Bleak House

C >> Charles Dickens >> Bleak House

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79

With this apology, Mercury directs a scornful and indignant look at
the young man of the name of Guppy which plainly says, "What do you
come calling here for and getting ME into a row?"

"It's quite right. I gave him those directions," says my Lady.
"Let the young man wait."

"By no means, my Lady. Since he has your orders to come, I will
not interrupt you." Sir Leicester in his gallantry retires, rather
declining to accept a bow from the young man as he goes out and
majestically supposing him to be some shoemaker of intrusive
appearance.

Lady Dedlock looks imperiously at her visitor when the servant has
left the room, casting her eyes over him from head to foot. She
suffers him to stand by the door and asks him what he wants.

"That your ladyship would have the kindness to oblige me with a
little conversation," returns Mr. Guppy, embarrassed.

"You are, of course, the person who has written me so many
letters?"

"Several, your ladyship. Several before your ladyship condescended
to favour me with an answer."

"And could you not take the same means of rendering a Conversation
unnecessary? Can you not still?"

Mr. Guppy screws his mouth into a silent "No!" and shakes his head.

"You have been strangely importunate. If it should appear, after
all, that what you have to say does not concern me--and I don't
know how it can, and don't expect that it will--you will allow me
to cut you short with but little ceremony. Say what you have to
say, if you please."

My Lady, with a careless toss of her screen, turns herself towards
the fire again, sitting almost with her back to the young man of
the name of Guppy.

"With your ladyship's permission, then," says the young man, "I
will now enter on my business. Hem! I am, as I told your ladyship
in my first letter, in the law. Being in the law, I have learnt
the habit of not committing myself in writing, and therefore I did
not mention to your ladyship the name of the firm with which I am
connected and in which my standing--and I may add income--is
tolerably good. I may now state to your ladyship, in confidence,
that the name of that firm is Kenge and Carboy, of Lincoln's Inn,
which may not be altogether unknown to your ladyship in connexion
with the case in Chancery of Jarndyce and Jarndyce."

My Lady's figure begins to be expressive of some attention. She
has ceased to toss the screen and holds it as if she were
listening.

"Now, I may say to your ladyship at once," says Mr. Guppy, a little
emboldened, "it is no matter arising out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce
that made me so desirous to speak to your ladyship, which conduct I
have no doubt did appear, and does appear, obtrusive--in fact,
almost blackguardly."

After waiting for a moment to receive some assurance to the
contrary, and not receiving any, Mr. Guppy proceeds, "If it had
been Jarndyce and Jarndyce, I should have gone at once to your
ladyship's solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, of the Fields. I have the
pleasure of being acquainted with Mr. Tulkinghorn--at least we move
when we meet one another--and if it had been any business of that
sort, I should have gone to him."

My Lady turns a little round and says, "You had better sit down."

"Thank your ladyship." Mr. Guppy does so. "Now, your ladyship"--
Mr. Guppy refers to a little slip of paper on which he has made
small notes of his line of argument and which seems to involve him
in the densest obscurity whenever he looks at it--"I--Oh, yes!--I
place myself entirely in your ladyship's hands. If your ladyship
was to make any complaint to Kenge and Carboy or to Mr. Tulkinghorn
of the present visit, I should be placed in a very disagreeable
situation. That, I openly admit. Consequently, I rely upon your
ladyship's honour."

My Lady, with a disdainful gesture of the hand that holds the
screen, assures him of his being worth no complaint from her.

"Thank your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy; "quite satisfactory. Now--
I--dash it!--The fact is that I put down a head or two here of the
order of the points I thought of touching upon, and they're written
short, and I can't quite make out what they mean. If your ladyship
will excuse me taking it to the window half a moment, I--"

Mr. Guppy, going to the window, tumbles into a pair of love-birds,
to whom he says in his confusion, "I beg your pardon, I am sure."
This does not tend to the greater legibility of his notes. He
murmurs, growing warm and red and holding the slip of paper now
close to his eyes, now a long way off, "C.S. What's C.S. for? Oh!
C.S.! Oh, I know! Yes, to be sure!" And comes back enlightened.

"I am not aware," says Mr. Guppy, standing midway between my Lady
and his chair, "whether your ladyship ever happened to hear of, or
to see, a young lady of the name of Miss Esther Summerson."

My Lady's eyes look at him full. "I saw a young lady of that name
not long ago. This past autumn."

