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

little

church on a Sunday, a considerable part of the inconsiderable

congregation expect to see me drop, scorched and withered, on the

pavement under the Dedlock displeasure. Ha ha ha ha! I have no

doubt he is surprised that I don’t. For he is, by heaven, the most

self-satisfied, and the shallowest, and the most coxcombical and

utterly brainless ass!”

 

Our coming to the ridge of a hill we had been ascending enabled our

friend to point out Chesney Wold itself to us and diverted his

attention from its master.

 

It was a picturesque old house in a fine park richly wooded. Among

the trees and not far from the residence he pointed out the spire

of the little church of which he had spoken. Oh, the solemn woods

over which the light and shadow travelled swiftly, as if heavenly

wings were sweeping on benignant errands through the summer air;

the smooth green slopes, the glittering water, the garden where the

flowers were so symmetrically arranged in clusters of the richest

colours, how beautiful they looked! The house, with gable and

chimney, and tower, and turret, and dark doorway, and broad

terrace-walk, twining among the balustrades of which, and lying

heaped upon the vases, there was one great flush of roses, seemed

scarcely real in its light solidity and in the serene and peaceful

hush that rested on all around it. To Ada and to me, that above

all appeared the pervading influence. On everything, house,

garden, terrace, green slopes, water, old oaks, fern, moss, woods

again, and far away across the openings in the prospect to the

distance lying wide before us with a purple bloom upon it, there

seemed to be such undisturbed repose.

 

When we came into the little village and passed a small inn with

the sign of the Dedlock Arms swinging over the road in front, Mr.

Boythorn interchanged greetings with a young gentleman sitting on a

bench outside the inn-door who had some fishing-tackle lying beside

him.

 

“That’s the housekeeper’s grandson, Mr. Rouncewell by name,” said,

he, “and he is in love with a pretty girl up at the house. Lady

Dedlock has taken a fancy to the pretty girl and is going to keep

her about her own fair person—an honour which my young friend

himself does not at all appreciate. However, he can’t marry just

yet, even if his Rosebud were willing; so he is fain to make the

best of it. In the meanwhile, he comes here pretty often for a day

or two at a time to—fish. Ha ha ha ha!”

 

“Are he and the pretty girl engaged, Mr. Boythorn?” asked Ada.

 

“Why, my dear Miss Clare,” he returned, “I think they may perhaps

understand each other; but you will see them soon, I dare say, and

I must learn from you on such a point—not you from me.”

 

Ada blushed, and Mr. Boythorn, trotting forward on his comely grey

horse, dismounted at his own door and stood ready with extended arm

and uncovered head to welcome us when we arrived.

 

He lived in a pretty house, formerly the parsonage house, with a

lawn in front, a bright flower-garden at the side, and a well-stocked orchard and kitchen-garden in the rear, enclosed with a

venerable wall that had of itself a ripened ruddy look. But,

indeed, everything about the place wore an aspect of maturity and

abundance. The old lime-tree walk was like green cloisters, the

very shadows of the cherry-trees and apple-trees were heavy with

fruit, the gooseberry-bushes were so laden that their branches

arched and rested on the earth, the strawberries and raspberries

grew in like profusion, and the peaches basked by the hundred on

the wall. Tumbled about among the spread nets and the glass frames

sparkling and winking in the sun there were such heaps of drooping

pods, and marrows, and cucumbers, that every foot of ground

appeared a vegetable treasury, while the smell of sweet herbs and

all kinds of wholesome growth (to say nothing of the neighbouring

meadows where the hay was carrying) made the whole air a great

nosegay. Such stillness and composure reigned within the orderly

precincts of the old red wall that even the feathers hung in

garlands to scare the birds hardly stirred; and the wall had such a

ripening influence that where, here and there high up, a disused

nail and scrap of list still clung to it, it was easy to fancy that

they had mellowed with the changing seasons and that they had

rusted and decayed according to the common fate.

 

The house, though a little disorderly in comparison with the

garden, was a real old house with settles in the chimney of the

brick-floored kitchen and great beams across the ceilings. On one

side of it was the terrible piece of ground in dispute, where Mr.

Boythorn maintained a sentry in a smock-frock day and night, whose

duty was supposed to be, in cases of aggression, immediately to

ring a large bell hung up there for the purpose, to unchain a great

bull-dog established in a kennel as his ally, and generally to deal

destruction on the enemy. Not content with these precautions, Mr.

Boythorn had himself composed and posted there, on painted boards

to which his name was attached in large letters, the following

solemn warnings: “Beware of the bull-dog. He is most ferocious.

Lawrence Boythorn.” “The blunderbus is loaded with slugs.

Lawrence Boythorn.” “Man-traps and spring-guns are set here at all

times of the day and night. Lawrence Boythorn.” “Take notice.

