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Now do those two gentlemen not very neat about the cuffs and buttons who attended the last coroner's inquest at the Sol's Arms reappear in the precincts with surprising swiftness (being, in fact, breathlessly fetched by the active and intelligent beadle), and institute perquisitions through the court, and dive into the Sol's parlour, and write with ravenous little pens on tissue-paper. Now do they note down, in the watches of the night, how the neighbourhood of Chancery Lane was yesterday, at about midnight, thrown into a state of the most intense agitation and excitement by the following alarming and horrible discovery. Now do they set forth how it will doubtless be remembered that some time back a painful sensation was created in the public mind by a case of mysterious death from opium occurring in the first floor of the house occupied as a rag, bottle, and general marine store shop, by an eccentric individual of intemperate habits, far advanced in life, named Krook; and how, by a remarkable coincidence, Krook was examined at the inquest, which it may be recollected was held on that occasion at the Sol's Arms, a well-conducted tavern immediately adjoining the premises in question on the west side and licensed to a highly respectable landlord, Mr. James George Bogsby. Now do they show (in as many words as possible) how during some hours of yesterday evening a very peculiar smell was observed by the inhabitants of the court, in which the tragical occurrence which forms the subject of that present account transpired; and which odour was at one time so powerful that Mr. Swills, a comic vocalist professionally engaged by Mr. J. G. Bogsby, has himself stated to our reporter that he mentioned to Miss M. Melvilleson, a lady of some pretensions to musical ability, likewise engaged by Mr. J. G. Bogsby to sing at a series of concerts called Harmonic Assemblies, or Meetings, which it would appear are held at the Sol's Arms under Mr. Bogsby's direction pursuant to the Act of George the Second, that he (Mr. Swills) found his voice seriously affected by the impure state of the atmosphere, his jocose expression at the time being that he was like an empty post-office, for he hadn't a single note in him. How this account of Mr. Swills is entirely corroborated by two intelligent married females residing in the same court and known respectively by the names of Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins, both of whom observed the foetid effluvia and regarded them as being emitted from the premises in the occupation of Krook, the unfortunate deceased. All this and a great deal more the two gentlemen who have formed an amicable partnership in the melancholy catastrophe write down on the spot; and the boy population of the court (out of bed in a moment) swarm up the shutters of the Sol's Arms parlour, to behold the tops of their heads while they are about it. The whole court, adult as well as boy, is sleepless for that night, and can do nothing but wrap up its many heads, and talk of the ill-fated house, and look at it. Miss Flite has been bravely rescued from her chamber, as if it were in flames, and accommodated with a bed at the Sol's Arms. The Sol neither turns off its gas nor shuts its door all night, for any kind of public excitement makes good for the Sol and causes the court to stand in need of comfort. The house has not done so much in the stomachic article of cloves or in brandy-and-water warm since the inquest. The moment the pot-boy heard what had happened, he rolled up his shirt-sleeves tight to his shoulders and said, "There'll be a run upon us!" In the first outcry, young Piper dashed off for the fire-engines and returned in triumph at a jolting gallop perched up aloft on the Phoenix and holding on to that fabulous creature with all his might in the midst of helmets and torches. One helmet remains behind after careful investigation of all chinks and crannies and slowly paces up and down before the house in company with one of the two policemen who have likewise been left in charge thereof. To this trio everybody in the court possessed of sixpence has an insatiate desire to exhibit hospitality in a liquid form. Mr. Weevle and his friend Mr. Guppy are within the bar at the Sol and are worth anything to the Sol that the bar contains if they will only stay there. "This is not a time," says Mr. Bogsby, "to haggle about money," though he looks something sharply after it, over the counter; "give your orders, you two gentlemen, and you're welcome to whatever you put a name to." Thus entreated, the two gentlemen (Mr. Weevle especially) put names to so many things that in course of time they find it difficult to put a name to anything quite distinctly, though they still relate to all new-comers some version of the night they have had of it, and of what they said, and what they thought, and what they saw. Meanwhile, one or other of the policemen often flits about the door, and pushing it open a little way at the full length of his arm, looks in from outer gloom. Not that he has any suspicions, but that he may as well know what they are up to in there. Thus night pursues its leaden course, finding the court still out of bed through the unwonted hours, still treating and being treated, still conducting itself similarly to a court that has had a little money left it unexpectedly. Thus night at length with slow-retreating steps departs, and the lamp-lighter going his rounds, like an executioner to a despotic king, strikes off the little heads of fire that have aspired to lessen the darkness. Thus the day cometh, whether or no. And the day may discern, even with its dim London eye, that the court has been up all night. Over and above the faces that have fallen drowsily on tables and the heels that lie prone on hard floors instead of beds, the brick and mortar physiognomy of the very court itself looks worn and jaded. And now the neighbourhood, waking up and beginning to hear of what has happened, comes streaming in, half dressed, to ask questions; and the two policemen and the helmet (who are far less impressible externally than the court) have enough to do to keep the door. "Good gracious, gentlemen!" says Mr. Snagsby, coming up. "What's this I hear!" "Why, it's true," returns one of the policemen. "That's what it is. Now move on here, come!" "Why, good gracious, gentlemen," says Mr. Snagsby, somewhat promptly backed away, "I was at this door last night betwixt ten and eleven o'clock in conversation with the young man who lodges here." "Indeed?" returns the policeman. "You will find the young man next door then. Now move on here, some of you." "Not hurt, I hope?" says Mr. Snagsby. "Hurt? No. What's to hurt him!" Mr. Snagsby, wholly unable to answer this or any question in his troubled mind, repairs to the Sol's Arms and finds Mr. Weevle languishing over tea and toast with a considerable expression on him of exhausted excitement and exhausted tobacco-smoke. "And Mr. Guppy likewise!" quoth Mr. Snagsby. "Dear, dear, dear! What a fate there seems in all this! And my lit--" Mr. Snagsby's power of speech deserts him in the formation of the words "my little woman." For to see that injured female walk into the Sol's Arms at that hour of the morning and stand before the beer-engine, with her eyes fixed upon him like an accusing spirit, strikes him dumb. "My dear," says Mr. Snagsby when his tongue is loosened, "will you take anything? A little--not to put too fine a point upon it--drop of shrub?" "No," says Mrs. Snagsby. "My love, you know these two gentlemen?" "Yes!" says Mrs. Snagsby, and in a rigid manner acknowledges their presence, still fixing Mr. Snagsby with her eye. The devoted Mr. Snagsby cannot bear this treatment. He takes Mrs. Snagsby by the hand and leads her aside to an adjacent cask. "My little woman, why do you look at me in that way? Pray don't do it." "I can't help my looks," says Mrs. Snagsby, "and if I could I wouldn't." Mr. Snagsby, with his cough of meekness, rejoins, "Wouldn't you really, my dear?" and meditates. Then coughs his cough of trouble and says, "This is a dreadful mystery, my love!" still fearfully disconcerted by Mrs. Snagsby's eye. "It IS," returns Mrs. Snagsby, shaking her head, "a dreadful mystery." "My little woman," urges Mr. Snagsby in a piteous manner, "don't for goodness' sake speak to me with that bitter expression and look at me in that searching way! I beg and entreat of you not to do it. Good Lord, you don't suppose that I would go spontaneously combusting any person, my dear?" "I can't say," returns Mrs. Snagsby. On a hasty review of his unfortunate position, Mr. Snagsby "can't say" either. He is not prepared positively to deny that he may have had something to do with it. He has had something--he don't know what--to do with so much in this connexion that is mysterious that it is possible he may even be implicated, without knowing it, in the present transaction. He faintly wipes his forehead with his handkerchief and gasps. "My life," says the unhappy stationer, "would you have any objections to mention why, being in general so delicately circumspect in your conduct, you come into a wine-vaults before breakfast?" "Why do YOU come here?" inquires Mrs. Snagsby. "My dear, merely to know the rights of the fatal accident which has happened to the venerable party who has been--combusted." Mr. Snagsby has made a pause to suppress a groan. "I should then have related them to you, my love, over your French roll." "I dare say you would! You relate everything to me, Mr. Snagsby." "Every--my lit--" "I should be glad," says Mrs. Snagsby after contemplating his increased confusion with a severe and sinister smile, "if you would come home with me; I think you may be safer there, Mr. Snagsby, than anywhere else." "My love, I don't know but what I may be, I am sure. I am ready to go." Mr. Snagsby casts his eye forlornly round the bar, gives Messrs. Weevle and Guppy good morning, assures them of the satisfaction with which he sees them uninjured, and accompanies Mrs. Snagsby from the Sol's Arms. Before night his doubt whether he may not be responsible for some inconceivable part in the catastrophe which is the talk of the whole neighbourhood is almost resolved into certainty by Mrs. Snagsby's pertinacity in that fixed gaze. His mental sufferings are so great that he entertains wandering ideas of delivering himself up to justice and requiring to be cleared if innocent and punished with the utmost rigour of the law if guilty. Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, having taken their breakfast, step into Lincoln's Inn to take a little walk about the square and clear as many of the dark cobwebs out of their brains as a little walk may. "There can be no more favourable time than the present, Tony," says Mr. Guppy after they have broodingly made out the four sides of the square, "for a word or two between us upon a point on which we must, with very little delay, come to an understanding." "Now, I tell you what, William G.!" returns the other, eyeing his companion with a bloodshot eye. "If it's a point of conspiracy, you needn't take the trouble to mention it. I have had enough of that, and I ain't going to have any more. We shall have YOU taking fire next or blowing up with a bang." This supposititious phenomenon is so very disagreeable to Mr. Guppy that his voice quakes as he says in a moral way, "Tony, I should have thought that what we went through last night would have been a lesson to you never to be personal any more as long as you lived." To which Mr. Weevle returns, "William, I should have thought it would have been a lesson to YOU never to conspire any more as long as you lived." To which Mr. Guppy says, "Who's conspiring?" To which Mr. Jobling replies, "Why, YOU are!" To which Mr. Guppy retorts, "No, I am not." To which Mr. Jobling retorts again, "Yes, you are!" To which Mr. Guppy retorts, "Who says so?" To which Mr. Jobling retorts, "I say so!" To which Mr. Guppy retorts, "Oh, indeed?" To which Mr. Jobling retorts, "Yes, indeed!" And both being now in a heated state, they walk on silently for a while to cool down again. "Tony," says Mr. Guppy then, "if you heard your friend out instead of flying at him, you wouldn't fall into mistakes. But your temper is hasty and you are not considerate. Possessing in yourself, Tony, all that is calculated to charm the eye--" "Oh! Blow the eye!" cries Mr. Weevle, cutting him short. "Say what you have got to say!" Finding his friend in this morose and material condition, Mr. Guppy only expresses the finer feelings of his soul through the tone of injury in which he recommences, "Tony, when I say there is a point on which we must come to an understanding pretty soon, I say so quite apart from any kind of conspiring, however innocent. You know it is professionally arranged beforehand in all cases that are tried what facts the witnesses are to prove. Is it or is it not desirable that we should know what facts we are to prove on the inquiry into the death of this unfortunate old mo--gentleman?" (Mr. Guppy was going to say "mogul," but thinks "gentleman" better suited to the circumstances.) "What facts? THE facts." "The facts bearing on that inquiry. Those are"--Mr. Guppy tells them off on his fingers--"what we knew of his habits, when you saw him last, what his condition was then, the discovery that we made, and how we made it." "Yes," says Mr. Weevle. "Those are about the facts." "We made the discovery in consequence of his having, in his eccentric way, an appointment with you at twelve o'clock at night, when you were to explain some writing to him as you had often done before on account of his not being able to read. I, spending the evening with you, was called down--and so forth. The inquiry being only into the circumstances touching the death of the deceased, it's not necessary to go beyond these facts, I suppose you'll agree?" "No!" returns Mr. Weevle. "I suppose not." "And this is not a conspiracy, perhaps?" says the injured Guppy. "No," returns his friend; "if it's nothing worse than this, I withdraw the observation." "Now, Tony," says Mr. Guppy, taking his arm again and walking him slowly on, "I should like to know, in a friendly way, whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of your continuing to live at that place?" "What do you mean?" says Tony, stopping. "Whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of your continuing to live at that place?" repeats Mr. Guppy, walking him on again. "At what place? THAT place?" pointing in the direction of the rag and bottle shop. Mr. Guppy nods. "Why, I wouldn't pass another night there for any consideration that you could offer me," says Mr. Weevle, haggardly staring. "Do you mean it though, Tony?" "Mean it! Do I look as if I mean it? I feel as if I do; I know that," says Mr. Weevle with a very genuine shudder. "Then the possibility or probability--for such it must be considered--of your never being disturbed in possession of those effects lately belonging to a lone old man who seemed to have no relation in the world, and the certainty of your being able to find out what he really had got stored up there, don't weigh with you at all against last night, Tony, if I understand you?" says Mr. Guppy, biting his thumb with the appetite of vexation. "Certainly not. Talk in that cool way of a fellow's living there?" cries Mr. Weevle indignantly. "Go and live there yourself." "Oh! I, Tony!" says Mr. Guppy, soothing him. "I have never lived there and couldn't get a lodging there now, whereas you have got one." "You are welcome to it," rejoins his friend, "and--ugh!--you may make yourself at home in it." "Then you really and truly at this point," says Mr. Guppy, "give up the whole thing, if I understand you, Tony?" "You never," returns Tony with a most convincing steadfastness, "said a truer word in all your life. I do!" While they are so conversing, a hackney-coach drives into the square, on the box of which vehicle a very tall hat makes itself manifest to the public. Inside the coach, and consequently not so manifest to the multitude, though sufficiently so to the two friends, for the coach stops almost at their feet, are the venerable Mr. Smallweed and Mrs. Smallweed, accompanied by their granddaughter Judy. An air of haste and excitement pervades the party, and as the tall hat (surmounting Mr. Smallweed the younger) alights, Mr. Smallweed the elder pokes his head out of window and bawls to Mr. Guppy, "How de do, sir! How de do!" "What do Chick and his family want here at this time of the morning, I wonder!" says Mr. Guppy, nodding to his familiar. "My dear sir," cries Grandfather Smallweed, "would you do me a favour? Would you and your friend be so very obleeging as to carry me into the public-house in the court, while Bart and his sister bring their grandmother along? Would you do an old man that good turn, sir?" Mr. Guppy looks at his friend, repeating inquiringly, "The public-house in the court?" And they prepare to bear the venerable burden to the Sol's Arms. "There's your fare!" says the patriarch to the coachman with a fierce grin and shaking his incapable fist at him. "Ask me for a penny more, and I'll have my lawful revenge upon you. My dear young men, be easy with me, if you please. Allow me to catch you round the neck. I won't squeeze you tighter than I can help. Oh, Lord! Oh, dear me! Oh, my bones!" It is well that the Sol is not far off, for Mr. Weevle presents an apoplectic appearance before half the distance is accomplished. With no worse aggravation of his symptoms, however, than the utterance of divers croaking sounds expressive of obstructed respiration, he fulfils his share of the porterage and the benevolent old gentleman is deposited by his own desire in the parlour of the Sol's Arms. "Oh, Lord!" gasps Mr. Smallweed, looking about him, breathless, from an arm-chair. "Oh, dear me! Oh, my bones and back! Oh, my aches and pains! Sit down, you dancing, prancing, shambling, scrambling poll-parrot! Sit down!" This little apostrophe to Mrs. Smallweed is occasioned by a propensity on the part of that unlucky old lady whenever she finds herself on her feet to amble about and "set" to inanimate objects, accompanying herself with a chattering noise, as in a witch dance. A nervous affection has probably as much to do with these demonstrations as any imbecile intention in the poor old woman, but on the present occasion they are so particularly lively in connexion with the Windsor arm-chair, fellow to that in which Mr. Smallweed is seated, that she only quite desists when her grandchildren have held her down in it, her lord in the meanwhile bestowing upon her, with great volubility, the endearing epithet of "a pig-headed jackdaw," repeated a surprising number of times. "My dear sir," Grandfather Smallweed then proceeds, addressing Mr. Guppy, "there has been a calamity here. Have you heard of it, either of you?" "Heard of it, sir! Why, we discovered it." "You discovered it. You two discovered it! Bart, THEY discovered it!" The two discoverers stare at the Smallweeds, who return the compliment. "My dear friends," whines Grandfather Smallweed, putting out both his hands, "I owe you a thousand thanks for discharging the melancholy office of discovering the ashes of Mrs. Smallweed's brother." "Eh?" says Mr. Guppy. "Mrs. Smallweed's brother, my dear friend--her only relation. We were not on terms, which is to be deplored now, but he never WOULD be on terms. He was not fond of us. He was eccentric--he was very eccentric. Unless he has left a will (which is not at all likely) I shall take out letters of administration. I have come down to look after the property; it must be sealed up, it must be protected. I have come down," repeats Grandfather Smallweed, hooking the air towards him with all his ten fingers at once, "to look after the property." "I think, Small," says the disconsolate Mr. Guppy, "you might have mentioned that the old man was your uncle." "You two were so close about him that I thought you would like me to be the same," returns that old bird with a secretly glistening eye. "Besides, I wasn't proud of him." "Besides which, it was nothing to you, you know, whether he was or not," says Judy. Also with a secretly glistening eye. "He never saw me in his life to know me," observed Small; "I don't know why I should introduce HIM, I am sure!" "No, he never communicated with us, which is to be deplored," the old gentleman strikes in, "but I have come to look after the property--to look over the papers, and to look after the property. We shall make good our title. It is in the hands of my solicitor. Mr. Tulkinghorn, of Lincoln's Inn Fields, over the way there, is so good as to act as my solicitor; and grass don't grow under HIS feet, I can tell ye. Krook was Mrs. Smallweed's only brother; she had no relation but Krook, and Krook had no relation but Mrs. Smallweed. I am speaking of your brother, you brimstone black-beetle, that was seventy-six years of age." Mrs. Smallweed instantly begins to shake her head and pipe up, "Seventy-six pound seven and sevenpence! Seventy-six thousand bags of money! Seventy-six hundred thousand million of parcels of bank-notes!" "Will somebody give me a quart pot?" exclaims her exasperated husband, looking helplessly about him and finding no missile within his reach. "Will somebody obleege me with a spittoon? Will somebody hand me anything hard and bruising to pelt at her? You hag, you cat, you dog, you brimstone barker!" Here Mr. Smallweed, wrought up to the highest pitch by his own eloquence, actually throws Judy at her grandmother in default of anything else, by butting that young virgin at the old lady with such force as he can muster and then dropping into his chair in a heap. "Shake me up, somebody, if you'll be so good," says the voice from within the faintly struggling bundle into which he has collapsed. "I have come to look after the property. Shake me up, and call in the police on duty at the next house to be explained to about the property. My solicitor will be here presently to protect the property. Transportation or the gallows for anybody who shall touch the property!" As his dutiful grandchildren set him up, panting, and putting him through the usual restorative process of shaking and punching, he still repeats like an echo, "The--the property! The property! Property!" Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy look at each other, the former as having relinquished the whole affair, the latter with a discomfited countenance as having entertained some lingering expectations yet. But there is nothing to be done in opposition to the Smallweed interest. Mr. Tulkinghorn's clerk comes down from his official pew in the chambers to mention to the police that Mr. Tulkinghorn is answerable for its being all correct about the next of kin and that the papers and effects will be formally taken possession of in due time and course. Mr. Smallweed is at once permitted so far to assert his supremacy as to be carried on a visit of sentiment into the next house and upstairs into Miss Flite's deserted room, where he looks like a hideous bird of prey newly added to her aviary. The arrival of this unexpected heir soon taking wind in the court still makes good for the Sol and keeps the court upon its mettle. Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins think it hard upon the young man if there really is no will, and consider that a handsome present ought to be made him out of the estate. Young Piper and young Perkins, as members of that restless juvenile circle which is the terror of the foot-passengers in Chancery Lane, crumble into ashes behind the pump and under the archway all day long, where wild yells and hootings take place over their remains. Little Swills and Miss M. Melvilleson enter into affable conversation with their patrons, feeling that these unusual occurrences level the barriers between professionals and non-professionals. Mr. Bogsby puts up "The popular song of King Death, with chorus by the whole strength of the company," as the great Harmonic feature of the week and announces in the bill that "J. G. B. is induced to do so at a considerable extra expense in consequence of a wish which has been very generally expressed at the bar by a large body of respectable individuals and in homage to a late melancholy event which has aroused so much sensation." There is one point connected with the deceased upon which the court is particularly anxious, namely, that the fiction of a full-sized coffin should be preserved, though there is so little to put in it. Upon the undertaker's stating in the Sol's bar in the course of the day that he has received orders to construct "a six-footer," the general solicitude is much relieved, and it is considered that Mr. Smallweed's conduct does him great honour. Out of the court, and a long way out of it, there is considerable excitement too, for men of science and philosophy come to look, and carriages set down doctors at the corner who arrive with the same intent, and there is more learned talk about inflammable gases and phosphuretted hydrogen than the court has ever imagined. Some of these authorities (of course the wisest) hold with indignation that the deceased had no business to die in the alleged manner; and being reminded by other authorities of a certain inquiry into the evidence for such deaths reprinted in the sixth volume of the Philosophical Transactions; and also of a book not quite unknown on English medical jurisprudence; and likewise of the Italian case of the Countess Cornelia Baudi as set forth in detail by one Bianchini, prebendary of Verona, who wrote a scholarly work or so and was occasionally heard of in his time as having gleams of reason in him; and also of the testimony of Messrs. Fodere and Mere, two pestilent Frenchmen who WOULD investigate the subject; and further, of the corroborative testimony of Monsieur Le Cat, a rather celebrated French surgeon once upon a time, who had the unpoliteness to live in a house where such a case occurred and even to write an account of it--still they regard the late Mr. Krook's obstinacy in going out of the world by any such by-way as wholly unjustifiable and personally offensive. The less the court understands of all this, the more the court likes it, and the greater enjoyment it has in the stock in trade of the Sol's Arms. Then there comes the artist of a picture newspaper, with a foreground and figures ready drawn for anything from a wreck on the Cornish coast to a review in Hyde Park or a meeting in Manchester, and in Mrs. Perkins' own room, memorable evermore, he then and there throws in upon the block Mr. Krook's house, as large as life; in fact, considerably larger, making a very temple of it. Similarly, being permitted to look in at the door of the fatal chamber, he depicts that apartment as three-quarters of a mile long by fifty yards high, at which the court is particularly charmed. All this time the two gentlemen before mentioned pop in and out of every house and assist at the philosophical disputations--go everywhere and listen to everybody--and yet are always diving into the Sol's parlour and writing with the ravenous little pens on the tissue-paper. At last come the coroner and his inquiry, like as before, except that the coroner cherishes this case as being out of the common way and tells the gentlemen of the jury, in his private capacity, that "that would seem to be an unlucky house next door, gentlemen, a destined house; but so we sometimes find it, and these are mysteries we can't account for!" After which the six-footer comes into action and is much admired. In all these proceedings Mr. Guppy has so slight a part, except when he gives his evidence, that he is moved on like a private individual and can only haunt the secret house on the outside, where he has the mortification of seeing Mr. Smallweed padlocking the door, and of bitterly knowing himself to be shut out. But before these proceedings draw to a close, that is to say, on the night next after the catastrophe, Mr. Guppy has a thing to say that must be said to Lady Dedlock. For which reason, with a sinking heart and with that hang-dog sense of guilt upon him which dread and watching enfolded in the Sol's Arms have produced, the young man of the name of Guppy presents himself at the town mansion at about seven o'clock in the evening and requests to see her ladyship. Mercury replies that she is going out to dinner; don't he see the carriage at the door? Yes, he does see the carriage at the door; but he wants to see my Lady too. Mercury is disposed, as he will presently declare to a fellow-gentleman in waiting, "to pitch into the young man"; but his instructions are positive. Therefore he sulkily supposes that the young man must come up into the library. There he leaves the young man in a large room, not over-light, while he makes report of him. Mr. Guppy looks into the shade in all directions, discovering everywhere a certain charred and whitened little heap of coal or wood. Presently he hears a rustling. Is it--? No, it's no ghost, but fair flesh and blood, most brilliantly dressed. "I have to beg your ladyship's pardon," Mr. Guppy stammers, very downcast. "This is an inconvenient time--" "I told you, you could come at any time." She takes a chair, looking straight at him as on the last occasion. "Thank your ladyship. Your ladyship is very affable." "You can sit down." There is not much affability in her tone. "I don't know, your ladyship, that it's worth while my sitting down and detaining you, for I--I have not got the letters that I mentioned when I had the honour of waiting on your ladyship." "Have you come merely to say so?" "Merely to say so, your ladyship." Mr. Guppy besides being depressed, disappointed, and uneasy, is put at a further disadvantage by the splendour and beauty of her appearance. She knows its influence perfectly, has studied it too well to miss a grain of its effect on any one. As she looks at him so steadily and coldly, he not only feels conscious that he has no guide in the least perception of what is really the complexion of her thoughts, but also that he is being every moment, as it were, removed further and further from her. She will not speak, it is plain. So he must. "In short, your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy like a meanly penitent thief, "the person I was to have had the letters of, has come to a sudden end, and--" He stops. Lady Dedlock calmly finishes the sentence. "And the letters are destroyed with the person?" Mr. Guppy would say no if he could--as he is unable to hide. "I believe so, your ladyship." If he could see the least sparkle of relief in her face now? No, he could see no such thing, even if that brave outside did not utterly put him away, and he were not looking beyond it and about it. He falters an awkward excuse or two for his failure. "Is this all you have to say?" inquires Lady Dedlock, having heard him out--or as nearly out as he can stumble. Mr. Guppy thinks that's all. "You had better be sure that you wish to say nothing more to me, this being the last time you will have the opportunity." Mr. Guppy is quite sure. And indeed he has no such wish at present, by any means. "That is enough. I will dispense with excuses. Good evening to you!" And she rings for Mercury to show the young man of the name of Guppy out. But in that house, in that same moment, there happens to be an old man of the name of Tulkinghorn. And that old man, coming with his quiet footstep to the library, has his hand at that moment on the handle of the door--comes in--and comes face to face with the young man as he is leaving the room. One glance between the old man and the lady, and for an instant the blind that is always down flies up. Suspicion, eager and sharp, looks out. Another instant, close again. "I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. I beg your pardon a thousand times. It is so very unusual to find you here at this hour. I supposed the room was empty. I beg your pardon!" "Stay!" She negligently calls him back. "Remain here, I beg. I am going out to dinner. I have nothing more to say to this young man!" The disconcerted young man bows, as he goes out, and cringingly hopes that Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields is well. "Aye, aye?" says the lawyer, looking at him from under his bent brows, though he has no need to look again--not he. "From Kenge and Carboy's, surely?" "Kenge and Carboy's, Mr. Tulkinghorn. Name of Guppy, sir." "To be sure. Why, thank you, Mr. Guppy, I am very well!" "Happy to hear it, sir. You can't be too well, sir, for the credit of the profession." "Thank you, Mr. Guppy!" Mr. Guppy sneaks away. Mr. Tulkinghorn, such a foil in his old-fashioned rusty black to Lady Dedlock's brightness, hands her down the staircase to her carriage. He returns rubbing his chin, and rubs it a good deal in the course of the evening.

Those two gentlemen who attended the last coroner's inquest at the Sol's Arms reappear in the area with surprising swiftness, make enquiries through the court, and write notes. They note down how the neighbourhood of Chancery Lane was yesterday, at about midnight, thrown into a state of the most intense excitement by an alarming and horrible discovery. They write (in as many words as possible) how a very peculiar smell was observed by the inhabitants of the court, as confirmed by two married females known as Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins, who regarded the foul effluvia as being emitted from the premises of Krook. All this and a great deal more the two gentlemen write down on the spot. The whole court is sleepless that night, and talk of nothing but the ill-fated house. Miss Flite has been bravely rescued from her chamber, as if it were in flames, and given a bed at the Sol's Arms. The Sol stays open to offer the court comfort. It has not sold so much brandy-and-water since the inquest. Mr. Weevle and his friend Mr. Guppy are at the bar in the Sol and are worth anything to the Sol if they will only stay there. "This is not a time," says the landlord, "to haggle about money; give your orders, gentlemen, and you're welcome to whatever you put a name to." Thus entreated, the two gentlemen (Mr. Weevle especially) put names to so many things that in course of time they find it difficult to put a name to anything distinctly, though they still relate to all new-comers some version of the night they have had. Meanwhile, one or other of the policemen flits about the door. Thus night pursues its leaden course, until at length with slow-retreating steps it departs. And now the neighbourhood, waking up and beginning to hear of what has happened, comes streaming in, half dressed, to ask questions. "Good gracious, gentlemen!" says Mr. Snagsby, coming up to the policemen. "What's this I hear! Why, I was at this door last night betwixt ten and eleven o'clock talking to the young man who lodges here." "Indeed?" returns a policeman. "You will find him next door. Now move on." Mr. Snagsby repairs to the Sol's Arms and finds Mr. Weevle languishing over tea and toast with an expression of exhausted excitement. "And Mr. Guppy likewise!" says Mr. Snagsby. "Dear, dear! What a fate there seems in all this! And my lit-" Mr. Snagsby's power of speech deserts him in the formation of the words "my little woman." For that injured female walks into the Sol's Arms with her eyes fixed upon him like an accusing spirit, striking him dumb. "My dear," says Mr. Snagsby when his tongue is loosened, "will you take anything?" "No," says Mrs. Snagsby. "My love, you know these two gentlemen?" "Yes!" says Mrs. Snagsby, still fixing him with her eye. The devoted Mr. Snagsby cannot bear this treatment. He leads Mrs. Snagsby aside. "My little woman, why do you look at me in that way?" "I can't help my looks," says Mrs. Snagsby, "and if I could I wouldn't." Mr. Snagsby, with a meek cough, rejoins, "Really, my dear? This is a dreadful mystery, my love!" still fearfully disconcerted by Mrs. Snagsby's eye. "It is," returns Mrs. Snagsby, shaking her head, "a dreadful mystery." "My little woman," urges Mr. Snagsby piteously, "don't for goodness' sake speak to me with that bitter expression! Good Lord, you don't suppose that I would go spontaneously combusting any person, my dear?" "I can't say," returns Mrs. Snagsby. On a hasty review of his unfortunate position, Mr. Snagsby "can't say" either. He has had something - he doesn't know what - to do in connection with this mystery, and it is possible he may be implicated, without knowing it. He faintly wipes his forehead with his handkerchief. "My life," says he, "why have you come into a wine-vaults before breakfast?" "Why do you come here?" inquires Mrs. Snagsby. "My dear, merely to know the facts of the fatal accident. I should then have related them to you, my love." "I dare say you would! You relate everything to me, Mr. Snagsby." "Every - my lit-" "I should be glad," says Mrs. Snagsby, contemplating his confusion with a severe and sinister smile, "if you would come home with me; I think you may be safer there, Mr. Snagsby, than anywhere else." "My love, I am ready to go." Mr. Snagsby accompanies his wife from the Sol's Arms. Before night his doubt whether he may not be responsible for some inconceivable part in the catastrophe is almost resolved into certainty by Mrs. Snagsby's fixed gaze. He even has wandering ideas of delivering himself up to justice. Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, having taken their breakfast, step into Lincoln's Inn to walk about the square. "There can be no better time than the present, Tony," says Mr. Guppy, "for a word or two between us upon a point on which we must agree." "Now, I tell you what, William G.!" returns the other, eyeing his companion with a bloodshot gaze. "If it's a point of conspiracy, you needn't take the trouble to mention it. I have had enough of that, and I ain't going to have any more. We shall have you catching fire next or blowing up with a bang. I should have thought it would have been a lesson to you never to conspire any more as long as you lived." Mr. Guppy says, "Who's conspiring?" "Why, you are!" "No, I am not." "Yes, you are!" "Who says so?" "I say so!" "Oh, indeed?" "Yes, indeed!" retorts Mr Jobling. And both being now in a heated state, they walk on silently for a while to cool down again. "Tony," says Mr. Guppy, "hear your friend out instead of flying at him. Your temper is hasty and you are not considerate. Although you possess all that is calculated to charm the eye-" "Oh! Blow the eye!" cries Mr. Weevle. "Say what you have got to say!" "Tony, I say this quite apart from any kind of conspiring. You know it is professionally arranged beforehand in all legal inquiries what facts the witnesses are to prove. Is it not desirable that we should know what facts we are to prove on the inquiry into the death of this unfortunate old gentleman?" "What facts?" "What we knew of his habits, when you saw him last, what his condition was then, the discovery that we made, and how we made it." "Yes," says Mr. Weevle. "Those are the facts." "We made the discovery because he had, in his eccentric way, an appointment with you at twelve o'clock at night, when you were to explain some writing to him as you had often done before on account of his not being able to read. I, spending the evening with you, was called down - and so forth. It's not necessary to go beyond these facts, I suppose you'll agree?" "I suppose not." "And this is not a conspiracy, perhaps?" says the injured Guppy. "No," returns his friend; "if it's nothing worse than this, I withdraw the observation." "Now, Tony," says Mr. Guppy, taking his arm and walking him slowly on, "I should like to know, in a friendly way, whether you have yet thought over the advantages of your continuing to live at that place?" "What do you mean?" says Tony, stopping. "Why, I wouldn't pass another night there for anything." "Not for the possibility of your never being disturbed in possession of the effects of a lone old man who seemed to have no relation in the world, and the certainty of your being able to find out what he really had got stored up there?" says Mr. Guppy, biting his thumb with vexation. "Certainly not," cries Mr. Weevle indignantly. "Go and live there yourself!" While they are talking, a hackney-coach drives into the square, on the box of which sits a very tall hat. Inside the coach - which stops almost at the feet of the two friends - are the venerable Mr. Smallweed and Mrs. Smallweed, accompanied by their granddaughter Judy. As the tall hat (surmounting Mr. Smallweed the younger) alights, Mr. Smallweed the elder pokes his head out of the window and bawls to Mr. Guppy, "How de do, sir!" "What do Chick and his family want here, I wonder!" says Mr. Guppy. "My dear sir," cries Grandfather Smallweed, "would you do me a favour? Would you and your friend carry me into the public-house, while Bart and his sister bring their grandmother along?" Mr. Guppy and his friend do so. It is well that the Sol is not far off, for Mr. Weevle has an apoplectic appearance before half the distance is accomplished. But at last the benevolent old gentleman is deposited in the parlour of the Sol's Arms. "Oh, Lord!" gasps Mr. Smallweed, breathless, in an arm-chair. "Oh, dear me! Oh, my bones and back! Sit down, you dancing, prancing, shambling poll-parrot! Sit down!" This is addressed to Mrs. Smallweed, who has a tendency to amble about whenever she finds herself on her feet. Her grandchildren hold her down in the Windsor chair, her lord in the meanwhile calling her "a pig-headed jackdaw." "My dear sir," Grandfather Smallweed proceeds, addressing Mr. Guppy, "there has been a calamity here. Have you heard of it?" "Heard of it, sir! Why, we discovered it." "Then, my dear friends," whines Grandfather Smallweed, putting out both his hands, "I owe you a thousand thanks for discovering the ashes of Mrs. Smallweed's brother." "Eh?" says Mr. Guppy. "Mrs. Smallweed's brother, my dear friend - her only relation. He was not on speaking terms with us. He was eccentric. Unless he has left a will (which is not at all likely) I shall take out letters of administration. I have come down to look after the property; it must be sealed up and protected." "I think, Small," says the disconsolate Mr. Guppy, "you might have mentioned that the old man was your uncle." "I wasn't proud of him," says young Smallweed. "Besides, it was nothing to you, you know," says Judy. "He never saw me in his life," observed Small. "No, he never communicated with us," the old gentleman strikes in, "but I have come to look after the property. We shall make good our title. It is in the hands of my solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn; and grass don't grow under his feet, I can tell ye. Krook was Mrs. Smallweed's only brother; he had no other relation. I am speaking of your brother, you brimstone black-beetle, that was seventy-six years of age." Mrs. Smallweed instantly begins to pipe up, "Seventy-six pound seven and sevenpence! Seventy-six thousand bags of money!" "Will somebody give me a pot to throw at her?" exclaims her exasperated husband, looking about him and finding no missile within his reach. "You hag, you cat, you dog, you brimstone barker!" Here Mr. Smallweed actually throws Judy at her grandmother in default of anything else, pushing her at the old lady with such force as he can muster and then dropping into his chair in a heap. "Shake me up, somebody, if you'll be so good," says the voice from within the faintly struggling bundle into which he has collapsed. "I have come to look after the property. The gallows for anybody who shall touch the property!" As his dutiful grandchildren shake him up, he repeats like an echo, "The property! Property!" Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy look at each other. But there is nothing to be done. Mr. Tulkinghorn's clerk comes down from the chambers to mention to the police that Mr. Tulkinghorn agrees it is all correct about the next of kin, and that the papers and effects will be formally taken possession of. Mr. Smallweed is permitted to visit the house and is taken upstairs into Miss Flite's deserted room, where he looks like a hideous bird of prey newly added to her aviary. This news is good for the Sol and keeps the court upon its mettle. Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins think it hard on Mr. Weevle if there really is no will. There is one point upon which the court is particularly anxious, namely, that the fiction of a full-sized coffin should be preserved, though there is so little to put in it. Upon the undertaker's stating in the Sol's bar that he has received orders to construct "a six-footer," there is much relief. Out of the court, there is considerable excitement too; for men of science and doctors come to look, and there is more learned talk about inflammable gases and phosphuretted hydrogen than the court has ever imagined. Some of these authorities hold with indignation that the deceased had no business to die in the alleged manner; and are reminded by other authorities of a certain inquiry into the evidence for such deaths reprinted in the sixth volume of the Philosophical Transactions. Still they regard the late Mr. Krook's going out of the world in such a way as wholly unjustifiable and personally offensive. The less the court understands of all this, the more the court likes it. There comes a newspaper artist, with a foreground and figures ready drawn for anything from a wreck on the Cornish coast to a meeting in Manchester, and in Mrs. Perkins' own room, he then and there adds in Mr. Krook's house, as large as life; in fact, considerably larger, making it look three-quarters of a mile long by fifty yards high, at which the court is particularly charmed. At last come the coroner and his inquiry, as before, except that the coroner tells the gentlemen of the jury that "it would seem to be an unlucky house next door, gentlemen, a fateful house; but these are mysteries we can't account for!" After which the six-footer comes into action and is much admired. Meanwhile Mr. Guppy has the mortification of seeing Mr. Smallweed padlocking the door, and of bitterly knowing himself to be shut out. But before these proceedings draw to a close, Mr. Guppy has something that he must say to Lady Dedlock. So, with a sinking heart, Mr. Guppy presents himself at the town mansion at about seven o'clock in the evening and requests to see her ladyship. The footman sulkily supposes that the young man must come up into the library. Mr. Guppy looks into the shade in all directions, discovering everywhere a certain charred little heap of coal or wood. Presently he hears a rustling. Is it-? No, it's no ghost, but fair flesh and blood. "I beg your ladyship's pardon," Mr. Guppy stammers, very downcast. "This is an inconvenient time-" "I told you, you could come at any time." She takes a chair, looking straight at him. "Thank your ladyship. I - I have not got the letters that I mentioned previously." "Have you come merely to say so?" "Yes, your ladyship." Mr. Guppy, besides being depressed and uneasy, is put at a further disadvantage by the splendour and beauty of her appearance. She knows its influence perfectly, has studied it too well to miss a grain of its effect on any one. As she looks at him so steadily and coldly, he feels that he has no idea of her thoughts, and also that he is being every moment, as it were, removed further and further from her. She will not speak. So he must. "The person I was to have had the letters from, has come to a sudden end, and-" He stops. Lady Dedlock calmly finishes the sentence. "And the letters are destroyed with the person?" "I believe so, your ladyship." He does not see the least sparkle of relief in her face. "Is this all you have to say? You had better be sure that you wish to say nothing more to me, this being the last time you will have the opportunity." Mr. Guppy is quite sure. "That is enough. Good evening to you!" And she rings for the footman to show Mr. Guppy out. But in that house, in that same moment, there happens to be an old man of the name of Tulkinghorn. And he comes into the library just as the young man is leaving the room. One glance between the old man and the lady, and for an instant suspicion, eager and sharp, looks out. "I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. I supposed the room was empty." "Stay!" She negligently calls him back. "Stay here, I beg. I am going out to dinner. I have nothing more to say to this young man!" The disconcerted young man bows, as he goes out, and cringingly hopes that Mr. Tulkinghorn is well. "Aye, aye?" says the lawyer, looking at him from under his bent brows. "From Kenge and Carboy's, surely?" "Yes, Mr. Tulkinghorn. Name of Guppy, sir." "To be sure. Why, thank you, Mr. Guppy, I am very well!" "Happy to hear it, sir." Mr. Guppy sneaks away. Mr. Tulkinghorn hands Lady Dedlock down the staircase to her carriage. He returns rubbing his chin, and rubs it a good deal in the course of the evening.