"Now, did it strike your ladyship that she was like anybody?" asks
Mr. Guppy, crossing his arms, holding his head on one side, and
scratching the corner of his mouth with his memoranda.

My Lady removes her eyes from him no more.

"No."

"Not like your ladyship's family?"

"No."

"I think your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy, "can hardly remember Miss
Summerson's face?"

"I remember the young lady very well. What has this to do with
me?"

"Your ladyship, I do assure you that having Miss Summerson's image
imprinted on my 'eart--which I mention in confidence--I found, when
I had the honour of going over your ladyship's mansion of Chesney
Wold while on a short out in the county of Lincolnshire with a
friend, such a resemblance between Miss Esther Summerson and your
ladyship's own portrait that it completely knocked me over, so much
so that I didn't at the moment even know what it WAS that knocked
me over. And now I have the honour of beholding your ladyship near
(I have often, since that, taken the liberty of looking at your
ladyship in your carriage in the park, when I dare say you was not
aware of me, but I never saw your ladyship so near), it's really
more surprising than I thought it."

Young man of the name of Guppy! There have been times, when ladies
lived in strongholds and had unscrupulous attendants within call,
when that poor life of yours would NOT have been worth a minute's
purchase, with those beautiful eyes looking at you as they look at
this moment.

My Lady, slowly using her little hand-screen as a fan, asks him
again what he supposes that his taste for likenesses has to do with
her.

"Your ladyship," replies Mr. Guppy, again referring to his paper,
"I am coming to that. Dash these notes! Oh! 'Mrs. Chadband.'
Yes." Mr. Guppy draws his chair a little forward and seats himself
again. My Lady reclines in her chair composedly, though with a
trifle less of graceful ease than usual perhaps, and never falters
in her steady gaze. "A--stop a minute, though!" Mr. Guppy refers
again. "E.S. twice? Oh, yes! Yes, I see my way now, right on."

Rolling up the slip of paper as an instrument to point his speech
with, Mr. Guppy proceeds.

"Your ladyship, there is a mystery about Miss Esther Summerson's
birth and bringing up. I am informed of that fact because--which I
mention in confidence--I know it in the way of my profession at
Kenge and Carboy's. Now, as I have already mentioned to your
ladyship, Miss Summerson's image is imprinted on my 'eart. If I
could clear this mystery for her, or prove her to be well related,
or find that having the honour to be a remote branch of your
ladyship's family she had a right to be made a party in Jarndyce
and Jarndyce, why, I might make a sort of a claim upon Miss
Summerson to look with an eye of more dedicated favour on my
proposals than she has exactly done as yet. In fact, as yet she
hasn't favoured them at all."

A kind of angry smile just dawns upon my Lady's face.

"Now, it's a very singular circumstance, your ladyship," says Mr.
Guppy, "though one of those circumstances that do fall in the way
of us professional men--which I may call myself, for though not
admitted, yet I have had a present of my articles made to me by
Kenge and Carboy, on my mother's advancing from the principal of
her little income the money for the stamp, which comes heavy--that
I have encountered the person who lived as servant with the lady
who brought Miss Summerson up before Mr. Jarndyce took charge of
her. That lady was a Miss Barbary, your ladyship."

Is the dead colour on my Lady's face reflected from the screen
which has a green silk ground and which she holds in her raised
hand as if she had forgotten it, or is it a dreadful paleness that
has fallen on her?

"Did your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy, "ever happen to hear of Miss
Barbary?"

"I don't know. I think so. Yes."

"Was Miss Barbary at all connected with your ladyship's family?"

My Lady's lips move, but they utter nothing. She shakes her head.

"NOT connected?" says Mr. Guppy. "Oh! Not to your ladyship's
knowledge, perhaps? Ah! But might be? Yes." After each of these
interrogatories, she has inclined her head. "Very good! Now, this
Miss Barbary was extremely close--seems to have been
extraordinarily close for a female, females being generally (in
common life at least) rather given to conversation--and my witness
never had an idea whether she possessed a single relative. On one
occasion, and only one, she seems to have been confidential to my
witness on a single point, and she then told her that the little
girl's real name was not Esther Summerson, but Esther Hawdon."

"My God!"

