rob your children, if not

yourself, brother, of your rights. I, who forfeited mine long ago!

If I am to remain and hold up my head, I must be scratched. Come.

You are a man of celebrated penetration and intelligence, and you

can tell me how it’s to be brought about.”

 

“I can tell you, George,” replies the ironmaster deliberately, “how

it is not to be brought about, which I hope may answer the purpose

as well. Look at our mother, think of her, recall her emotion when

she recovered you. Do you believe there is a consideration in the

world that would induce her to take such a step against her

favourite son? Do you believe there is any chance of her consent,

to balance against the outrage it would be to her (loving dear old

lady!) to propose it? If you do, you are wrong. No, George! You

must make up your mind to remain UNscratched, I think.” There is

an amused smile on the ironmaster’s face as he watches his brother,

who is pondering, deeply disappointed. “I think you may manage

almost as well as if the thing were done, though.”

 

“How, brother?”

 

“Being bent upon it, you can dispose by will of anything you have

the misfortune to inherit in any way you like, you know.”

 

“That’s true!” says the trooper, pondering again. Then he

wistfully asks, with his hand on his brother’s, “Would you mind

mentioning that, brother, to your wife and family?”

 

“Not at all.”

 

“Thank you. You wouldn’t object to say, perhaps, that although an

undoubted vagabond, I am a vagabond of the harum-scarum order, and

not of the mean sort?”

 

The ironmaster, repressing his amused smile, assents.

 

“Thank you. Thank you. It’s a weight off my mind,” says the

trooper with a heave of his chest as he unfolds his arms and puts a

hand on each leg, “though I had set my heart on being scratched,

too!”

 

The brothers are very like each other, sitting face to face; but a

certain massive simplicity and absence of usage in the ways of the

world is all on the trooper’s side.

 

“Well,” he proceeds, throwing off his disappointment, “next and

last, those plans of mine. You have been so brotherly as to

propose to me to fall in here and take my place among the products

of your perseverance and sense. I thank you heartily. It’s more

than brotherly, as I said before, and I thank you heartily for it,”

shaking him a long time by the hand. “But the truth is, brother, I

am a—I am a kind of a weed, and it’s too late to plant me in a

regular garden.”

 

“My dear George,” returns the elder, concentrating his strong

steady brow upon him and smiling confidently, “leave that to me,

and let me try.”

 

George shakes his head. “You could do it, I have not a doubt, if

anybody could; but it’s not to be done. Not to be done, sir!

Whereas it so falls out, on the other hand, that I am able to be of

some trifle of use to Sir Leicester Dedlock since his illness—

brought on by family sorrows—and that he would rather have that

help from our mother’s son than from anybody else.”

 

“Well, my dear George,” returns the other with a very slight shade

upon his open face, “if you prefer to serve in Sir Leicester

Dedlock’s household brigade—”

 

“There it is, brother,” cries the trooper, checking him, with his

hand upon his knee again; “there it is! You don’t take kindly to

that idea; I don’t mind it. You are not used to being officered; I

am. Everything about you is in perfect order and discipline;

everything about me requires to be kept so. We are not accustomed

to carry things with the same hand or to look at ‘em from the same

point. I don’t say much about my garrison manners because I found

myself pretty well at my ease last night, and they wouldn’t be

noticed here, I dare say, once and away. But I shall get on best

at Chesney Wold, where there’s more room for a weed than there is

here; and the dear old lady will be made happy besides. Therefore

I accept of Sir Leicester Dedlock’s proposals. When I come over

next year to give away the bride, or whenever I come, I shall have

the sense to keep the household brigade in ambuscade and not to

manoeuvre it on your ground. I thank you heartily again and am

proud to think of the Rouncewells as they’ll be founded by you.”

 

“You know yourself, George,” says the elder brother, returning the

grip of his hand, “and perhaps you know me better than I know

myself. Take your way. So that we don’t quite lose one another

again, take your way.”

 

“No fear of that!” returns the trooper. “Now, before I turn my

horse’s head homewards, brother, I will ask you—if you’ll be so

good—to look over a letter for me. I brought it with me to send

from these parts, as Chesney Wold might be a painful name just now

to the person it’s written to. I am not much accustomed to

correspondence myself, and I am particular respecting this present

letter because I want it to be both straightforward and delicate.”

 

Herewith he hands a letter, closely written in somewhat pale ink

but in a neat round hand, to the ironmaster, who reads as follows:

 

Miss Esther Summerson,

 

A communication having been made to me by Inspector Bucket of a

letter to myself being found among the papers of a certain person,

I take the liberty to make known to you that it was but a few lines

of instruction from abroad, when, where, and how to deliver an

enclosed letter to a young and beautiful lady, then unmarried, in

England. I duly observed the same.

 

I further take the liberty to make known to you that it was got

from me as a proof of handwriting only and that otherwise I would

not have given it up, as appearing to be the most harmless in my

possession, without being previously shot through the heart.

 

I further take the liberty to mention that if I could have supposed

a certain unfortunate gentleman to have been in existence, I never

could and never would have rested until I had discovered his

retreat and shared my last farthing with him, as my duty and my

inclination would have equally been. But he was (officially)

reported drowned, and assuredly went over the side of a transport-ship at night in an Irish harbour within a few hours of her arrival

from the West Indies, as I have myself heard both from officers and

men on board, and know to have been (officially) confirmed.

 

I further take the liberty to state that in my humble quality as

one of the rank and file, I am, and shall ever continue to be, your

thoroughly devoted and admiring servant and that I esteem the

qualities you possess above all others far beyond the limits of the

present dispatch.

 

I have the honour to be,

 

GEORGE

 

“A little formal,” observes the elder brother, refolding it with a

puzzled face.

 

“But nothing that might not be sent to a pattern young lady?” asks

the younger.

 

“Nothing at all.”

 

Therefore it is sealed and deposited for posting among the iron

correspondence of the day. This done, Mr. George takes a hearty

farewell of the family party and prepares to saddle and mount. His

brother, however, unwilling to part with him so soon, proposes to

ride with him in a light open carriage to the place where he will

bait for the night, and there remain with him until morning, a

servant riding for so much of the journey on the thoroughbred old

grey from Chesney Wold. The offer, being gladly accepted, is

followed by a pleasant ride, a pleasant dinner, and a pleasant

breakfast, all in brotherly communion. Then they once more shake

hands long and heartily and part, the ironmaster turning his face

to the