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

CHAPTER LXIV

Esther’s Narrative

 

Soon after I had that convertion with my guardian, he put a sealed

paper in my hand one morning and said, “This is for next month, my

dear.” I found in it two hundred pounds.

 

I now began very quietly to make such preparations as I thought

were necessary. Regulating my purchases by my guardian’s taste,

which I knew very well of course, I arranged my wardrobe to please

him and hoped I should be highly successful. I did it all so

quietly because I was not quite free from my old apprehension that

Ada would be rather sorry and because my guardian was so quiet

himself. I had no doubt that under all the circumstances we should

be married in the most private and simple manner. Perhaps I should

only have to say to Ada, “Would you like to come and see me married

to-morrow, my pet?” Perhaps our wedding might even be as

unpretending as her own, and I might not find it necessary to say

anything about it until it was over. I thought that if I were to

choose, I would like this best.

 

The only exception I made was Mrs. Woodcourt. I told her that I

was going to be married to my guardian and that we had been engaged

some time. She highly approved. She could never do enough for me

and was remarkably softened now in comparison with what she had

been when we first knew her. There was no trouble she would not

have taken to have been of use to me, but I need hardly say that I

only allowed her to take as little as gratified her kindness

without tasking it.

 

Of course this was not a time to neglect my guardian, and of course

it was not a time for neglecting my darling. So I had plenty of

occupation, which I was glad of; and as to Charley, she was

absolutely not to be seen for needlework. To surround herself with

great heaps of it—baskets full and tables full—and do a little,

and spend a great deal of time in staring with her round eyes at

what there was to do, and persuade herself that she was going to do

it, were Charley’s great dignities and delights.

 

Meanwhile, I must say, I could not agree with my guardian on the

subject of the will, and I had some sanguine hopes of Jarndyce and

Jarndyce. Which of us was right will soon appear, but I certainly

did encourage expectations. In Richard, the discovery gave

occasion for a burst of business and agitation that buoyed him up

for a little time, but he had lost the elasticity even of hope now

and seemed to me to retain only its feverish anxieties. From

something my guardian said one day when we were talking about this,

I understood that my marriage would not take place until after the

term-time we had been told to look forward to; and I thought the

more, for that, how rejoiced I should be if I could be married when

Richard and Ada were a little more prosperous.

 

The term was very near indeed when my guardian was called out of

town and went down into Yorkshire on Mr. Woodcourt’s business. He

had told me beforehand that his presence there would be necessary.

I had just come in one night from my dear girl’s and was sitting in

the midst of all my new clothes, looking at them all around me and

thinking, when a letter from my guardian was brought to me. It

asked me to join him in the country and mentioned by what stagecoach my place was taken and at what time in the morning I should

have to leave town. It added in a postscript that I would not be

many hours from Ada.

 

I expected few things less than a journey at that time, but I was

ready for it in half an hour and set off as appointed early next

morning. I travelled all day, wondering all day what I could be

wanted for at such a distance; now I thought it might be for this

purpose, and now I thought it might be for that purpose, but I was

never, never, never near the truth.

 

It was night when I came to my journey’s end and found my guardian

waiting for me. This was a great relief, for towards evening I had

begun to fear (the more so as his letter was a very short one) that

he might be ill. However, there he was, as well as it was possible

to be; and when I saw his genial face again at its brightest and

best, I said to myself, he has been doing some other great

kindness. Not that it required much penetration to say that,

because I knew that his being there at all was an act of kindness.

 

Supper was ready at the hotel, and when we were alone at table he

said, “Full of curiosity, no doubt, little woman, to know why I

have brought you here?”

 

“Well, guardian,” said I, “without thinking myself a Fatima or you

a Blue Beard, I am a little curious about it.”

 

“Then to ensure your night’s rest, my love,” he returned gaily, “I

won’t wait until to-morrow to tell you. I have very much wished to

express to Woodcourt, somehow, my sense of his humanity to poor

unfortunate Jo, his inestimable services to my young cousins, and

his value to us all. When it was decided that he should settle

here, it came into my head that I might ask his acceptance of some

unpretending and suitable little place to lay his own head in. I

therefore caused such a place to be looked out for, and such a

place was found on very easy terms, and I have been touching it up

for him and making it habitable. However, when I walked over it

the day before yesterday and it was reported ready, I found that I

was not housekeeper enough to know whether things were all as they

ought to be. So I sent off for the best little housekeeper that

could possibly be got to come and give me her advice and opinion.