Mr. Guppy stares. Lady Dedlock sits before him looking him
through, with the same dark shade upon her face, in the same
attitude even to the holding of the screen, with her lips a little
apart, her brow a little contracted, but for the moment dead. He
sees her consciousness return, sees a tremor pass across her frame
like a ripple over water, sees her lips shake, sees her compose
them by a great effort, sees her force herself back to the
knowledge of his presence and of what he has said. All this, so
quickly, that her exclamation and her dead condition seem to have
passed away like the features of those long-preserved dead bodies
sometimes opened up in tombs, which, struck by the air like
lightning, vanish in a breath.

"Your ladyship is acquainted with the name of Hawdon?"

"I have heard it before."

"Name of any collateral or remote branch of your ladyship's
family?"

"No."

"Now, your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy, "I come to the last point of
the case, so far as I have got it up. It's going on, and I shall
gather it up closer and closer as it goes on. Your ladyship must
know--if your ladyship don't happen, by any chance, to know
already--that there was found dead at the house of a person named
Krook, near Chancery Lane, some time ago, a law-writer in great
distress. Upon which law-writer there was an inquest, and which
law-writer was an anonymous character, his name being unknown.
But, your ladyship, I have discovered very lately that that law-
writer's name was Hawdon."

"And what is THAT to me?"

"Aye, your ladyship, that's the question! Now, your ladyship, a
queer thing happened after that man's death. A lady started up, a
disguised lady, your ladyship, who went to look at the scene of
action and went to look at his grave. She hired a crossing-
sweeping boy to show it her. If your ladyship would wish to have
the boy produced in corroboration of this statement, I can lay my
hand upon him at any time."

The wretched boy is nothing to my Lady, and she does NOT wish to
have him produced.

"Oh, I assure your ladyship it's a very queer start indeed," says
Mr. Guppy. "If you was to hear him tell about the rings that
sparkled on her fingers when she took her glove off, you'd think it
quite romantic."

There are diamonds glittering on the hand that holds the screen.
My Lady trifles with the screen and makes them glitter more, again
with that expression which in other times might have been so
dangerous to the young man of the name of Guppy.

"It was supposed, your ladyship, that he left no rag or scrap
behind him by which he could be possibly identified. But he did.
He left a bundle of old letters."

The screen still goes, as before. All this time her eyes never
once release him.

"They were taken and secreted. And to-morrow night, your ladyship,
they will come into my possession."

"Still I ask you, what is this to me?"

"Your ladyship, I conclude with that." Mr. Guppy rises. "If you
think there's enough in this chain of circumstances put together--
in the undoubted strong likeness of this young lady to your
ladyship, which is a positive fact for a jury; in her having been
brought up by Miss Barbary; in Miss Barbary stating Miss
Summerson's real name to be Hawdon; in your ladyship's knowing both
these names VERY WELL; and in Hawdon's dying as he did--to give
your ladyship a family interest in going further into the case, I
will bring these papers here. I don't know what they are, except
that they are old letters: I have never had them in my posession
yet. I will bring those papers here as soon as I get them and go
over them for the first time with your ladyship. I have told your
ladyship my object. I have told your ladyship that I should be
placed in a very disagreeable situation if any complaint was made,
and all is in strict confidence."

Is this the full purpose of the young man of the name of Guppy, or
has he any other? Do his words disclose the length, breadth,
depth, of his object and suspicion in coming here; or if not, what
do they hide? He is a match for my Lady there. She may look at
him, but he can look at the table and keep that witness-box face of
his from telling anything.

"You may bring the letters," says my Lady, "if you choose."

"Your ladyship is not very encouraging, upon my word and honour,"
says Mr. Guppy, a little injured.

"You may bring the letters," she repeats in the same tone, "if you
--please."

"It shall he done. I wish your ladyship good day."

On a table near her is a rich bauble of a casket, barred and
clasped like an old strong-chest. She, looking at him still, takes
it to her and unlocks it.

"Oh! I assure your ladyship I am not actuated by any motives of
that sort," says Mr. Guppy, "and I couldn't accept anything of the
kind. I wish your ladyship good day, and am much obliged to you
all the same."

So the young man makes his bow and goes downstairs, where the
supercilious Mercury does not consider himself called upon to leave
his Olympus by the hall-fire to let the young man out.

As Sir Leicester basks in his library and dozes over his newspaper,
is there no influence in the house to startle him, not to say to
make the very trees at Chesney Wold fling up their knotted arms,
the very portraits frown, the very armour stir?