That any person or persons audaciously presuming to trespass on

this property will be punished with the utmost severity of private

chastisement and prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law.

Lawrence Boythorn.” These he showed us from the drawing-room

window, while his bird was hopping about his head, and he laughed,

“Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!” to that extent as he pointed them out

that I really thought he would have hurt himself.

 

“But this is taking a good deal of trouble,” said Mr. Skimpole in

his light way, “when you are not in earnest after all.”

 

“Not in earnest!” returned Mr. Boythorn with unspeakable warmth.

“Not in earnest! If I could have hoped to train him, I would have

bought a lion instead of that dog and would have turned him loose

upon the first intolerable robber who should dare to make an

encroachment on my rights. Let Sir Leicester Dedlock consent to

come out and decide this question by single combat, and I will meet

him with any weapon known to mankind in any age or country. I am

that much in earnest. Not more!”

 

We arrived at his house on a Saturday. On the Sunday morning we

all set forth to walk to the little church in the park. Entering

the park, almost immediately by the disputed ground, we pursued a

pleasant footpath winding among the verdant turf and the beautiful

trees until it brought us to the church-porch.

 

The congregation was extremely small and quite a rustic one with

the exception of a large muster of servants from the house, some of

whom were already in their seats, while others were yet dropping

in. There were some stately footmen, and there was a perfect

picture of an old coachman, who looked as if he were the official

representative of all the pomps and vanities that had ever been put

into his coach. There was a very pretty show of young women, and

above them, the handsome old face and fine responsible portly

figure of the housekeeper towered pre-eminent. The pretty girl of

whom Mr. Boythorn had told us was close by her. She was so very

pretty that I might have known her by her beauty even if I had not

seen how blushingly conscious she was of the eyes of the young

fisherman, whom I discovered not far off. One face, and not an

agreeable one, though it was handsome, seemed maliciously watchful

of this pretty girl, and indeed of every one and everything there.

It was a Frenchwoman’s.

 

As the bell was yet ringing and the great people were not yet come,

I had leisure to glance over the church, which smelt as earthy as a

grave, and to think what a shady, ancient, solemn little church it

was. The windows, heavily shaded by trees, admitted a subdued

light that made the faces around me pale, and darkened the old

brasses in the pavement and the time and damp-worn monuments, and

rendered the sunshine in the little porch, where a monotonous

ringer was working at the bell, inestimably bright. But a stir in

that direction, a gathering of reverential awe in the rustic faces,

and a blandly ferocious assumption on the part of Mr. Boythorn of

being resolutely unconscious of somebody’s existence forewarned me

that the great people were come and that the service was going to

begin.

 

“‘Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy

sight—’”

 

Shall I ever forget the rapid beating at my heart, occasioned by

the look I met as I stood up! Shall I ever forget the manner in

which those handsome proud eyes seemed to spring out of their

languor and to hold mine! It was only a moment before I cast mine

down—released again, if I may say so—on my book; but I knew the

beautiful face quite well in that short space of time.

 

And, very strangely, there was something quickened within me,

associated with the lonely days at my godmother’s; yes, away even

to the days when I had stood on tiptoe to dress myself at my little

glass after dressing my doll. And this, although I had never seen

this lady’s face before in all my life—I was quite sure of it—

absolutely certain.

 

It was easy to know that the ceremonious, gouty, grey-haired

gentleman, the only other occupant of the great pew, was Sir

Leicester Dedlock, and that the lady was Lady Dedlock. But why her

face should be, in a confused way, like a broken glass to me, in

which I saw scraps of old remembrances, and why I should be so

fluttered and troubled (for I was still) by having casually met her

eyes, I could not think.

 

I felt it to be an unmeaning weakness in me and tried to overcome

it by attending to the words I heard. Then, very strangely, I

seemed to hear them, not in the reader’s voice, but in the well-remembered voice of my godmother. This made me think, did Lady

Dedlock’s face accidentally resemble my godmother’s? It might be

that it did, a little; but the expression was so different, and the

stern decision which had worn into my godmother’s face, like

weather into rocks, was so completely wanting in the face before me

that it could not be that resemblance which had struck me. Neither

did I know the loftiness and haughtiness of Lady Dedlock’s face, at

all, in any one. And yet I—I, little Esther Summerson, the child

who lived a life apart and on whose birthday there was no

rejoicing—seemed to arise before my own eyes, evoked out of the

past by some power in this fashionable lady, whom I not only

entertained no fancy that I had ever seen, but whom I perfectly

well knew I had never seen until that hour.

 

It made me tremble so to be thrown into this unaccountable

agitation that I was conscious of being distressed even by the

observation of the French maid, though I knew she had been looking

watchfully here, and there, and everywhere, from the moment of her

coming into the church. By degrees, though very slowly, I at last

overcame my strange emotion. After a long time, I looked towards

Lady Dedlock again. It was