Bleak House

Chapter 33: Interlopers

It is night in Lincoln's Inn--perplexed and troublous valley of the shadow of the law, where suitors generally find but little day--and fat candles are snuffed out in offices, and clerks have rattled down the crazy wooden stairs and dispersed. The bell that rings at nine o'clock has ceased its doleful clangour about nothing; the gates are shut; and the night-porter, a solemn warder with a mighty power of sleep, keeps guard in his lodge. From tiers of staircase windows clogged lamps like the eyes of Equity, bleared Argus with a fathomless pocket for every eye and an eye upon it, dimly blink at the stars. In dirty upper casements, here and there, hazy little patches of candlelight reveal where some wise draughtsman and conveyancer yet toils for the entanglement of real estate in meshes of sheep-skin, in the average ratio of about a dozen of sheep to an acre of land. Over which bee-like industry these benefactors of their species linger yet, though office-hours be past, that they may give, for every day, some good account at last. In the neighbouring court, where the Lord Chancellor of the rag and bottle shop dwells, there is a general tendency towards beer and supper. Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins, whose respective sons, engaged with a circle of acquaintance in the game of hide and seek, have been lying in ambush about the by-ways of Chancery Lane for some hours and scouring the plain of the same thoroughfare to the confusion of passengers--Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins have but now exchanged congratulations on the children being abed, and they still linger on a door-step over a few parting words. Mr. Krook and his lodger, and the fact of Mr. Krook's being "continually in liquor," and the testamentary prospects of the young man are, as usual, the staple of their conversation. But they have something to say, likewise, of the Harmonic Meeting at the Sol's Arms, where the sound of the piano through the partly opened windows jingles out into the court, and where Little Swills, after keeping the lovers of harmony in a roar like a very Yorick, may now be heard taking the gruff line in a concerted piece and sentimentally adjuring his friends and patrons to "Listen, listen, listen, tew the wa-ter fall!" Mrs. Perkins and Mrs. Piper compare opinions on the subject of the young lady of professional celebrity who assists at the Harmonic Meetings and who has a space to herself in the manuscript announcement in the window, Mrs. Perkins possessing information that she has been married a year and a half, though announced as Miss M. Melvilleson, the noted siren, and that her baby is clandestinely conveyed to the Sol's Arms every night to receive its natural nourishment during the entertainments. "Sooner than which, myself," says Mrs. Perkins, "I would get my living by selling lucifers." Mrs. Piper, as in duty bound, is of the same opinion, holding that a private station is better than public applause, and thanking heaven for her own (and, by implication, Mrs. Perkins') respectability. By this time the pot-boy of the Sol's Arms appearing with her supper-pint well frothed, Mrs. Piper accepts that tankard and retires indoors, first giving a fair good night to Mrs. Perkins, who has had her own pint in her hand ever since it was fetched from the same hostelry by young Perkins before he was sent to bed. Now there is a sound of putting up shop-shutters in the court and a smell as of the smoking of pipes; and shooting stars are seen in upper windows, further indicating retirement to rest. Now, too, the policeman begins to push at doors; to try fastenings; to be suspicious of bundles; and to administer his beat, on the hypothesis that every one is either robbing or being robbed. It is a close night, though the damp cold is searching too, and there is a laggard mist a little way up in the air. It is a fine steaming night to turn the slaughter-houses, the unwholesome trades, the sewerage, bad water, and burial-grounds to account, and give the registrar of deaths some extra business. It may be something in the air--there is plenty in it--or it may be something in himself that is in fault; but Mr. Weevle, otherwise Jobling, is very ill at ease. He comes and goes between his own room and the open street door twenty times an hour. He has been doing so ever since it fell dark. Since the Chancellor shut up his shop, which he did very early to-night, Mr. Weevle has been down and up, and down and up (with a cheap tight velvet skull-cap on his head, making his whiskers look out of all proportion), oftener than before. It is no phenomenon that Mr. Snagsby should be ill at ease too, for he always is so, more or less, under the oppressive influence of the secret that is upon him. Impelled by the mystery of which he is a partaker and yet in which he is not a sharer, Mr. Snagsby haunts what seems to be its fountain-head--the rag and bottle shop in the court. It has an irresistible attraction for him. Even now, coming round by the Sol's Arms with the intention of passing down the court, and out at the Chancery Lane end, and so terminating his unpremeditated after-supper stroll of ten minutes' long from his own door and back again, Mr. Snagsby approaches. "What, Mr. Weevle?" says the stationer, stopping to speak. "Are YOU there?" "Aye!" says Weevle, "Here I am, Mr. Snagsby." "Airing yourself, as I am doing, before you go to bed?" the stationer inquires. "Why, there's not much air to be got here; and what there is, is not very freshening," Weevle answers, glancing up and down the court. "Very true, sir. Don't you observe," says Mr. Snagsby, pausing to sniff and taste the air a little, "don't you observe, Mr. Weevle, that you're--not to put too fine a point upon it--that you're rather greasy here, sir?" "Why, I have noticed myself that there is a queer kind of flavour in the place to-night," Mr. Weevle rejoins. "I suppose it's chops at the Sol's Arms." "Chops, do you think? Oh! Chops, eh?" Mr. Snagsby sniffs and tastes again. "Well, sir, I suppose it is. But I should say their cook at the Sol wanted a little looking after. She has been burning 'em, sir! And I don't think"--Mr. Snagsby sniffs and tastes again and then spits and wipes his mouth--"I don't think--not to put too fine a point upon it--that they were quite fresh when they were shown the gridiron." "That's very likely. It's a tainting sort of weather." "It IS a tainting sort of weather," says Mr. Snagsby, "and I find it sinking to the spirits." "By George! I find it gives me the horrors," returns Mr. Weevle. "Then, you see, you live in a lonesome way, and in a lonesome room, with a black circumstance hanging over it," says Mr. Snagsby, looking in past the other's shoulder along the dark passage and then falling back a step to look up at the house. "I couldn't live in that room alone, as you do, sir. I should get so fidgety and worried of an evening, sometimes, that I should be driven to come to the door and stand here sooner than sit there. But then it's very true that you didn't see, in your room, what I saw there. That makes a difference." "I know quite enough about it," returns Tony. "It's not agreeable, is it?" pursues Mr. Snagsby, coughing his cough of mild persuasion behind his hand. "Mr. Krook ought to consider it in the rent. I hope he does, I am sure." "I hope he does," says Tony. "But I doubt it." "You find the rent too high, do you, sir?" returns the stationer. "Rents ARE high about here. I don't know how it is exactly, but the law seems to put things up in price. Not," adds Mr. Snagsby with his apologetic cough, "that I mean to say a word against the profession I get my living by." Mr. Weevle again glances up and down the court and then looks at the stationer. Mr. Snagsby, blankly catching his eye, looks upward for a star or so and coughs a cough expressive of not exactly seeing his way out of this conversation. "It's a curious fact, sir," he observes, slowly rubbing his hands, "that he should have been--" "Who's he?" interrupts Mr. Weevle. "The deceased, you know," says Mr. Snagsby, twitching his head and right eyebrow towards the staircase and tapping his acquaintance on the button. "Ah, to be sure!" returns the other as if he were not over-fond of the subject. "I thought we had done with him." "I was only going to say it's a curious fact, sir, that he should have come and lived here, and been one of my writers, and then that you should come and live here, and be one of my writers too. Which there is nothing derogatory, but far from it in the appellation," says Mr. Snagsby, breaking off with a mistrust that he may have unpolitely asserted a kind of proprietorship in Mr. Weevle, "because I have known writers that have gone into brewers' houses and done really very respectable indeed. Eminently respectable, sir," adds Mr. Snagsby with a misgiving that he has not improved the matter. "It's a curious coincidence, as you say," answers Weevle, once more glancing up and down the court. "Seems a fate in it, don't there?" suggests the stationer. "There does." "Just so," observes the stationer with his confirmatory cough. "Quite a fate in it. Quite a fate. Well, Mr. Weevle, I am afraid I must bid you good night"--Mr. Snagsby speaks as if it made him desolate to go, though he has been casting about for any means of escape ever since he stopped to speak--"my little woman will be looking for me else. Good night, sir!" If Mr. Snagsby hastens home to save his little woman the trouble of looking for him, he might set his mind at rest on that score. His little woman has had her eye upon him round the Sol's Arms all this time and now glides after him with a pocket handkerchief wrapped over her head, honouring Mr. Weevle and his doorway with a searching glance as she goes past. "You'll know me again, ma'am, at all events," says Mr. Weevle to himself; "and I can't compliment you on your appearance, whoever you are, with your head tied up in a bundle. Is this fellow NEVER coming!" This fellow approaches as he speaks. Mr. Weevle softly holds up his finger, and draws him into the passage, and closes the street door. Then they go upstairs, Mr. Weevle heavily, and Mr. Guppy (for it is he) very lightly indeed. When they are shut into the back room, they speak low. "I thought you had gone to Jericho at least instead of coming here," says Tony. "Why, I said about ten." "You said about ten," Tony repeats. "Yes, so you did say about ten. But according to my count, it's ten times ten--it's a hundred o'clock. I never had such a night in my life!" "What has been the matter?" "That's it!" says Tony. "Nothing has been the matter. But here have I been stewing and fuming in this jolly old crib till I have had the horrors falling on me as thick as hail. THERE'S a blessed-looking candle!" says Tony, pointing to the heavily burning taper on his table with a great cabbage head and a long winding-sheet. "That's easily improved," Mr. Guppy observes as he takes the snuffers in hand. "IS it?" returns his friend. "Not so easily as you think. It has been smouldering like that ever since it was lighted." "Why, what's the matter with you, Tony?" inquires Mr. Guppy, looking at him, snuffers in hand, as he sits down with his elbow on the table. "William Guppy," replies the other, "I am in the downs. It's this unbearably dull, suicidal room--and old Boguey downstairs, I suppose." Mr. Weevle moodily pushes the snuffers-tray from him with his elbow, leans his head on his hand, puts his feet on the fender, and looks at the fire. Mr. Guppy, observing him, slightly tosses his head and sits down on the other side of the table in an easy attitude. "Wasn't that Snagsby talking to you, Tony?" "Yes, and he--yes, it was Snagsby," said Mr. Weevle, altering the construction of his sentence. "On business?" "No. No business. He was only sauntering by and stopped to prose." "I thought it was Snagsby," says Mr. Guppy, "and thought it as well that he shouldn't see me, so I waited till he was gone." "There we go again, William G.!" cried Tony, looking up for an instant. "So mysterious and secret! By George, if we were going to commit a murder, we couldn't have more mystery about it!" Mr. Guppy affects to smile, and with the view of changing the conversation, looks with an admiration, real or pretended, round the room at the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty, terminating his survey with the portrait of Lady Dedlock over the mantelshelf, in which she is represented on a terrace, with a pedestal upon the terrace, and a vase upon the pedestal, and her shawl upon the vase, and a prodigious piece of fur upon the shawl, and her arm on the prodigious piece of fur, and a bracelet on her arm. "That's very like Lady Dedlock," says Mr. Guppy. "It's a speaking likeness." "I wish it was," growls Tony, without changing his position. "I should have some fashionable conversation, here, then." Finding by this time that his friend is not to be wheedled into a more sociable humour, Mr. Guppy puts about upon the ill-used tack and remonstrates with him. "Tony," says he, "I can make allowances for lowness of spirits, for no man knows what it is when it does come upon a man better than I do, and no man perhaps has a better right to know it than a man who has an unrequited image imprinted on his 'eart. But there are bounds to these things when an unoffending party is in question, and I will acknowledge to you, Tony, that I don't think your manner on the present occasion is hospitable or quite gentlemanly." "This is strong language, William Guppy," returns Mr. Weevle. "Sir, it may be," retorts Mr. William Guppy, "but I feel strongly when I use it." Mr. Weevle admits that he has been wrong and begs Mr. William Guppy to think no more about it. Mr. William Guppy, however, having got the advantage, cannot quite release it without a little more injured remonstrance. "No! Dash it, Tony," says that gentleman, "you really ought to be careful how you wound the feelings of a man who has an unrequited image imprinted on his 'eart and who is NOT altogether happy in those chords which vibrate to the tenderest emotions. You, Tony, possess in yourself all that is calculated to charm the eye and allure the taste. It is not--happily for you, perhaps, and I may wish that I could say the same--it is not your character to hover around one flower. The ole garden is open to you, and your airy pinions carry you through it. Still, Tony, far be it from me, I am sure, to wound even your feelings without a cause!" Tony again entreats that the subject may be no longer pursued, saying emphatically, "William Guppy, drop it!" Mr. Guppy acquiesces, with the reply, "I never should have taken it up, Tony, of my own accord." "And now," says Tony, stirring the fire, "touching this same bundle of letters. Isn't it an extraordinary thing of Krook to have appointed twelve o'clock to-night to hand 'em over to me?" "Very. What did he do it for?" "What does he do anything for? HE don't know. Said to-day was his birthday and he'd hand 'em over to-night at twelve o'clock. He'll have drunk himself blind by that time. He has been at it all day." "He hasn't forgotten the appointment, I hope?" "Forgotten? Trust him for that. He never forgets anything. I saw him to-night, about eight--helped him to shut up his shop--and he had got the letters then in his hairy cap. He pulled it off and showed 'em me. When the shop was closed, he took them out of his cap, hung his cap on the chair-back, and stood turning them over before the fire. I heard him a little while afterwards, through the floor here, humming like the wind, the only song he knows--about Bibo, and old Charon, and Bibo being drunk when he died, or something or other. He has been as quiet since as an old rat asleep in his hole." "And you are to go down at twelve?" "At twelve. And as I tell you, when you came it seemed to me a hundred." "Tony," says Mr. Guppy after considering a little with his legs crossed, "he can't read yet, can he?" "Read! He'll never read. He can make all the letters separately, and he knows most of them separately when he sees them; he has got on that much, under me; but he can't put them together. He's too old to acquire the knack of it now--and too drunk." "Tony," says Mr. Guppy, uncrossing and recrossing his legs, "how do you suppose he spelt out that name of Hawdon?" "He never spelt it out. You know what a curious power of eye he has and how he has been used to employ himself in copying things by eye alone. He imitated it, evidently from the direction of a letter, and asked me what it meant." "Tony," says Mr. Guppy, uncrossing and recrossing his legs again, "should you say that the original was a man's writing or a woman's?" "A woman's. Fifty to one a lady's--slopes a good deal, and the end of the letter 'n,' long and hasty." Mr. Guppy has been biting his thumb-nail during this dialogue, generally changing the thumb when he has changed the cross leg. As he is going to do so again, he happens to look at his coat-sleeve. It takes his attention. He stares at it, aghast. "Why, Tony, what on earth is going on in this house to-night? Is there a chimney on fire?" "Chimney on fire!" "Ah!" returns Mr. Guppy. "See how the soot's falling. See here, on my arm! See again, on the table here! Confound the stuff, it won't blow off--smears like black fat!" They look at one another, and Tony goes listening to the door, and a little way upstairs, and a little way downstairs. Comes back and says it's all right and all quiet, and quotes the remark he lately made to Mr. Snagsby about their cooking chops at the Sol's Arms. "And it was then," resumes Mr. Guppy, still glancing with remarkable aversion at the coat-sleeve, as they pursue their conversation before the fire, leaning on opposite sides of the table, with their heads very near together, "that he told you of his having taken the bundle of letters from his lodger's portmanteau?" "That was the time, sir," answers Tony, faintly adjusting his whiskers. "Whereupon I wrote a line to my dear boy, the Honourable William Guppy, informing him of the appointment for to-night and advising him not to call before, Boguey being a slyboots." The light vivacious tone of fashionable life which is usually assumed by Mr. Weevle sits so ill upon him to-night that he abandons that and his whiskers together, and after looking over his shoulder, appears to yield himself up a prey to the horrors again. "You are to bring the letters to your room to read and compare, and to get yourself into a position to tell him all about them. That's the arrangement, isn't it, Tony?" asks Mr. Guppy, anxiously biting his thumb-nail. "You can't speak too low. Yes. That's what he and I agreed." "I tell you what, Tony--" "You can't speak too low," says Tony once more. Mr. Guppy nods his sagacious head, advances it yet closer, and drops into a whisper. "I tell you what. The first thing to be done is to make another packet like the real one so that if he should ask to see the real one while it's in my possession, you can show him the dummy." "And suppose he detects the dummy as soon as he sees it, which with his biting screw of an eye is about five hundred times more likely than not," suggests Tony. "Then we'll face it out. They don't belong to him, and they never did. You found that, and you placed them in my hands--a legal friend of yours--for security. If he forces us to it, they'll be producible, won't they?" "Ye-es," is Mr. Weevle's reluctant admission. "Why, Tony," remonstrates his friend, "how you look! You don't doubt William Guppy? You don't suspect any harm?" "I don't suspect anything more than I know, William," returns the other gravely. "And what do you know?" urges Mr. Guppy, raising his voice a little; but on his friend's once more warning him, "I tell you, you can't speak too low," he repeats his question without any sound at all, forming with his lips only the words, "What do you know?" "I know three things. First, I know that here we are whispering in secrecy, a pair of conspirators." "Well!" says Mr. Guppy. "And we had better be that than a pair of noodles, which we should be if we were doing anything else, for it's the only way of doing what we want to do. Secondly?" "Secondly, it's not made out to me how it's likely to be profitable, after all." Mr. Guppy casts up his eyes at the portrait of Lady Dedlock over the mantelshelf and replies, "Tony, you are asked to leave that to the honour of your friend. Besides its being calculated to serve that friend in those chords of the human mind which--which need not be called into agonizing vibration on the present occasion--your friend is no fool. What's that?" "It's eleven o'clock striking by the bell of Saint Paul's. Listen and you'll hear all the bells in the city jangling." Both sit silent, listening to the metal voices, near and distant, resounding from towers of various heights, in tones more various than their situations. When these at length cease, all seems more mysterious and quiet than before. One disagreeable result of whispering is that it seems to evoke an atmosphere of silence, haunted by the ghosts of sound--strange cracks and tickings, the rustling of garments that have no substance in them, and the tread of dreadful feet that would leave no mark on the sea-sand or the winter snow. So sensitive the two friends happen to be that the air is full of these phantoms, and the two look over their shoulders by one consent to see that the door is shut. "Yes, Tony?" says Mr. Guppy, drawing nearer to the fire and biting his unsteady thumb-nail. "You were going to say, thirdly?" "It's far from a pleasant thing to be plotting about a dead man in the room where he died, especially when you happen to live in it." "But we are plotting nothing against him, Tony." "May be not, still I don't like it. Live here by yourself and see how YOU like it." "As to dead men, Tony," proceeds Mr. Guppy, evading this proposal, "there have been dead men in most rooms." "I know there have, but in most rooms you let them alone, and--and they let you alone," Tony answers. The two look at each other again. Mr. Guppy makes a hurried remark to the effect that they may be doing the deceased a service, that he hopes so. There is an oppressive blank until Mr. Weevle, by stirring the fire suddenly, makes Mr. Guppy start as if his heart had been stirred instead. "Fah! Here's more of this hateful soot hanging about," says he. "Let us open the window a bit and get a mouthful of air. It's too close." He raises the sash, and they both rest on the window-sill, half in and half out of the room. The neighbouring houses are too near to admit of their seeing any sky without craning their necks and looking up, but lights in frowsy windows here and there, and the rolling of distant carriages, and the new expression that there is of the stir of men, they find to be comfortable. Mr. Guppy, noiselessly tapping on the window-sill, resumes his whispering in quite a light-comedy tone. "By the by, Tony, don't forget old Smallweed," meaning the younger of that name. "I have not let him into this, you know. That grandfather of his is too keen by half. It runs in the family." "I remember," says Tony. "I am up to all that." "And as to Krook," resumes Mr. Guppy. "Now, do you suppose he really has got hold of any other papers of importance, as he has boasted to you, since you have been such allies?" Tony shakes his head. "I don't know. Can't Imagine. If we get through this business without rousing his suspicions, I shall be better informed, no doubt. How can I know without seeing them, when he don't know himself? He is always spelling out words from them, and chalking them over the table and the shop-wall, and asking what this is and what that is; but his whole stock from beginning to end may easily be the waste-paper he bought it as, for anything I can say. It's a monomania with him to think he is possessed of documents. He has been going to learn to read them this last quarter of a century, I should judge, from what he tells me." "How did he first come by that idea, though? That's the question," Mr. Guppy suggests with one eye shut, after a little forensic meditation. "He may have found papers in something he bought, where papers were not supposed to be, and may have got it into his shrewd head from the manner and place of their concealment that they are worth something." "Or he may have been taken in, in some pretended bargain. Or he may have been muddled altogether by long staring at whatever he HAS got, and by drink, and by hanging about the Lord Chancellor's Court and hearing of documents for ever," returns Mr. Weevle. Mr. Guppy sitting on the window-sill, nodding his head and balancing all these possibilities in his mind, continues thoughtfully to tap it, and clasp it, and measure it with his hand, until he hastily draws his hand away. "What, in the devil's name," he says, "is this! Look at my fingers!" A thick, yellow liquor defiles them, which is offensive to the touch and sight and more offensive to the smell. A stagnant, sickening oil with some natural repulsion in it that makes them both shudder. "What have you been doing here? What have you been pouring out of window?" "I pouring out of window! Nothing, I swear! Never, since I have been here!" cries the lodger. And yet look here--and look here! When he brings the candle here, from the corner of the window-sill, it slowly drips and creeps away down the bricks, here lies in a little thick nauseous pool. "This is a horrible house," says Mr. Guppy, shutting down the window. "Give me some water or I shall cut my hand off." He so washes, and rubs, and scrubs, and smells, and washes, that he has not long restored himself with a glass of brandy and stood silently before the fire when Saint Paul's bell strikes twelve and all those other bells strike twelve from their towers of various heights in the dark air, and in their many tones. When all is quiet again, the lodger says, "It's the appointed time at last. Shall I go?" Mr. Guppy nods and gives him a "lucky touch" on the back, but not with the washed hand, though it is his right hand. He goes downstairs, and Mr. Guppy tries to compose himself before the fire for waiting a long time. But in no more than a minute or two the stairs creak and Tony comes swiftly back. "Have you got them?" "Got them! No. The old man's not there." He has been so horribly frightened in the short interval that his terror seizes the other, who makes a rush at him and asks loudly, "What's the matter?" "I couldn't make him hear, and I softly opened the door and looked in. And the burning smell is there--and the soot is there, and the oil is there--and he is not there!" Tony ends this with a groan. Mr. Guppy takes the light. They go down, more dead than alive, and holding one another, push open the door of the back shop. The cat has retreated close to it and stands snarling, not at them, at something on the ground before the fire. There is a very little fire left in the grate, but there is a smouldering, suffocating vapour in the room and a dark, greasy coating on the walls and ceiling. The chairs and table, and the bottle so rarely absent from the table, all stand as usual. On one chair-back hang the old man's hairy cap and coat. "Look!" whispers the lodger, pointing his friend's attention to these objects with a trembling finger. "I told you so. When I saw him last, he took his cap off, took out the little bundle of old letters, hung his cap on the back of the chair--his coat was there already, for he had pulled that off before he went to put the shutters up--and I left him turning the letters over in his hand, standing just where that crumbled black thing is upon the floor." Is he hanging somewhere? They look up. No. "See!" whispers Tony. "At the foot of the same chair there lies a dirty bit of thin red cord that they tie up pens with. That went round the letters. He undid it slowly, leering and laughing at me, before he began to turn them over, and threw it there. I saw it fall." "What's the matter with the cat?" says Mr. Guppy. "Look at her!" "Mad, I think. And no wonder in this evil place." They advance slowly, looking at all these things. The cat remains where they found her, still snarling at the something on the ground before the fire and between the two chairs. What is it? Hold up the light. Here is a small burnt patch of flooring; here is the tinder from a little bundle of burnt paper, but not so light as usual, seeming to be steeped in something; and here is--is it the cinder of a small charred and broken log of wood sprinkled with white ashes, or is it coal? Oh, horror, he IS here! And this from which we run away, striking out the light and overturning one another into the street, is all that represents him. Help, help, help! Come into this house for heaven's sake! Plenty will come in, but none can help. The Lord Chancellor of that court, true to his title in his last act, has died the death of all lord chancellors in all courts and of all authorities in all places under all names soever, where false pretences are made, and where injustice is done. Call the death by any name your Highness will, attribute it to whom you will, or say it might have been prevented how you will, it is the same death eternally--inborn, inbred, engendered in the corrupted humours of the vicious body itself, and that only--spontaneous combustion, and none other of all the deaths that can be died.

