Bleak House

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I spoke to Richard with all the earnestness I felt, and all the
hope I could not quite feel then, and implored him for Ada's sake
not to put any trust in Chancery. To all I said, Richard readily
assented, riding over the court and everything else in his easy way
and drawing the brightest pictures of the character he was to
settle into--alas, when the grievous suit should loose its hold
upon him! We had a long talk, but it always came back to that, in
substance.

At last we came to Soho Square, where Caddy Jellyby had appointed
to wait for me, as a quiet place in the neighbourhood of Newman
Street. Caddy was in the garden in the centre and hurried out as
soon as I appeared. After a few cheerful words, Richard left us
together.

"Prince has a pupil over the way, Esther," said Caddy, "and got the
key for us. So if you will walk round and round here with me, we
can lock ourselves in and I can tell you comfortably what I wanted
to see your dear good face about."

"Very well, my dear," said I. "Nothing could be better." So
Caddy, after affectionately squeezing the dear good face as she
called it, locked the gate, and took my arm, and we began to walk
round the garden very cosily.

"You see, Esther," said Caddy, who thoroughly enjoyed a little
confidence, "after you spoke to me about its being wrong to marry
without Ma's knowledge, or even to keep Ma long in the dark
respecting our engagement--though I don't believe Ma cares much for
me, I must say--I thought it right to mention your opinions to
Prince. In the first place because I want to profit by everything
you tell me, and in the second place because I have no secrets from
Prince."

"I hope he approved, Caddy?"

"Oh, my dear! I assure you he would approve of anything you could
say. You have no idea what an opimon he has of you!"

"Indeed!"

"Esther, it's enough to make anybody but me jealous," said Caddy,
laughing and shaking her head; "but it only makes me joyful, for
you are the first friend I ever had, and the best friend I ever can
have, and nobody can respect and love you too much to please me."

"Upon my word, Caddy," said I, "you are in the general conspiracy
to keep me in a good humour. Well, my dear?"

"Well! I am going to tell you," replied Caddy, crossing her hands
confidentially upon my arm. "So we talked a good deal about it,
and so I said to Prince, 'Prince, as Miss Summerson--"

"I hope you didn't say 'Miss Summerson'?"

"No. I didn't!" cried Caddy, greatly pleased and with the
brightest of faces. "I said, 'Esther.' I said to Prince, 'As
Esther is decidedly of that opinion, Prince, and has expressed it
to me, and always hints it when she writes those kind notes, which
you are so fond of hearing me read to you, I am prepared to
disclose the truth to Ma whenever you think proper. And I think,
Prince,' said I, 'that Esther thinks that I should be in a better,
and truer, and more honourable position altogether if you did the
same to your papa.'"

"Yes, my dear," said I. "Esther certainly does think so."

"So I was right, you see!" exclaimed Caddy. "Well! This troubled
Prince a good deal, not because he had the least doubt about it,
but because he is so considerate of the feelings of old Mr.
Turveydrop; and he had his apprehensions that old Mr. Turveydrop
might break his heart, or faint away, or be very much overcome in
some affecting manner or other if he made such an announcement. He
feared old Mr. Turveydrop might consider it undutiful and might
receive too great a shock. For old Mr. Turveydrop's deportment is
very beautiful, you know, Esther," said Caddy, "and his feelings
are extremely sensitive."

"Are they, my dear?"

"Oh, extremely sensitive. Prince says so. Now, this has caused my
darling child--I didn't mean to use the expression to you, Esther,"
Caddy apologized, her face suffused with blushes, "but I generally
call Prince my darling child."

I laughed; and Caddy laughed and blushed, and went on'

"This has caused him, Esther--"

"Caused whom, my dear?"

"Oh, you tiresome thing!" said Caddy, laughing, with her pretty
face on fire. "My darling child, if you insist upon it! This has
caused him weeks of uneasiness and has made him delay, from day to
day, in a very anxious manner. At last he said to me, 'Caddy, if
Miss Summerson, who is a great favourite with my father, could be
prevailed upon to be present when I broke the subject, I think I
could do it.' So I promised I would ask you. And I made up my
mind, besides," said Caddy, looking at me hopefully but timidly,
"that if you consented, I would ask you afterwards to come with me
to Ma. This is what I meant when I said in my note that I had a
great favour and a great assistance to beg of you. And if you
thought you could grant it, Esther, we should both be very
grateful."