No. Words, sobs, and cries are but air, and air is so shut in and
shut out throughout the house in town that sounds need be uttered
trumpet-tongued indeed by my Lady in her chamber to carry any faint
vibration to Sir Leicester's ears; and yet this cry is in the
house, going upward from a wild figure on its knees.

"O my child, my child! Not dead in the first hours of her life, as
my cruel sister told me, but sternly nurtured by her, after she had
renounced me and my name! O my child, O my child!"

CHAPTER XXX

Esther's Narrative

Richard had been gone away some time when a visitor came to pass a
few days with us. It was an elderly lady. It was Mrs. Woodcourt,
who, having come from Wales to stay with Mrs. Bayham Badger and
having written to my guardian, "by her son Allan's desire," to
report that she had heard from him and that he was well "and sent
his kind remembrances to all of us," had been invited by my
guardian to make a visit to Bleak House. She stayed with us nearly
three weeks. She took very kindly to me and was extremely
confidential, so much so that sometimes she almost made me
uncomfortable. I had no right, I knew very well, to be
uncomfortable because she confided in me, and I felt it was
unreasonable; still, with all I could do, I could not quite help it.

She was such a sharp little lady and used to sit with her hands
folded in each other looking so very watchful while she talked to
me that perhaps I found that rather irksome. Or perhaps it was her
being so upright and trim, though I don't think it was that,
because I thought that quaintly pleasant. Nor can it have been the
general expression of her face, which was very sparkling and pretty
for an old lady. I don't know what it was. Or at least if I do
now, I thought I did not then. Or at least--but it don't matter.

Of a night when I was going upstairs to bed, she would invite me
into her room, where she sat before the fire in a great chair; and,
dear me, she would tell me about Morgan ap-Kerrig until I was quite
low-spirited! Sometimes she recited a few verses from
Crumlinwallinwer and the Mewlinn-willinwodd (if those are the right
names, which I dare say they are not), and would become quite fiery
with the sentiments they expressed. Though I never knew what they
were (being in Welsh), further than that they were highly
eulogistic of the lineage of Morgan ap-Kerrig.

"So, Miss Summerson," she would say to me with stately triumph,
"this, you see, is the fortune inherited by my son. Wherever my
son goes, he can claim kindred with Ap-Kerrig. He may not have
money, but he always has what is much better--family, my dear."

I had my doubts of their caring so very much for Morgan ap-Kerrig
in India and China, but of course I never expressed them. I used
to say it was a great thing to be so highly connected.

"It IS, my dear, a great thing," Mrs. Woodcourt would reply. "It
has its disadvantages; my son's choice of a wife, for instance, is
limited by it, but the matrimonial choice of the royal family is
limited in much the same manner."

Then she would pat me on the arm and smooth my dress, as much as to
assure me that she had a good opinion of me, the distance between
us notwithstanding.

"Poor Mr. Woodcourt, my dear," she would say, and always with some
emotion, for with her lofty pedigree she had a very affectionate
heart, "was descended from a great Highland family, the MacCoorts
of MacCoort. He served his king and country as an officer in the
Royal Highlanders, and he died on the field. My son is one of the
last representatives of two old families. With the blessing of
heaven he will set them up again and unite them with another old
family."

It was in vain for me to try to change the subject, as I used to
try, only for the sake of novelty or perhaps because--but I need
not be so particular. Mrs. Woodcourt never would let me change it.

"My dear," she said one night, "you have so much sense and you look
at the world in a quiet manner so superior to your time of life
that it is a comfort to me to talk to you about these family
matters of mine. You don't know much of my son, my dear; but you
know enough of him, I dare say, to recollect him?"

"Yes, ma'am. I recollect him."

"Yes, my dear. Now, my dear, I think you are a judge of character,
and I should like to have your opinion of him."

"Oh, Mrs. Woodcourt," said I, "that is so difficult!"

"Why is it so difficult, my dear?" she returned. "I don't see it
myself."

"To give an opinion--"

"On so slight an acquaintance, my dear. THAT'S true."

I didn't mean that, because Mr. Woodcourt had been at our house a
good deal altogether and had become quite intimate with my
guardian. I said so, and added that he seemed to be very clever in
his profession--we thought--and that his kindness and gentleness to
Miss Flite were above all praise.

"You do him justice!" said Mrs. Woodcourt, pressing my hand. "You
define him exactly. Allan is a dear fellow, and in his profession
faultless. I say it, though I am his mother. Still, I must
confess he is not without faults, love."