It is night in Lincoln's Inn - perplexed and troublous valley of the shadow of the law - and fat candles are snuffed out in offices, and clerks have dispersed. The gates are shut; and the night-porter keeps guard in his lodge. From tiers of staircase windows clogged lamps dimly blink at the stars. In dirty upper casements, here and there, hazy little patches of candlelight reveal where some draughtsman and conveyancer still toils. In the neighbouring court, where the Lord Chancellor of the rag and bottle shop dwells, it is time for beer and supper. Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins linger on a door-step over a few parting words. Mr. Krook and his lodger, and the fact of Mr. Krook's being "continually in liquor," are, as usual, the staple of their conversation. Now they retire; there is a sound of putting up of shutters in the court. Now the policeman begins to push at doors; to be suspicious of bundles; and to administer his beat, on the hypothesis that everyone is either robbing or being robbed. It is a close night, with a laggard mist in the air; a fine steaming night to give the registrar of deaths some extra business. It may be something in the air, or it may be something in himself that is in fault; but Mr. Weevle, otherwise Jobling, is very ill at ease. He comes and goes between his own room and the open street door twenty times an hour. He has been doing so ever since the Chancellor shut up his shop, which he did very early tonight. It is no surprise that Mr. Snagsby should be ill at ease too, for he always is so, under the oppressive influence of his secret. Impelled by the mystery, Mr. Snagsby haunts what seems to be its fountain-head - the rag and bottle shop. It has an irresistible attraction for him. Coming there now, he sees Mr. Weevle. "What, Mr. Weevle?" says the stationer. "Are you there?" "Aye!" says Weevle. "Airing yourself, as I am, before you go to bed?" "Why, the air here is not very freshening," Weevle answers. "Very true, sir. Don't you observe," says Mr. Snagsby, pausing to sniff the air, "not to put too fine a point upon it - that you're rather greasy here, sir?" "Why, I have noticed there is a queer flavour in the place tonight," Mr. Weevle rejoins. "I suppose it's chops at the Sol's Arms." "Chops, eh?" Mr. Snagsby sniffs again. "Well, I suppose it is. But I should say their cook has been burning 'em, sir! And I don't think" - Mr. Snagsby wipes his mouth - "I don't think that they were quite fresh." "That's very likely. It's a tainting sort of weather." "It is," says Mr. Snagsby. "I find it sinking to the spirits." "By George! It gives me the horrors," returns Mr. Weevle. "You live in a lonesome room, with a black past," says Mr. Snagsby. "I couldn't live in that room, sir. But then you didn't see, in your room, what I saw. That makes a difference." "I know quite enough about it," returns Tony. "It's not agreeable, is it?" pursues Mr. Snagsby. "Mr. Krook ought to consider it in the rent." "I doubt if he does." "You find the rent high, do you, sir?" returns the stationer. "It's a curious fact, sir, that the deceased should have come and lived here, and been one of my writers, and then that you should come and live here, and be one of my writers too." "It's a curious coincidence, as you say," answers Weevle, glancing up and down the court. "Well, Mr. Weevle, I must bid you good night. My little woman will be looking for me else." If Mr. Snagsby hastens home to save his little woman the trouble of looking for him, he might set his mind at rest on that score. His little woman has had her eye upon him all this time and now glides after him with a handkerchief wrapped over her head, giving Mr. Weevle a searching glance as she goes past. "You'll know me again, ma'am, at all events," says Mr. Weevle to himself; "though I can't compliment you on your appearance, with your head tied up in a bundle. Is this fellow never coming!" This fellow approaches as he speaks. It is Mr. Guppy. They go quietly upstairs, and when they are shut into the back room, they speak low. "I never had such a night in my life!" says Tony. "What has been the matter?" "That's it!" says Tony. "Nothing has been the matter. But I have had the horrors falling on me as thick as hail. That there blessed candle!" He points to the taper on his table. "It has been smouldering like that ever since it was lighted." "Why, what's the matter with you, Tony?" inquires Mr. Guppy. "William Guppy," replies the other, "I am in the downs. It's this unbearably dull, suicidal room - and old Bogey downstairs, I suppose." Mr. Weevle leans his head on his hand. Mr. Guppy sits down in an easy attitude. "Wasn't that Snagsby talking to you, Tony?" "Yes. He was only sauntering by." "I thought it as well that he shouldn't see me, so I waited till he was gone." "There we go again, William G.!" cried Tony. "So mysterious and secret! By George, if we were going to commit a murder, we couldn't have more mystery about it!" Mr. Guppy pretends to smile, and in order to change the conversation, looks round the room at the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty, ending his survey with the portrait of Lady Dedlock over the mantelshelf. She is shown on a terrace, with a pedestal, a vase, and a prodigious piece of fur. "That's very like Lady Dedlock," says Mr. Guppy. "It's a speaking likeness." "I wish it was," growls Tony. "I should have some fashionable conversation, then." Mr. Guppy remonstrates. "Tony," says he, "I can make allowances for lowness of spirits, for no man knows them better than I do, with an unrequited image imprinted on my 'eart. But I don't think your manner is hospitable or quite gentlemanly." Mr. Weevle admits that he has been wrong and begs Mr. Guppy to think no more about it. Mr. Guppy, however, having got the advantage, cannot quite release it without a little more injured remonstrance. "No! Dash it, Tony," says that gentleman, "you really ought to be careful how you wound the feelings of a man who has an unrequited image imprinted on his 'eart. It is not your character to hover around one flower. The whole garden is open to you." "William Guppy, drop it!" entreats Tony. "And now, about this bundle of letters. Isn't it extraordinary of Krook to have appointed midnight to hand 'em over to me?" "Very. What did he do it for?" "Said today was his birthday and he'd hand 'em over tonight at twelve o'clock. He'll have drunk himself blind by that time. He has been at it all day." "He hasn't forgotten the appointment, I hope?" "He never forgets anything. I helped him to shut up his shop today and he had got the letters then in his hairy cap. He pulled it off and showed me. I heard him a little while afterwards, through the floor here, humming like the wind. He has been as quiet since as an old rat asleep in his hole." "Tony," says Mr. Guppy after considering a little, "he can't read yet, can he?" "Read! He'll never read. He knows most of the letters separately, but he can't put them together. He's too old to acquire the knack now - and too drunk." "Tony," says Mr. Guppy, "how do you suppose he spelt out that name of Hawdon?" "He never spelt it out. He just copied it, from the address of a letter, and asked me what it meant." "Tony, should you say that the original was a man's writing or a woman's?" "Fifty to one a lady's." Mr. Guppy has been biting his thumb-nail during this dialogue. As he does so, he happens to look at his coat-sleeve. He stares at it, aghast. "Why, Tony, what on earth is going on in this house tonight? Is there a chimney on fire? See how the soot's falling. See here, on my arm! And on the table here! Confound the stuff, it won't blow off - smears like black fat!" They look at one another, and Tony goes listening to the door, and a little way downstairs. Comes back and says it's all quiet. "And it was then," resumes Mr. Guppy, still glancing with remarkable aversion at the coat-sleeve, "that he told you he had taken the bundle of letters from his lodger's portmanteau?" "That's it," answers Tony, adjusting his whiskers. "Whereupon I wrote to you, my dear boy." Despite assuming a light vivacious tone, Mr. Weevle looks over his shoulder, a prey to the horrors again. "You are to bring the letters to your room to read and compare, so that you can tell him all about them. That's the arrangement, isn't it, Tony?" asks Mr. Guppy, anxiously biting his thumb-nail. "Yes." "I tell you what, Tony. The first thing to be done is to make another packet like the real one, so that if he should ask to see it while it's in my possession, you can show him the dummy." "And suppose he detects the dummy, which is about five hundred times more likely than not," suggests Tony. "Then we'll face it out. They don't belong to him, and they never did. You placed them in my hands - a legal friend of yours - for security. If he forces us to it, they'll be producible, won't they?" "Ye-es," is Mr. Weevle's reluctant admission. "Why, Tony," remonstrates his friend, "you don't doubt me, do you? You don't suspect any harm?" "I don't suspect anything more than I know, William," returns the other gravely. "And what do you know?" urges Mr. Guppy, raising his voice a little. "I know three things. First, I know that here we are whispering in secrecy. Secondly, I don't see how it's likely to be profitable, after all." Mr. Guppy casts up his eyes at the portrait of Lady Dedlock and replies, "Tony, leave that to your friend, who is no fool. What's that?" "It's eleven o'clock striking by the bell of Saint Paul's. Listen and you'll hear all the bells in the city jangling." Both sit silent, listening to the metal voices, near and distant. When these at length cease, all seems more mysterious and quiet than before. The silence seems haunted by the ghosts of sound - strange cracks and tickings, the rustling of garments that have no substance and the tread of dreadful feet that would leave no mark. The air is full of these phantoms, and the two friends look over their shoulders to see that the door is shut. "Yes, Tony?" says Mr. Guppy, drawing nearer to the fire. "You were going to say, thirdly?" "It's not pleasant to be plotting about a dead man in the room where he died, especially when you happen to live in it." "But we are plotting nothing against him, Tony." "Maybe not. Still, I don't like it." Mr. Guppy remarks that they may be doing the deceased a service. There is an oppressive blank until Mr. Weevle stirs the fire suddenly, making Mr. Guppy start. "Fah! Here's more of this hateful soot hanging about," says he. "Let us open the window and get a mouthful of air." He raises the sash, and they both rest on the window-sill, half in and half out of the room. The neighbouring houses are too near to allow them to see any sky without craning their necks, but lights in windows here and there, and the rolling of distant carriages, are comforting. Mr. Guppy resumes his whispering. "By the by, Tony, I have not let Smallweed into this, you know. That grandfather of his is too keen by half. As to Krook - do you suppose he really has got hold of any other papers of importance, as he has boasted to you?" Tony shakes his head. "I don't know. He don't know himself. He is always spelling out words from his papers, and chalking them on the wall, and asking what they are; but his whole stock may easily be the waste-paper he bought it as. It's a monomania with him to think he has important documents." "How did he first come by that idea, though?" Mr. Guppy meditates. "He may have found papers hidden in something he bought, and may have got it into his shrewd head that they are worth something." "Or he may have been taken in. Or he may have been muddled by drink, and by hanging about the Lord Chancellor's Court and hearing of documents for ever," returns Mr. Weevle. Mr. Guppy sitting on the window-sill, taps it thoughtfully, until he hastily draws his hand away. "What in the devil's name is this! Look at my fingers!" A thick, yellow liquor defiles them, offensive to the touch and sight and more offensive to the smell. A stagnant, sickening oil that makes them both shudder. "What have you been pouring out of the window?" "Nothing, I swear!" cries Weevle. And yet look here! It slowly drips and creeps away down the bricks, and lies in a little thick nauseous pool. "This is a horrible house," says Mr. Guppy, shutting down the window. "Give me some water or I shall cut my hand off." He washes and rubs and scrubs, and has just restored himself with a glass of brandy when Saint Paul's bell strikes twelve and all those other bells strike twelve from their towers. The lodger says, "It's the appointed time. Shall I go?" Mr. Guppy nods. He goes downstairs, and Mr. Guppy tries to compose himself before the fire. But in a minute or two the stairs creak and Tony comes swiftly back. "Have you got them?" "No. The old man's not there." Weevle is so horribly frightened that his terror seizes the other, who asks loudly, "What's the matter?" "I couldn't make him hear, and I opened the door and looked in. And the burning smell is there - and the soot is there, and the oil is there - and he is not there!" Tony ends this with a groan. Mr. Guppy takes the light. They go down, and holding one another, push open the door of the back shop. The cat stands snarling, not at them, but at something on the ground. There is a very little fire left in the grate, but there is a smouldering, suffocating vapour in the room and a dark, greasy coating on the walls and ceiling. The chairs and table, and the bottle on the table, all stand as usual. On a chair-back hang the old man's hairy cap and coat. "Look!" whispers the lodger, pointing at these objects with a trembling finger. "I told you so. When I saw him last, he took his cap off, took out the bundle of old letters, hung his cap on the back of the chair with his coat - and I left him turning the letters over in his hand, standing just where that crumbled black thing is upon the floor." Is he hanging somewhere? They look up. No. "See!" whispers Tony. "At the foot of the chair there lies a dirty bit of thin red cord. That went round the letters. He undid it slowly, leering at me, before he threw it there. I saw it fall." "What's the matter with the cat?" says Mr. Guppy. "Look at her!" "Mad, I think. And no wonder, in this evil place." They advance slowly, looking at all these things. The cat is still snarling at the something on the ground before the fire. What is it? Hold up the light. Here is a small burnt patch of flooring; here is the tinder from a little bundle of burnt paper; and here is - is it the cinder of a charred and broken log of wood, or is it coal? Oh, horror, he IS here! And this from which we run away, striking out the light and overturning one another into the street, is all that is left of him. Help, help, help! Come and help for heaven's sake! Plenty will come in, but none can help. The Lord Chancellor of that court has died the death of all lord chancellors in all courts where false pretences are made, and where injustice is done. Call the death by any name you will, it is the same death eternally - inborn, engendered in the corrupted humours of the vicious body itself, and that only - it is spontaneous combustion.

Bleak House

Chapter 32: The Appointed Time

Wintry morning, looking with dull eyes and sallow face upon the neighbourhood of Leicester Square, finds its inhabitants unwilling to get out of bed. Many of them are not early risers at the brightest of times, being birds of night who roost when the sun is high and are wide awake and keen for prey when the stars shine out. Behind dingy blind and curtain, in upper story and garret, skulking more or less under false names, false hair, false titles, false jewellery, and false histories, a colony of brigands lie in their first sleep. Gentlemen of the green-baize road who could discourse from personal experience of foreign galleys and home treadmills; spies of strong governments that eternally quake with weakness and miserable fear, broken traitors, cowards, bullies, gamesters, shufflers, swindlers, and false witnesses; some not unmarked by the branding-iron beneath their dirty braid; all with more cruelty in them than was in Nero, and more crime than is in Newgate. For howsoever bad the devil can be in fustian or smock-frock (and he can be very bad in both), he is a more designing, callous, and intolerable devil when he sticks a pin in his shirt-front, calls himself a gentleman, backs a card or colour, plays a game or so of billiards, and knows a little about bills and promissory notes than in any other form he wears. And in such form Mr. Bucket shall find him, when he will, still pervading the tributary channels of Leicester Square. But the wintry morning wants him not and wakes him not. It wakes Mr. George of the shooting gallery and his familiar. They arise, roll up and stow away their mattresses. Mr. George, having shaved himself before a looking-glass of minute proportions, then marches out, bare-headed and bare-chested, to the pump in the little yard and anon comes back shining with yellow soap, friction, drifting rain, and exceedingly cold water. As he rubs himself upon a large jack-towel, blowing like a military sort of diver just come up, his hair curling tighter and tighter on his sunburnt temples the more he rubs it so that it looks as if it never could be loosened by any less coercive instrument than an iron rake or a curry-comb--as he rubs, and puffs, and polishes, and blows, turning his head from side to side the more conveniently to excoriate his throat, and standing with his body well bent forward to keep the wet from his martial legs, Phil, on his knees lighting a fire, looks round as if it were enough washing for him to see all that done, and sufficient renovation for one day to take in the superfluous health his master throws off. When Mr. George is dry, he goes to work to brush his head with two hard brushes at once, to that unmerciful degree that Phil, shouldering his way round the gallery in the act of sweeping it, winks with sympathy. This chafing over, the ornamental part of Mr. George's toilet is soon performed. He fills his pipe, lights it, and marches up and down smoking, as his custom is, while Phil, raising a powerful odour of hot rolls and coffee, prepares breakfast. He smokes gravely and marches in slow time. Perhaps this morning's pipe is devoted to the memory of Gridley in his grave. "And so, Phil," says George of the shooting gallery after several turns in silence, "you were dreaming of the country last night?" Phil, by the by, said as much in a tone of surprise as he scrambled out of bed. "Yes, guv'ner." "What was it like?" "I hardly know what it was like, guv'ner," said Phil, considering. "How did you know it was the country?" "On account of the grass, I think. And the swans upon it," says Phil after further consideration. "What were the swans doing on the grass?" "They was a-eating of it, I expect," says Phil. The master resumes his march, and the man resumes his preparation of breakfast. It is not necessarily a lengthened preparation, being limited to the setting forth of very simple breakfast requisites for two and the broiling of a rasher of bacon at the fire in the rusty grate; but as Phil has to sidle round a considerable part of the gallery for every object he wants, and never brings two objects at once, it takes time under the circumstances. At length the breakfast is ready. Phil announcing it, Mr. George knocks the ashes out of his pipe on the hob, stands his pipe itself in the chimney corner, and sits down to the meal. When he has helped himself, Phil follows suit, sitting at the extreme end of the little oblong table and taking his plate on his knees. Either in humility, or to hide his blackened hands, or because it is his natural manner of eating. "The country," says Mr. George, plying his knife and fork; "why, I suppose you never clapped your eyes on the country, Phil?" "I see the marshes once," says Phil, contentedly eating his breakfast. "What marshes?" "THE marshes, commander," returns Phil. "Where are they?" "I don't know where they are," says Phil; "but I see 'em, guv'ner. They was flat. And miste." Governor and commander are interchangeable terms with Phil, expressive of the same respect and deference and applicable to nobody but Mr. George. "I was born in the country, Phil." "Was you indeed, commander?" "Yes. And bred there." Phil elevates his one eyebrow, and after respectfully staring at his master to express interest, swallows a great gulp of coffee, still staring at him. "There's not a bird's note that I don't know," says Mr. George. "Not many an English leaf or berry that I couldn't name. Not many a tree that I couldn't climb yet if I was put to it. I was a real country boy, once. My good mother lived in the country." "She must have been a fine old lady, guv'ner," Phil observes. "Aye! And not so old either, five and thirty years ago," says Mr. George. "But I'll wager that at ninety she would be near as upright as me, and near as broad across the shoulders." "Did she die at ninety, guv'ner?" inquires Phil. "No. Bosh! Let her rest in peace, God bless her!" says the trooper. "What set me on about country boys, and runaways, and good-for-nothings? You, to be sure! So you never clapped your eyes upon the country--marshes and dreams excepted. Eh?" Phil shakes his head. "Do you want to see it?" "N-no, I don't know as I do, particular," says Phil. "The town's enough for you, eh?" "Why, you see, commander," says Phil, "I ain't acquainted with anythink else, and I doubt if I ain't a-getting too old to take to novelties." "How old ARE you, Phil?" asks the trooper, pausing as he conveys his smoking saucer to his lips. "I'm something with a eight in it," says Phil. "It can't be eighty. Nor yet eighteen. It's betwixt 'em, somewheres." Mr. George, slowly putting down his saucer without tasting its contents, is laughingly beginning, "Why, what the deuce, Phil--" when he stops, seeing that Phil is counting on his dirty fingers. "I was just eight," says Phil, "agreeable to the parish calculation, when I went with the tinker. I was sent on a errand, and I see him a-sittin under a old buildin with a fire all to himself wery comfortable, and he says, 'Would you like to come along a me, my man?' I says 'Yes,' and him and me and the fire goes home to Clerkenwell together. That was April Fool Day. I was able to count up to ten; and when April Fool Day come round again, I says to myself, 'Now, old chap, you're one and a eight in it.' April Fool Day after that, I says, 'Now, old chap, you're two and a eight in it.' In course of time, I come to ten and a eight in it; two tens and a eight in it. When it got so high, it got the upper hand of me, but this is how I always know there's a eight in it." "Ah!" says Mr. George, resuming his breakfast. "And where's the tinker?" "Drink put him in the hospital, guv'ner, and the hospital put him--in a glass-case, I HAVE heerd," Phil replies mysteriously. "By that means you got promotion? Took the business, Phil?" "Yes, commander, I took the business. Such as it was. It wasn't much of a beat--round Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, Clerkenwell, Smiffeld, and there--poor neighbourhood, where they uses up the kettles till they're past mending. Most of the tramping tinkers used to come and lodge at our place; that was the best part of my master's earnings. But they didn't come to me. I warn't like him. He could sing 'em a good song. I couldn't! He could play 'em a tune on any sort of pot you please, so as it was iron or block tin. I never could do nothing with a pot but mend it or bile it--never had a note of music in me. Besides, I was too ill-looking, and their wives complained of me." "They were mighty particular. You would pass muster in a crowd, Phil!" says the trooper with a pleasant smile. "No, guv'ner," returns Phil, shaking his head. "No, I shouldn't. I was passable enough when I went with the tinker, though nothing to boast of then; but what with blowing the fire with my mouth when I was young, and spileing my complexion, and singeing my hair off, and swallering the smoke, and what with being nat'rally unfort'nate in the way of running against hot metal and marking myself by sich means, and what with having turn-ups with the tinker as I got older, almost whenever he was too far gone in drink--which was almost always--my beauty was queer, wery queer, even at that time. As to since, what with a dozen years in a dark forge where the men was given to larking, and what with being scorched in a accident at a gas-works, and what with being blowed out of winder case-filling at the firework business, I am ugly enough to be made a show on!" Resigning himself to which condition with a perfectly satisfied manner, Phil begs the favour of another cup of coffee. While drinking it, he says, "It was after the case-filling blow-up when I first see you, commander. You remember?" "I remember, Phil. You were walking along in the sun." "Crawling, guv'ner, again a wall--" "True, Phil--shouldering your way on--" "In a night-cap!" exclaims Phil, excited. "In a night-cap--" "And hobbling with a couple of sticks!" cries Phil, still more excited. "With a couple of sticks. When--" "When you stops, you know," cries Phil, putting down his cup and saucer and hastily removing his plate from his knees, "and says to me, 'What, comrade! You have been in the wars!' I didn't say much to you, commander, then, for I was took by surprise that a person so strong and healthy and bold as you was should stop to speak to such a limping bag of bones as I was. But you says to me, says you, delivering it out of your chest as hearty as possible, so that it was like a glass of something hot, 'What accident have you met with? You have been badly hurt. What's amiss, old boy? Cheer up, and tell us about it!' Cheer up! I was cheered already! I says as much to you, you says more to me, I says more to you, you says more to me, and here I am, commander! Here I am, commander!" cries Phil, who has started from his chair and unaccountably begun to sidle away. "If a mark's wanted, or if it will improve the business, let the customers take aim at me. They can't spoil MY beauty. I'M all right. Come on! If they want a man to box at, let 'em box at me. Let 'em knock me well about the head. I don't mind. If they want a light-weight to be throwed for practice, Cornwall, Devonshire, or Lancashire, let 'em throw me. They won't hurt ME. I have been throwed, all sorts of styles, all my life!" With this unexpected speech, energetically delivered and accompanied by action illustrative of the various exercises referred to, Phil Squod shoulders his way round three sides of the gallery, and abruptly tacking off at his commander, makes a butt at him with his head, intended to express devotion to his service. He then begins to clear away the breakfast. Mr. George, after laughing cheerfully and clapping him on the shoulder, assists in these arrangements and helps to get the gallery into business order. That done, he takes a turn at the dumb-bells, and afterwards weighing himself and opining that he is getting "too fleshy," engages with great gravity in solitary broadsword practice. Meanwhile Phil has fallen to work at his usual table, where he screws and unscrews, and cleans, and files, and whistles into small apertures, and blackens himself more and more, and seems to do and undo everything that can be done and undone about a gun. Master and man are at length disturbed by footsteps in the passage, where they make an unusual sound, denoting the arrival of unusual company. These steps, advancing nearer and nearer to the gallery, bring into it a group at first sight scarcely reconcilable with any day in the year but the fifth of November. It consists of a limp and ugly figure carried in a chair by two bearers and attended by a lean female with a face like a pinched mask, who might be expected immediately to recite the popular verses commemorative of the time when they did contrive to blow Old England up alive but for her keeping her lips tightly and defiantly closed as the chair is put down. At which point the figure in it gasping, "O Lord! Oh, dear me! I am shaken!" adds, "How de do, my dear friend, how de do?" Mr. George then descries, in the procession, the venerable Mr. Smallweed out for an airing, attended by his granddaughter Judy as body-guard. "Mr. George, my dear friend," says Grandfather Smallweed, removing his right arm from the neck of one of his bearers, whom he has nearly throttled coming along, "how de do? You're surprised to see me, my dear friend." "I should hardly have been more surprised to have seen your friend in the city," returns Mr. George. "I am very seldom out," pants Mr. Smallweed. "I haven't been out for many months. It's inconvenient--and it comes expensive. But I longed so much to see you, my dear Mr. George. How de do, sir?" "I am well enough," says Mr. George. "I hope you are the same." "You can't be too well, my dear friend." Mr. Smallweed takes him by both hands. "I have brought my granddaughter Judy. I couldn't keep her away. She longed so much to see you." "Hum! She bears it calmly!" mutters Mr. George. "So we got a hackney-cab, and put a chair in it, and just round the corner they lifted me out of the cab and into the chair, and carried me here that I might see my dear friend in his own establishment! This," says Grandfather Smallweed, alluding to the bearer, who has been in danger of strangulation and who withdraws adjusting his windpipe, "is the driver of the cab. He has nothing extra. It is by agreement included in his fare. This person," the other bearer, "we engaged in the street outside for a pint of beer. Which is twopence. Judy, give the person twopence. I was not sure you had a workman of your own here, my dear friend, or we needn't have employed this person." Grandfather Smallweed refers to Phil with a glance of considerable terror and a half-subdued "O Lord! Oh, dear me!" Nor in his apprehension, on the surface of things, without some reason, for Phil, who has never beheld the apparition in the black-velvet cap before, has stopped short with a gun in his hand with much of the air of a dead shot intent on picking Mr. Smallweed off as an ugly old bird of the crow species. "Judy, my child," says Grandfather Smallweed, "give the person his twopence. It's a great deal for what he has done." The person, who is one of those extraordinary specimens of human fungus that spring up spontaneously in the western streets of London, ready dressed in an old red jacket, with a "mission" for holding horses and calling coaches, received his twopence with anything but transport, tosses the money into the air, catches it over-handed, and retires. "My dear Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed, "would you be so kind as help to carry me to the fire? I am accustomed to a fire, and I am an old man, and I soon chill. Oh, dear me!" His closing exclamation is jerked out of the venerable gentleman by the suddenness with which Mr. Squod, like a genie, catches him up, chair and all, and deposits him on the hearth-stone. "O Lord!" says Mr. Smallweed, panting. "Oh, dear me! Oh, my stars! My dear friend, your workman is very strong--and very prompt. O Lord, he is very prompt! Judy, draw me back a little. I'm being scorched in the legs," which indeed is testified to the noses of all present by the smell of his worsted stockings. The gentle Judy, having backed her grandfather a little way from the fire, and having shaken him up as usual, and having released his overshadowed eye from its black-velvet extinguisher, Mr. Smallweed again says, "Oh, dear me! O Lord!" and looking about and meeting Mr. George's glance, again stretches out both hands. "My dear friend! So happy in this meeting! And this is your establishment? It's a delightful place. It's a picture! You never find that anything goes off here accidentally, do you, my dear friend?" adds Grandfather Smallweed, very ill at ease. "No, no. No fear of that." "And your workman. He--Oh, dear me!--he never lets anything off without meaning it, does he, my dear friend?" "He has never hurt anybody but himself," says Mr. George, smiling. "But he might, you know. He seems to have hurt himself a good deal, and he might hurt somebody else," the old gentleman returns. "He mightn't mean it--or he even might. Mr. George, will you order him to leave his infernal fire-arms alone and go away?" Obedient to a nod from the trooper, Phil retires, empty-handed, to the other end of the gallery. Mr. Smallweed, reassured, falls to rubbing his legs. "And you're doing well, Mr. George?" he says to the trooper, squarely standing faced about towards him with his broadsword in his hand. "You are prospering, please the Powers?" Mr. George answers with a cool nod, adding, "Go on. You have not come to say that, I know." "You are so sprightly, Mr. George," returns the venerable grandfather. "You are such good company." "Ha ha! Go on!" says Mr. George. "My dear friend! But that sword looks awful gleaming and sharp. It might cut somebody, by accident. It makes me shiver, Mr. George. Curse him!" says the excellent old gentleman apart to Judy as the trooper takes a step or two away to lay it aside. "He owes me money, and might think of paying off old scores in this murdering place. I wish your brimstone grandmother was here, and he'd shave her head off." Mr. George, returning, folds his arms, and looking down at the old man, sliding every moment lower and lower in his chair, says quietly, "Now for it!" "Ho!" cries Mr. Smallweed, rubbing his hands with an artful chuckle. "Yes. Now for it. Now for what, my dear friend?" "For a pipe," says Mr. George, who with great composure sets his chair in the chimney-corner, takes his pipe from the grate, fills it and lights it, and falls to smoking peacefully. This tends to the discomfiture of Mr. Smallweed, who finds it so difficult to resume his object, whatever it may be, that he becomes exasperated and secretly claws the air with an impotent vindictiveness expressive of an intense desire to tear and rend the visage of Mr. George. As the excellent old gentleman's nails are long and leaden, and his hands lean and veinous, and his eyes green and watery; and, over and above this, as he continues, while he claws, to slide down in his chair and to collapse into a shapeless bundle, he becomes such a ghastly spectacle, even in the accustomed eyes of Judy, that that young virgin pounces at him with something more than the ardour of affection and so shakes him up and pats and pokes him in divers parts of his body, but particularly in that part which the science of self-defence would call his wind, that in his grievous distress he utters enforced sounds like a paviour's rammer. When Judy has by these means set him up again in his chair, with a white face and a frosty nose (but still clawing), she stretches out her weazen forefinger and gives Mr. George one poke in the back. The trooper raising his head, she makes another poke at her esteemed grandfather, and having thus brought them together, stares rigidly at the fire. "Aye, aye! Ho, ho! U--u--u--ugh!" chatters Grandfather Smallweed, swallowing his rage. "My dear friend!" (still clawing). "I tell you what," says Mr. George. "If you want to converse with me, you must speak out. I am one of the roughs, and I can't go about and about. I haven't the art to do it. I am not clever enough. It don't suit me. When you go winding round and round me," says the trooper, putting his pipe between his lips again, "damme, if I don't feel as if I was being smothered!" And he inflates his broad chest to its utmost extent as if to assure himself that he is not smothered yet. "If you have come to give me a friendly call," continues Mr. George, "I am obliged to you; how are you? If you have come to see whether there's any property on the premises, look about you; you are welcome. If you want to out with something, out with it!" The blooming Judy, without removing her gaze from the fire, gives her grandfather one ghostly poke. "You see! It's her opinion too. And why the devil that young woman won't sit down like a Christian," says Mr. George with his eyes musingly fixed on Judy, "I can't comprehend." "She keeps at my side to attend to me, sir," says Grandfather Smallweed. "I am an old man, my dear Mr. George, and I need some attention. I can carry my years; I am not a brimstone poll-parrot" (snarling and looking unconsciously for the cushion), "but I need attention, my dear friend." "Well!" returns the trooper, wheeling his chair to face the old man. "Now then?" "My friend in the city, Mr. George, has done a little business with a pupil of yours." "Has he?" says Mr. George. "I am sorry to hear it." "Yes, sir." Grandfather Smallweed rubs his legs. "He is a fine young soldier now, Mr. George, by the name of Carstone. Friends came forward and paid it all up, honourable." "Did they?" returns Mr. George. "Do you think your friend in the city would like a piece of advice?" "I think he would, my dear friend. From you." "I advise him, then, to do no more business in that quarter. There's no more to be got by it. The young gentleman, to my knowledge, is brought to a dead halt." "No, no, my dear friend. No, no, Mr. George. No, no, no, sir," remonstrates Grandfather Smallweed, cunningly rubbing his spare legs. "Not quite a dead halt, I think. He has good friends, and he is good for his pay, and he is good for the selling price of his commission, and he is good for his chance in a lawsuit, and he is good for his chance in a wife, and--oh, do you know, Mr. George, I think my friend would consider the young gentleman good for something yet?" says Grandfather Smallweed, turning up his velvet cap and scratching his ear like a monkey. Mr. George, who has put aside his pipe and sits with an arm on his chair-back, beats a tattoo on the ground with his right foot as if he were not particularly pleased with the turn the conversation has taken. "But to pass from one subject to another," resumes Mr. Smallweed. "'To promote the conversation,' as a joker might say. To pass, Mr. George, from the ensign to the captain." "What are you up to, now?" asks Mr. George, pausing with a frown in stroking the recollection of his moustache. "What captain?" "Our captain. The captain we know of. Captain Hawdon." "Oh! That's it, is it?" says Mr. George with a low whistle as he sees both grandfather and granddaughter looking hard at him. "You are there! Well? What about it? Come, I won't be smothered any more. Speak!" "My dear friend," returns the old man, "I was applied--Judy, shake me up a little!--I was applied to yesterday about the captain, and my opinion still is that the captain is not dead." "Bosh!" observes Mr. George. "What was your remark, my dear friend?" inquires the old man with his hand to his ear. "Bosh!" "Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Mr. George, of my opinion you can judge for yourself according to the questions asked of me and the reasons given for asking 'em. Now, what do you think the lawyer making the inquiries wants?" "A job," says Mr. George. "Nothing of the kind!" "Can't be a lawyer, then," says Mr. George, folding his arms with an air of confirmed resolution. "My dear friend, he is a lawyer, and a famous one. He wants to see some fragment in Captain Hawdon's writing. He don't want to keep it. He only wants to see it and compare it with a writing in his possession." "Well?" "Well, Mr. George. Happening to remember the advertisement concerning Captain Hawdon and any information that could be given respecting him, he looked it up and came to me--just as you did, my dear friend. WILL you shake hands? So glad you came that day! I should have missed forming such a friendship if you hadn't come!" "Well, Mr. Smallweed?" says Mr. George again after going through the ceremony with some stiffness. "I had no such thing. I have nothing but his signature. Plague pestilence and famine, battle murder and sudden death upon him," says the old man, making a curse out of one of his few remembrances of a prayer and squeezing up his velvet cap between his angry hands, "I have half a million of his signatures, I think! But you," breathlessly recovering his mildness of speech as Judy re-adjusts the cap on his skittle-ball of a head, "you, my dear Mr. George, are likely to have some letter or paper that would suit the purpose. Anything would suit the purpose, written in the hand." "Some writing in that hand," says the trooper, pondering; "may be, I have." "My dearest friend!" "May be, I have not." "Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed, crest-fallen. "But if I had bushels of it, I would not show as much as would make a cartridge without knowing why." "Sir, I have told you why. My dear Mr. George, I have told you why." "Not enough," says the trooper, shaking his head. "I must know more, and approve it." "Then, will you come to the lawyer? My dear friend, will you come and see the gentleman?" urges Grandfather Smallweed, pulling out a lean old silver watch with hands like the leg of a skeleton. "I told him it was probable I might call upon him between ten and eleven this forenoon, and it's now half after ten. Will you come and see the gentleman, Mr. George?" "Hum!" says he gravely. "I don't mind that. Though why this should concern you so much, I don't know." "Everything concerns me that has a chance in it of bringing anything to light about him. Didn't he take us all in? Didn't he owe us immense sums, all round? Concern me? Who can anything about him concern more than me? Not, my dear friend," says Grandfather Smallweed, lowering his tone, "that I want YOU to betray anything. Far from it. Are you ready to come, my dear friend?" "Aye! I'll come in a moment. I promise nothing, you know." "No, my dear Mr. George; no." "And you mean to say you're going to give me a lift to this place, wherever it is, without charging for it?" Mr. George inquires, getting his hat and thick wash-leather gloves. This pleasantry so tickles Mr. Smallweed that he laughs, long and low, before the fire. But ever while he laughs, he glances over his paralytic shoulder at Mr. George and eagerly watches him as he unlocks the padlock of a homely cupboard at the distant end of the gallery, looks here and there upon the higher shelves, and ultimately takes something out with a rustling of paper, folds it, and puts it in his breast. Then Judy pokes Mr. Smallweed once, and Mr. Smallweed pokes Judy once. "I am ready," says the trooper, coming back. "Phil, you can carry this old gentleman to his coach, and make nothing of him." "Oh, dear me! O Lord! Stop a moment!" says Mr. Smallweed. "He's so very prompt! Are you sure you can do it carefully, my worthy man?" Phil makes no reply, but seizing the chair and its load, sidles away, tightly hugged by the now speechless Mr. Smallweed, and bolts along the passage as if he had an acceptable commission to carry the old gentleman to the nearest volcano. His shorter trust, however, terminating at the cab, he deposits him there; and the fair Judy takes her place beside him, and the chair embellishes the roof, and Mr. George takes the vacant place upon the box. Mr. George is quite confounded by the spectacle he beholds from time to time as he peeps into the cab through the window behind him, where the grim Judy is always motionless, and the old gentleman with his cap over one eye is always sliding off the seat into the straw and looking upward at him out of his other eye with a helpless expression of being jolted in the back.