"Let me see, Caddy," said I, pretending to consider. "Really, I
think I could do a greater thing than that if the need were
pressing. I am at your service and the darling child's, my dear,
whenever you like."

Caddy was quite transported by this reply of mine, being, I
believe, as susceptible to the least kindness or encouragement as
any tender heart that ever beat in this world; and after another
turn or two round the garden, during which she put on an entirely
new pair of gloves and made herself as resplendent as possible that
she might do no avoidable discredit to the Master of Deportment, we
went to Newman Street direct.

Prince was teaching, of course. We found him engaged with a not
very hopeful pupil--a stubborn little girl with a sulky forehead, a
deep voice, and an inanimate, dissatisfied mama--whose case was
certainly not rendered more hopeful by the confusion into which we
threw her preceptor. The lesson at last came to an end, after
proceeding as discordantly as possible; and when the little girl
had changed her shoes and had had her white muslin extinguished in
shawls, she was taken away. After a few words of preparation, we
then went in search of Mr. Turveydrop, whom we found, grouped with
his hat and gloves, as a model of deportment, on the sofa in his
private apartment--the only comfortable room in the house. He
appeared to have dressed at his leisure in the intervals of a light
collation, and his dressing-case, brushes, and so forth, all of
quite an elegant kind, lay about.

"Father, Miss Summerson; Miss Jellyby."

"Charmed! Enchanted!" said Mr. Turveydrop, rising with his high-
shouldered bow. "Permit me!" Handing chairs. "Be seated!"
Kissing the tips of his left fingers. "Overjoyed!" Shutting his
eyes and rolling. "My little retreat is made a paradise."
Recomposing himself on the sofa like the second gentleman in
Europe.

"Again you find us, Miss Summerson," said he, "using our little
arts to polish, polish! Again the sex stimulates us and rewards us
by the condescension of its lovely presence. It is much in these
times (and we have made an awfully degenerating business of it
since the days of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent--my patron,
if I may presume to say so) to experience that deportment is not
wholly trodden under foot by mechanics. That it can yet bask in
the smile of beauty, my dear madam."

I said nothing, which I thought a suitable reply; and he took a
pinch of snuff.

"My dear son," said Mr. Turveydrop, "you have four schools this
afternoon. I would recommend a hasty sandwich."

"Thank you, father," returned Prince, "I will be sure to be
punctual. My dear father, may I beg you to prepare your mind for
what I am going to say?"

"Good heaven!" exclaimed the model, pale and aghast as Prince and
Caddy, hand in hand, bent down before him. "What is this? Is this
lunacy! Or what is this?"

"Father," returned Prince with great submission, "I love this young
lady, and we are engaged."

"Engaged!" cried Mr. Turveydrop, reclining on the sofa and shutting
out the sight with his hand. "An arrow launched at my brain by my
own child!"

"We have been engaged for some time, father," faltered Prince, "and
Miss Summerson, hearing of it, advised that we should declare the
fact to you and was so very kind as to attend on the present
occasion. Miss Jellyby is a young lady who deeply respects you,
father."

Mr. Turveydrop uttered a groan.

"No, pray don't! Pray don't, father," urged his son. "Miss
Jellyby is a young lady who deeply respects you, and our first
desire is to consider your comfort."

Mr. Turveydrop sobbed.

"No, pray don't, father!" cried his son.

"Boy," said Mr. Turveydrop, "it is well that your sainted mother is
spared this pang. Strike deep, and spare not. Strike home, sir,
strike home!"

"Pray don't say so, father," implored Prince, in tears. "It goes
to my heart. I do assure you, father, that our first wish and
intention is to consider your comfort. Caroline and I do not
forget our duty--what is my duty is Caroline's, as we have often
said together--and with your approval and consent, father, we will
devote ourselves to making your life agreeable."

"Strike home," murmured Mr. Turveydrop. "Strike home!" But he
seemed to listen, I thought, too.

"My dear father," returned Prince, "we well know what little
comforts you are accustomed to and have a right to, and it will
always be our study and our pride to provide those before anything.
If you will bless us with your approval and consent, father, we
shall not think of being married until it is quite agreeable to
you; and when we ARE married, we shall always make you--of course--
our first consideration. You must ever be the head and master
here, father; and we feel how truly unnatural it would be in us if
we failed to know it or if we failed to exert ourselves in every
possible way to please you."