"None of us are," said I.

"Ah! But his really are faults that he might correct, and ought to
correct," returned the sharp old lady, sharply shaking her head.
"I am so much attached to you that I may confide in you, my dear,
as a third party wholly disinterested, that he is fickleness
itself."

I said I should have thought it hardly possible that he could have
been otherwise than constant to his profession and zealous in the
pursuit of it, judging from the reputation he had earned.

"You are right again, my dear," the old lady retorted, "but I don't
refer to his profession, look you."

"Oh!" said I.

"No," said she. "I refer, my dear, to his social conduct. He is
always paying trivial attentions to young ladies, and always has
been, ever since he was eighteen. Now, my dear, he has never
really cared for any one of them and has never meant in doing this
to do any harm or to express anything but politeness and good
nature. Still, it's not right, you know; is it?"

"No," said I, as she seemed to wait for me.

"And it might lead to mistaken notions, you see, my dear."

I supposed it might.

"Therefore, I have told him many times that he really should be
more careful, both in justice to himself and in justice to others.
And he has always said, 'Mother, I will be; but you know me better
than anybody else does, and you know I mean no harm--in short, mean
nothing.' All of which is very true, my dear, but is no
justification. However, as he is now gone so far away and for an
indefinite time, and as he will have good opportunities and
introductions, we may consider this past and gone. And you, my
dear," said the old lady, who was now all nods and smiles,
"regarding your dear self, my love?"

"Me, Mrs. Woodcourt?"

"Not to be always selfish, talking of my son, who has gone to seek
his fortune and to find a wife--when do you mean to seek YOUR
fortune and to find a husband, Miss Summerson? Hey, look you! Now
you blush!"

I don't think I did blush--at all events, it was not important if I
did--and I said my present fortune perfectly contented me and I had
no wish to change it.

"Shall I tell you what I always think of you and the fortune yet to
come for you, my love?" said Mrs. Woodcourt.

"If you believe you are a good prophet," said I.

"Why, then, it is that you will marry some one very rich and very
worthy, much older--five and twenty years, perhaps--than yourself.
And you will be an excellent wife, and much beloved, and very
happy."

"That is a good fortune," said I. "But why is it to be mine?"

"My dear," she returned, "there's suitability in it--you are so
busy, and so neat, and so peculiarly situated altogether that
there's suitability in it, and it will come to pass. And nobody,
my love, will congratulate you more sincerely on such a marriage
than I shall."

It was curious that this should make me uncomfortable, but I think
it did. I know it did. It made me for some part of that night
uncomfortable. I was so ashamed of my folly that I did not like to
confess it even to Ada, and that made me more uncomfortable still.
I would have given anything not to have been so much in the bright
old lady's confidence if I could have possibly declined it. It
gave me the most inconsistent opinions of her. At one time I
thought she was a story-teller, and at another time that she was
the pink of truth. Now I suspected that she was very cunning, next
moment I believed her honest Welsh heart to be perfectly innocent
and simple. And after all, what did it matter to me, and why did
it matter to me? Why could not I, going up to bed with my basket
of keys, stop to sit down by her fire and accommodate myself for a
little while to her, at least as well as to anybody else, and not
trouble myself about the harmless things she said to me? Impelled
towards her, as I certainly was, for I was very anxious that she
should like me and was very glad indeed that she did, why should I
harp afterwards, with actual distress and pain, on every word she
said and weigh it over and over again in twenty scales? Why was it
so worrying to me to have her in our house, and confidential to me
every night, when I yet felt that it was better and safer somehow
that she should be there than anywhere else? These were
perplexities and contradictions that I could not account for. At
least, if I could--but I shall come to all that by and by, and it
is mere idleness to go on about it now.

So when Mrs. Woodcourt went away, I was sorry to lose her but was
relieved too. And then Caddy Jellyby came down, and Caddy brought
such a packet of domestic news that it gave us abundant occupation.

First Caddy declared (and would at first declare nothing else) that
I was the best adviser that ever was known. This, my pet said, was
no news at all; and this, I said, of course, was nonsense. Then
Caddy told us that she was going to be married in a month and that
if Ada and I would be her bridesmaids, she was the happiest girl in
the world. To be sure, this was news indeed; and I thought we
never should have done talking about it, we had so much to say to
Caddy, and Caddy had so much to say to us.