Wintry morning, looking with dull eyes upon the neighbourhood of Leicester Square, finds its inhabitants unwilling to get out of bed. Many of them are not early risers at the brightest of times, being birds of night. Behind dingy blind and curtain, skulking under false names, false hair, false jewellery, and false histories, a colony of brigands lie asleep. Broken traitors, cowards, bullies, gamesters and swindlers; all with more cruelty in them than Nero, and more crime than in Newgate. For however bad the devil can be in a worker's smock, he is a more designing and callous devil when he calls himself a gentleman, and knows a little about promissory notes. And in such form Mr. Bucket shall find him, pervading the surrounding streets of Leicester Square. But the wintry morning wakes him not. It wakes Mr. George of the shooting gallery and his familiar. They arise, and stow away their mattresses. Mr. George, having shaved himself before a minute looking-glass, marches out, bare-chested, to the pump in the little yard and comes back shining with yellow soap and exceedingly cold water. As he towels himself, he blows like a military diver just come up, his hair curling tighter and tighter the more he rubs it. When Mr. George is dry, he goes to work on his head with two hard brushes, so unmercifully that Phil, shouldering his way round the gallery while sweeping it, winks with sympathy. Then Mr. George lights his pipe and marches up and down smoking, while Phil, raising a powerful odour of hot rolls and coffee, prepares breakfast. "And so, Phil," says George after several turns in silence, "you said that you were dreaming of the country last night?" "Yes, guv'ner." "What was it like?" "I hardly know, guv'ner," said Phil. "How did you know it was the country?" "On account of the grass, I think. And the swans upon it," says Phil after consideration. "What were the swans doing on the grass?" "Eating it, I expect," says Phil. The master resumes his march, and the man resumes his preparation of breakfast. It involves little more than the broiling of a rasher of bacon at the fire in the rusty grate; but as Phil has to sidle round the gallery for every object he wants, and never brings two objects at once, it takes time. At length the breakfast is ready. Mr. George knocks the ashes out of his pipe, and sits down to the meal. Phil sits at the extreme end of the little oblong table, taking his plate on his knees. "Why," says Mr. George, "I suppose you never clapped your eyes on the country, Phil?" "I see the marshes once," says Phil. "Where are they?" "I don't know," says Phil; "but I see 'em, guv'ner. They was flat. And misty." "I was born and bred in the country, Phil. There's not a bird's note that I don't know," says Mr. George. "Not many a leaf or berry that I couldn't name. I was a real country boy, once. My good mother lived in the country." "She must have been a fine old lady, guv'ner," Phil observes. "Aye! I'll wager that at ninety she would be near as upright as me, and near as broad across the shoulders." "Did she die at ninety, guv'ner?" inquires Phil. "No. Bosh! Let her rest in peace, God bless her!" says the trooper. "What set me on about country boys? You, to be sure! So you never clapped your eyes upon the country, eh?" Phil shakes his head. "Do you want to see it?" "N-no, I don't know as I do, particular," says Phil. "The town's enough for you, eh?" "Why, you see, commander," says Phil, "I ain't acquainted with anythink else, and I'm a-getting too old to take to novelties." "How old are you, Phil?" asks the trooper. "I'm something with a eight in it," says Phil. "It can't be eighty. Nor yet eighteen. It's betwixt 'em, somewheres." He begins counting on his dirty fingers. "I was just eight," says he, "according to the parish calculation, when I went with the tinker. I was sent on a errand, and I see him a-sittin under a old buildin with a fire wery comfortable, and he says, 'Would you like to come along a me, my man?' I says 'Yes.'. That was April Fool Day. I was able to count up to ten; and when April Fool Day come round again, I says to myself, 'Now, old chap, you're one and a eight in it.' April Fool Day after that, I says, 'Now, old chap, you're two and a eight in it.' In course of time, I come to ten and a eight in it; two tens and a eight in it. That's how I always know there's a eight in it." "Ah!" says Mr. George, resuming his breakfast. "And where's the tinker?" "Drink put him in the hospital, guv'ner," Phil replies. "And you took over the business, Phil?" "Such as it was. It wasn't much of a beat - a poor neighbourhood, where they uses the kettles till they're past mending. And I couldn't sing or play a tune like my master. All I could do was mend a pot. Besides, I was too ill-looking, and the wives complained of me. What with blowing the fire when I was young, and singeing my hair off, and having turn-ups with the tinker as I got older, whenever he was too far gone in drink - which was almost always - my beauty was wery queer, even at that time. As to since, what with a dozen years in a forge, and being scorched in a accident at a gas-works, and being blowed out of a winder at the firework business, I am ugly enough for a show!" With a perfectly satisfied manner, Phil pours another cup of coffee. "It was after the firework blow-up when I first see you, commander. You remember?" "I remember, Phil. You were walking along in the sun." "Crawling, guv'ner, again a wall-" "True, Phil - shouldering your way on-" "In a night-cap!" exclaims Phil, excited. "And hobbling with a couple of sticks! When you stops, and says to me, 'What, comrade! You have been in the wars!' I was took by surprise that a person so strong and healthy as you should stop to speak to such a limping bag of bones as I was. But you says to me, hearty, 'What accident have you met with? You have been badly hurt. Cheer up, and tell us about it!' Cheer up! I was cheered already! I says as much to you, you says more to me, and here I am, commander! Here I am!" cries Phil. "Let the customers take aim at me. They can't spoil my beauty. If they want a man to box at, let 'em box at me. If they want to throw a wrestler, let 'em throw me. They won't hurt me. I have been throwed all my life!" With this unexpected speech, Phil Squod shoulders his way round three sides of the gallery, and tacking off at his commander, makes a butt at him with his head, intended to express devotion to his service. He then begins to clear away the breakfast. Mr. George, after laughing and clapping him on the shoulder, helps to get the gallery into business order. He takes a turn at the dumb-bells, and deciding that he is getting "too fleshy," engages in solitary broadsword practice. Meanwhile Phil has begun to work at his table, where he screws and unscrews, and cleans, and files, and seems to do and undo everything that can be done and undone about a gun. They are disturbed by footsteps in the passage. There arrives a group at first sight looking like a display from the fifth of November. A limp and ugly figure is carried in a chair by two bearers and attended by a lean female with a face like a pinched mask. As the chair is put down, the figure in it gasps, "O Lord! Oh, dear me! I am shaken!" adding, "How de do, my dear friend, how de do?" It is Mr. Smallweed out for an airing, attended by his granddaughter Judy as body-guard. "Mr. George, my dear friend," says Grandfather Smallweed, "how de do? You're surprised to see me, my dear friend. I haven't been out for many months. It's inconvenient - and it comes expensive. But I longed so much to see you, my dear Mr. George. How de do, sir?" "I am well enough," says Mr. George. "I hope you are the same." "You can't be too well, my dear friend." Mr. Smallweed takes him by both hands. "I have brought my granddaughter Judy. She longed so much to see you." "Hum!" "So we got a hackney-cab, and put a chair in it, and they lifted me out of the cab and carried me here to see my dear friend! This," says Grandfather Smallweed of one bearer, "is the driver of the cab. It is included in his fare. This person," the other bearer, "we engaged in the street outside for twopence. Judy, give the person twopence. I was not sure you had a workman of your own here, my dear friend." Grandfather Smallweed looks at Phil with considerable terror; for Phil, who has never seen him before, has stopped short with a gun in his hand, with the air of a dead shot intent on picking Mr. Smallweed off like an ugly old crow. "My dear Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed, "would you be so kind as to carry me to the fire? I am an old man, and I soon chill. Oh, dear me!" This exclamation is jerked out of him by the suddenness with which Mr. Squod catches him up, chair and all, and deposits him on the hearth-stone. "O Lord!" says Mr. Smallweed, panting. "Oh, dear me! My dear friend, your workman is very strong - and very prompt! Oh, dear me!" He again stretches out both hands to Mr. George. "My dear friend! And this is your establishment? It's a delightful place. You never find that anything goes off accidentally, do you, my dear friend?" he adds uneasily. "No, no." "And your workman. He - Oh, dear me! - he never lets anything off without meaning to, does he, my dear friend?" "He has never hurt anybody but himself," says Mr. George, smiling. "But he might, you know. He seems to have hurt himself a good deal," the old gentleman returns. "Mr. George, will you order him to leave his infernal fire-arms alone and go away?" Obedient to a nod from the trooper, Phil retires to the other end of the gallery. Mr. Smallweed begins rubbing his legs. "And you're doing well, Mr. George?" he says to the trooper, squarely standing with his broadsword in his hand. "You are prospering?" Mr. George answers with a cool nod, adding, "Go on. You have not come to say that, I know." "My dear friend! But that sword looks awful gleaming and sharp. It might cut somebody, by accident. It makes me shiver, Mr. George." As the trooper steps away to lay it aside, the old gentleman says to Judy, "Curse him! He owes me money, and might think of paying off old scores in this murdering place. I wish your brimstone grandmother was here, and he'd shave her head off." Mr. George, returning, folds his arms, and looking down at the old man, says quietly, "Now for it!" "Ho!" cries Mr. Smallweed, rubbing his hands with an artful chuckle. "Yes. Now for what, my dear friend?" "For a pipe," says Mr. George, who with great composure sets his chair in the chimney-corner, fills his pipe and lights it, and starts to smoke peacefully. Mr. Smallweed, exasperated, secretly claws the air with impotent vindictiveness. As the excellent old gentleman's nails are long, and his hands lean and veinous, and his eyes green and watery; and as he continues to slide down in his chair and to collapse into a shapeless bundle, he becomes such a ghastly spectacle that Judy pounces at him with extreme and not entirely affectionate vigour as she sets him up again. "If you want to converse with me," says Mr. George, "you must speak out. If you have come to see whether there's any property on the premises, look around; you are welcome. If you want to say something, out with it!" "My friend in the city, Mr. George, has done a little business with a pupil of yours." "Has he?" says Mr. George. "I am sorry to hear it." "Yes, sir." Grandfather Smallweed rubs his legs. "A fine young soldier, Mr. George, by the name of Carstone. Friends came forward and paid it all up, honourable." "Did they?" returns Mr. George. "Do you think your friend in the city would like a piece of advice? I advise him to do no more business in that quarter. There's no more to be got by it. The young gentleman, to my knowledge, is brought to a dead halt." "No, no, my dear sir," remonstrates Grandfather Smallweed. "Not quite a dead halt. He has good friends, and he is good for his pay, and he is good for the selling price of his commission, and he is good for his chance in a lawsuit, and he is good for his chance in a wife, and - do you know, Mr. George, I think my friend would consider the young gentleman good for something yet?" says Grandfather Smallweed, scratching his ear like a monkey. Mr. George drums his foot on the ground as if he were not pleased with the turn the conversation has taken. "But to pass from one subject to another," resumes Mr. Smallweed. "'To pass, Mr. George, from the ensign to the captain." "What are you up to now?" asks Mr. George with a frown. "What captain?" "Our captain. Captain Hawdon." "Oh! That's it, is it?" says Mr. George with a low whistle. "Well? What about it?" "My dear friend," returns the old man, "I was applied - Judy, shake me up a little! - I was applied to yesterday about the captain, and my opinion still is that the captain is not dead." "Bosh!" "Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Now, what do you think the lawyer making the inquiries wants?" "A job," says Mr. George. "Nothing of the kind!" "Can't be a lawyer, then," says Mr. George, folding his arms. "My dear friend, he is a lawyer, and a famous one. He wants to see some of Captain Hawdon's handwriting. He don't want to keep it. He only wants to compare it with a writing in his possession." "Well?" "Well, Mr. George. Happening to remember the advertisement concerning Captain Hawdon and any information that could be given about him, he came to me - just as you did, my dear friend. So glad you came that day! Well, I have nothing but Hawdon's signature. Plague, pestilence and famine upon him," says the old man angrily, "I have half a million of his signatures! But you, my dear Mr. George, are likely to have some letter. Anything would suit the purpose, written in his hand." "Some writing in that hand," says the trooper, pondering; "I may have. Or I may not. But I would not show it without knowing why." "My dear Mr. George, I have told you why." "Not enough," says the trooper, shaking his head. "I must know more." "Then, will you come to the lawyer?" urges Grandfather Smallweed, pulling out a lean old silver watch. "I told him I might call upon him this morning. Will you come and see him, Mr. George?" "Hum!" says he gravely. "I don't mind that. Though why this should concern you so much, I don't know." "Didn't the Captain take us all in? Didn't he owe us immense sums, all round? Are you ready to come, my dear friend?" "Aye! I'll come in a moment. I promise nothing, you know. You mean to say you're going to give me a lift to this place, wherever it is, without charging for it?" Mr. George inquires, getting his hat and gloves. This pleasantry so tickles Mr. Smallweed that he laughs long. But while he laughs, he glances over his shoulder at Mr. George and eagerly watches him as he unlocks a cupboard at the distant end of the gallery, takes something from the higher shelves with a rustling of paper, folds it, and puts it in his breast pocket. Then Judy pokes Mr. Smallweed, and Mr. Smallweed pokes Judy. "I am ready," says the trooper, coming back. "Phil, you can carry this old gentleman to his coach." "Oh, dear me! O Lord! Stop a moment!" says Mr. Smallweed. "He's so very prompt! Do it carefully, my worthy man!" Phil makes no reply, but seizing the chair and its load, bolts along the passage as if he were carrying the old gentleman to the nearest volcano. He deposits him in the cab; the fair Judy takes her place beside him, and Mr. George sits upon the box. From time to time he peeps into the cab through the window behind him. The grim Judy is always motionless, and the old gentleman with his cap over one eye is always sliding off the seat into the straw and looking upward at him with a helpless expression.

Bleak House

Chapter 26: Sharpshooters

It was three o'clock in the morning when the houses outside London did at last begin to exclude the country and to close us in with streets. We had made our way along roads in a far worse condition than when we had traversed them by daylight, both the fall and the thaw having lasted ever since; but the energy of my companion never slackened. It had only been, as I thought, of less assistance than the horses in getting us on, and it had often aided them. They had stopped exhausted half-way up hills, they had been driven through streams of turbulent water, they had slipped down and become entangled with the harness; but he and his little lantern had been always ready, and when the mishap was set right, I had never heard any variation in his cool, "Get on, my lads!" The steadiness and confidence with which he had directed our journey back I could not account for. Never wavering, he never even stopped to make an inquiry until we were within a few miles of London. A very few words, here and there, were then enough for him; and thus we came, at between three and four o'clock in the morning, into Islington. I will not dwell on the suspense and anxiety with which I reflected all this time that we were leaving my mother farther and farther behind every minute. I think I had some strong hope that he must be right and could not fail to have a satisfactory object in following this woman, but I tormented myself with questioning it and discussing it during the whole journey. What was to ensue when we found her and what could compensate us for this loss of time were questions also that I could not possibly dismiss; my mind was quite tortured by long dwelling on such reflections when we stopped. We stopped in a high-street where there was a coach-stand. My companion paid our two drivers, who were as completely covered with splashes as if they had been dragged along the roads like the carriage itself, and giving them some brief direction where to take it, lifted me out of it and into a hackney-coach he had chosen from the rest. "Why, my dear!" he said as he did this. "How wet you are!" I had not been conscious of it. But the melted snow had found its way into the carriage, and I had got out two or three times when a fallen horse was plunging and had to be got up, and the wet had penetrated my dress. I assured him it was no matter, but the driver, who knew him, would not be dissuaded by me from running down the street to his stable, whence he brought an armful of clean dry straw. They shook it out and strewed it well about me, and I found it warm and comfortable. "Now, my dear," said Mr. Bucket, with his head in at the window after I was shut up. "We're a-going to mark this person down. It may take a little time, but you don't mind that. You're pretty sure that I've got a motive. Ain't you?" I little thought what it was, little thought in how short a time I should understand it better, but I assured him that I had confidence in him. "So you may have, my dear," he returned. "And I tell you what! If you only repose half as much confidence in me as I repose in you after what I've experienced of you, that'll do. Lord! You're no trouble at all. I never see a young woman in any station of society--and I've seen many elevated ones too--conduct herself like you have conducted yourself since you was called out of your bed. You're a pattern, you know, that's what you are," said Mr. Bucket warmly; "you're a pattern." I told him I was very glad, as indeed I was, to have been no hindrance to him, and that I hoped I should be none now. "My dear," he returned, "when a young lady is as mild as she's game, and as game as she's mild, that's all I ask, and more than I expect. She then becomes a queen, and that's about what you are yourself." With these encouraging words--they really were encouraging to me under those lonely and anxious circumstances--he got upon the box, and we once more drove away. Where we drove I neither knew then nor have ever known since, but we appeared to seek out the narrowest and worst streets in London. Whenever I saw him directing the driver, I was prepared for our descending into a deeper complication of such streets, and we never failed to do so. Sometimes we emerged upon a wider thoroughfare or came to a larger building than the generality, well lighted. Then we stopped at offices like those we had visited when we began our journey, and I saw him in consultation with others. Sometimes he would get down by an archway or at a street corner and mysteriously show the light of his little lantern. This would attract similar lights from various dark quarters, like so many insects, and a fresh consultation would be held. By degrees we appeared to contract our search within narrower and easier limits. Single police-officers on duty could now tell Mr. Bucket what he wanted to know and point to him where to go. At last we stopped for a rather long conversation between him and one of these men, which I supposed to be satisfactory from his manner of nodding from time to time. When it was finished he came to me looking very busy and very attentive. "Now, Miss Summerson," he said to me, "you won't be alarmed whatever comes off, I know. It's not necessary for me to give you any further caution than to tell you that we have marked this person down and that you may be of use to me before I know it myself. I don't like to ask such a thing, my dear, but would you walk a little way?" Of course I got out directly and took his arm. "It ain't so easy to keep your feet," said Mr. Bucket, "but take time." Although I looked about me confusedly and hurriedly as we crossed the street, I thought I knew the place. "Are we in Holborn?" I asked him. "Yes," said Mr. Bucket. "Do you know this turning?" "It looks like Chancery Lane." "And was christened so, my dear," said Mr. Bucket. We turned down it, and as we went shuffling through the sleet, I heard the clocks strike half-past five. We passed on in silence and as quickly as we could with such a foot-hold, when some one coming towards us on the narrow pavement, wrapped in a cloak, stopped and stood aside to give me room. In the same moment I heard an exclamation of wonder and my own name from Mr. Woodcourt. I knew his voice very well. It was so unexpected and so--I don't know what to call it, whether pleasant or painful--to come upon it after my feverish wandering journey, and in the midst of the night, that I could not keep back the tears from my eyes. It was like hearing his voice in a strange country. "My dear Miss Summerson, that you should be out at this hour, and in such weather!" He had heard from my guardian of my having been called away on some uncommon business and said so to dispense with any explanation. I told him that we had but just left a coach and were going--but then I was obliged to look at my companion. "Why, you see, Mr. Woodcourt"--he had caught the name from me--"we are a-going at present into the next street. Inspector Bucket." Mr. Woodcourt, disregarding my remonstrances, had hurriedly taken off his cloak and was putting it about me. "That's a good move, too," said Mr. Bucket, assisting, "a very good move." "May I go with you?" said Mr. Woodcourt. I don't know whether to me or to my companion. "Why, Lord!" exclaimed Mr. Bucket, taking the answer on himself. "Of course you may." It was all said in a moment, and they took me between them, wrapped in the cloak. "I have just left Richard," said Mr. Woodcourt. "I have been sitting with him since ten o'clock last night." "Oh, dear me, he is ill!" "No, no, believe me; not ill, but not quite well. He was depressed and faint--you know he gets so worried and so worn sometimes--and Ada sent to me of course; and when I came home I found her note and came straight here. Well! Richard revived so much after a little while, and Ada was so happy and so convinced of its being my doing, though God knows I had little enough to do with it, that I remained with him until he had been fast asleep some hours. As fast asleep as she is now, I hope!" His friendly and familiar way of speaking of them, his unaffected devotion to them, the grateful confidence with which I knew he had inspired my darling, and the comfort he was to her; could I separate all this from his promise to me? How thankless I must have been if it had not recalled the words he said to me when he was so moved by the change in my appearance: "I will accept him as a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!" We now turned into another narrow street. "Mr. Woodcourt," said Mr. Bucket, who had eyed him closely as we came along, "our business takes us to a law-stationer's here, a certain Mr. Snagsby's. What, you know him, do you?" He was so quick that he saw it in an instant. "Yes, I know a little of him and have called upon him at this place." "Indeed, sir?" said Mr. Bucket. "Then you will be so good as to let me leave Miss Summerson with you for a moment while I go and have half a word with him?" The last police-officer with whom he had conferred was standing silently behind us. I was not aware of it until he struck in on my saying I heard some one crying. "Don't be alarmed, miss," he returned. "It's Snagsby's servant." "Why, you see," said Mr. Bucket, "the girl's subject to fits, and has 'em bad upon her to-night. A most contrary circumstance it is, for I want certain information out of that girl, and she must be brought to reason somehow." "At all events, they wouldn't be up yet if it wasn't for her, Mr. Bucket," said the other man. "She's been at it pretty well all night, sir." "Well, that's true," he returned. "My light's burnt out. Show yours a moment." All this passed in a whisper a door or two from the house in which I could faintly hear crying and moaning. In the little round of light produced for the purpose, Mr. Bucket went up to the door and knocked. The door was opened after he had knocked twice, and he went in, leaving us standing in the street. "Miss Summerson," said Mr. Woodcourt, "if without obtruding myself on your confidence I may remain near you, pray let me do so." "You are truly kind," I answered. "I need wish to keep no secret of my own from you; if I keep any, it is another's." "I quite understand. Trust me, I will remain near you only so long as I can fully respect it." "I trust implicitly to you," I said. "I know and deeply feel how sacredly you keep your promise." After a short time the little round of light shone out again, and Mr. Bucket advanced towards us in it with his earnest face. "Please to come in, Miss Summerson," he said, "and sit down by the fire. Mr. Woodcourt, from information I have received I understand you are a medical man. Would you look to this girl and see if anything can be done to bring her round. She has a letter somewhere that I particularly want. It's not in her box, and I think it must be about her; but she is so twisted and clenched up that she is difficult to handle without hurting." We all three went into the house together; although it was cold and raw, it smelt close too from being up all night. In the passage behind the door stood a scared, sorrowful-looking little man in a grey coat who seemed to have a naturally polite manner and spoke meekly. "Downstairs, if you please, Mr. Bucket," said he. "The lady will excuse the front kitchen; we use it as our workaday sitting-room. The back is Guster's bedroom, and in it she's a-carrying on, poor thing, to a frightful extent!" We went downstairs, followed by Mr. Snagsby, as I soon found the little man to be. In the front kitchen, sitting by the fire, was Mrs. Snagsby, with very red eyes and a very severe expression of face. "My little woman," said Mr. Snagsby, entering behind us, "to wave--not to put too fine a point upon it, my dear--hostilities for one single moment in the course of this prolonged night, here is Inspector Bucket, Mr. Woodcourt, and a lady." She looked very much astonished, as she had reason for doing, and looked particularly hard at me. "My little woman," said Mr. Snagsby, sitting down in the remotest corner by the door, as if he were taking a liberty, "it is not unlikely that you may inquire of me why Inspector Bucket, Mr. Woodcourt, and a lady call upon us in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, at the present hour. I don't know. I have not the least idea. If I was to be informed, I should despair of understanding, and I'd rather not be told." He appeared so miserable, sitting with his head upon his hand, and I appeared so unwelcome, that I was going to offer an apology when Mr. Bucket took the matter on himself. "Now, Mr. Snagsby," said he, "the best thing you can do is to go along with Mr. Woodcourt to look after your Guster--" "My Guster, Mr. Bucket!" cried Mr. Snagsby. "Go on, sir, go on. I shall be charged with that next." "And to hold the candle," pursued Mr. Bucket without correcting himself, "or hold her, or make yourself useful in any way you're asked. Which there's not a man alive more ready to do, for you're a man of urbanity and suavity, you know, and you've got the sort of heart that can feel for another. Mr. Woodcourt, would you be so good as see to her, and if you can get that letter from her, to let me have it as soon as ever you can?" As they went out, Mr. Bucket made me sit down in a corner by the fire and take off my wet shoes, which he turned up to dry upon the fender, talking all the time. "Don't you be at all put out, miss, by the want of a hospitable look from Mrs. Snagsby there, because she's under a mistake altogether. She'll find that out sooner than will be agreeable to a lady of her generally correct manner of forming her thoughts, because I'm a-going to explain it to her." Here, standing on the hearth with his wet hat and shawls in his hand, himself a pile of wet, he turned to Mrs. Snagsby. "Now, the first thing that I say to you, as a married woman possessing what you may call charms, you know--'Believe Me, if All Those Endearing,' and cetrer--you're well acquainted with the song, because it's in vain for you to tell me that you and good society are strangers--charms--attractions, mind you, that ought to give you confidence in yourself--is, that you've done it." Mrs. Snagsby looked rather alarmed, relented a little and faltered, what did Mr. Bucket mean. "What does Mr. Bucket mean?" he repeated, and I saw by his face that all the time he talked he was listening for the discovery of the letter, to my own great agitation, for I knew then how important it must be; "I'll tell you what he means, ma'am. Go and see Othello acted. That's the tragedy for you." Mrs. Snagsby consciously asked why. "Why?" said Mr. Bucket. "Because you'll come to that if you don't look out. Why, at the very moment while I speak, I know what your mind's not wholly free from respecting this young lady. But shall I tell you who this young lady is? Now, come, you're what I call an intellectual woman--with your soul too large for your body, if you come to that, and chafing it--and you know me, and you recollect where you saw me last, and what was talked of in that circle. Don't you? Yes! Very well. This young lady is that young lady." Mrs. Snagsby appeared to understand the reference better than I did at the time. "And Toughey--him as you call Jo--was mixed up in the same business, and no other; and the law-writer that you know of was mixed up in the same business, and no other; and your husband, with no more knowledge of it than your great grandfather, was mixed up (by Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, his best customer) in the same business, and no other; and the whole bileing of people was mixed up in the same business, and no other. And yet a married woman, possessing your attractions, shuts her eyes (and sparklers too), and goes and runs her delicate-formed head against a wall. Why, I am ashamed of you! (I expected Mr. Woodcourt might have got it by this time.)" Mrs. Snagsby shook her head and put her handkerchief to her eyes. "Is that all?" said Mr. Bucket excitedly. "No. See what happens. Another person mixed up in that business and no other, a person in a wretched state, comes here to-night and is seen a-speaking to your maid-servant; and between her and your maid-servant there passes a paper that I would give a hundred pound for, down. What do you do? You hide and you watch 'em, and you pounce upon that maid-servant--knowing what she's subject to and what a little thing will bring 'em on--in that surprising manner and with that severity that, by the Lord, she goes off and keeps off, when a life may be hanging upon that girl's words!" He so thoroughly meant what he said now that I involuntarily clasped my hands and felt the room turning away from me. But it stopped. Mr. Woodcourt came in, put a paper into his hand, and went away again. "Now, Mrs. Snagsby, the only amends you can make," said Mr. Bucket, rapidly glancing at it, "is to let me speak a word to this young lady in private here. And if you know of any help that you can give to that gentleman in the next kitchen there or can think of any one thing that's likelier than another to bring the girl round, do your swiftest and best!" In an instant she was gone, and he had shut the door. "Now my dear, you're steady and quite sure of yourself?" "Quite," said I. "Whose writing is that?" It was my mother's. A pencil-writing, on a crushed and torn piece of paper, blotted with wet. Folded roughly like a letter, and directed to me at my guardian's. "You know the hand," he said, "and if you are firm enough to read it to me, do! But be particular to a word." It had been written in portions, at different times. I read what follows: I came to the cottage with two objects. First, to see the dear one, if I could, once more--but only to see her--not to speak to her or let her know that I was near. The other object, to elude pursuit and to be lost. Do not blame the mother for her share. The assistance that she rendered me, she rendered on my strongest assurance that it was for the dear one's good. You remember her dead child. The men's consent I bought, but her help was freely given. "'I came.' That was written," said my companion, "when she rested there. It bears out what I made of it. I was right." The next was written at another time: I have wandered a long distance, and for many hours, and I know that I must soon die. These streets! I have no purpose but to die. When I left, I had a worse, but I am saved from adding that guilt to the rest. Cold, wet, and fatigue are sufficient causes for my being found dead, but I shall die of others, though I suffer from these. It was right that all that had sustained me should give way at once and that I should die of terror and my conscience. "Take courage," said Mr. Bucket. "There's only a few words more." Those, too, were written at another time. To all appearance, almost in the dark: I have done all I could do to be lost. I shall be soon forgotten so, and shall disgrace him least. I have nothing about me by which I can be recognized. This paper I part with now. The place where I shall lie down, if I can get so far, has been often in my mind. Farewell. Forgive. Mr. Bucket, supporting me with his arm, lowered me gently into my chair. "Cheer up! Don't think me hard with you, my dear, but as soon as ever you feel equal to it, get your shoes on and be ready." I did as he required, but I was left there a long time, praying for my unhappy mother. They were all occupied with the poor girl, and I heard Mr. Woodcourt directing them and speaking to her often. At length he came in with Mr. Bucket and said that as it was important to address her gently, he thought it best that I should ask her for whatever information we desired to obtain. There was no doubt that she could now reply to questions if she were soothed and not alarmed. The questions, Mr. Bucket said, were how she came by the letter, what passed between her and the person who gave her the letter, and where the person went. Holding my mind as steadily as I could to these points, I went into the next room with them. Mr. Woodcourt would have remained outside, but at my solicitation went in with us. The poor girl was sitting on the floor where they had laid her down. They stood around her, though at a little distance, that she might have air. She was not pretty and looked weak and poor, but she had a plaintive and a good face, though it was still a little wild. I kneeled on the ground beside her and put her poor head upon my shoulder, whereupon she drew her arm round my neck and burst into tears. "My poor girl," said I, laying my face against her forehead, for indeed I was crying too, and trembling, "it seems cruel to trouble you now, but more depends on our knowing something about this letter than I could tell you in an hour." She began piteously declaring that she didn't mean any harm, she didn't mean any harm, Mrs. Snagsby! "We are all sure of that," said I. "But pray tell me how you got it." "Yes, dear lady, I will, and tell you true. I'll tell true, indeed, Mrs. Snagsby." "I am sure of that," said I. "And how was it?" "I had been out on an errand, dear lady--long after it was dark--quite late; and when I came home, I found a common-looking person, all wet and muddy, looking up at our house. When she saw me coming in at the door, she called me back and said did I live here. And I said yes, and she said she knew only one or two places about here, but had lost her way and couldn't find them. Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do! They won't believe me! She didn't say any harm to me, and I didn't say any harm to her, indeed, Mrs. Snagsby!" It was necessary for her mistress to comfort her--which she did, I must say, with a good deal of contrition--before she could be got beyond this. "She could not find those places," said I. "No!" cried the girl, shaking her head. "No! Couldn't find them. And she was so faint, and lame, and miserable, Oh so wretched, that if you had seen her, Mr. Snagsby, you'd have given her half a crown, I know!" "Well, Guster, my girl," said he, at first not knowing what to say. "I hope I should." "And yet she was so well spoken," said the girl, looking at me with wide open eyes, "that it made a person's heart bleed. And so she said to me, did I know the way to the burying ground? And I asked her which burying ground. And she said, the poor burying ground. And so I told her I had been a poor child myself, and it was according to parishes. But she said she meant a poor burying ground not very far from here, where there was an archway, and a step, and an iron gate." As I watched her face and soothed her to go on, I saw that Mr. Bucket received this with a look which I could not separate from one of alarm. "Oh, dear, dear!" cried the girl, pressing her hair back with her hands. "What shall I do, what shall I do! She meant the burying ground where the man was buried that took the sleeping-stuff--that you came home and told us of, Mr. Snagsby--that frightened me so, Mrs. Snagsby. Oh, I am frightened again. Hold me!" "You are so much better now," sald I. "Pray, pray tell me more." "Yes I will, yes I will! But don't be angry with me, that's a dear lady, because I have been so ill." Angry with her, poor soul! "There! Now I will, now I will. So she said, could I tell her how to find it, and I said yes, and I told her; and she looked at me with eyes like almost as if she was blind, and herself all waving back. And so she took out the letter, and showed it me, and said if she was to put that in the post-office, it would be rubbed out and not minded and never sent; and would I take it from her, and send it, and the messenger would be paid at the house. And so I said yes, if it was no harm, and she said no--no harm. And so I took it from her, and she said she had nothing to give me, and I said I was poor myself and consequently wanted nothing. And so she said God bless you, and went." "And did she go--" "Yes," cried the girl, anticipating the inquiry. "Yes! She went the way I had shown her. Then I came in, and Mrs. Snagsby came behind me from somewhere and laid hold of me, and I was frightened." Mr. Woodcourt took her kindly from me. Mr. Bucket wrapped me up, and immediately we were in the street. Mr. Woodcourt hesitated, but I said, "Don't leave me now!" and Mr. Bucket added, "You'll be better with us, we may want you; don't lose time!" I have the most confused impressions of that walk. I recollect that it was neither night nor day, that morning was dawning but the street-lamps were not yet put out, that the sleet was still falling and that all the ways were deep with it. I recollect a few chilled people passing in the streets. I recollect the wet house-tops, the clogged and bursting gutters and water-spouts, the mounds of blackened ice and snow over which we passed, the narrowness of the courts by which we went. At the same time I remember that the poor girl seemed to be yet telling her story audibly and plainly in my hearing, that I could feel her resting on my arm, that the stained house-fronts put on human shapes and looked at me, that great water-gates seemed to be opening and closing in my head or in the air, and that the unreal things were more substantial than the real. At last we stood under a dark and miserable covered way, where one lamp was burning over an iron gate and where the morning faintly struggled in. The gate was closed. Beyond it was a burial ground--a dreadful spot in which the night was very slowly stirring, but where I could dimly see heaps of dishonoured graves and stones, hemmed in by filthy houses with a few dull lights in their windows and on whose walls a thick humidity broke out like a disease. On the step at the gate, drenched in the fearful wet of such a place, which oozed and splashed down everywhere, I saw, with a cry of pity and horror, a woman lying--Jenny, the mother of the dead child. I ran forward, but they stopped me, and Mr. Woodcourt entreated me with the greatest earnestness, even with tears, before I went up to the figure to listen for an instant to what Mr. Bucket said. I did so, as I thought. I did so, as I am sure. "Miss Summerson, you'll understand me, if you think a moment. They changed clothes at the cottage." They changed clothes at the cottage. I could repeat the words in my mind, and I knew what they meant of themselves, but I attached no meaning to them in any other connexion. "And one returned," said Mr. Bucket, "and one went on. And the one that went on only went on a certain way agreed upon to deceive and then turned across country and went home. Think a moment!" I could repeat this in my mind too, but I had not the least idea what it meant. I saw before me, lying on the step, the mother of the dead child. She lay there with one arm creeping round a bar of the iron gate and seeming to embrace it. She lay there, who had so lately spoken to my mother. She lay there, a distressed, unsheltered, senseless creature. She who had brought my mother's letter, who could give me the only clue to where my mother was; she, who was to guide us to rescue and save her whom we had sought so far, who had come to this condition by some means connected with my mother that I could not follow, and might be passing beyond our reach and help at that moment; she lay there, and they stopped me! I saw but did not comprehend the solemn and compassionate look in Mr. Woodcourt's face. I saw but did not comprehend his touching the other on the breast to keep him back. I saw him stand uncovered in the bitter air, with a reverence for something. But my understanding for all this was gone. I even heard it said between them, "Shall she go?" "She had better go. Her hands should be the first to touch her. They have a higher right than ours." I passed on to the gate and stooped down. I lifted the heavy head, put the long dank hair aside, and turned the face. And it was my mother, cold and dead.