Mr. Turveydrop underwent a severe internal struggle and came
upright on the sofa again with his cheeks puffing over his stiff
cravat, a perfect model of parental deportment.

"My son!" said Mr. Turveydrop. "My children! I cannot resist your
prayer. Be happy!"

His benignity as he raised his future daughter-in-law and stretched
out his hand to his son (who kissed it with affectionate respect
and gratitude) was the most confusing sight I ever saw.

"My children," said Mr. Turveydrop, paternally encircling Caddy
with his left arm as she sat beside him, and putting his right hand
gracefully on his hip. "My son and daughter, your happiness shall
be my care. I will watch over you. You shall always live with
me"--meaning, of course, I will always live with you--"this house
is henceforth as much yours as mine; consider it your home. May
you long live to share it with me!"

The power of his deportment was such that they really were as much
overcome with thankfulness as if, instead of quartering himself
upon them for the rest of his life, he were making some munificent
sacrifice in their favour.

"For myself, my children," said Mr. Turveydrop, "I am falling into
the sear and yellow leaf, and it is impossible to say how long the
last feeble traces of gentlemanly deportment may linger in this
weaving and spinning age. But, so long, I will do my duty to
society and will show myself, as usual, about town. My wants are
few and simple. My little apartment here, my few essentials for
the toilet, my frugal morning meal, and my little dinner will
suffice. I charge your dutiful affection with the supply of these
requirements, and I charge myself with all the rest."

They were overpowered afresh by his uncommon generosity.

"My son," said Mr. Turveydrop, "for those little points in which
you are deficient--points of deportment, which are born with a man,
which may be improved by cultivation, but can never be originated--
you may still rely on me. I have been faithful to my post since
the days of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, and I will not
desert it now. No, my son. If you have ever contemplated your
father's poor position with a feeling of pride, you may rest
assured that he will do nothing to tarnish it. For yourself,
Prince, whose character is different (we cannot be all alike, nor
is it advisable that we should), work, be industrious, earn money,
and extend the connexion as much as possible."

"That you may depend I will do, dear father, with all my heart,"
replied Prince.

"I have no doubt of it," said Mr. Turveydrop. "Your qualities are
not shining, my dear child, but they are steady and useful. And to
both of you, my children, I would merely observe, in the spirit of
a sainted wooman on whose path I had the happiness of casting, I
believe, SOME ray of light, take care of the establishment, take
care of my simple wants, and bless you both!"

Old Mr. Turveydrop then became so very gallant, in honour of the
occasion, that I told Caddy we must really go to Thavies Inn at
once if we were to go at all that day. So we took our departure
after a very loving farewell between Caddy and her betrothed, and
during our walk she was so happy and so full of old Mr.
Turveydrop's praises that I would not have said a word in his
disparagement for any consideration.

The house in Thavies Inn had bills in the windows annoucing that it
was to let, and it looked dirtier and gloomier and ghastlier than
ever. The name of poor Mr. Jellyby had appeared in the list of
bankrupts but a day or two before, and he was shut up in the
dining-room with two gentlemen and a heap of blue bags, account-
books, and papers, making the most desperate endeavours to
understand his affairs. They appeared to me to be quite beyond his
comprehension, for when Caddy took me into the dining-room by
mistake and we came upon Mr. Jellyby in his spectacles, forlornly
fenced into a corner by the great dining-table and the two
gentlemen, he seemed to have given up the whole thing and to be
speechless and insensible.

Going upstairs to Mrs. Jellyby's room (the children were all
screaming in the kitchen, and there was no servant to be seen), we
found that lady in the midst of a voluminous correspondence,
opening, reading, and sorting letters, with a great accumulation of
torn covers on the floor. She was so preoccupied that at first she
did not know me, though she sat looking at me with that curious,
bright-eyed, far-off look of hers.

"Ah! Miss Summerson!" she said at last. "I was thinking of
something so different! I hope you are well. I am happy to see
you. Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Clare quite well?"

I hoped in return that Mr. Jellyby was quite well.

"Why, not quite, my dear," said Mrs. Jellyby in the calmest manner.
"He has been unfortunate in his affairs and is a little out of
spirits. Happily for me, I am so much engaged that I have no time
to think about it. We have, at the present moment, one hundred and
seventy families, Miss Summerson, averaging five persons in each,
either gone or going to the left bank of the Niger."

I thought of the one family so near us who were neither gone nor
going to the left bank of the Niger, and wondered how she could be
so placid.