And here she is,” said my guardian, “laughing and crying both

together!”

 

Because he was so dear, so good, so admirable. I tried to tell him

what I thought of him, but I could not articulate a word.

 

“Tut, tut!” said my guardian. “You make too much of it, little

woman. Why, how you sob, Dame Durden, how you sob!”

 

“It is with exquisite pleasure, guardian—with a heart full of

thanks.”

 

“Well, well,” said he. “I am delighted that you approve. I

thought you would. I meant it as a pleasant surprise for the

little mistress of Bleak House.”

 

I kissed him and dried my eyes. “I know now!” said I. “I have

seen this in your face a long while.”

 

“No; have you really, my dear?” said he. “What a Dame Durden it is

to read a face!”

 

He was so quaintly cheerful that I could not long be otherwise, and

was almost ashamed of having been otherwise at all. When I went to

bed, I cried. I am bound to confess that I cried; but I hope it

was with pleasure, though I am not quite sure it was with pleasure.

I repeated every word of the letter twice over.

 

A most beautiful summer morning succeeded, and after breakfast we

went out arm in arm to see the house of which I was to give my

mighty housekeeping opinion. We entered a flower-garden by a gate

in a side wall, of which he had the key, and the first thing I saw

was that the beds and flowers were all laid out according to the

manner of my beds and flowers at home.

 

“You see, my dear,” observed my guardian, standing still with a

delighted face to watch my looks, “knowing there could be no better

plan, I borrowed yours.”

 

We went on by a pretty little orchard, where the cherries were

nestling among the green leaves and the shadows of the apple-trees

were sporting on the grass, to the house itself—a cottage, quite a

rustic cottage of doll’s rooms; but such a lovely place, so

tranquil and so beautiful, with such a rich and smiling country

spread around it; with water sparkling away into the distance, here

all overhung with summer-growth, there turning a humming mill; at

its nearest point glancing through a meadow by the cheerful town,

where cricket-players were assembling in bright groups and a flag

was flying from a white tent that rippled in the sweet west wind.

And still, as we went through the pretty rooms, out at the little

rustic verandah doors, and underneath the tiny wooden colonnades

garlanded with woodbine, jasmine, and honey-suckle, I saw in the

papering on the walls, in the colours of the furniture, in the

arrangement of all the pretty objects, MY little tastes and

fancies, MY little methods and inventions which they used to laugh

at while they praised them, my odd ways everywhere.

 

I could not say enough in admiration of what was all so beautiful,

but one secret doubt arose in my mind when I saw this, I thought,

oh, would he be the happier for it! Would it not have been better

for his peace that I should not have been so brought before him?

Because although I was not what he thought me, still he loved me

very dearly, and it might remind him mournfully of what be believed

he had lost. I did not wish him to forget me—perhaps he might not

have done so, without these aids to his memory—but my way was

easier than his, and I could have reconciled myself even to that so

that he had been the happier for it.

 

“And now, little woman,” said my guardian, whom I had never seen so

proud and joyful as in showing me these things and watching my

appreciation of them, “now, last of all, for the name of this

house.”

 

“What is it called, dear guardian?”

 

“My child,” said he, “come and see,”

 

He took me to the porch, which he had hitherto avoided, and said,

pausing before we went out, “My dear child, don’t you guess the

name?”

 

“No!” said I.

 

We went out of the porch and he showed me written over it, Bleak

House.

 

He led me to a seat among the leaves close by, and sitting down

beside me and taking my hand in his, spoke to me thus, “My darling

girl, in what there has been between us, I have, I hope, been

really solicitous for your happiness. When I wrote you the letter

to which you brought the answer,” smiling as he referred to it, “I

had my own too much in view; but I had yours too. Whether, under

different circumstances, I might ever have renewed the old dream I

sometimes dreamed when you were very young, of making you my wife

one day, I need not ask myself. I did renew it, and I wrote my

letter, and you brought your answer. You are following what I say,

my child?”

 

I was cold, and I trembled violently, but not a word he uttered was

lost. As I sat looking fixedly at him and the sun’s rays

descended, softly shining through the leaves