It was three o'clock in the morning when London at last began to close us in with streets. We had made our way along roads in a far worse condition than on the previous day; but my companion's energy never slackened. Whenever the horses had stopped exhausted half-way up hills, or had slipped and become entangled with the harness, he and his little lantern had been always ready, and when the mishap was set right, he said the same cool, "Get on, my lads!" I could not account for his confidence on our journey back. He never even stopped to make an inquiry until we were within a few miles of London. Thus we came, between three and four o'clock in the morning, into Islington. I will not dwell on the anxiety with which I reflected that we were leaving my mother farther and farther behind every minute. I hoped that he must be right in following this woman, but I tormented myself with questioning it during the whole journey. I wondered what was to compensate us for this loss of time; my mind was quite tortured by dwelling on such reflections. We stopped in a high-street by a coach-stand. My companion paid our two drivers, and giving them some brief directions about the carriage, lifted me out of it and into a hackney-coach. "Why, my dear!" he said. "How wet you are!" I had not been conscious of it. But the melted snow had found its way into the carriage, and I had got out two or three times when a fallen horse was plunging and had to be got up, and the wet had penetrated my dress. I assured him it was no matter, but the driver ran down the street to his stable to fetch an armful of clean dry straw. They strewed it well about me, and I found it warm and comfortable. "Now, my dear," said Mr. Bucket, with his head in at the window, "We're a-going to mark this person down. It may take a little time, but you don't mind that. You're pretty sure that I've got a reason. Ain't you?" I assured him that I had confidence in him. "So you may have, my dear," he returned. "Lord! You're no trouble at all. I never see a young woman conduct herself like you have. You're a pattern, you know, that's what you are," said Mr. Bucket warmly. I told him I was very glad to have been no hindrance to him. "My dear," he returned, "when a young lady is as mild as she's game, and as game as she's mild, that's all I ask, and more than I expect. She then becomes a queen, and that's about what you are yourself." With these encouraging words he got upon the box, and we once more drove away. Where we drove I did not know, but we appeared to seek out the narrowest and worst streets in London. Sometimes we emerged upon a wider thoroughfare or came to a larger, well-lit building. Then we stopped at police offices, and I saw him in consultation with others. Sometimes he would get down by an archway or at a street corner and mysteriously show the light of his little lantern. This would attract similar lights from various dark quarters, like so many insects, and a fresh consultation would be held. By degrees we appeared to contract our search within narrower limits. At last we stopped for a rather long conversation with a single police officer, which I supposed to be satisfactory from Mr. Bucket's manner of nodding. When it was finished he came to me looking very busy. "Now, Miss Summerson," he said to me, "you won't be alarmed whatever happens, I know. We have marked this person down, and you may be of use to me. Would you walk a little way?" Of course I got out directly and took his arm. "It ain't so easy to keep your feet," said Mr. Bucket, "but take time." "Are we in Holborn?" I asked him, as we crossed the street. "Yes. Do you know this turning?" "It looks like Chancery Lane." "So it is, my dear," said Mr. Bucket. We turned down it, and as we went shuffling through the sleet, I heard the clocks strike half-past five. We passed on as quickly as we could, when someone coming towards us on the narrow pavement, wrapped in a cloak, stopped and stood aside to give me room. I heard an exclamation of wonder and my own name; it was Mr. Woodcourt. It was so unexpected and so - I don't know what to call it, whether pleasant or painful - after my feverish wandering journey, and in the midst of the night, that I could not keep back the tears from my eyes. It was like hearing his voice in a strange country. "My dear Miss Summerson, that you should be out at this hour, and in such weather!" He had heard from my guardian of my having been called away on some uncommon business. I told him that we had just left a coach and were going - I looked at my companion. "Why, you see, Mr. Woodcourt" - he had caught the name from me - "we are a-going into the next street. Inspector Bucket." Mr. Woodcourt had hurriedly taken off his cloak and was putting it about me. "That's a good move," said Mr. Bucket, assisting him. "May I go with you?" said Mr. Woodcourt, I don't know whether to me or to my companion. "Why, Lord!" exclaimed Mr. Bucket. "Of course you may." They took me between them, wrapped in the cloak. "I have just left Richard," said Mr. Woodcourt. "I have been sitting with him since ten o'clock last night." "Oh, dear me, he is ill!" "No, no; not ill, but not quite well. He was depressed and faint - you know he gets so worried and so worn sometimes - and Ada sent word to me. Well! Richard revived so much after a little while, and Ada was so happy and so convinced of its being my doing, though God knows I had little enough to do with it, that I remained with him until he had been fast asleep some hours. As fast asleep as she is now, I hope!" His friendly and familiar way of speaking of them, his unaffected devotion to them, and the comfort he was to my darling; could I separate all this from his promise to me? I recalled the words he said to me when he was so moved by the change in my appearance: "I will accept him as a sacred trust!" We now turned into another narrow street. "Mr. Woodcourt," said Mr. Bucket, who had eyed him closely as we came along, "our business takes us to a law-stationer's here, a certain Mr. Snagsby's. What, you know him, do you?" He was so quick that he saw it in an instant. "Yes, I know a little of him and have called upon him here." "Indeed, sir?" said Mr. Bucket. "Then may I leave Miss Summerson with you for a moment while I go and have a word with him?" The last police-officer with whom he had conferred was standing silently behind us. I was not aware of it until he struck in, on my saying I heard some one crying. "Don't be alarmed, miss," he returned. "It's Snagsby's servant." "Why, you see," said Mr. Bucket, "the girl's subject to fits, and has 'em bad tonight. A most contrary circumstance it is, for I want certain information out of that girl." "At all events, they wouldn't be up if it wasn't for her, Mr. Bucket. She's been at it pretty well all night, sir," said the other man. I could faintly hear crying and moaning from the house. Mr. Bucket went up to the door with his lantern and knocked twice. The door was opened and he went in, leaving us standing in the street. "Miss Summerson," said Mr. Woodcourt, "if I may remain near you without obtruding on your confidence, pray let me do so." "You are truly kind," I answered. "I wish to keep no secret of my own from you; if I keep any, it is another's." "I quite understand." After a short time the door opened again, and Mr. Bucket advanced towards us. "Please to come in, Miss Summerson," he said, "and sit down by the fire. Mr. Woodcourt, I understand you are a medical man. Would you look to this girl and see if anything can be done to bring her round? She has a letter somewhere that I particularly want. It's not in her box, and I think it must be about her; but she is so twisted and clenched up that she is difficult to handle without hurting." We all three went into the house together. Behind the door stood a scared, sorrowful-looking little man in a grey coat who spoke meekly and politely. "Downstairs, if you please, Mr. Bucket," said he. "The lady will excuse the front kitchen; we use it as our workaday sitting-room. The back is Guster's bedroom, and in it she's a-carrying on, poor thing, to a frightful extent!" We went downstairs with Mr. Snagsby. In the front kitchen, sitting by the fire, was Mrs. Snagsby, with very red eyes and a very severe expression. "My little woman," said Mr. Snagsby, entering behind us, "here is Inspector Bucket, Mr. Woodcourt, and a lady." She looked very much astonished, and looked particularly hard at me. "My little woman," said Mr. Snagsby, sitting down by the door, "you may ask why Inspector Bucket, Mr. Woodcourt, and a lady call upon us at the present hour. I don't know. I have not the least idea. In fact, I'd rather not be told." He appeared so miserable, sitting with his head upon his hand, and I appeared so unwelcome, that I was going to offer an apology when Mr. Bucket spoke. "Now, Mr. Snagsby," said he, "you go along with Mr. Woodcourt to look after your Guster-" "My Guster, Mr. Bucket!" cried Mr. Snagsby. "Go on, sir. I shall be charged with that next." "And hold the candle," pursued Mr. Bucket, "or make yourself useful in any way you're asked. You're a humane man, you know, and you've got the sort of heart that can feel for another. Mr. Woodcourt, would you kindly see to her, and if you can get that letter from her, let me have it as soon as you can?" As they went out, Mr. Bucket made me sit down by the fire and take off my wet shoes, which he turned up to dry upon the fender, talking all the time. "Don't you be put out, miss, by the lack of a hospitable look from Mrs. Snagsby there, because she's under a mistake altogether. She'll find that out sooner than will be agreeable to a lady of her generally correct thinking, because I'm a-going to explain it to her." Here, standing on the hearth with his wet hat and shawls in his hand, he turned to Mrs. Snagsby. "Now, the first thing that I say to you, as a married woman possessing what you may call charms, you know - 'Believe Me, if All Those Endearing,' and cetra - charms that ought to give you confidence in yourself - is, that you've done it." Mrs. Snagsby looked rather alarmed, and faltered, what did Mr. Bucket mean? "What does Mr. Bucket mean?" he repeated, and I saw by his face that all the time he talked he was listening for the discovery of the letter. "I'll tell you what he means, ma'am. Go and see Othello acted. That's the tragedy for you." Mrs. Snagsby asked why. "Why?" said Mr. Bucket. "Because you'll come to that if you don't look out. Why, at this very moment, I know what your mind's not wholly free from respecting this young lady. But shall I tell you who this young lady is? Now, come, you're what I call an intellectual woman. You know me, and you recollect where you saw me last, and what was talked of in that circle. Don't you? Yes! Very well. This young lady is that young lady." Mrs. Snagsby appeared to understand the reference better than I did. "And the boy Jo was mixed up in the same business, and no other; and the law-writer that you know of was mixed up in the same business, and no other; and your husband, with no more knowledge of it than your great grandfather, was mixed up (by Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased) in the same business, and no other; and the whole throng of people was mixed up in the same business, and no other. And yet a married woman, possessing your attractions, shuts her eyes and goes and runs her delicate-formed head against a wall. Why, I am ashamed of you! (I expected Mr. Woodcourt might have got it by this time.)" Mrs. Snagsby shook her head and put her handkerchief to her eyes. "Is that all?" said Mr. Bucket excitedly. "No. See what happens. Another person mixed up in that business and no other, a person in a wretched state, comes here tonight and is seen a-speaking to your maid-servant; and between her and your maid-servant there passes a paper that I would give a hundred pound for, down. What do you do? You hide and you watch 'em, and you pounce upon that maid-servant - knowing what a little thing will bring on her fits - with that severity that, by the Lord, she goes off and keeps off, when a life may be hanging upon that girl's words!" He so thoroughly meant what he said that I involuntarily clasped my hands and felt the room turning away from me. But then Mr. Woodcourt came in, put a paper into his hand, and went away again. "Now, Mrs. Snagsby, the only amends you can make," said Mr. Bucket, rapidly glancing at it, "is to let me speak a word to this young lady in private here. And if you know of any help that you can give to that gentleman in the next room or can think of anything that's likely to bring the girl round, do your best!" In an instant she was gone, and he had shut the door. "Now, my dear, you're steady and quite sure of yourself?" "Quite," said I. "Whose writing is that?" It was my mother's. Pencil-writing, on a crushed and torn piece of paper, blotted with wet. Folded, and addressed to me at my guardian's. "If you are firm enough to read it to me, do!" he said. It had been written in portions, at different times. I read what follows: I came to the cottage with two objects. First, to see the dear one, if I could, once more - but only to see her - not to speak to her or let her know that I was near. The other object, to elude pursuit and to be lost. Do not blame the mother for her share. She helped me on my strongest assurance that it was for the dear one's good. You remember her dead child. The men's consent I bought, but her help was freely given. "'I came.' That was written when she rested there," said my companion. "I was right." The next was written at another time: I have wandered a long distance, and for many hours, and I know that I must soon die. These streets! I have no purpose but to die. When I left, I had a worse, but I am saved from adding that guilt to the rest. Cold, wet, and fatigue are sufficient causes for my being found dead, but I shall die of others, though I suffer from these. It was right that I should die of terror and my conscience. "Take courage," said Mr. Bucket. "There's only a few words more." Those, too, were written at another time. To all appearance, almost in the dark: I have done all I could do to be lost. I shall be soon forgotten thus, and shall disgrace him least. I have nothing about me by which I can be recognized. This paper I part with now. The place where I shall lie down, if I can get so far, has been often in my mind. Farewell. Forgive. Mr. Bucket, supporting me with his arm, lowered me gently into my chair. "Cheer up! Don't think me hard with you, my dear, but as soon as you feel equal to it, get your shoes on and be ready." I did as he required, but I was left there a long time, praying for my unhappy mother. They were all occupied with the poor girl, and I heard Mr. Woodcourt speaking to her. At length he came in with Mr. Bucket and said that as it was important to address her gently, he thought it best that I should ask her for whatever information we desired. She could now reply to questions if she were soothed and not alarmed. The questions, Mr. Bucket said, were how she came by the letter, what passed between her and the person who gave her the letter, and where the person went. I went into the next room with them. The poor girl was sitting on the floor. She looked weak, but she had a plaintive and a good face, though it was still a little wild. I kneeled on the ground beside her and put her poor head upon my shoulder, whereupon she drew her arm round my neck and burst into tears. "My poor girl," said I, laying my face against her forehead, for indeed I was crying too, and trembling, "it seems cruel to trouble you now, but more depends on our knowing something about this letter than I could tell you in an hour." She began piteously declaring that she didn't mean any harm, she didn't mean any harm, Mrs. Snagsby! "We are all sure of that," said I. "But pray tell me how you got it." "Yes, dear lady. I'll tell true, indeed." "I am sure of that," said I. "How was it?" "I had been out on an errand, quite late; and when I came home, I found a common-looking person, all wet and muddy, looking up at our house. When she saw me coming in, she said did I live here. And I said yes, and she said she knew only one or two places about here, but had lost her way and couldn't find them. Oh, what shall I do! They won't believe me! She didn't say any harm to me, and I didn't say any harm to her, indeed, Mrs. Snagsby!" It was necessary for her mistress to comfort her - which she did, I must say, with a good deal of contrition. "She was so faint," cried the girl, "and lame, and miserable, oh so wretched, that if you had seen her, Mr. Snagsby, you'd have given her half a crown, I know!" "Well, Guster, my girl," said he, not knowing what to say. "I hope I should." "And yet she was well spoken," said the girl, looking at me with wide open eyes. "And she said to me, did I know the way to the burying ground? And I asked her which burying ground. And she said, the poor burying ground not very far from here, where there was an archway, and a step, and an iron gate." As I soothed her to go on, I saw that Mr. Bucket received this with a look of alarm. "Oh, dear, dear!" cried the girl. "What shall I do, what shall I do! She meant the burying ground where the man was buried that took the sleeping-stuff - that you told us of, Mr. Snagsby. Oh, I am frightened again. Hold me!" "You are so much better now," said I. "Pray, pray tell me more." "Yes, I will! But don't be angry with me, that's a dear lady." Angry with her, poor soul! "So she said, could I tell her how to find it, and I said yes, and I told her; and she looked at me almost as if she was blind. And so she took out the letter, and showed it me, and said would I take it from her, and send it. And I said yes, if it was no harm, and she said no - no harm. And so I took it from her, and she said she had nothing to give me, and I said I was poor myself and wanted nothing. And so she said God bless you, and went." "And did she go-" "Yes!" cried the girl. "She went the way I had shown her. Then I came in, and Mrs. Snagsby came behind me from somewhere and laid hold of me, and I was frightened." Mr. Woodcourt took her kindly from me. Mr. Bucket wrapped me up, and immediately we were in the street. Mr. Woodcourt hesitated, but I said, "Don't leave me now!" and Mr. Bucket added, "You'll be better with us, we may want you; don't lose time!" I have the most confused impressions of that walk. I recollect that it was neither night nor day, that morning was dawning but the street-lamps were not yet put out, and that the sleet was still falling. I recollect the clogged and bursting gutters and water-spouts, the mounds of blackened ice and snow over which we passed, the narrowness of the streets. I remember the stained house-fronts put on human shapes and looked at me, that great water-gates seemed to be opening and closing in my head or in the air, and that the unreal things were more substantial than the real. At last we stood under a dark and miserable covered way, where one lamp was burning over an iron gate. The gate was closed. Beyond it was a burial ground, where I could dimly see heaps of dishonoured graves and stones, hemmed in by filthy houses with a few dull lights in their windows. On the step at the gate, drenched in the fearful wet of such a place, I saw, with a cry of pity and horror, a woman lying - Jenny, the mother of the dead child. I ran forward, but they stopped me, and Mr. Woodcourt entreated me with the greatest earnestness, even with tears, to listen for an instant to what Mr. Bucket said. I did so. "Miss Summerson, you'll understand me, if you think a moment. They changed clothes at the cottage." They changed clothes at the cottage. I could repeat the words in my mind, and I knew what they meant of themselves, but I attached no meaning to them in any other connexion. "And one returned," said Mr. Bucket, "and one went on. And the one that went on only went on a certain way agreed upon to deceive and then turned across country and went home. Think a moment!" I could repeat this in my mind too, but I had not the least idea what it meant. I saw before me, lying on the step, the mother of the dead child, who had so lately spoken to my mother. She lay there, a distressed, unsheltered, senseless creature. She who had brought my mother's letter, who could give me the only clue to where my mother was; she, who was to guide us to rescue my mother; she lay there, and they stopped me! I saw but did not comprehend the solemn and compassionate look in Mr. Woodcourt's face. I saw but did not comprehend his touching the inspector to keep him back. I heard it said between them, "Shall she go?" "She had better go. Her hands should be the first to touch her. They have a higher right than ours." I passed on to the gate and stooped down. I lifted the heavy head, put the long dank hair aside, and turned the face. And it was my mother, cold and dead.

Bleak House

Chapter 59: Esther's Narrative

When Mr. Woodcourt arrived in London, he went, that very same day, to Mr. Vholes's in Symond's Inn. For he never once, from the moment when I entreated him to be a friend to Richard, neglected or forgot his promise. He had told me that he accepted the charge as a sacred trust, and he was ever true to it in that spirit. He found Mr. Vholes in his office and informed Mr. Vholes of his agreement with Richard that he should call there to learn his address. "Just so, sir," said Mr. Vholes. "Mr. C.'s address is not a hundred miles from here, sir, Mr. C.'s address is not a hundred miles from here. Would you take a seat, sir?" Mr. Woodcourt thanked Mr. Vholes, but he had no business with him beyond what he had mentioned. "Just so, sir. I believe, sir," said Mr. Vholes, still quietly insisting on the seat by not giving the address, "that you have influence with Mr. C. Indeed I am aware that you have." "I was not aware of it myself," returned Mr. Woodcourt; "but I suppose you know best." "Sir," rejoined Mr. Vholes, self-contained as usual, voice and all, "it is a part of my professional duty to know best. It is a part of my professional duty to study and to understand a gentleman who confides his interests to me. In my professional duty I shall not be wanting, sir, if I know it. I may, with the best intentions, be wanting in it without knowing it; but not if I know it, sir." Mr. Woodcourt again mentioned the address. "Give me leave, sir," said Mr. Vholes. "Bear with me for a moment. Sir, Mr. C. is playing for a considerable stake, and cannot play without--need I say what?" "Money, I presume?" "Sir," said Mr. Vholes, "to be honest with you (honesty being my golden rule, whether I gain by it or lose, and I find that I generally lose), money is the word. Now, sir, upon the chances of Mr. C.'s game I express to you no opinion, NO opinion. It might be highly impolitic in Mr. C., after playing so long and so high, to leave off; it might be the reverse; I say nothing. No, sir," said Mr. Vholes, bringing his hand flat down upon his desk in a positive manner, "nothing." "You seem to forget," returned Mr. Woodcourt, "that I ask you to say nothing and have no interest in anything you say." "Pardon me, sir!" retorted Mr. Vholes. "You do yourself an injustice. No, sir! Pardon me! You shall not--shall not in my office, if I know it--do yourself an injustice. You are interested in anything, and in everything, that relates to your friend. I know human nature much better, sir, than to admit for an instant that a gentleman of your appearance is not interested in whatever concerns his friend." "Well," replied Mr. Woodcourt, "that may be. I am particularly interested in his address." "The number, sir," said Mr. Vholes parenthetically, "I believe I have already mentioned. If Mr. C. is to continue to play for this considerable stake, sir, he must have funds. Understand me! There are funds in hand at present. I ask for nothing; there are funds in hand. But for the onward play, more funds must be provided, unless Mr. C. is to throw away what he has already ventured, which is wholly and solely a point for his consideration. This, sir, I take the opportunity of stating openly to you as the friend of Mr. C. Without funds I shall always be happy to appear and act for Mr. C. to the extent of all such costs as are safe to be allowed out of the estate, not beyond that. I could not go beyond that, sir, without wronging some one. I must either wrong my three dear girls or my venerable father, who is entirely dependent on me, in the Vale of Taunton; or some one. Whereas, sir, my resolution is (call it weakness or folly if you please) to wrong no one." Mr. Woodcourt rather sternly rejoined that he was glad to hear it. "I wish, sir," said Mr. Vholes, "to leave a good name behind me. Therefore I take every opportunity of openly stating to a friend of Mr. C. how Mr. C. is situated. As to myself, sir, the labourer is worthy of his hire. If I undertake to put my shoulder to the wheel, I do it, and I earn what I get. I am here for that purpose. My name is painted on the door outside, with that object." "And Mr. Carstone's address, Mr. Vholes?" "Sir," returned Mr. Vholes, "as I believe I have already mentioned, it is next door. On the second story you will find Mr. C.'s apartments. Mr. C. desires to be near his professional adviser, and I am far from objecting, for I court inquiry." Upon this Mr. Woodcourt wished Mr. Vholes good day and went in search of Richard, the change in whose appearance he began to understand now but too well. He found him in a dull room, fadedly furnished, much as I had found him in his barrack-room but a little while before, except that he was not writing but was sitting with a book before him, from which his eyes and thoughts were far astray. As the door chanced to be standing open, Mr. Woodcourt was in his presence for some moments without being perceived, and he told me that he never could forget the haggardness of his face and the dejection of his manner before he was aroused from his dream. "Woodcourt, my dear fellow," cried Richard, starting up with extended hands, "you come upon my vision like a ghost." "A friendly one," he replied, "and only waiting, as they say ghosts do, to be addressed. How does the mortal world go?" They were seated now, near together. "Badly enough, and slowly enough," said Richard, "speaking at least for my part of it." "What part is that?" "The Chancery part." "I never heard," returned Mr. Woodcourt, shaking his head, "of its going well yet." "Nor I," said Richard moodily. "Who ever did?" He brightened again in a moment and said with his natural openness, "Woodcourt, I should be sorry to be misunderstood by you, even if I gained by it in your estimation. You must know that I have done no good this long time. I have not intended to do much harm, but I seem to have been capable of nothing else. It may be that I should have done better by keeping out of the net into which my destiny has worked me, but I think not, though I dare say you will soon hear, if you have not already heard, a very different opinion. To make short of a long story, I am afraid I have wanted an object; but I have an object now--or it has me--and it is too late to discuss it. Take me as I am, and make the best of me." "A bargain," said Mr. Woodcourt. "Do as much by me in return." "Oh! You," returned Richard, "you can pursue your art for its own sake, and can put your hand upon the plough and never turn, and can strike a purpose out of anything. You and I are very different creatures." He spoke regretfully and lapsed for a moment into his weary condition. "Well, well!" he cried, shaking it off. "Everything has an end. We shall see! So you will take me as I am, and make the best of me?" "Aye! Indeed I will." They shook hands upon it laughingly, but in deep earnestness. I can answer for one of them with my heart of hearts. "You come as a godsend," said Richard, "for I have seen nobody here yet but Vholes. Woodcourt, there is one subject I should like to mention, for once and for all, in the beginning of our treaty. You can hardly make the best of me if I don't. You know, I dare say, that I have an attachment to my cousin Ada?" Mr. Woodcourt replied that I had hinted as much to him. "Now pray," returned Richard, "don't think me a heap of selfishness. Don't suppose that I am splitting my head and half breaking my heart over this miserable Chancery suit for my own rights and interests alone. Ada's are bound up with mine; they can't be separated; Vholes works for both of us. Do think of that!" He was so very solicitous on this head that Mr. Woodcourt gave him the strongest assurances that he did him no injustice. "You see," said Richard, with something pathetic in his manner of lingering on the point, though it was off-hand and unstudied, "to an upright fellow like you, bringing a friendly face like yours here, I cannot bear the thought of appearing selfish and mean. I want to see Ada righted, Woodcourt, as well as myself; I want to do my utmost to right her, as well as myself; I venture what I can scrape together to extricate her, as well as myself. Do, I beseech you, think of that!" Afterwards, when Mr. Woodcourt came to reflect on what had passed, he was so very much impressed by the strength of Richard's anxiety on this point that in telling me generally of his first visit to Symond's Inn he particularly dwelt upon it. It revived a fear I had had before that my dear girl's little property would be absorbed by Mr. Vholes and that Richard's justification to himself would be sincerely this. It was just as I began to take care of Caddy that the interview took place, and I now return to the time when Caddy had recovered and the shade was still between me and my darling. I proposed to Ada that morning that we should go and see Richard. It a little surprised me to find that she hesitated and was not so radiantly willing as I had expected. "My dear," said I, "you have not had any difference with Richard since I have been so much away?" "No, Esther." "Not heard of him, perhaps?" said I. "Yes, I have heard of him," said Ada. Such tears in her eyes, and such love in her face. I could not make my darling out. Should I go to Richard's by myself? I said. No, Ada thought I had better not go by myself. Would she go with me? Yes, Ada thought she had better go with me. Should we go now? Yes, let us go now. Well, I could not understand my darling, with the tears in her eyes and the love in her face! We were soon equipped and went out. It was a sombre day, and drops of chill rain fell at intervals. It was one of those colourless days when everything looks heavy and harsh. The houses frowned at us, the dust rose at us, the smoke swooped at us, nothing made any compromise about itself or wore a softened aspect. I fancied my beautiful girl quite out of place in the rugged streets, and I thought there were more funerals passing along the dismal pavements than I had ever seen before. We had first to find out Symond's Inn. We were going to inquire in a shop when Ada said she thought it was near Chancery Lane. "We are not likely to be far out, my love, if we go in that direction," said I. So to Chancery Lane we went, and there, sure enough, we saw it written up. Symond's Inn. We had next to find out the number. "Or Mr. Vholes's office will do," I recollected, "for Mr. Vholes's office is next door." Upon which Ada said, perhaps that was Mr. Vholes's office in the corner there. And it really was. Then came the question, which of the two next doors? I was going for the one, and my darling was going for the other; and my darling was right again. So up we went to the second story, when we came to Richard's name in great white letters on a hearse-like panel. I should have knocked, but Ada said perhaps we had better turn the handle and go in. Thus we came to Richard, poring over a table covered with dusty bundles of papers which seemed to me like dusty mirrors reflecting his own mind. Wherever I looked I saw the ominous words that ran in it repeated. Jarndyce and Jarndyce. He received us very affectionately, and we sat down. "If you had come a little earlier," he said, "you would have found Woodcourt here. There never was such a good fellow as Woodcourt is. He finds time to look in between-whiles, when anybody else with half his work to do would be thinking about not being able to come. And he is so cheery, so fresh, so sensible, so earnest, so--everything that I am not, that the place brightens whenever he comes, and darkens whenever he goes again." "God bless him," I thought, "for his truth to me!" "He is not so sanguine, Ada," continued Richard, casting his dejected look over the bundles of papers, "as Vholes and I are usually, but he is only an outsider and is not in the mysteries. We have gone into them, and he has not. He can't be expected to know much of such a labyrinth." As his look wandered over the papers again and he passed his two hands over his head, I noticed how sunken and how large his eyes appeared, how dry his lips were, and how his finger-nails were all bitten away. "Is this a healthy place to live in, Richard, do you think?" said I. "Why, my dear Minerva," answered Richard with his old gay laugh, "it is neither a rural nor a cheerful place; and when the sun shines here, you may lay a pretty heavy wager that it is shining brightly in an open spot. But it's well enough for the time. It's near the offices and near Vholes." "Perhaps," I hinted, "a change from both--" "Might do me good?" said Richard, forcing a laugh as he finished the sentence. "I shouldn't wonder! But it can only come in one way now--in one of two ways, I should rather say. Either the suit must be ended, Esther, or the suitor. But it shall be the suit, my dear girl, the suit, my dear girl!" These latter words were addressed to Ada, who was sitting nearest to him. Her face being turned away from me and towards him, I could not see it. "We are doing very well," pursued Richard. "Vholes will tell you so. We are really spinning along. Ask Vholes. We are giving them no rest. Vholes knows all their windings and turnings, and we are upon them everywhere. We have astonished them already. We shall rouse up that nest of sleepers, mark my words!" His hopefulness had long been more painful to me than his despondency; it was so unlike hopefulness, had something so fierce in its determination to be it, was so hungry and eager, and yet so conscious of being forced and unsustainable that it had long touched me to the heart. But the commentary upon it now indelibly written in his handsome face made it far more distressing than it used to be. I say indelibly, for I felt persuaded that if the fatal cause could have been for ever terminated, according to his brightest visions, in that same hour, the traces of the premature anxiety, self-reproach, and disappointment it had occasioned him would have remained upon his features to the hour of his death. "The sight of our dear little woman," said Richard, Ada still remaining silent and quiet, "is so natural to me, and her compassionate face is so like the face of old days--" Ah! No, no. I smiled and shook my head. "--So exactly like the face of old days," said Richard in his cordial voice, and taking my hand with the brotherly regard which nothing ever changed, "that I can't make pretences with her. I fluctuate a little; that's the truth. Sometimes I hope, my dear, and sometimes I--don't quite despair, but nearly. I get," said Richard, relinquishing my hand gently and walking across the room, "so tired!" He took a few turns up and down and sunk upon the sofa. "I get," he repeated gloomily, "so tired. It is such weary, weary work!" He was leaning on his arm saying these words in a meditative voice and looking at the ground when my darling rose, put off her bonnet, kneeled down beside him with her golden hair falling like sunlight on his head, clasped her two arms round his neck, and turned her face to me. Oh, what a loving and devoted face I saw! "Esther, dear," she said very quietly, "I am not going home again." A light shone in upon me all at once. "Never any more. I am going to stay with my dear husband. We have been married above two months. Go home without me, my own Esther; I shall never go home any more!" With those words my darling drew his head down on her breast and held it there. And if ever in my life I saw a love that nothing but death could change, I saw it then before me. "Speak to Esther, my dearest," said Richard, breaking the silence presently. "Tell her how it was." I met her before she could come to me and folded her in my arms. We neither of us spoke, but with her cheek against my own I wanted to hear nothing. "My pet," said I. "My love. My poor, poor girl!" I pitied her so much. I was very fond of Richard, but the impulse that I had upon me was to pity her so much. "Esther, will you forgive me? Will my cousin John forgive me?" "My dear," said I, "to doubt it for a moment is to do him a great wrong. And as to me!" Why, as to me, what had I to forgive! I dried my sobbing darling's eyes and sat beside her on the sofa, and Richard sat on my other side; and while I was reminded of that so different night when they had first taken me into their confidence and had gone on in their own wild happy way, they told me between them how it was. "All I had was Richard's," Ada said; "and Richard would not take it, Esther, and what could I do but be his wife when I loved him dearly!" "And you were so fully and so kindly occupied, excellent Dame Durden," said Richard, "that how could we speak to you at such a time! And besides, it was not a long-considered step. We went out one morning and were married." "And when it was done, Esther," said my darling, "I was always thinking how to tell you and what to do for the best. And sometimes I thought you ought to know it directly, and sometimes I thought you ought not to know it and keep it from my cousin John; and I could not tell what to do, and I fretted very much." How selfish I must have been not to have thought of this before! I don't know what I said now. I was so sorry, and yet I was so fond of them and so glad that they were fond of me; I pitied them so much, and yet I felt a kind of pride in their loving one another. I never had experienced such painful and pleasurable emotion at one time, and in my own heart I did not know which predominated. But I was not there to darken their way; I did not do that. When I was less foolish and more composed, my darling took her wedding-ring from her bosom, and kissed it, and put it on. Then I remembered last night and told Richard that ever since her marriage she had worn it at night when there was no one to see. Then Ada blushingly asked me how did I know that, my dear. Then I told Ada how I had seen her hand concealed under her pillow and had little thought why, my dear. Then they began telling me how it was all over again, and I began to be sorry and glad again, and foolish again, and to hide my plain old face as much as I could lest I should put them out of heart. Thus the time went on until it became necessary for me to think of returning. When that time arrived it was the worst of all, for then my darling completely broke down. She clung round my neck, calling me by every dear name she could think of and saying what should she do without me! Nor was Richard much better; and as for me, I should have been the worst of the three if I had not severely said to myself, "Now Esther, if you do, I'll never speak to you again!" "Why, I declare," said I, "I never saw such a wife. I don't think she loves her husband at all. Here, Richard, take my child, for goodness' sake." But I held her tight all the while, and could have wept over her I don't know how long. "I give this dear young couple notice," said I, "that I am only going away to come back to-morrow and that I shall be always coming backwards and forwards until Symond's Inn is tired of the sight of me. So I shall not say good-bye, Richard. For what would be the use of that, you know, when I am coming back so soon!" I had given my darling to him now, and I meant to go; but I lingered for one more look of the precious face which it seemed to rive my heart to turn from. So I said (in a merry, bustling manner) that unless they gave me some encouragement to come back, I was not sure that I could take that liberty, upon which my dear girl looked up, faintly smiling through her tears, and I folded her lovely face between my hands, and gave it one last kiss, and laughed, and ran away. And when I got downstairs, oh, how I cried! It almost seemed to me that I had lost my Ada for ever. I was so lonely and so blank without her, and it was so desolate to be going home with no hope of seeing her there, that I could get no comfort for a little while as I walked up and down in a dim corner sobbing and crying. I came to myself by and by, after a little scolding, and took a coach home. The poor boy whom I had found at St. Albans had reappeared a short time before and was lying at the point of death; indeed, was then dead, though I did not know it. My guardian had gone out to inquire about him and did not return to dinner. Being quite alone, I cried a little again, though on the whole I don't think I behaved so very, very ill. It was only natural that I should not be quite accustomed to the loss of my darling yet. Three or four hours were not a long time after years. But my mind dwelt so much upon the uncongenial scene in which I had left her, and I pictured it as such an overshadowed stony-hearted one, and I so longed to be near her and taking some sort of care of her, that I determined to go back in the evening only to look up at her windows. It was foolish, I dare say, but it did not then seem at all so to me, and it does not seem quite so even now. I took Charley into my confidence, and we went out at dusk. It was dark when we came to the new strange home of my dear girl, and there was a light behind the yellow blinds. We walked past cautiously three or four times, looking up, and narrowly missed encountering Mr. Vholes, who came out of his office while we were there and turned his head to look up too before going home. The sight of his lank black figure and the lonesome air of that nook in the dark were favourable to the state of my mind. I thought of the youth and love and beauty of my dear girl, shut up in such an ill-assorted refuge, almost as if it were a cruel place. It was very solitary and very dull, and I did not doubt that I might safely steal upstairs. I left Charley below and went up with a light foot, not distressed by any glare from the feeble oil lanterns on the way. I listened for a few moments, and in the musty rotting silence of the house believed that I could hear the murmur of their young voices. I put my lips to the hearse-like panel of the door as a kiss for my dear and came quietly down again, thinking that one of these days I would confess to the visit. And it really did me good, for though nobody but Charley and I knew anything about it, I somehow felt as if it had diminished the separation between Ada and me and had brought us together again for those moments. I went back, not quite accustomed yet to the change, but all the better for that hovering about my darling. My guardian had come home and was standing thoughtfully by the dark window. When I went in, his face cleared and he came to his seat, but he caught the light upon my face as I took mine. "Little woman," said he, "You have been crying." "Why, yes, guardian," said I, "I am afraid I have been, a little. Ada has been in such distress, and is so very sorry, guardian." I put my arm on the back of his chair, and I saw in his glance that my words and my look at her empty place had prepared him. "Is she married, my dear?" I told him all about it and how her first entreaties had referred to his forgiveness. "She has no need of it," said he. "Heaven bless her and her husband!" But just as my first impulse had been to pity her, so was his. "Poor girl, poor girl! Poor Rick! Poor Ada!" Neither of us spoke after that, until he said with a sigh, "Well, well, my dear! Bleak House is thinning fast." "But its mistress remains, guardian." Though I was timid about saying it, I ventured because of the sorrowful tone in which he had spoken. "She will do all she can to make it happy," said I. "She will succeed, my love!" The letter had made no difference between us except that the seat by his side had come to be mine; it made none now. He turned his old bright fatherly look upon me, laid his hand on my hand in his old way, and said again, "She will succeed, my dear. Nevertheless, Bleak House is thinning fast, O little woman!" I was sorry presently that this was all we said about that. I was rather disappointed. I feared I might not quite have been all I had meant to be since the letter and the answer.