"You have brought Caddy back, I see," observed Mrs. Jellyby with a
glance at her daughter. "It has become quite a novelty to see her
here. She has almost deserted her old employment and in fact
obliges me to employ a boy."

"I am sure, Ma--" began Caddy.

"Now you know, Caddy," her mother mildly interposed, "that I DO
employ a boy, who is now at his dinner. What is the use of your
contradicting?"

"I was not going to contradict, Ma," returned Caddy. "I was only
going to say that surely you wouldn't have me be a mere drudge all
my life."

"I believe, my dear," said Mrs. Jellyby, still opening her letters,
casting her bright eyes smilingly over them, and sorting them as
she spoke, "that you have a business example before you in your
mother. Besides. A mere drudge? If you had any sympathy with the
destinies of the human race, it would raise you high above any such
idea. But you have none. I have often told you, Caddy, you have
no such sympathy."

"Not if it's Africa, Ma, I have not."

"Of course you have not. Now, if I were not happily so much
engaged, Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Jellyby, sweetly casting her
eyes for a moment on me and considering where to put the particular
letter she had just opened, "this would distress and disappoint me.
But I have so much to think of, in connexion with Borrioboola-Gha
and it is so necessary I should concentrate myself that there is my
remedy, you see."

As Caddy gave me a glance of entreaty, and as Mrs. Jellyby was
looking far away into Africa straight through my bonnet and head, I
thought it a good opportunity to come to the subject of my visit
and to attract Mrs. Jellyby's attention.

"Perhaps," I began, "you will wonder what has brought me here to
interrupt you."

"I am always delighted to see Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Jellyby,
pursuing her employment with a placid smile. "Though I wish," and
she shook her head, "she was more interested in the Borrioboolan
project."

"I have come with Caddy," said I, "because Caddy justly thinks she
ought not to have a secret from her mother and fancies I shall
encourage and aid her (though I am sure I don't know how) in
imparting one."

"Caddy," said Mrs. Jellyby, pausing for a moment in her occupation
and then serenely pursuing it after shaking her head, "you are
going to tell me some nonsense."

Caddy untied the strings of her bonnet, took her bonnet off, and
letting it dangle on the floor by the strings, and crying heartily,
said, "Ma, I am engaged."

"Oh, you ridiculous child!" observed Mrs. Jellyby with an
abstracted air as she looked over the dispatch last opened; "what a
goose you are!"

"I am engaged, Ma," sobbed Caddy, "to young Mr. Turveydrop, at the
academy; and old Mr. Turveydrop (who is a very gentlemanly man
indeed) has given his consent, and I beg and pray you'll give us
yours, Ma, because I never could be happy without it. I never,
never could!" sobbed Caddy, quite forgetful of her general
complainings and of everything but her natural affection.

"You see again, Miss Summerson," observed Mrs. Jellyby serenely,
"what a happiness it is to be so much occupied as I am and to have
this necessity for self-concentration that I have. Here is Caddy
engaged to a dancing-master's son--mixed up with people who have no
more sympathy with the destinies of the human race than she has
herself! This, too, when Mr. Quale, one of the first
philanthropists of our time, has mentioned to me that he was really
disposed to be interested in her!"

"Ma, I always hated and detested Mr. Quale!" sobbed Caddy.

"Caddy, Caddy!" returned Mrs. Jellyby, opening another letter with
the greatest complacency. "I have no doubt you did. How could you
do otherwise, being totally destitute of the sympathies with which
he overflows! Now, if my public duties were not a favourite child
to me, if I were not occupied with large measures on a vast scale,
these petty details might grieve me very much, Miss Summerson. But
can I permit the film of a silly proceeding on the part of Caddy
(from whom I expect nothing else) to interpose between me and the
great African continent? No. No," repeated Mrs. Jellyby in a calm
clear voice, and with an agreeable smile, as she opened more
letters and sorted them. "No, indeed."

I was so unprepared for the perfect coolness of this reception,
though I might have expected it, that I did not know what to say.
Caddy seemed equally at a loss. Mrs. Jellyby continued to open and
sort letters and to repeat occasionally in quite a charming tone of
voice and with a smile of perfect composure, "No, indeed."

"I hope, Ma," sobbed poor Caddy at last, "you are not angry?"

"Oh, Caddy, you really are an absurd girl," returned Mrs. Jellyby,
"to ask such questions after what I have said of the preoccupation
of my mind."

"And I hope, Ma, you give us your consent and wish us well?" said
Caddy.

"You are a nonsensical child to have done anything of this kind,"
said Mrs. Jellyby; "and a degenerate child, when you might have
devoted yourself to the great public measure. But the step is
taken, and I have engaged a boy, and there is no more to be said.
Now, pray, Caddy," said Mrs. Jellyby, for Caddy was kissing her,
"don't delay me in my work, but let me clear off this heavy batch
of papers before the afternoon post comes in!"

I thought I could not do better than take my leave; I was detained
for a moment by Caddy's saying, "You won't object to my bringing
him to see you, Ma?"

"Oh, dear me, Caddy," cried Mrs. Jellyby, who had relapsed into
that distant contemplation, "have you begun again? Bring whom?"

"Him, Ma."

"Caddy, Caddy!" said Mrs. Jellyby, quite weary of such little
matters. "Then you must bring him some evening which is not a
Parent Society night, or a Branch night, or a Ramification night.
You must accommodate the visit to the demands upon my time. My
dear Miss Summerson, it was very kind of you to come here to help
out this silly chit. Good-bye! When I tell you that I have fifty-
eight new letters from manufacturing families anxious to understand
the details of the native and coffee-cultivation question this
morning, I need not apologize for having very little leisure."

I was not surprised by Caddy's being in low spirits when we went
downstairs, or by her sobbing afresh on my neck, or by her saying
she would far rather have been scolded than treated with such
indifference, or by her confiding to me that she was so poor in
clothes that how she was ever to be married creditably she didn't
know. I gradually cheered her up by dwelling on the many things
she would do for her unfortunate father and for Peepy when she had
a home of her own; and finally we went downstairs into the damp
dark kitchen, where Peepy and his little brothers and sisters were
grovelling on the stone floor and where we had such a game of play
with them that to prevent myself from being quite torn to pieces I
was obliged to fall back on my fairy-tales. From time to time I
heard loud voices in the parlour overhead, and occasionally a
violent tumbling about of the furniture. The last effect I am
afraid was caused by poor Mr. Jellyby's breaking away from the
dining-table and making rushes at the window with the intention of
throwing himself into the area whenever he made any new attempt to
understand his affairs.

As I rode quietly home at night after the day's bustle, I thought a
good deal of Caddy's engagement and felt confirmed in my hopes (in
spite of the elder Mr. Turveydrop) that she would be the happier
and better for it. And if there seemed to be but a slender chance
of her and her husband ever finding out what the model of
deportment really was, why that was all for the best too, and who
would wish them to be wiser? I did not wish them to be any wiser
and indeed was half ashamed of not entirely believing in him
myself. And I looked up at the stars, and thought about travellers
in distant countries and the stars THEY saw, and hoped I might
always be so blest and happy as to be useful to some one in my
small way.

They were so glad to see me when I got home, as they always were,
that I could have sat down and cried for joy if that had not been a
method of making myself disagreeable. Everybody in the house, from
the lowest to the highest, showed me such a bright face of welcome,
and spoke so cheerily, and was so happy to do anything for me, that
I suppose there never was such a fortunate little creature in the
world.

We got into such a chatty state that night, through Ada and my
guardian drawing me out to tell them all about Caddy, that I went
on prose, prose, prosing for a length of time. At last I got up to
my own room, quite red to think how I had been holding forth, and
then I heard a soft tap at my door. So I said, "Come in!" and
there came in a pretty little girl, neatly dressed in mourning, who
dropped a curtsy.

"If you please, miss," said the little girl in a soft voice, "I am
Charley."

"Why, so you are," said I, stooping down in astonishment and giving
her a kiss. "How glad am I to see you, Charley!"

"If you please, miss," pursued Charley in the same soft voice, "I'm
your maid."

"Charley?"

"If you please, miss, I'm a present to you, with Mr. Jarndyce's
love."

I sat down with my hand on Charley's neck and looked at Charley.

"And oh, miss," says Charley, clapping her hands, with the tears
starting down her dimpled cheeks, "Tom's at school, if you please,
and learning so good! And little Emma, she's with Mrs. Blinder,
miss, a-being took such care of! And Tom, he would have been at
school--and Emma, she would have been left with Mrs. Blinder--and
me, I should have been here--all a deal sooner, miss; only Mr.
Jarndyce thought that Tom and Emma and me had better get a little
used to parting first, we was so small. Don't cry, if you please,
miss!"