When Mr. Woodcourt arrived in London, he went the same day to Mr. Vholes's in Symond's Inn. For after I entreated him to be a friend to Richard, he never forgot or neglected his promise. He found Mr. Vholes in his office and informed him that he had called there to learn Richard's address. "Just so, sir," said Mr. Vholes. "Mr. C.'s address is not a hundred miles from here. Would you take a seat, sir?" Mr. Woodcourt thanked Mr. Vholes, but he had no business beyond what he had mentioned. "Just so, sir. I am aware, sir," said Mr. Vholes, "that you have influence with Mr. C." "I was not aware of it myself," returned Mr. Woodcourt; "but I suppose you know best." "Sir," rejoined Mr. Vholes, "it is a part of my professional duty to know best and to understand a gentleman who confides his interests to me. In my professional duty I shall not be wanting, sir." Mr. Woodcourt again mentioned the address. "Bear with me for a moment, Sir. Mr. C. is playing for a considerable stake, and cannot play without money. Now, sir, upon the chances of Mr. C.'s game I express no opinion. It might be wise of him; it might not. I say nothing. No, sir," said Mr. Vholes, bringing his hand flat down upon his desk, "nothing." "You seem to forget," returned Mr. Woodcourt, "that I ask you to say nothing and have no interest in anything you say." "Pardon me, sir!" retorted Mr. Vholes. "You do yourself an injustice. You are interested in anything that relates to your friend." "Well," replied Mr. Woodcourt, "that may be. I am particularly interested in his address." "The number, sir," said Mr. Vholes, "I believe I have already mentioned. If Mr. C. is to continue to play for this considerable stake, sir, he must have funds. Understand me! There are funds in hand at present. But for the onward play, more funds must be provided. Without funds I shall always be happy to act for Mr. C. to the extent of all such costs as are safe to be allowed out of the estate. I could not go beyond that, sir, without wronging my three dear girls or my venerable father, who is entirely dependent on me, in the Vale of Taunton. Whereas, sir, my resolution is to wrong no one." Mr. Woodcourt rather sternly rejoined that he was glad to hear it. "I wish, sir," said Mr. Vholes, "to leave a good name behind me. Therefore I openly state how Mr. C. is situated." "And his address, Mr. Vholes?" "Sir," returned Mr. Vholes, "it is next door, on the second storey. Mr. C. desires to be near his professional adviser." Mr. Woodcourt wished Mr. Vholes good day and went in search of Richard, the change in whose appearance he began to understand now all too well. He found him in a dull, faded room, sitting with a book before him, from which his eyes and thoughts were far astray. As the door chanced to be open, Mr. Woodcourt was in his presence for some moments without being perceived, and he told me that he never could forget the haggardness of his face and the dejection of his manner before he was aroused. "Woodcourt, my dear fellow," cried Richard, starting up with extended hands, "you come upon my vision like a ghost." "A friendly one," he replied. "How does the mortal world go?" "Badly enough, and slowly enough," said Richard, "at least the Chancery part of it." "I never heard," returned Mr. Woodcourt, shaking his head, "of its going well yet." "Nor I," said Richard moodily. "Who ever did?" He brightened again in a moment and said with his natural openness, "Woodcourt, you must know that I have done no good this long time. I have not intended to do much harm, but I seem to have been capable of nothing else. Maybe I should have kept out of the net, but I think not, though I dare say you will hear a very different opinion. I am afraid I have wanted an object; but I have an object now - or it has me - and it is too late to discuss it. Take me as I am, and make the best of me." "A bargain," said Mr. Woodcourt. "Do as much by me in return." "Oh! You," returned Richard, "you can strike a purpose out of anything." They shook hands laughingly, but in deep earnestness. "You come as a godsend," said Richard, "for I have seen nobody here yet but Vholes. Woodcourt, there is one subject I should like to mention. You know, I dare say, that I have an attachment to my cousin Ada?" Mr. Woodcourt replied that I had hinted as much. "Now pray," returned Richard, "don't suppose that I am splitting my head and half breaking my heart over this miserable Chancery suit for my own interests alone. Ada's are bound up with mine; they can't be separated; Vholes works for both of us. Do think of that!" Mr. Woodcourt assured him that he did. "You see," said Richard, "to an upright fellow like you, I cannot bear the thought of appearing selfish and mean. I want to see Ada righted, as well as myself!" Afterwards, when Mr. Woodcourt told me of this first visit to Symond's Inn, he particularly dwelt upon Richard's anxiety on this point. It revived my fear that my dear girl's little property would be absorbed by Mr. Vholes. It was just as I began to take care of Caddy that the meeting took place; and I now return to the time when Caddy had recovered and the shade was still between me and my darling. I proposed to Ada that morning that we should go and see Richard. It surprised me to find that she hesitated. "My dear," said I, "you have not had any quarrel with Richard since I have been so much away?" "No, Esther." "Not heard of him, perhaps?" said I. "Yes, I have heard of him," said Ada. Such tears in her eyes, and such love in her face. I could not make my darling out. Should I go to Richard's by myself? I said. No, Ada thought she had better go with me. Should we go now? Yes, let us go now. Well, I could not understand my darling! It was a sombre day, and drops of chill rain fell at intervals: one of those colourless days when everything looks heavy and harsh. I fancied my beautiful girl quite out of place in the rugged streets, and I thought there were more funerals passing along the dismal pavements than I had ever seen before. We had first to find Symond's Inn. Ada said she thought it was near Chancery Lane. So to Chancery Lane we went, and there, sure enough, we saw it written up. Symond's Inn. We had next to find out the number. "Mr. Vholes's office is next door," I recollected. Upon which Ada said, perhaps that was Mr. Vholes's office in the corner. And it was. Then came the question, which of the two next doors? I was going for the one, and my darling was going for the other; and my darling was right again. So up we went to the second storey, when we came to Richard's name in great white letters on a hearse-like panel. I should have knocked, but Ada said perhaps we had better turn the handle and go in. Thus we found Richard, poring over a table covered with dusty bundles of papers. Wherever I looked I saw the ominous words repeated: Jarndyce and Jarndyce. He received us very affectionately, and we sat down. "If you had come a little earlier," he said, "you would have found Woodcourt here. There never was such a good fellow. And he is so cheery, so fresh, so sensible, so - everything that I am not, that the place brightens whenever he comes, and darkens whenever he goes again." "God bless him," I thought, "for his truth to me!" "He is not so sanguine, Ada," continued Richard, casting his dejected look over the bundles of papers, "as Vholes and I are usually, but he is only an outsider and is not in the mysteries. He can't be expected to know much of such a labyrinth." As his look wandered over the papers again, I noticed how sunken and large his eyes appeared, how dry his lips were, and how his finger-nails were all bitten away. "Is this a healthy place to live, Richard, do you think?" said I. "Why," answered Richard with his old gay laugh, "it is neither rural nor cheerful; but it's well enough for now. It's near the offices and Vholes." "Perhaps," I hinted, "a change from both-" "Might do me good?" said Richard, forcing a laugh. "I shouldn't wonder! But it can only go one way now - one of two ways, I should say. Either the suit must be ended, Esther, or the suitor. But it shall be the suit, my dear girl, the suit!" These latter words were addressed to Ada, who was sitting nearest to him, with her face turned away from me. She remained silent. "We are doing very well," pursued Richard. "Vholes will tell you so. We are really spinning along. Ask Vholes. We are giving them no rest. We shall rouse up that nest of sleepers, mark my words!" His hopefulness had long been more painful to me than his despondency; it was so unlike hopefulness, had something so fierce in its determination to be it, was so hungry and eager, and yet so conscious of being forced. But it was far more distressing now than it used to be. Even if the fatal cause could have been ended in that hour, I felt that the traces of the anxiety, self-reproach, and disappointment it had caused him would have remained upon his features to the hour of his death. "The compassionate face of our dear little woman," said Richard, "is so like the face of old days-" Ah! No. I smiled and shook my head. "-So exactly like the face of old days," said Richard cordially, "that I can't pretend with her. I fluctuate a little; that's the truth. Sometimes I hope, my dear, and sometimes I - don't quite despair, but nearly. I get so tired!" Walking across the room, he sunk upon the sofa. "I get," he repeated gloomily, "so tired. It is such weary, weary work!" My darling rose, put off her bonnet, kneeled down beside him with her golden hair falling like sunlight on his head, clasped her two arms round his neck, and turned her face to me. Oh, what a loving and devoted face I saw! "Esther, dear," she said very quietly, "I am not going home again." A light shone in upon me all at once. "Never any more. I am going to stay with my dear husband. We have been married above two months. Go home without me, my own Esther; I shall never go home any more!" With those words my darling drew his head down on her breast and held it there. And if ever in my life I saw a love that nothing but death could change, I saw it then before me. "Speak to Esther, my dearest," said Richard, breaking the silence presently. "Tell her how it was." I folded her in my arms. We neither of us spoke, but with her cheek against my own I wanted to hear nothing. "My pet," said I. "My love. My poor, poor girl!" I pitied her so much. I was very fond of Richard, but still I pitied her so much. "Esther, will you forgive me? Will my cousin John forgive me?" "My dear," said I, "do not doubt it for a moment." And as to me - why, what had I to forgive! I dried my sobbing darling's eyes and sat beside her on the sofa, and Richard sat on my other side; and they told me between them how it was. "All I had was Richard's," Ada said; "and Richard would not take it, Esther, and what could I do but be his wife when I loved him dearly!" "And you were so fully occupied, excellent Dame Durden," said Richard, "that how could we speak to you at such a time! So we went out one morning and were married." "And when it was done, Esther," said my darling, "I was always thinking how to tell you. I did not know what to do, and I fretted very much." How selfish I must have been not to have thought of this before! I was so sorry, and yet I was so fond of them and so glad that they were fond of me; I never had experienced such painful and pleasurable emotion at once. But I was not there to darken their way; I did not do that. My darling took her wedding-ring from her bosom, and kissed it, and put it on. Then I remembered last night, and told Richard that since her marriage she had worn it at night when there was no one to see - for I had seen her hand concealed under her pillow and had little thought why. Then they began telling me how it was all over again, and I began to be sorry and glad again, and foolish again, and to hide my plain old face as much as I could lest I should put them out of heart. When the time came for me to return it was the worst of all, for then my darling completely broke down. She clung round my neck, saying what should she do without me! Nor was Richard much better; and as for me, I should have been the worst of the three if I had not severely said to myself, "Now Esther, if you do, I'll never speak to you again!" "Why, I declare," said I, "I never saw such a wife. I don't think she loves her husband at all. Here, Richard, take my child, for goodness' sake." But I held her tight, and could have wept over her I don't know how long. "I am only going away to come back tomorrow," said I, "and I shall be always coming backwards and forwards until Symond's Inn is tired of the sight of me. So I shall not say good-bye, Richard, when I am coming back so soon!" I had given my darling to him now, and I meant to go; but I lingered for one more look of the precious face which it seemed to rive my heart to turn from. So I said (in a merry, bustling manner) that unless they gave me some encouragement to come back, I was not sure that I would, upon which my dear girl looked up, faintly smiling through her tears, and I folded her lovely face between my hands, and gave it one last kiss, and laughed, and ran away. And when I got downstairs, oh, how I cried! It almost seemed that I had lost my Ada for ever. I was so lonely and so blank without her, and it was so desolate to be going home without her there that for a little while I walked up and down in a dim corner sobbing and crying. I came to myself by and by, after a little scolding, and took a coach home. The poor boy whom I had found at St. Albans had reappeared a short time before and was lying at the point of death; my guardian had gone out to inquire about him and did not return to dinner. Being quite alone, I cried a little again. It was only natural that I should not be quite accustomed to the loss of my darling yet. But my mind dwelt so much upon the uncongenial scene in which I had left her, and I so longed to be near her and taking some sort of care of her, that I determined to go back in the evening only to look up at her windows. It was foolish, I dare say, but it did not seem so to me then. I took Charley into my confidence, and we went out at dusk. It was dark when we came to the new home of my dear girl, and there was a light behind the yellow blinds. We walked past cautiously three or four times, looking up, and narrowly missed meeting Mr. Vholes, whose lank black figure came out of his office while we were there. I thought of the youth and love and beauty of my dear girl, shut up in such an ill-assorted refuge. It was very solitary, and I did not doubt that I might safely steal upstairs. I left Charley below and went up with a light foot. I listened for a few moments, and in the musty rotting silence of the house believed that I could hear the murmur of their young voices. I put my lips to the hearse-like panel of the door as a kiss for my dear and came quietly down again, thinking that one of these days I would confess to the visit. And it really did me good, for though nobody but Charley and I knew anything about it, I somehow felt as if it had diminished the separation between Ada and me. I went back all the better for that hovering about my darling. My guardian had come home and was standing thoughtfully by the dark window. When I went in, he caught the light upon my face. "Little woman," said he, "you have been crying." "Why, yes, guardian," said I, "I am afraid I have been, a little. Ada has been in such distress, and is so very sorry, guardian." I put my arm on the back of his chair, and I saw in his glance that my words and my look at her empty place had prepared him. "Is she married, my dear?" I told him all about it and how her first entreaties had referred to his forgiveness. "She has no need of it," said he. "Heaven bless her and her husband!" But just as my first impulse had been to pity her, so was his. "Poor girl, poor girl! Poor Rick! Poor Ada!" Neither of us spoke after that, until he said with a sigh, "Well, well, my dear! Bleak House is thinning fast." "But its mistress remains, guardian." Though I was timid about saying it, I ventured because of his sorrowful tone. "She will do all she can to make it happy," said I. "She will succeed, my love!" He turned his old bright fatherly look upon me, laid his hand on my hand in his old way, and said again, "She will succeed, my dear. Nevertheless, Bleak House is thinning fast, O little woman!" I was sorry presently that this was all we said. I was rather disappointed. I feared I might not quite have been all I had meant to be since the letter and the answer.

Bleak House

Chapter 51: Enlightened

There is a hush upon Chesney Wold in these altered days, as there is upon a portion of the family history. The story goes that Sir Leicester paid some who could have spoken out to hold their peace; but it is a lame story, feebly whispering and creeping about, and any brighter spark of life it shows soon dies away. It is known for certain that the handsome Lady Dedlock lies in the mausoleum in the park, where the trees arch darkly overhead, and the owl is heard at night making the woods ring; but whence she was brought home to be laid among the echoes of that solitary place, or how she died, is all mystery. Some of her old friends, principally to be found among the peachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats, did once occasionally say, as they toyed in a ghastly manner with large fans--like charmers reduced to flirting with grim death, after losing all their other beaux--did once occasionally say, when the world assembled together, that they wondered the ashes of the Dedlocks, entombed in the mausoleum, never rose against the profanation of her company. But the dead-and-gone Dedlocks take it very calmly and have never been known to object. Up from among the fern in the hollow, and winding by the bridle-road among the trees, comes sometimes to this lonely spot the sound of horses' hoofs. Then may be seen Sir Leicester--invalided, bent, and almost blind, but of worthy presence yet--riding with a stalwart man beside him, constant to his bridle-rein. When they come to a certain spot before the mausoleum-door, Sir Leicester's accustomed horse stops of his own accord, and Sir Leicester, pulling off his hat, is still for a few moments before they ride away. War rages yet with the audacious Boythorn, though at uncertain intervals, and now hotly, and now coolly, flickering like an unsteady fire. The truth is said to be that when Sir Leicester came down to Lincolnshire for good, Mr. Boythorn showed a manifest desire to abandon his right of way and do whatever Sir Leicester would, which Sir Leicester, conceiving to be a condescension to his illness or misfortune, took in such high dudgeon, and was so magnificently aggrieved by, that Mr. Boythorn found himself under the necessity of committing a flagrant trespass to restore his neighbour to himself. Similarly, Mr. Boythorn continues to post tremendous placards on the disputed thoroughfare and (with his bird upon his head) to hold forth vehemently against Sir Leicester in the sanctuary of his own home; similarly, also, he defies him as of old in the little church by testifying a bland unconsciousness of his existence. But it is whispered that when he is most ferocious towards his old foe, he is really most considerate, and that Sir Leicester, in the dignity of being implacable, little supposes how much he is humoured. As little does he think how near together he and his antagonist have suffered in the fortunes of two sisters, and his antagonist, who knows it now, is not the man to tell him. So the quarrel goes on to the satisfaction of both. In one of the lodges of the park--that lodge within sight of the house where, once upon a time, when the waters were out down in Lincolnshire, my Lady used to see the keeper's child--the stalwart man, the trooper formerly, is housed. Some relics of his old calling hang upon the walls, and these it is the chosen recreation of a little lame man about the stable-yard to keep gleaming bright. A busy little man he always is, in the polishing at harness-house doors, of stirrup-irons, bits, curb-chains, harness bosses, anything in the way of a stable-yard that will take a polish, leading a life of friction. A shaggy little damaged man, withal, not unlike an old dog of some mongrel breed, who has been considerably knocked about. He answers to the name of Phil. A goodly sight it is to see the grand old housekeeper (harder of hearing now) going to church on the arm of her son and to observe--which few do, for the house is scant of company in these times--the relations of both towards Sir Leicester, and his towards them. They have visitors in the high summer weather, when a grey cloak and umbrella, unknown to Chesney Wold at other periods, are seen among the leaves; when two young ladies are occasionally found gambolling in sequestered saw-pits and such nooks of the park; and when the smoke of two pipes wreathes away into the fragrant evening air from the trooper's door. Then is a fife heard trolling within the lodge on the inspiring topic of the "British Grenadiers"; and as the evening closes in, a gruff inflexible voice is heard to say, while two men pace together up and down, "But I never own to it before the old girl. Discipline must be maintained." The greater part of the house is shut up, and it is a show-house no longer; yet Sir Leicester holds his shrunken state in the long drawing-room for all that, and reposes in his old place before my Lady's picture. Closed in by night with broad screens, and illumined only in that part, the light of the drawing-room seems gradually contracting and dwindling until it shall be no more. A little more, in truth, and it will be all extinguished for Sir Leicester; and the damp door in the mausoleum which shuts so tight, and looks so obdurate, will have opened and received him. Volumnia, growing with the flight of time pinker as to the red in her face, and yellower as to the white, reads to Sir Leicester in the long evenings and is driven to various artifices to conceal her yawns, of which the chief and most efficacious is the insertion of the pearl necklace between her rosy lips. Long-winded treatises on the Buffy and Boodle question, showing how Buffy is immaculate and Boodle villainous, and how the country is lost by being all Boodle and no Buffy, or saved by being all Buffy and no Boodle (it must be one of the two, and cannot be anything else), are the staple of her reading. Sir Leicester is not particular what it is and does not appear to follow it very closely, further than that he always comes broad awake the moment Volumnia ventures to leave off, and sonorously repeating her last words, begs with some displeasure to know if she finds herself fatigued. However, Volumnia, in the course of her bird-like hopping about and pecking at papers, has alighted on a memorandum concerning herself in the event of "anything happening" to her kinsman, which is handsome compensation for an extensive course of reading and holds even the dragon Boredom at bay. The cousins generally are rather shy of Chesney Wold in its dullness, but take to it a little in the shooting season, when guns are heard in the plantations, and a few scattered beaters and keepers wait at the old places of appointment for low-spirited twos and threes of cousins. The debilitated cousin, more debilitated by the dreariness of the place, gets into a fearful state of depression, groaning under penitential sofa-pillows in his gunless hours and protesting that such fernal old jail's--nough t'sew fler up--frever. The only great occasions for Volumnia in this changed aspect of the place in Lincolnshire are those occasions, rare and widely separated, when something is to be done for the county or the country in the way of gracing a public ball. Then, indeed, does the tuckered sylph come out in fairy form and proceed with joy under cousinly escort to the exhausted old assembly-room, fourteen heavy miles off, which, during three hundred and sixty-four days and nights of every ordinary year, is a kind of antipodean lumber-room full of old chairs and tables upside down. Then, indeed, does she captivate all hearts by her condescension, by her girlish vivacity, and by her skipping about as in the days when the hideous old general with the mouth too full of teeth had not cut one of them at two guineas each. Then does she twirl and twine, a pastoral nymph of good family, through the mazes of the dance. Then do the swains appear with tea, with lemonade, with sandwiches, with homage. Then is she kind and cruel, stately and unassuming, various, beautifully wilful. Then is there a singular kind of parallel between her and the little glass chandeliers of another age embellishing that assembly-room, which, with their meagre stems, their spare little drops, their disappointing knobs where no drops are, their bare little stalks from which knobs and drops have both departed, and their little feeble prismatic twinkling, all seem Volumnias. For the rest, Lincolnshire life to Volumnia is a vast blank of overgrown house looking out upon trees, sighing, wringing their hands, bowing their heads, and casting their tears upon the window-panes in monotonous depressions. A labyrinth of grandeur, less the property of an old family of human beings and their ghostly likenesses than of an old family of echoings and thunderings which start out of their hundred graves at every sound and go resounding through the building. A waste of unused passages and staircases in which to drop a comb upon a bedroom floor at night is to send a stealthy footfall on an errand through the house. A place where few people care to go about alone, where a maid screams if an ash drops from the fire, takes to crying at all times and seasons, becomes the victim of a low disorder of the spirits, and gives warning and departs. Thus Chesney Wold. With so much of itself abandoned to darkness and vacancy; with so little change under the summer shining or the wintry lowering; so sombre and motionless always--no flag flying now by day, no rows of lights sparkling by night; with no family to come and go, no visitors to be the souls of pale cold shapes of rooms, no stir of life about it--passion and pride, even to the stranger's eye, have died away from the place in Lincolnshire and yielded it to dull repose.

There is a hush upon Chesney Wold in these altered days. The handsome Lady Dedlock lies in the mausoleum in the park, where the trees arch darkly overhead, and the owl at night makes the woods ring; but where and how she died, is all mystery. Some of her old friends did occasionally say that they wondered that the ashes of the Dedlocks, entombed in the mausoleum, never rose against the profanation of her company. But the dead-and-gone Dedlocks take it very calmly. Winding by the bridle-road among the trees, comes sometimes to this lonely spot the sound of horses' hoofs. Then may be seen Sir Leicester - bent, and almost blind, but of worthy presence yet - riding with a stalwart man beside him. When they come to a certain spot before the mausoleum, Sir Leicester's horse stops of his own accord, and Sir Leicester, pulling off his hat, is still for a few moments before they ride away. War rages yet with the audacious Boythorn, though uncertainly, flickering like an unsteady fire. When Sir Leicester came down to Lincolnshire for good, Mr. Boythorn showed a desire to abandon his right of way and do whatever Sir Leicester wished. Sir Leicester was so magnificently aggrieved by this, that Mr. Boythorn found himself needing to commit a flagrant trespass to restore his neighbour to himself. So Mr. Boythorn continues to post tremendous placards on the disputed thoroughfare and to hold forth vehemently against Sir Leicester in his own home; he also defies him as of old in church by seeming blandly unconscious of his existence. But when he is most ferocious towards his old foe, he is really most considerate, and Sir Leicester little supposes how much he is humoured. Little, too, does he think how near together he and his antagonist have suffered in the fortunes of two sisters, and his antagonist is not the man to tell him. So the quarrel goes on to the satisfaction of both. In one of the park lodges, within sight of the house, the stalwart man, the trooper formerly, is housed. Some relics of his old calling hang upon the walls, and a little lame man about the stable-yard keeps these gleaming bright. A busy little man he is, polishing anything that will take a polish; he answers to the name of Phil. Good it is to see the grand old housekeeper going to church on her son's arm and to observe their manner towards Sir Leicester, and his towards them. They have visitors in the high summer weather, when a grey cloak and umbrella are seen among the leaves; when two young ladies are occasionally found gambolling in the park; and when the smoke of two pipes wreathes away into the fragrant evening air from the trooper's door. Then is a fife heard within the lodge on the inspiring topic of the "British Grenadiers"; and a gruff voice is heard to say, while two men pace together up and down, "But I never own to it before the old girl. Discipline must be maintained." The greater part of the house is shut up; yet Sir Leicester holds state in the long drawing-room, and reposes in his old place before my Lady's picture. The light of the drawing-room seems gradually contracting and dwindling until it shall be no more. Soon, in truth, it will be all extinguished for Sir Leicester; and the damp door in the mausoleum will have opened and received him. Volumnia reads to Sir Leicester in the long evenings and is driven to various artifices to conceal her yawns, of which the chief is the insertion of her pearl necklace between her rosy lips. Long-winded treatises on politics are the staple of her reading. Sir Leicester does not appear to follow it very closely, although he always comes wide awake the moment Volumnia ventures to leave off, and begs with some displeasure to know if she finds herself fatigued. However, Volumnia, in the course of her bird-like hopping about and pecking at papers, has found a memorandum concerning herself in the event of "anything happening" to her kinsman, which is handsome compensation. The only great occasions for Volumnia in this changed aspect of the place are the rare occasions of a public ball. Then, indeed, she comes out in fairy form and proceeds with joy under cousinly escort to the exhausted old assembly-room, fourteen heavy miles off. Then, indeed, she captivates all hearts by her girlish vivacity, and by her skipping about through the mazes of the dance. For the rest, Lincolnshire life to Volumnia is a vast blank of overgrown house looking out upon trees, sighing and wringing their hands in monotonous depressions. A labyrinth of grandeur; a waste of unused passages and staircases in which to drop a comb upon a bedroom floor at night is to send a stealthy footfall on an errand through the house. A place where few people care to go about alone, where a maid screams if an ash drops from the fire, takes to crying at all times, becomes the victim of a low disorder of the spirits, and gives notice and departs. Thus Chesney Wold. With so much of itself abandoned to darkness and vacancy; with so little change, so sombre and motionless always - no flag flying by day, no rows of lights sparkling by night; with no family to come and go, no visitors, no stir of life about it - passion and pride have died away from the place in Lincolnshire and yielded it to dull repose.

Bleak House

Chapter 66: Down in Lincolnshire

The long vacation saunters on towards term-time like an idle river very leisurely strolling down a flat country to the sea. Mr. Guppy saunters along with it congenially. He has blunted the blade of his penknife and broken the point off by sticking that instrument into his desk in every direction. Not that he bears the desk any ill will, but he must do something, and it must be something of an unexciting nature, which will lay neither his physical nor his intellectual energies under too heavy contribution. He finds that nothing agrees with him so well as to make little gyrations on one leg of his stool, and stab his desk, and gape. Kenge and Carboy are out of town, and the articled clerk has taken out a shooting license and gone down to his father's, and Mr. Guppy's two fellow-stipendiaries are away on leave. Mr. Guppy and Mr. Richard Carstone divide the dignity of the office. But Mr. Carstone is for the time being established in Kenge's room, whereat Mr. Guppy chafes. So exceedingly that he with biting sarcasm informs his mother, in the confidential moments when he sups with her off a lobster and lettuce in the Old Street Road, that he is afraid the office is hardly good enough for swells, and that if he had known there was a swell coming, he would have got it painted. Mr. Guppy suspects everybody who enters on the occupation of a stool in Kenge and Carboy's office of entertaining, as a matter of course, sinister designs upon him. He is clear that every such person wants to depose him. If he be ever asked how, why, when, or wherefore, he shuts up one eye and shakes his head. On the strength of these profound views, he in the most ingenious manner takes infinite pains to counterplot when there is no plot, and plays the deepest games of chess without any adversary. It is a source of much gratification to Mr. Guppy, therefore, to find the new-comer constantly poring over the papers in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, for he well knows that nothing but confusion and failure can come of that. His satisfaction communicates itself to a third saunterer through the long vacation in Kenge and Carboy's office, to wit, Young Smallweed. Whether Young Smallweed (metaphorically called Small and eke Chick Weed, as it were jocularly to express a fledgling) was ever a boy is much doubted in Lincoln's Inn. He is now something under fifteen and an old limb of the law. He is facetiously understood to entertain a passion for a lady at a cigar-shop in the neighbourhood of Chancery Lane and for her sake to have broken off a contract with another lady, to whom he had been engaged some years. He is a town-made article, of small stature and weazen features, but may be perceived from a considerable distance by means of his very tall hat. To become a Guppy is the object of his ambition. He dresses at that gentleman (by whom he is patronized), talks at him, walks at him, founds himself entirely on him. He is honoured with Mr. Guppy's particular confidence and occasionally advises him, from the deep wells of his experience, on difficult points in private life. Mr. Guppy has been lolling out of window all the morning after trying all the stools in succession and finding none of them easy, and after several times putting his head into the iron safe with a notion of cooling it. Mr. Smallweed has been twice dispatched for effervescent drinks, and has twice mixed them in the two official tumblers and stirred them up with the ruler. Mr. Guppy propounds for Mr. Smallweed's consideration the paradox that the more you drink the thirstier you are and reclines his head upon the window-sill in a state of hopeless languor. While thus looking out into the shade of Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, surveying the intolerable bricks and mortar, Mr. Guppy becomes conscious of a manly whisker emerging from the cloistered walk below and turning itself up in the direction of his face. At the same time, a low whistle is wafted through the Inn and a suppressed voice cries, "Hip! Gup-py!" "Why, you don't mean it!" says Mr. Guppy, aroused. "Small! Here's Jobling!" Small's head looks out of window too and nods to Jobling. "Where have you sprung up from?" inquires Mr. Guppy. "From the market-gardens down by Deptford. I can't stand it any longer. I must enlist. I say! I wish you'd lend me half a crown. Upon my soul, I'm hungry." Jobling looks hungry and also has the appearance of having run to seed in the market-gardens down by Deptford. "I say! Just throw out half a crown if you have got one to spare. I want to get some dinner." "Will you come and dine with me?" says Mr. Guppy, throwing out the coin, which Mr. Jobling catches neatly. "How long should I have to hold out?" says Jobling. "Not half an hour. I am only waiting here till the enemy goes, returns Mr. Guppy, butting inward with his head. "What enemy?" "A new one. Going to be articled. Will you wait?" "Can you give a fellow anything to read in the meantime?" says Mr. Jobling. Smallweed suggests the law list. But Mr. Jobling declares with much earnestness that he "can't stand it." "You shall have the paper," says Mr. Guppy. "He shall bring it down. But you had better not be seen about here. Sit on our staircase and read. It's a quiet place." Jobling nods intelligence and acquiescence. The sagacious Smallweed supplies him with the newspaper and occasionally drops his eye upon him from the landing as a precaution against his becoming disgusted with waiting and making an untimely departure. At last the enemy retreats, and then Smallweed fetches Mr. Jobling up. "Well, and how are you?" says Mr. Guppy, shaking hands with him. "So, so. How are you?" Mr. Guppy replying that he is not much to boast of, Mr. Jobling ventures on the question, "How is SHE?" This Mr. Guppy resents as a liberty, retorting, "Jobling, there ARE chords in the human mind--" Jobling begs pardon. "Any subject but that!" says Mr. Guppy with a gloomy enjoyment of his injury. "For there ARE chords, Jobling--" Mr. Jobling begs pardon again. During this short colloquy, the active Smallweed, who is of the dinner party, has written in legal characters on a slip of paper, "Return immediately." This notification to all whom it may concern, he inserts in the letter-box, and then putting on the tall hat at the angle of inclination at which Mr. Guppy wears his, informs his patron that they may now make themselves scarce. Accordingly they betake themselves to a neighbouring dining-house, of the class known among its frequenters by the denomination slap-bang, where the waitress, a bouncing young female of forty, is supposed to have made some impression on the susceptible Smallweed, of whom it may be remarked that he is a weird changeling to whom years are nothing. He stands precociously possessed of centuries of owlish wisdom. If he ever lay in a cradle, it seems as if he must have lain there in a tail-coat. He has an old, old eye, has Smallweed; and he drinks and smokes in a monkeyish way; and his neck is stiff in his collar; and he is never to be taken in; and he knows all about it, whatever it is. In short, in his bringing up he has been so nursed by Law and Equity that he has become a kind of fossil imp, to account for whose terrestrial existence it is reported at the public offices that his father was John Doe and his mother the only female member of the Roe family, also that his first long-clothes were made from a blue bag. Into the dining-house, unaffected by the seductive show in the window of artificially whitened cauliflowers and poultry, verdant baskets of peas, coolly blooming cucumbers, and joints ready for the spit, Mr. Smallweed leads the way. They know him there and defer to him. He has his favourite box, he bespeaks all the papers, he is down upon bald patriarchs, who keep them more than ten minutes afterwards. It is of no use trying him with anything less than a full-sized "bread" or proposing to him any joint in cut unless it is in the very best cut. In the matter of gravy he is adamant. Conscious of his elfin power and submitting to his dread experience, Mr. Guppy consults him in the choice of that day's banquet, turning an appealing look towards him as the waitress repeats the catalogue of viands and saying "What do YOU take, Chick?" Chick, out of the profundity of his artfulness, preferring "veal and ham and French beans--and don't you forget the stuffing, Polly" (with an unearthly cock of his venerable eye), Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling give the like order. Three pint pots of half-and-half are superadded. Quickly the waitress returns bearing what is apparently a model of the Tower of Babel but what is really a pile of plates and flat tin dish-covers. Mr. Smallweed, approving of what is set before him, conveys intelligent benignity into his ancient eye and winks upon her. Then, amid a constant coming in, and going out, and running about, and a clatter of crockery, and a rumbling up and down of the machine which brings the nice cuts from the kitchen, and a shrill crying for more nice cuts down the speaking-pipe, and a shrill reckoning of the cost of nice cuts that have been disposed of, and a general flush and steam of hot joints, cut and uncut, and a considerably heated atmosphere in which the soiled knives and tablecloths seem to break out spontaneously into eruptions of grease and blotches of beer, the legal triumvirate appease their appetites. Mr. Jobling is buttoned up closer than mere adornment might require. His hat presents at the rims a peculiar appearance of a glistening nature, as if it had been a favourite snail-promenade. The same phenomenon is visible on some parts of his coat, and particularly at the seams. He has the faded appearance of a gentleman in embarrassed circumstances; even his light whiskers droop with something of a shabby air. His appetite is so vigorous that it suggests spare living for some little time back. He makes such a speedy end of his plate of veal and ham, bringing it to a close while his companions are yet midway in theirs, that Mr. Guppy proposes another. "Thank you, Guppy," says Mr. Jobling, "I really don't know but what I WILL take another." Another being brought, he falls to with great goodwill. Mr. Guppy takes silent notice of him at intervals until he is half way through this second plate and stops to take an enjoying pull at his pint pot of half-and-half (also renewed) and stretches out his legs and rubs his hands. Beholding him in which glow of contentment, Mr. Guppy says, "You are a man again, Tony!" "Well, not quite yet," says Mr. Jobling. "Say, just born." "Will you take any other vegetables? Grass? Peas? Summer cabbage?" "Thank you, Guppy," says Mr. Jobling. "I really don't know but what I WILL take summer cabbage." Order given; with the sarcastic addition (from Mr. Smallweed) of "Without slugs, Polly!" And cabbage produced. "I am growing up, Guppy," says Mr. Jobling, plying his knife and fork with a relishing steadiness. "Glad to hear it." "In fact, I have just turned into my teens," says Mr. Jobling. He says no more until he has performed his task, which he achieves as Messrs. Guppy and Smallweed finish theirs, thus getting over the ground in excellent style and beating those two gentlemen easily by a veal and ham and a cabbage. "Now, Small," says Mr. Guppy, "what would you recommend about pastry?" "Marrow puddings," says Mr. Smallweed instantly. "Aye, aye!" cries Mr. Jobling with an arch look. "You're there, are you? Thank you, Mr. Guppy, I don't know but what I WILL take a marrow pudding." Three marrow puddings being produced, Mr. Jobling adds in a pleasant humour that he is coming of age fast. To these succeed, by command of Mr. Smallweed, "three Cheshires," and to those "three small rums." This apex of the entertainment happily reached, Mr. Jobling puts up his legs on the carpeted seat (having his own side of the box to himself), leans against the wall, and says, "I am grown up now, Guppy. I have arrived at maturity." "What do you think, now," says Mr. Guppy, "about--you don't mind Smallweed?" "Not the least in the world. I have the pleasure of drinking his good health." "Sir, to you!" says Mr. Smallweed. "I was saying, what do you think NOW," pursues Mr. Guppy, "of enlisting?" "Why, what I may think after dinner," returns Mr. Jobling, "is one thing, my dear Guppy, and what I may think before dinner is another thing. Still, even after dinner, I ask myself the question, What am I to do? How am I to live? Ill fo manger, you know," says Mr. Jobling, pronouncing that word as if he meant a necessary fixture in an English stable. "Ill fo manger. That's the French saying, and mangering is as necessary to me as it is to a Frenchman. Or more so." Mr. Smallweed is decidedly of opinion "much more so." "If any man had told me," pursues Jobling, "even so lately as when you and I had the frisk down in Lincolnshire, Guppy, and drove over to see that house at Castle Wold--" Mr. Smallweed corrects him--Chesney Wold. "Chesney Wold. (I thank my honourable friend for that cheer.) If any man had told me then that I should be as hard up at the present time as I literally find myself, I should have--well, I should have pitched into him," says Mr. Jobling, taking a little rum-and-water with an air of desperate resignation; "I should have let fly at his head." "Still, Tony, you were on the wrong side of the post then," remonstrates Mr. Guppy. "You were talking about nothing else in the gig." "Guppy," says Mr. Jobling, "I will not deny it. I was on the wrong side of the post. But I trusted to things coming round." That very popular trust in flat things coming round! Not in their being beaten round, or worked round, but in their "coming" round! As though a lunatic should trust in the world's "coming" triangular! "I had confident expectations that things would come round and be all square," says Mr. Jobling with some vagueness of expression and perhaps of meaning too. "But I was disappointed. They never did. And when it came to creditors making rows at the office and to people that the office dealt with making complaints about dirty trifles of borrowed money, why there was an end of that connexion. And of any new professional connexion too, for if I was to give a reference to-morrow, it would be mentioned and would sew me up. Then what's a fellow to do? I have been keeping out of the way and living cheap down about the market-gardens, but what's the use of living cheap when you have got no money? You might as well live dear." "Better," Mr. Smallweed thinks. "Certainly. It's the fashionable way; and fashion and whiskers have been my weaknesses, and I don't care who knows it," says Mr. Jobling. "They are great weaknesses--Damme, sir, they are great. Well," proceeds Mr. Jobling after a defiant visit to his rum-and-water, "what can a fellow do, I ask you, BUT enlist?" Mr. Guppy comes more fully into the conversation to state what, in his opinion, a fellow can do. His manner is the gravely impressive manner of a man who has not committed himself in life otherwise than as he has become the victim of a tender sorrow of the heart. "Jobling," says Mr. Guppy, "myself and our mutual friend Smallweed--" Mr. Smallweed modestly observes, "Gentlemen both!" and drinks. "--Have had a little conversation on this matter more than once since you--" "Say, got the sack!" cries Mr. Jobling bitterly. "Say it, Guppy. You mean it." "No-o-o! Left the Inn," Mr. Smallweed delicately suggests. "Since you left the Inn, Jobling," says Mr. Guppy; "and I have mentioned to our mutual friend Smallweed a plan I have lately thought of proposing. You know Snagsby the stationer?" "I know there is such a stationer," returns Mr. Jobling. "He was not ours, and I am not acquainted with him." "He IS ours, Jobling, and I AM acquainted with him," Mr. Guppy retorts. "Well, sir! I have lately become better acquainted with him through some accidental circumstances that have made me a visitor of his in private life. Those circumstances it is not necessary to offer in argument. They may--or they may not--have some reference to a subject which may--or may not--have cast its shadow on my existence." As it is Mr. Guppy's perplexing way with boastful misery to tempt his particular friends into this subject, and the moment they touch it, to turn on them with that trenchant severity about the chords in the human mind, both Mr. Jobling and Mr. Smallweed decline the pitfall by remaining silent. "Such things may be," repeats Mr. Guppy, "or they may not be. They are no part of the case. It is enough to mention that both Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are very willing to oblige me and that Snagsby has, in busy times, a good deal of copying work to give out. He has all Tulkinghorn's, and an excellent business besides. I believe if our mutual friend Smallweed were put into the box, he could prove this?" Mr. Smallweed nods and appears greedy to be sworn. "Now, gentlemen of the jury," says Mr. Guppy, "--I mean, now, Jobling--you may say this is a poor prospect of a living. Granted. But it's better than nothing, and better than enlistment. You want time. There must be time for these late affairs to blow over. You might live through it on much worse terms than by writing for Snagsby." Mr. Jobling is about to interrupt when the sagacious Smallweed checks him with a dry cough and the words, "Hem! Shakspeare!" "There are two branches to this subject, Jobling," says Mr. Guppy. "That is the first. I come to the second. You know Krook, the Chancellor, across the lane. Come, Jobling," says Mr. Guppy in his encouraging cross-examination-tone, "I think you know Krook, the Chancellor, across the lane?" "I know him by sight," says Mr. Jobling. "You know him by sight. Very well. And you know little Flite?" "Everybody knows her," says Mr. Jobling. "Everybody knows her. VERY well. Now it has been one of my duties of late to pay Flite a certain weekly allowance, deducting from it the amount of her weekly rent, which I have paid (in consequence of instructions I have received) to Krook himself, regularly in her presence. This has brought me into communication with Krook and into a knowledge of his house and his habits. I know he has a room to let. You may live there at a very low charge under any name you like, as quietly as if you were a hundred miles off. He'll ask no questions and would accept you as a tenant at a word from me--before the clock strikes, if you chose. And I tell you another thing, Jobling," says Mr. Guppy, who has suddenly lowered his voice and become familiar again, "he's an extraordinary old chap--always rummaging among a litter of papers and grubbing away at teaching himself to read and write, without getting on a bit, as it seems to me. He is a most extraordinary old chap, sir. I don't know but what it might be worth a fellow's while to look him up a bit." "You don't mean--" Mr. Jobling begins. "I mean," returns Mr. Guppy, shrugging his shoulders with becoming modesty, "that I can't make him out. I appeal to our mutual friend Smallweed whether he has or has not heard me remark that I can't make him out." Mr. Smallweed bears the concise testimony, "A few!" "I have seen something of the profession and something of life, Tony," says Mr. Guppy, "and it's seldom I can't make a man out, more or less. But such an old card as this, so deep, so sly, and secret (though I don't believe he is ever sober), I never came across. Now, he must be precious old, you know, and he has not a soul about him, and he is reported to be immensely rich; and whether he is a smuggler, or a receiver, or an unlicensed pawnbroker, or a money-lender--all of which I have thought likely at different times--it might pay you to knock up a sort of knowledge of him. I don't see why you shouldn't go in for it, when everything else suits." Mr. Jobling, Mr. Guppy, and Mr. Smallweed all lean their elbows on the table and their chins upon their hands, and look at the ceiling. After a time, they all drink, slowly lean back, put their hands in their pockets, and look at one another. "If I had the energy I once possessed, Tony!" says Mr. Guppy with a sigh. "But there are chords in the human mind--" Expressing the remainder of the desolate sentiment in rum-and-water, Mr. Guppy concludes by resigning the adventure to Tony Jobling and informing him that during the vacation and while things are slack, his purse, "as far as three or four or even five pound goes," will be at his disposal. "For never shall it be said," Mr. Guppy adds with emphasis, "that William Guppy turned his back upon his friend!" The latter part of the proposal is so directly to the purpose that Mr. Jobling says with emotion, "Guppy, my trump, your fist!" Mr. Guppy presents it, saying, "Jobling, my boy, there it is!" Mr. Jobling returns, "Guppy, we have been pals now for some years!" Mr. Guppy replies, "Jobling, we have." They then shake hands, and Mr. Jobling adds in a feeling manner, "Thank you, Guppy, I don't know but what I WILL take another glass for old acquaintance sake." "Krook's last lodger died there," observes Mr. Guppy in an incidental way. "Did he though!" says Mr. Jobling. "There was a verdict. Accidental death. You don't mind that?" "No," says Mr. Jobling, "I don't mind it; but he might as well have died somewhere else. It's devilish odd that he need go and die at MY place!" Mr. Jobling quite resents this liberty, several times returning to it with such remarks as, "There are places enough to die in, I should think!" or, "He wouldn't have liked my dying at HIS place, I dare say!" However, the compact being virtually made, Mr. Guppy proposes to dispatch the trusty Smallweed to ascertain if Mr. Krook is at home, as in that case they may complete the negotiation without delay. Mr. Jobling approving, Smallweed puts himself under the tall hat and conveys it out of the dining-rooms in the Guppy manner. He soon returns with the intelligence that Mr. Krook is at home and that he has seen him through the shop-door, sitting in the back premises, sleeping "like one o'clock." "Then I'll pay," says Mr. Guppy, "and we'll go and see him. Small, what will it be?" Mr. Smallweed, compelling the attendance of the waitress with one hitch of his eyelash, instantly replies as follows: "Four veals and hams is three, and four potatoes is three and four, and one summer cabbage is three and six, and three marrows is four and six, and six breads is five, and three Cheshires is five and three, and four half-pints of half-and-half is six and three, and four small rums is eight and three, and three Pollys is eight and six. Eight and six in half a sovereign, Polly, and eighteenpence out!" Not at all excited by these stupendous calculations, Smallweed dismisses his friends with a cool nod and remains behind to take a little admiring notice of Polly, as opportunity may serve, and to read the daily papers, which are so very large in proportion to himself, shorn of his hat, that when he holds up the Times to run his eye over the columns, he seems to have retired for the night and to have disappeared under the bedclothes. Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling repair to the rag and bottle shop, where they find Krook still sleeping like one o'clock, that is to say, breathing stertorously with his chin upon his breast and quite insensible to any external sounds or even to gentle shaking. On the table beside him, among the usual lumber, stand an empty gin-bottle and a glass. The unwholesome air is so stained with this liquor that even the green eyes of the cat upon her shelf, as they open and shut and glimmer on the visitors, look drunk. "Hold up here!" says Mr. Guppy, giving the relaxed figure of the old man another shake. "Mr. Krook! Halloa, sir!" But it would seem as easy to wake a bundle of old clothes with a spirituous heat smouldering in it. "Did you ever see such a stupor as he falls into, between drink and sleep?" says Mr. Guppy. "If this is his regular sleep," returns Jobling, rather alarmed, "it'll last a long time one of these days, I am thinking." "It's always more like a fit than a nap," says Mr. Guppy, shaking him again. "Halloa, your lordship! Why, he might be robbed fifty times over! Open your eyes!" After much ado, he opens them, but without appearing to see his visitors or any other objects. Though he crosses one leg on another, and folds his hands, and several times closes and opens his parched lips, he seems to all intents and purposes as insensible as before. "He is alive, at any rate," says Mr. Guppy. "How are you, my Lord Chancellor. I have brought a friend of mine, sir, on a little matter of business." The old man still sits, often smacking his dry lips without the least consciousness. After some minutes he makes an attempt to rise. They help him up, and he staggers against the wall and stares at them. "How do you do, Mr. Krook?" says Mr. Guppy in some discomfiture. "How do you do, sir? You are looking charming, Mr. Krook. I hope you are pretty well?" The old man, in aiming a purposeless blow at Mr. Guppy, or at nothing, feebly swings himself round and comes with his face against the wall. So he remains for a minute or two, heaped up against it, and then staggers down the shop to the front door. The air, the movement in the court, the lapse of time, or the combination of these things recovers him. He comes back pretty steadily, adjusting his fur cap on his head and looking keenly at them. "Your servant, gentlemen; I've been dozing. Hi! I am hard to wake, odd times." "Rather so, indeed, sir," responds Mr. Guppy. "What? You've been a-trying to do it, have you?" says the suspicious Krook. "Only a little," Mr. Guppy explains. The old man's eye resting on the empty bottle, he takes it up, examines it, and slowly tilts it upside down. "I say!" he cries like the hobgoblin in the story. "Somebody's been making free here!" "I assure you we found it so," says Mr. Guppy. "Would you allow me to get it filled for you?" "Yes, certainly I would!" cries Krook in high glee. "Certainly I would! Don't mention it! Get it filled next door--Sol's Arms--the Lord Chancellor's fourteenpenny. Bless you, they know ME!" He so presses the empty bottle upon Mr. Guppy that that gentleman, with a nod to his friend, accepts the trust and hurries out and hurries in again with the bottle filled. The old man receives it in his arms like a beloved grandchild and pats it tenderly. "But, I say," he whispers, with his eyes screwed up, after tasting it, "this ain't the Lord Chancellor's fourteenpenny. This is eighteenpenny!" "I thought you might like that better," says Mr. Guppy. "You're a nobleman, sir," returns Krook with another taste, and his hot breath seems to come towards them like a flame. "You're a baron of the land." Taking advantage of this auspicious moment, Mr. Guppy presents his friend under the impromptu name of Mr. Weevle and states the object of their visit. Krook, with his bottle under his arm (he never gets beyond a certain point of either drunkenness or sobriety), takes time to survey his proposed lodger and seems to approve of him. "You'd like to see the room, young man?" he says. "Ah! It's a good room! Been whitewashed. Been cleaned down with soft soap and soda. Hi! It's worth twice the rent, letting alone my company when you want it and such a cat to keep the mice away." Commending the room after this manner, the old man takes them upstairs, where indeed they do find it cleaner than it used to be and also containing some old articles of furniture which he has dug up from his inexhaustible stores. The terms are easily concluded--for the Lord Chancellor cannot be hard on Mr. Guppy, associated as he is with Kenge and Carboy, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, and other famous claims on his professional consideration--and it is agreed that Mr. Weevle shall take possession on the morrow. Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy then repair to Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, where the personal introduction of the former to Mr. Snagsby is effected and (more important) the vote and interest of Mrs. Snagsby are secured. They then report progress to the eminent Smallweed, waiting at the office in his tall hat for that purpose, and separate, Mr. Guppy explaining that he would terminate his little entertainment by standing treat at the play but that there are chords in the human mind which would render it a hollow mockery. On the morrow, in the dusk of evening, Mr. Weevle modestly appears at Krook's, by no means incommoded with luggage, and establishes himself in his new lodging, where the two eyes in the shutters stare at him in his sleep, as if they were full of wonder. On the following day Mr. Weevle, who is a handy good-for-nothing kind of young fellow, borrows a needle and thread of Miss Flite and a hammer of his landlord and goes to work devising apologies for window-curtains, and knocking up apologies for shelves, and hanging up his two teacups, milkpot, and crockery sundries on a pennyworth of little hooks, like a shipwrecked sailor making the best of it. But what Mr. Weevle prizes most of all his few possessions (next after his light whiskers, for which he has an attachment that only whiskers can awaken in the breast of man) is a choice collection of copper-plate impressions from that truly national work The Divinities of Albion, or Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty, representing ladies of title and fashion in every variety of smirk that art, combined with capital, is capable of producing. With these magnificent portraits, unworthily confined in a band-box during his seclusion among the market-gardens, he decorates his apartment; and as the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty wears every variety of fancy dress, plays every variety of musical instrument, fondles every variety of dog, ogles every variety of prospect, and is backed up by every variety of flower-pot and balustrade, the result is very imposing. But fashion is Mr. Weevle's, as it was Tony Jobling's, weakness. To borrow yesterday's paper from the Sol's Arms of an evening and read about the brilliant and distinguished meteors that are shooting across the fashionable sky in every direction is unspeakable consolation to him. To know what member of what brilliant and distinguished circle accomplished the brilliant and distinguished feat of joining it yesterday or contemplates the no less brilliant and distinguished feat of leaving it to-morrow gives him a thrill of joy. To be informed what the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty is about, and means to be about, and what Galaxy marriages are on the tapis, and what Galaxy rumours are in circulation, is to become acquainted with the most glorious destinies of mankind. Mr. Weevle reverts from this intelligence to the Galaxy portraits implicated, and seems to know the originals, and to be known of them. For the rest he is a quiet lodger, full of handy shifts and devices as before mentioned, able to cook and clean for himself as well as to carpenter, and developing social inclinations after the shades of evening have fallen on the court. At those times, when he is not visited by Mr. Guppy or by a small light in his likeness quenched in a dark hat, he comes out of his dull room--where he has inherited the deal wilderness of desk bespattered with a rain of ink--and talks to Krook or is "very free," as they call it in the court, commendingly, with any one disposed for conversation. Wherefore, Mrs. Piper, who leads the court, is impelled to offer two remarks to Mrs. Perkins: firstly, that if her Johnny was to have whiskers, she could wish 'em to be identically like that young man's; and secondly, "Mark my words, Mrs. Perkins, ma'am, and don't you be surprised, Lord bless you, if that young man comes in at last for old Krook's money!"

The long vacation saunters on like an idle river leisurely strolling down a flat country to the sea. Mr. Guppy saunters along with it congenially. He has blunted the blade of his penknife by sticking it into his desk in every direction. Not that he bears the desk any ill will, but he must do something; so he stabs his desk, and yawns. Kenge and Carboy are out of town, and Mr. Guppy's two colleagues are away on leave. Mr. Guppy and Mr. Richard Carstone divide the dignity of the office. But Mr. Carstone is, for now, established in Kenge's room, whereat Mr. Guppy chafes. With biting sarcasm he informs his mother that he is afraid the office is hardly good enough for swells, and that if he had known there was a swell coming, he would have got it painted. Mr. Guppy suspects everybody who occupies a stool in Kenge and Carboy's office of wanting to depose him. If he be ever asked how or why, he shuts one eye and shakes his head. On the strength of these profound views, he takes infinite pains to counterplot when there is no plot, and plays the deepest games of chess without any adversary. Mr. Guppy is pleased, therefore, to find the newcomer constantly poring over the papers in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, for he well knows that nothing but confusion and failure can come of that. His satisfaction communicates itself to a third saunterer through the long vacation in the office: Smallweed. Whether Young Smallweed (called Small and also Chickweed) was ever a boy is much doubted in Lincoln's Inn. He is something under fifteen and an old limb of the law. He is facetiously understood to entertain a passion for a lady at a cigar-shop and for her sake to have broken off a contract with another lady to whom he had been engaged. He is small with wizened features, but may be perceived from a considerable distance by means of his very tall hat. To become a Guppy is his ambition. He dresses like that gentleman, walks and talks like him, founds himself entirely on him. He is honoured with Mr. Guppy's confidence and occasionally advises him, from his deep experience, on difficult points in private life. Mr. Guppy has been lolling out of the window all morning, after several times putting his head into the iron safe with a notion of cooling it. Mr. Smallweed has been twice sent out for effervescent drinks, and has twice mixed them in the tumblers and stirred them up with the ruler. Mr. Guppy reclines his head upon the window-sill in a state of hopeless languor. While thus looking out into the shade of Old Square, Mr. Guppy sees a manly whisker emerging from the cloistered walk below and turning towards him. A suppressed voice cries, "Hip! Gup-py!" "Why, here's Jobling!" says Mr. Guppy. Small's head looks out too and nods to Jobling. "Where have you sprung up from?" inquires Mr. Guppy. "From the market-gardens down by Deptford. I can't stand it any longer. I must enlist. I say! I wish you'd lend me half a crown. Upon my soul, I'm hungry." Jobling has the appearance of having run to seed in the market-gardens down by Deptford. "Will you come and dine with me?" says Mr. Guppy, throwing out the coin, which Mr. Jobling catches. "I'll be half an hour. I am only waiting here till the enemy goes." "What enemy?" "A new one. Going to be articled. Will you wait?" "Can you give a fellow anything to read in the meantime?" says Mr. Jobling. "You can have the paper," says Mr. Guppy. "Smallweed shall bring it down. But you had better not be seen about here. Sit on our staircase and read. It's quiet." Jobling nods. The sagacious Smallweed gives him the newspaper. At last the enemy retreats, and then Smallweed fetches Mr. Jobling up. "Well, how are you?" says Mr. Guppy, shaking hands with him. "So, so. How are you?" Mr. Guppy replies that he is not much to boast of. Mr. Jobling ventures to ask, "How is she?" This Mr. Guppy resents as a liberty, retorting, "Jobling, there are chords in the human mind-" Jobling begs pardon. "Any subject but that!" says Mr. Guppy with gloomy enjoyment. Smallweed has written on a slip of paper, "Return immediately." This note he inserts in the letter-box, and then putting on the tall hat at the same angle at which Mr. Guppy wears his, informs his patron that they may now leave. They go to a neighbouring dining-house, of the class known among its frequenters as slap-bang, where the waitress, a bouncing young female of forty, is supposed to have made some impression on the susceptible Smallweed, of whom it may be remarked that he is a weird changeling to whom years are nothing. He possesses centuries of owlish wisdom. If he ever lay in a cradle, he must have lain there in a tail-coat. He has an old, old eye, has Smallweed; and he drinks and smokes in a monkeyish way; and he is never to be taken in; and he knows all about it, whatever it is. In short, he is a kind of fossil imp brought up by the law. Into the dining-house, Mr. Smallweed leads the way. They know him there and defer to him. It is of no use proposing to him any joint of meat unless it is the very best cut. In the matter of gravy he is adamant. Conscious of his elfin power, Mr. Guppy consults him in the choice of that day's banquet, appealing, "What do you take, Chick?" Chick preferring "veal and ham and French beans - and don't forget the stuffing, Polly", Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling give the same order. Three pint pots are added. The waitress returns bearing what is apparently a model of the Tower of Babel but is really a pile of plates and flat tin dish-covers. Mr. Smallweed, approving, winks upon her with his ancient eye. Then the legal three appease their appetites. Mr. Jobling is buttoned up close. His hat and coat are shiny at the seams, and he has the faded appearance of a gentleman in embarrassed circumstances; even his whiskers droop with a shabby air. He makes such a speedy end of his plate of veal and ham, finishing it while his companions are yet midway in theirs, that Mr. Guppy proposes another. "Thank you, Guppy," says Mr. Jobling, "I really think I will." Another being brought, he falls to with great goodwill. When he is half way through this second plate and stops to take a contented pull at his pint pot and stretch out his legs, Mr. Guppy says, "You are a man again, Tony!" "Well, not quite yet," says Mr. Jobling. "Say, just born." "Will you take any other vegetables? Summer cabbage?" "Thank you, Guppy," says Mr. Jobling. "I really think I will." Order given; and cabbage produced. "I am growing up, Guppy," says Mr. Jobling, plying his knife and fork steadily. "Glad to hear it." "In fact, I have just turned into my teens," says Mr. Jobling. He says no more until he has finished. "Now, Small," says Mr. Guppy, "what would you recommend about pastry?" "Marrow puddings," says Mr. Smallweed instantly. "Aye, aye!" cries Mr. Jobling with an arch look. "Thank you, Mr. Guppy, I really think I will." Three marrow puddings being produced, Mr. Jobling adds pleasantly that he is coming of age fast. After these come "three Cheshire cheeses," and "three small rums." Finally Mr. Jobling leans back and says, "I am grown up now, Guppy. I have arrived at maturity." "What do you think, now," says Mr. Guppy, "about enlisting?" "Why, even after dinner, I ask myself, What am I to do? How am I to live? If any man had told me when you and I were down in Lincolnshire, Guppy, and drove over to see that house at Castle Wold-" Mr. Smallweed corrects him - Chesney Wold. "Chesney Wold. If any man had told me then that I should be as hard up as I now find myself, I should have let fly at his head," says Mr. Jobling, with an air of desperate resignation. "Still, Tony, you were broke then," remonstrates Mr. Guppy. "Guppy," says Mr. Jobling, "I will not deny it. But I trusted to things coming round." That popular trust in flat things coming round! "I was confident that things would come round and be all square," says Mr. Jobling with some vagueness of expression. "But I was disappointed. They never did. And when it came to creditors making rows at the office and to clients complaining about trifles of borrowed money, why there was an end of that connexion. And of any new professional connexion too, for it would be mentioned in any reference and would sew me up. What's a fellow to do? I have been keeping out of the way and living cheap by the market-gardens, but what's the use of living cheap when you have got no money? You might as well live dear. What else can a fellow do, I ask you, but enlist?" Mr. Guppy says in a gravely impressive manner, "Jobling, myself and our mutual friend Smallweed have had a little conversation on this matter since you-" "Say, got the sack!" cries Mr. Jobling bitterly. "Say it, Guppy." "No-o-o! Left the Inn," Mr. Smallweed delicately suggests. "Since you left the Inn, Jobling," says Mr. Guppy; "and I have mentioned a plan to our friend Smallweed. You know Snagsby the stationer?" "I know of him," returns Mr. Jobling. "I am not acquainted with him." "I am acquainted with him," Mr. Guppy retorts. "Well, sir! I have lately become better acquainted with him through some circumstances that I need not describe. They may - or they may not - have some reference to a subject which may - or may not - have cast its shadow on my existence." As it is Mr. Guppy's perplexing way to tempt his friends into this subject, and then to turn on them with trenchant severity about the chords in the human mind, both Mr. Jobling and Mr. Smallweed remain silent. "Snagsby has, in busy times, a good deal of copying work to give out," continues Mr. Guppy. "He has all Tulkinghorn's, and an excellent business besides, as Smallweed knows." Mr. Smallweed nods. "Now, gentlemen of the jury," says Mr. Guppy, "- I mean, Jobling - you may say this is a poor prospect of a living. But it's better than nothing, and better than enlistment. You want time for these recent affairs to blow over. You might do worse than writing for Snagsby. Secondly: you know Krook, the Chancellor, across the lane?" "I know him by sight," says Mr. Jobling. "And you know little Flite?" "Everybody knows her," says Mr. Jobling. "Very well. Now it has been one of my duties lately to pay Flite a weekly allowance, deducting from it her weekly rent, which I have paid according to my instructions to Krook himself. This has brought me into a knowledge of Krook's house and his habits. I know he has a room to let. You may live there at a very low rent under any name you like, very quietly. He'll ask no questions and would accept you as a tenant at a word from me. And I tell you another thing, Jobling," says Mr. Guppy, who has suddenly lowered his voice, "he's an extraordinary old chap - always rummaging among a litter of papers and trying to teaching himself to read and write, without getting on. It might be worth a fellow's while to look him up a bit." "You don't mean-" Mr. Jobling begins. "I mean," returns Mr. Guppy, shrugging modestly, "that I can't make him out. He's such a deep old one, so sly and secret (though I don't believe he is ever sober) as I never came across. Now, he has not a soul about him, and he is reported to be immensely rich; and whether he is a smuggler, or a receiver, or an unlicensed pawnbroker, or a money-lender - all of which I have thought likely - it might pay you to get to know him. I don't see why you shouldn't go in for it." Mr. Jobling, Mr. Guppy, and Mr. Smallweed all drink, slowly lean back, and look at one another. "If I had the energy I once possessed, Tony!" says Mr. Guppy with a sigh. "But there are chords in the human mind-" Mr. Guppy concludes by resigning the adventure to Tony Jobling and informing him that during the vacation, his purse, "as far as three or four or even five pound goes," will be at his disposal. "For never shall it be said," Mr. Guppy adds, "that William Guppy turned his back upon his friend!" Mr. Jobling says with emotion, "Guppy, my trump, we have been pals now for some years!" Mr. Guppy replies, "Jobling, we have." They shake hands, and Mr. Jobling adds in a feeling manner, "Thank you, Guppy, I really think I will take another glass for old acquaintance sake." "Krook's last lodger died there," observes Mr. Guppy casually. "Did he though!" "Accidental death. You don't mind that?" "No," says Mr. Jobling, "I don't mind it; but he might have died somewhere else. It's devilish odd that he need go and die at my place! He wouldn't have liked my dying at his place, I dare say!" Mr. Guppy proposes to dispatch the trusty Smallweed to see if Mr. Krook is at home, so that they may complete the negotiation without delay. Smallweed puts himself under the tall hat and leaves. He soon returns with the news that Mr. Krook is at home, sitting in the back and sleeping "like one o'clock." "Then I'll pay," says Mr. Guppy, "and we'll go and see him. Small, how much will it be?" Mr. Smallweed instantly replies: "Four veals and hams is three shillings, and four potatoes makes three and four, and one summer cabbage is three and six, and three marrows is four and six, and six breads is five, and three Cheshires is five and three, and four half-pints of half-and-half is six and three, and four small rums is eight and three, and three Pollys is eight and six. Eight and six in half a sovereign, Polly, and eighteenpence out!" After these stupendous calculations, Smallweed dismisses his friends with a cool nod and remains behind to take a little admiring notice of Polly, and to read the daily papers, which are so very large in proportion to himself that when he holds up the Times he disappears altogether. Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling repair to the rag and bottle shop, where they find Krook still sleeping like one o'clock; that is to say, snoring with his chin upon his breast and quite insensible even to gentle shaking. On the table beside him stand an empty gin-bottle and a glass. The unwholesome air is so stained with this liquor that even the green eyes of the cat upon her shelf look drunk. Mr. Guppy gives the old man another shake. "Mr. Krook! Halloa, sir! Jobling, did you ever see such a stupor as this?" "If this is his regular sleep," returns Jobling, rather alarmed, "it'll last a long time one of these days, I am thinking." "Halloa, your lordship! Why, he might be robbed fifty times over! Open your eyes!" At last Krook opens them, but without appearing to see his visitors. Though he crosses his legs, and folds his hands, and several times closes and opens his parched lips, he seems as insensible as before. "He is alive, at any rate," says Mr. Guppy. "How are you, my Lord Chancellor? I have brought a friend of mine, sir, on business." The old man still sits smacking his dry lips. After some minutes he makes an attempt to rise. They help him up, and he staggers against the wall and stares at them. "How do you do, Mr. Krook?" says Mr. Guppy in some discomfiture. "I hope you are pretty well?" The old man, in aiming a purposeless blow at Mr. Guppy, feebly swings himself round and comes with his face against the wall. So he remains for a minute, and then staggers to the front door. The air revives him. He comes back pretty steadily, adjusting his fur cap on his head and looking keenly at them. "Your servant, gentlemen; I've been dozing. Hi! I am hard to wake, at times." "Rather so, indeed, sir," responds Mr. Guppy. The old man's eye resting on the empty bottle, he examines it, and tilts it upside down. "I say!" he cries. "Somebody's been making free here!" "I assure you we found it so," says Mr. Guppy. "Would you allow me to get it filled for you?" "Yes, I would!" cries Krook in high glee. "Get it filled next door - Sol's Arms - the Lord Chancellor's fourteenpenny. Bless you, they know me!" Mr. Guppy, with a nod to his friend, takes the bottle and hurries out, and hurries in again with it filled. The old man receives it like a beloved grandchild and pats it tenderly. "But, I say," he whispers, after tasting it, "this ain't the fourteenpenny. This is eighteenpenny!" "I thought you might like that better," says Mr. Guppy. "You're a nobleman, sir," returns Krook with another taste. Taking advantage of this auspicious moment, Mr. Guppy presents his friend under the name of Mr. Weevle and states the object of their visit. Krook surveys his proposed lodger and seems to approve of him. "You'd like to see the room, young man?" he says. "It's a good room! Been whitewashed. Been cleaned down with soft soap and soda. Hi! It's worth twice the rent." The old man takes them upstairs, where indeed they do find it cleaner than it used to be and also containing some old articles of furniture. The terms are easily concluded, and it is agreed that Mr. Weevle shall move in on the morrow. Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy then go to Cook's Court, where the former is introduced to Mr. Snagsby and (more important) the interest of Mrs. Snagsby is secured. They then report progress to Smallweed, waiting at the office in his tall hat. On the next evening, Mr. Weevle modestly appears at Krook's, and establishes himself in his new lodging, where the two eyes in the shutters stare at him in his sleep, as if full of wonder. On the following day Mr. Weevle borrows a needle and thread from Miss Flite and a hammer from his landlord and goes to work devising apologies for curtains, and knocking up apologies for shelves, and hanging up his two teacups and milkpot on a pennyworth of little hooks, like a shipwrecked sailor making the best of it. But what Mr. Weevle prizes most of all his few possessions is a choice collection of copper-plate impressions from that truly national work The Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty, representing ladies of title and fashion in every variety of smirk that art is capable of producing. With these magnificent portraits he decorates his apartment; and as The Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty wears every variety of fancy dress, plays every variety of musical instrument, fondles every variety of dog, and is backed up by every variety of flower-pot, the result is very imposing. But fashion is Mr. Weevle's weakness. To borrow yesterday's paper and read about the brilliant meteors shooting across the fashionable sky is great consolation to him. To know what member of what distinguished circle joined it yesterday or may leave it tomorrow gives him a thrill of joy. To be informed what Galaxy marriages are in the offing, and what Galaxy rumours are circulating, is to become acquainted with the most glorious destinies of mankind. For the rest, Mr. Weevle is a quiet lodger. In the evenings, when he is not visited by Mr. Guppy or by a small person in his likeness in a dark hat, he comes out of his dull room and talks to Krook or anyone else in the court who is disposed for conversation. Mrs. Piper, who leads the court, offers two remarks to Mrs. Perkins: firstly, that if her Johnny was to have whiskers, she could wish 'em to be like that young man's; and secondly, "Mark my words, Mrs. Perkins, and don't you be surprised, if that young man comes in at last for old Krook's money!"

Bleak House

Chapter 20: A New Lodger

I had not been at home again many days when one evening I went upstairs into my own room to take a peep over Charley's shoulder and see how she was getting on with her copy-book. Writing was a trying business to Charley, who seemed to have no natural power over a pen, but in whose hand every pen appeared to become perversely animated, and to go wrong and crooked, and to stop, and splash, and sidle into corners like a saddle-donkey. It was very odd to see what old letters Charley's young hand had made, they so wrinkled, and shrivelled, and tottering, it so plump and round. Yet Charley was uncommonly expert at other things and had as nimble little fingers as I ever watched. "Well, Charley," said I, looking over a copy of the letter O in which it was represented as square, triangular, pear-shaped, and collapsed in all kinds of ways, "we are improving. If we only get to make it round, we shall be perfect, Charley." Then I made one, and Charley made one, and the pen wouldn't join Charley's neatly, but twisted it up into a knot. "Never mind, Charley. We shall do it in time." Charley laid down her pen, the copy being finished, opened and shut her cramped little hand, looked gravely at the page, half in pride and half in doubt, and got up, and dropped me a curtsy. "Thank you, miss. If you please, miss, did you know a poor person of the name of Jenny?" "A brickmaker's wife, Charley? Yes." "She came and spoke to me when I was out a little while ago, and said you knew her, miss. She asked me if I wasn't the young lady's little maid--meaning you for the young lady, miss--and I said yes, miss." "I thought she had left this neighbourhood altogether, Charley." "So she had, miss, but she's come back again to where she used to live--she and Liz. Did you know another poor person of the name of Liz, miss?" "I think I do, Charley, though not by name." "That's what she said!" returned Charley. "They have both come back, miss, and have been tramping high and low." "Tramping high and low, have they, Charley?" "Yes, miss." If Charley could only have made the letters in her copy as round as the eyes with which she looked into my face, they would have been excellent. "And this poor person came about the house three or four days, hoping to get a glimpse of you, miss--all she wanted, she said--but you were away. That was when she saw me. She saw me a-going about, miss," said Charley with a short laugh of the greatest delight and pride, "and she thought I looked like your maid!" "Did she though, really, Charley?" "Yes, miss!" said Charley. "Really and truly." And Charley, with another short laugh of the purest glee, made her eyes very round again and looked as serious as became my maid. I was never tired of seeing Charley in the full enjoyment of that great dignity, standing before me with her youthful face and figure, and her steady manner, and her childish exultation breaking through it now and then in the pleasantest way. "And where did you see her, Charley?" said I. My little maid's countenance fell as she replied, "By the doctor's shop, miss." For Charley wore her black frock yet. I asked if the brickmaker's wife were ill, but Charley said no. It was some one else. Some one in her cottage who had tramped down to Saint Albans and was tramping he didn't know where. A poor boy, Charley said. No father, no mother, no any one. "Like as Tom might have been, miss, if Emma and me had died after father," said Charley, her round eyes filling with tears. "And she was getting medicine for him, Charley?" "She said, miss," returned Charley, "how that he had once done as much for her." My little maid's face was so eager and her quiet hands were folded so closely in one another as she stood looking at me that I had no great difficulty in reading her thoughts. "Well, Charley," said I, "it appears to me that you and I can do no better than go round to Jenny's and see what's the matter." The alacrity with which Charley brought my bonnet and veil, and having dressed me, quaintly pinned herself into her warm shawl and made herself look like a little old woman, sufficiently expressed her readiness. So Charley and I, without saying anything to any one, went out. It was a cold, wild night, and the trees shuddered in the wind. The rain had been thick and heavy all day, and with little intermission for many days. None was falling just then, however. The sky had partly cleared, but was very gloomy--even above us, where a few stars were shining. In the north and north-west, where the sun had set three hours before, there was a pale dead light both beautiful and awful; and into it long sullen lines of cloud waved up like a sea stricken immovable as it was heaving. Towards London a lurid glare overhung the whole dark waste, and the contrast between these two lights, and the fancy which the redder light engendered of an unearthly fire, gleaming on all the unseen buildings of the city and on all the faces of its many thousands of wondering inhabitants, was as solemn as might be. I had no thought that night--none, I am quite sure--of what was soon to happen to me. But I have always remembered since that when we had stopped at the garden-gate to look up at the sky, and when we went upon our way, I had for a moment an undefinable impression of myself as being something different from what I then was. I know it was then and there that I had it. I have ever since connected the feeling with that spot and time and with everything associated with that spot and time, to the distant voices in the town, the barking of a dog, and the sound of wheels coming down the miry hill. It was Saturday night, and most of the people belonging to the place where we were going were drinking elsewhere. We found it quieter than I had previously seen it, though quite as miserable. The kilns were burning, and a stifling vapour set towards us with a pale-blue glare. We came to the cottage, where there was a feeble candle in the patched window. We tapped at the door and went in. The mother of the little child who had died was sitting in a chair on one side of the poor fire by the bed; and opposite to her, a wretched boy, supported by the chimney-piece, was cowering on the floor. He held under his arm, like a little bundle, a fragment of a fur cap; and as he tried to warm himself, he shook until the crazy door and window shook. The place was closer than before and had an unhealthy and a very peculiar smell. I had not lifted my veil when I first spoke to the woman, which was at the moment of our going in. The boy staggered up instantly and stared at me with a remarkable expression of surprise and terror. His action was so quick and my being the cause of it was so evident that I stood still instead of advancing nearer. "I won't go no more to the berryin ground," muttered the boy; "I ain't a-going there, so I tell you!" I lifted my veil and spoke to the woman. She said to me in a low voice, "Don't mind him, ma'am. He'll soon come back to his head," and said to him, "Jo, Jo, what's the matter?" "I know wot she's come for!" cried the boy. "Who?" "The lady there. She's come to get me to go along with her to the berryin ground. I won't go to the berryin ground. I don't like the name on it. She might go a-berryin ME." His shivering came on again, and as he leaned against the wall, he shook the hovel. "He has been talking off and on about such like all day, ma'am," said Jenny softly. "Why, how you stare! This is MY lady, Jo." "Is it?" returned the boy doubtfully, and surveying me with his arm held out above his burning eyes. "She looks to me the t'other one. It ain't the bonnet, nor yet it ain't the gownd, but she looks to me the t'other one." My little Charley, with her premature experience of illness and trouble, had pulled off her bonnet and shawl and now went quietly up to him with a chair and sat him down in it like an old sick nurse. Except that no such attendant could have shown him Charley's youthful face, which seemed to engage his confidence. "I say!" said the boy. "YOU tell me. Ain't the lady the t'other lady?" Charley shook her head as she methodically drew his rags about him and made him as warm as she could. "Oh!" the boy muttered. "Then I s'pose she ain't." "I came to see if I could do you any good," said I. "What is the matter with you?" "I'm a-being froze," returned the boy hoarsely, with his haggard gaze wandering about me, "and then burnt up, and then froze, and then burnt up, ever so many times in a hour. And my head's all sleepy, and all a-going mad-like--and I'm so dry--and my bones isn't half so much bones as pain. "When did he come here?" I asked the woman. "This morning, ma'am, I found him at the corner of the town. I had known him up in London yonder. Hadn't I, Jo?" "Tom-all-Alone's," the boy replied. Whenever he fixed his attention or his eyes, it was only for a very little while. He soon began to droop his head again, and roll it heavily, and speak as if he were half awake. "When did he come from London?" I asked. "I come from London yes'day," said the boy himself, now flushed and hot. "I'm a-going somewheres." "Where is he going?" I asked. "Somewheres," repeated the boy in a louder tone. "I have been moved on, and moved on, more nor ever I was afore, since the t'other one give me the sov'ring. Mrs. Snagsby, she's always a-watching, and a-driving of me--what have I done to her?--and they're all a-watching and a-driving of me. Every one of 'em's doing of it, from the time when I don't get up, to the time when I don't go to bed. And I'm a-going somewheres. That's where I'm a-going. She told me, down in Tom-all-Alone's, as she came from Stolbuns, and so I took the Stolbuns Road. It's as good as another." He always concluded by addressing Charley. "What is to be done with him?" said I, taking the woman aside. "He could not travel in this state even if he had a purpose and knew where he was going!" "I know no more, ma'am, than the dead," she replied, glancing compassionately at him. "Perhaps the dead know better, if they could only tell us. I've kept him here all day for pity's sake, and I've given him broth and physic, and Liz has gone to try if any one will take him in (here's my pretty in the bed--her child, but I call it mine); but I can't keep him long, for if my husband was to come home and find him here, he'd be rough in putting him out and might do him a hurt. Hark! Here comes Liz back!" The other woman came hurriedly in as she spoke, and the boy got up with a half-obscured sense that he was expected to be going. When the little child awoke, and when and how Charley got at it, took it out of bed, and began to walk about hushing it, I don't know. There she was, doing all this in a quiet motherly manner as if she were living in Mrs. Blinder's attic with Tom and Emma again. The friend had been here and there, and had been played about from hand to hand, and had come back as she went. At first it was too early for the boy to be received into the proper refuge, and at last it was too late. One official sent her to another, and the other sent her back again to the first, and so backward and forward, until it appeared to me as if both must have been appointed for their skill in evading their duties instead of performing them. And now, after all, she said, breathing quickly, for she had been running and was frightened too, "Jenny, your master's on the road home, and mine's not far behind, and the Lord help the boy, for we can do no more for him!" They put a few halfpence together and hurried them into his hand, and so, in an oblivious, half-thankful, half-insensible way, he shuffled out of the house. "Give me the child, my dear," said its mother to Charley, "and thank you kindly too! Jenny, woman dear, good night! Young lady, if my master don't fall out with me, I'll look down by the kiln by and by, where the boy will be most like, and again in the morning!" She hurried off, and presently we passed her hushing and singing to her child at her own door and looking anxiously along the road for her drunken husband. I was afraid of staying then to speak to either woman, lest I should bring her into trouble. But I said to Charley that we must not leave the boy to die. Charley, who knew what to do much better than I did, and whose quickness equalled her presence of mind, glided on before me, and presently we came up with Jo, just short of the brick-kiln. I think he must have begun his journey with some small bundle under his arm and must have had it stolen or lost it. For he still carried his wretched fragment of fur cap like a bundle, though he went bare-headed through the rain, which now fell fast. He stopped when we called to him and again showed a dread of me when I came up, standing with his lustrous eyes fixed upon me, and even arrested in his shivering fit. I asked him to come with us, and we would take care that he had some shelter for the night. "I don't want no shelter," he said; "I can lay amongst the warm bricks." "But don't you know that people die there?" replied Charley. "They dies everywheres," said the boy. "They dies in their lodgings--she knows where; I showed her--and they dies down in Tom-all-Alone's in heaps. They dies more than they lives, according to what I see." Then he hoarsely whispered Charley, "If she ain't the t'other one, she ain't the forrenner. Is there THREE of 'em then?" Charley looked at me a little frightened. I felt half frightened at myself when the boy glared on me so. But he turned and followed when I beckoned to him, and finding that he acknowledged that influence in me, I led the way straight home. It was not far, only at the summit of the hill. We passed but one man. I doubted if we should have got home without assistance, the boy's steps were so uncertain and tremulous. He made no complaint, however, and was strangely unconcerned about himself, if I may say so strange a thing. Leaving him in the hall for a moment, shrunk into the corner of the window-seat and staring with an indifference that scarcely could be called wonder at the comfort and brightness about him, I went into the drawing-room to speak to my guardian. There I found Mr. Skimpole, who had come down by the coach, as he frequently did without notice, and never bringing any clothes with him, but always borrowing everything he wanted. They came out with me directly to look at the boy. The servants had gathered in the hall too, and he shivered in the window-seat with Charley standing by him, like some wounded animal that had been found in a ditch. "This is a sorrowful case," said my guardian after asking him a question or two and touching him and examining his eyes. "What do you say, Harold?" "You had better turn him out," said Mr. Skimpole. "What do you mean?" inquired my guardian, almost sternly. "My dear Jarndyce," said Mr. Skimpole, "you know what I am: I am a child. Be cross to me if I deserve it. But I have a constitutional objection to this sort of thing. I always had, when I was a medical man. He's not safe, you know. There's a very bad sort of fever about him." Mr. Skimpole had retreated from the hall to the drawing-room again and said this in his airy way, seated on the music-stool as we stood by. "You'll say it's childish," observed Mr. Skimpole, looking gaily at us. "Well, I dare say it may be; but I AM a child, and I never pretend to be anything else. If you put him out in the road, you only put him where he was before. He will be no worse off than he was, you know. Even make him better off, if you like. Give him sixpence, or five shillings, or five pound ten--you are arithmeticians, and I am not--and get rid of him!" "And what is he to do then?" asked my guardian. "Upon my life," said Mr. Skimpole, shrugging his shoulders with his engaging smile, "I have not the least idea what he is to do then. But I have no doubt he'll do it." "Now, is it not a horrible reflection," said my guardian, to whom I had hastily explained the unavailing efforts of the two women, "is it not a horrible reflection," walking up and down and rumpling his hair, "that if this wretched creature were a convicted prisoner, his hospital would be wide open to him, and he would be as well taken care of as any sick boy in the kingdom?" "My dear Jarndyce," returned Mr. Skimpole, "you'll pardon the simplicity of the question, coming as it does from a creature who is perfectly simple in worldly matters, but why ISN'T he a prisoner then?" My guardian stopped and looked at him with a whimsical mixture of amusement and indignation in his face. "Our young friend is not to be suspected of any delicacy, I should imagine," said Mr. Skimpole, unabashed and candid. "It seems to me that it would be wiser, as well as in a certain kind of way more respectable, if he showed some misdirected energy that got him into prison. There would be more of an adventurous spirit in it, and consequently more of a certain sort of poetry." "I believe," returned my guardian, resuming his uneasy walk, "that there is not such another child on earth as yourself." "Do you really?" said Mr. Skimpole. "I dare say! But I confess I don't see why our young friend, in his degree, should not seek to invest himself with such poetry as is open to him. He is no doubt born with an appetite--probably, when he is in a safer state of health, he has an excellent appetite. Very well. At our young friend's natural dinner hour, most likely about noon, our young friend says in effect to society, 'I am hungry; will you have the goodness to produce your spoon and feed me?' Society, which has taken upon itself the general arrangement of the whole system of spoons and professes to have a spoon for our young friend, does NOT produce that spoon; and our young friend, therefore, says 'You really must excuse me if I seize it.' Now, this appears to me a case of misdirected energy, which has a certain amount of reason in it and a certain amount of romance; and I don't know but what I should be more interested in our young friend, as an illustration of such a case, than merely as a poor vagabond--which any one can be." "In the meantime," I ventured to observe, "he is getting worse." "In the meantime," said Mr. Skimpole cheerfully, "as Miss Summerson, with her practical good sense, observes, he is getting worse. Therefore I recommend your turning him out before he gets still worse." The amiable face with which he said it, I think I shall never forget. "Of course, little woman," observed my guardian, turning to me, "I can ensure his admission into the proper place by merely going there to enforce it, though it's a bad state of things when, in his condition, that is necessary. But it's growing late, and is a very bad night, and the boy is worn out already. There is a bed in the wholesome loft-room by the stable; we had better keep him there till morning, when he can be wrapped up and removed. We'll do that." "Oh!" said Mr. Skimpole, with his hands upon the keys of the piano as we moved away. "Are you going back to our young friend?" "Yes," said my guardian. "How I envy you your constitution, Jarndyce!" returned Mr. Skimpole with playful admiration. "You don't mind these things; neither does Miss Summerson. You are ready at all times to go anywhere, and do anything. Such is will! I have no will at all--and no won't--simply can't." "You can't recommend anything for the boy, I suppose?" said my guardian, looking back over his shoulder half angrily; only half angrily, for he never seemed to consider Mr. Skimpole an accountable being. "My dear Jarndyce, I observed a bottle of cooling medicine in his pocket, and it's impossible for him to do better than take it. You can tell them to sprinkle a little vinegar about the place where he sleeps and to keep it moderately cool and him moderately warm. But it is mere impertinence in me to offer any recommendation. Miss Summerson has such a knowledge of detail and such a capacity for the administration of detail that she knows all about it." We went back into the hall and explained to Jo what we proposed to do, which Charley explained to him again and which he received with the languid unconcern I had already noticed, wearily looking on at what was done as if it were for somebody else. The servants compassionating his miserable state and being very anxious to help, we soon got the loft-room ready; and some of the men about the house carried him across the wet yard, well wrapped up. It was pleasant to observe how kind they were to him and how there appeared to be a general impression among them that frequently calling him "Old Chap" was likely to revive his spirits. Charley directed the operations and went to and fro between the loft-room and the house with such little stimulants and comforts as we thought it safe to give him. My guardian himself saw him before he was left for the night and reported to me when he returned to the growlery to write a letter on the boy's behalf, which a messenger was charged to deliver at day-light in the morning, that he seemed easier and inclined to sleep. They had fastened his door on the outside, he said, in case of his being delirious, but had so arranged that he could not make any noise without being heard. Ada being in our room with a cold, Mr. Skimpole was left alone all this time and entertained himself by playing snatches of pathetic airs and sometimes singing to them (as we heard at a distance) with great expression and feeling. When we rejoined him in the drawing-room he said he would give us a little ballad which had come into his head "apropos of our young friend," and he sang one about a peasant boy, "Thrown on the wide world, doomed to wander and roam, Bereft of his parents, bereft of a home." quite exquisitely. It was a song that always made him cry, he told us. He was extremely gay all the rest of the evening, for he absolutely chirped--those were his delighted words--when he thought by what a happy talent for business he was surrounded. He gave us, in his glass of negus, "Better health to our young friend!" and supposed and gaily pursued the case of his being reserved like Whittington to become Lord Mayor of London. In that event, no doubt, he would establish the Jarndyce Institution and the Summerson Almshouses, and a little annual Corporation Pilgrimage to St. Albans. He had no doubt, he said, that our young friend was an excellent boy in his way, but his way was not the Harold Skimpole way; what Harold Skimpole was, Harold Skimpole had found himself, to his considerable surprise, when he first made his own acquaintance; he had accepted himself with all his failings and had thought it sound philosophy to make the best of the bargain; and he hoped we would do the same. Charley's last report was that the boy was quiet. I could see, from my window, the lantern they had left him burning quietly; and I went to bed very happy to think that he was sheltered. There was more movement and more talking than usual a little before daybreak, and it awoke me. As I was dressing, I looked out of my window and asked one of our men who had been among the active sympathizers last night whether there was anything wrong about the house. The lantern was still burning in the loft-window. "It's the boy, miss," said he. "Is he worse?" I inquired. "Gone, miss. "Dead!" "Dead, miss? No. Gone clean off." At what time of the night he had gone, or how, or why, it seemed hopeless ever to divine. The door remaining as it had been left, and the lantern standing in the window, it could only be supposed that he had got out by a trap in the floor which communicated with an empty cart-house below. But he had shut it down again, if that were so; and it looked as if it had not been raised. Nothing of any kind was missing. On this fact being clearly ascertained, we all yielded to the painful belief that delirium had come upon him in the night and that, allured by some imaginary object or pursued by some imaginary horror, he had strayed away in that worse than helpless state; all of us, that is to say, but Mr. Skimpole, who repeatedly suggested, in his usual easy light style, that it had occurred to our young friend that he was not a safe inmate, having a bad kind of fever upon him, and that he had with great natural politeness taken himself off. Every possible inquiry was made, and every place was searched. The brick-kilns were examined, the cottages were visited, the two women were particularly questioned, but they knew nothing of him, and nobody could doubt that their wonder was genuine. The weather had for some time been too wet and the night itself had been too wet to admit of any tracing by footsteps. Hedge and ditch, and wall, and rick and stack, were examined by our men for a long distance round, lest the boy should be lying in such a place insensible or dead; but nothing was seen to indicate that he had ever been near. From the time when he was left in the loft-room, he vanished. The search continued for five days. I do not mean that it ceased even then, but that my attention was then diverted into a current very memorable to me. As Charley was at her writing again in my room in the evening, and as I sat opposite to her at work, I felt the table tremble. Looking up, I saw my little maid shivering from head to foot. "Charley," said I, "are you so cold?" "I think I am, miss," she replied. "I don't know what it is. I can't hold myself still. I felt so yesterday at about this same time, miss. Don't be uneasy, I think I'm ill." I heard Ada's voice outside, and I hurried to the door of communication between my room and our pretty sitting-room, and locked it. Just in time, for she tapped at it while my hand was yet upon the key. Ada called to me to let her in, but I said, "Not now, my dearest. Go away. There's nothing the matter; I will come to you presently." Ah! It was a long, long time before my darling girl and I were companions again. Charley fell ill. In twelve hours she was very ill. I moved her to my room, and laid her in my bed, and sat down quietly to nurse her. I told my guardian all about it, and why I felt it was necessary that I should seclude myself, and my reason for not seeing my darling above all. At first she came very often to the door, and called to me, and even reproached me with sobs and tears; but I wrote her a long letter saying that she made me anxious and unhappy and imploring her, as she loved me and wished my mind to be at peace, to come no nearer than the garden. After that she came beneath the window even oftener than she had come to the door, and if I had learnt to love her dear sweet voice before when we were hardly ever apart, how did I learn to love it then, when I stood behind the window-curtain listening and replying, but not so much as looking out! How did I learn to love it afterwards, when the harder time came! They put a bed for me in our sitting-room; and by keeping the door wide open, I turned the two rooms into one, now that Ada had vacated that part of the house, and kept them always fresh and airy. There was not a servant in or about the house but was so good that they would all most gladly have come to me at any hour of the day or night without the least fear or unwillingness, but I thought it best to choose one worthy woman who was never to see Ada and whom I could trust to come and go with all precaution. Through her means I got out to take the air with my guardian when there was no fear of meeting Ada, and wanted for nothing in the way of attendance, any more than in any other respect. And thus poor Charley sickened and grew worse, and fell into heavy danger of death, and lay severely ill for many a long round of day and night. So patient she was, so uncomplaining, and inspired by such a gentle fortitude that very often as I sat by Charley holding her head in my arms--repose would come to her, so, when it would come to her in no other attitude--I silently prayed to our Father in heaven that I might not forget the lesson which this little sister taught me. I was very sorrowful to think that Charley's pretty looks would change and be disfigured, even if she recovered--she was such a child with her dimpled face--but that thought was, for the greater part, lost in her greater peril. When she was at the worst, and her mind rambled again to the cares of her father's sick bed and the little children, she still knew me so far as that she would be quiet in my arms when she could lie quiet nowhere else, and murmur out the wanderings of her mind less restlessly. At those times I used to think, how should I ever tell the two remaining babies that the baby who had learned of her faithful heart to be a mother to them in their need was dead! There were other times when Charley knew me well and talked to me, telling me that she sent her love to Tom and Emma and that she was sure Tom would grow up to be a good man. At those times Charley would speak to me of what she had read to her father as well as she could to comfort him, of that young man carried out to be buried who was the only son of his mother and she was a widow, of the ruler's daughter raised up by the gracious hand upon her bed of death. And Charley told me that when her father died she had kneeled down and prayed in her first sorrow that he likewise might be raised up and given back to his poor children, and that if she should never get better and should die too, she thought it likely that it might come into Tom's mind to offer the same prayer for her. Then would I show Tom how these people of old days had been brought back to life on earth, only that we might know our hope to be restored to heaven! But of all the various times there were in Charley's illness, there was not one when she lost the gentle qualities I have spoken of. And there were many, many when I thought in the night of the last high belief in the watching angel, and the last higher trust in God, on the part of her poor despised father. And Charley did not die. She flutteringly and slowly turned the dangerous point, after long lingering there, and then began to mend. The hope that never had been given, from the first, of Charley being in outward appearance Charley any more soon began to be encouraged; and even that prospered, and I saw her growing into her old childish likeness again. It was a great morning when I could tell Ada all this as she stood out in the garden; and it was a great evening when Charley and I at last took tea together in the next room. But on that same evening, I felt that I was stricken cold. Happily for both of us, it was not until Charley was safe in bed again and placidly asleep that I began to think the contagion of her illness was upon me. I had been able easily to hide what I felt at tea-time, but I was past that already now, and I knew that I was rapidly following in Charley's steps. I was well enough, however, to be up early in the morning, and to return my darling's cheerful blessing from the garden, and to talk with her as long as usual. But I was not free from an impression that I had been walking about the two rooms in the night, a little beside myself, though knowing where I was; and I felt confused at times--with a curious sense of fullness, as if I were becoming too large altogether. In the evening I was so much worse that I resolved to prepare Charley, with which view I said, "You're getting quite strong, Charley, are you not?' "Oh, quite!" said Charley. "Strong enough to be told a secret, I think, Charley?" "Quite strong enough for that, miss!" cried Charley. But Charley's face fell in the height of her delight, for she saw the secret in MY face; and she came out of the great chair, and fell upon my bosom, and said "Oh, miss, it's my doing! It's my doing!" and a great deal more out of the fullness of her grateful heart. "Now, Charley," said I after letting her go on for a little while, "if I am to be ill, my great trust, humanly speaking, is in you. And unless you are as quiet and composed for me as you always were for yourself, you can never fulfil it, Charley." "If you'll let me cry a little longer, miss," said Charley. "Oh, my dear, my dear! If you'll only let me cry a little longer. Oh, my dear!"--how affectionately and devotedly she poured this out as she clung to my neck, I never can remember without tears--"I'll be good." So I let Charley cry a little longer, and it did us both good. "Trust in me now, if you please, miss," said Charley quietly. "I am listening to everything you say." "It's very little at present, Charley. I shall tell your doctor to-night that I don't think I am well and that you are going to nurse me." For that the poor child thanked me with her whole heart. "And in the morning, when you hear Miss Ada in the garden, if I should not be quite able to go to the window-curtain as usual, do you go, Charley, and say I am asleep--that I have rather tired myself, and am asleep. At all times keep the room as I have kept it, Charley, and let no one come." Charley promised, and I lay down, for I was very heavy. I saw the doctor that night and asked the favour of him that I wished to ask relative to his saying nothing of my illness in the house as yet. I have a very indistinct remembrance of that night melting into day, and of day melting into night again; but I was just able on the first morning to get to the window and speak to my darling. On the second morning I heard her dear voice--Oh, how dear now!--outside; and I asked Charley, with some difficulty (speech being painful to me), to go and say I was asleep. I heard her answer softly, "Don't disturb her, Charley, for the world!" "How does my own Pride look, Charley?" I inquired. "Disappointed, miss," said Charley, peeping through the curtain. "But I know she is very beautiful this morning." "She is indeed, miss," answered Charley, peeping. "Still looking up at the window." With her blue clear eyes, God bless them, always loveliest when raised like that! I called Charley to me and gave her her last charge. "Now, Charley, when she knows I am ill, she will try to make her way into the room. Keep her out, Charley, if you love me truly, to the last! Charley, if you let her in but once, only to look upon me for one moment as I lie here, I shall die." "I never will! I never will!" she promised me. "I believe it, my dear Charley. And now come and sit beside me for a little while, and touch me with your hand. For I cannot see you, Charley; I am blind."

I had not been at home many days when one evening I went upstairs to my own room to see how Charley was getting on with her copy-book. Writing was a trying business to Charley, in whose hand a pen appeared to become perversely animated, and to go crooked and sidle into corners like a saddle-donkey. It was very odd to see what old, shrivelled letters Charley's young hand had made. Yet Charley was uncommonly expert and nimble at other things. "Well, Charley," said I, looking at a collapsed letter O, "we are improving. If we only get to make it round, we shall be perfect." Then I made an O, and Charley made one, and the pen twisted Charley's up into a knot. "Never mind, Charley. We shall do it in time." Charley laid down her pen, flexed her cramped little hand, and got up and dropped me a curtsy. "Thank you, miss. If you please, did you know a poor person of the name of Jenny?" "A brickmaker's wife, Charley? Yes." "She came and spoke to me when I was out a little while ago, and said you knew her, miss. She asked me if I wasn't your maid." "I thought she had left this neighbourhood, Charley." "So she had, miss, but she's come back again - she and Liz. Did you know Liz, miss?" "I think I do, Charley, though not by name." "That's what she said!" returned Charley. "They have both come back, miss, and have been tramping high and low. And this Jenny came about the house three or four days, hoping to get a glimpse of you, miss - all she wanted, she said - but you were away. Then she saw me," said Charley with a short laugh of delight and pride, "and she thought I looked like your maid!" "And where did you see her, Charley?" said I. My little maid's countenance fell as she replied, "By the doctor's shop, miss." For Charley wore her black frock still. I asked if the brickmaker's wife were ill, but Charley said no. It was some one else in her cottage, who had tramped down to Saint Albans. A poor boy, Charley said, her eyes filling with tears. No father, no mother, no any one. "And she was getting medicine for him, Charley?" "She said, miss, that he had once done as much for her." My little maid's face was so eager that I had no great difficulty in reading her thoughts. "Well, Charley," said I, "we had better go round to Jenny's and see what's the matter." Charley brought my bonnet and veil with alacrity, and having dressed me, pinned herself into her warm shawl like a little old woman. Without saying anything to anyone, we went out. It was a cold, wild night, and the trees shuddered in the wind. The rain had been heavy all day, although none was falling just then. The gloomy sky had partly cleared, and in the north-west, where the sun had set, there was a pale dead light both beautiful and awful, with long sullen lines of cloud waved up like a sea stricken immovable. Towards London a lurid glare overhung the dark waste. I had no thought that night of what was soon to happen to me. But I have always remembered that when we stopped at the garden-gate to look up at the sky, I had for a moment an undefinable impression of myself as being something different from what I then was. I have ever since connected the feeling with that spot and time. It was Saturday night, and the place was quiet. The kilns were burning, and a stifling vapour set towards us with a pale blue glare. We came to the cottage, where there was a feeble candle in the window. We tapped at the door and went in. The mother of the little child who had died was sitting in a chair on one side of the poor fire; and opposite her, a wretched boy was cowering on the floor. He held under his arm a fragment of a fur cap; and as he tried to warm himself, he shook. The place had an unhealthy and very peculiar smell. I had not lifted my veil when I first spoke to the woman on entering. The boy staggered up instantly and stared at me with a remarkable expression of surprise and terror. I stood still. "I won't go no more to the berryin ground," muttered the boy; "I ain't a-going there, I tell you!" I lifted my veil and spoke to the woman. She said to me in a low voice, "Don't mind him, ma'am," and said to him, "Jo, Jo, what's the matter?" "I know wot she's come for!" cried the boy. "Who?" "The lady there. She's come to get me to go along with her to the berryin ground. I won't go. She might go a-berryin me." His shivering came on again, and he leaned against the wall. "He has been talking off and on like this all day, ma'am," said Jenny softly. "This is my lady, Jo." "Is it?" returned the boy, surveying me doubtfully. "She looks to me the t'other one. It ain't the bonnet, nor yet the gown, but she looks to me the t'other one." My little Charley had pulled off her bonnet and shawl and now went quietly up to him and sat him down in a chair like an old nurse. "I say!" said the boy. "Ain't the lady the t'other lady?" Charley shook her head as she made him as warm as she could. "Oh!" the boy muttered. "Then I s'pose she ain't." "I came to see if I could do you any good," said I. "What is the matter?" "I'm a-being froze," returned the boy hoarsely, his haggard gaze wandering, "and then burnt up, and then froze, and then burnt up, ever so many times in a hour. And my head's all sleepy - and I'm so dry - and my bones is all pain." "When did he come here?" I asked the woman. "This morning, ma'am, I found him at the corner of the town. I had known him up in London. Hadn't I, Jo?" "Tom-all-Alone's," the boy replied. He began to droop and roll his head again, as if he were only half awake. "When did he come from London?" I asked. "Yes'day," said the boy. "I'm a-going somewheres. I have been moved on, and moved on. Mrs. Snagsby, she's always a-watching, and a-driving of me - they all are. And I'm a-going somewheres. She told me, down in Tom-all-Alone's, as she came from Stolbuns, and so I took the Stolbuns Road. It's as good as another." "What is to be done with him?" said I, taking the woman aside. "He could not travel in this state even if he knew where he was going!" "I don't know, ma'am," she replied, glancing compassionately at him. "I've kept him here all day for pity's sake, and I've given him broth and medicine, and Liz has gone to see if anyone will take him in; but I can't keep him long, for if my husband was to come home and find him here, he'd be rough in putting him out. Hark! Here comes Liz!" The other woman came hurriedly in as she spoke. She had been here and there, and had been played about from hand to hand; one official sent her to another, and the other sent her back to the first, and so on, until it appeared to me as if both must have been appointed for their skill in evading their duties. And now she said, breathing quickly, "Jenny, your master's on the road home, and mine too, and the Lord help the boy, for we can do no more!" They put a few halfpence into his hand, and in an oblivious way, he shuffled out of the house. "Thank you kindly!" said Liz to Charley and me. "Jenny, dear, good night! Young lady, I'll look down by the kiln by and by, where the boy will be most like, and again in the morning!" She hurried off, looking anxiously along the road for her drunken husband. I was afraid of staying then. But I said to Charley that we must not leave the boy to die. Charley glided on before me, and presently we caught up with Jo, just short of the brick-kiln. I think he must have begun his journey with some small bundle under his arm and must have had it stolen or lost it. For he still carried his wretched fragment of fur cap like a bundle, though he went bare-headed through the rain, which now fell fast. He stopped when we called to him and stood arrested in his shivering fit. I asked him to come with us, and said we would give him shelter for the night. "I don't want no shelter," he said; "I can lay amongst the warm bricks." "But don't you know that people die there?" replied Charley. "They dies everywheres," said the boy. "They dies down in Tom-all-Alone's in heaps." Then he hoarsely whispered to Charley, "If she ain't the t'other one, she ain't the forrenner. Is there three of 'em then?" Charley looked at me a little frightened. But the boy followed when I beckoned him; so I led the way straight home. The boy's steps were uncertain and tremulous, but we had not far to go, and he made no complaint. Leaving him in the hall for a moment, shrunk into the corner of the window-seat, I went into the drawing-room to speak to my guardian. There I found Mr. Skimpole, who had come down by the coach, as he frequently did without notice, never bringing any clothes with him, but always borrowing everything he wanted. They came out with me to look at the boy. The servants had gathered in the hall too, and he shivered in the window-seat with Charley standing by him, like some wounded animal that had been found in a ditch. "This is a sorrowful case," said my guardian after asking him a question or two. "What do you say, Harold?" "You had better turn him out," said Mr. Skimpole. "What do you mean?" inquired my guardian, almost sternly. "My dear Jarndyce," said Mr. Skimpole, "you know I am a child. But he's not safe, you know. There's a very bad fever about him." Mr. Skimpole retreated to the drawing-room again as he said this in his airy way. "You'll say it's childish," he observed, looking gaily at us. "Well, I dare say it may be; but if you put him out in the road, you only put him where he was before. He will be no worse off than he was, you know. Give him sixpence, or five shillings - and get rid of him!" "And what is he to do then?" asked my guardian. "Upon my life," said Mr. Skimpole, shrugging his shoulders with his engaging smile, "I have not the least idea." "Now, is it not a horrible reflection," said my guardian, walking up and down and rumpling his hair, "that if this wretched creature were a prisoner, he would be as well taken care of as any sick boy in the kingdom?" "My dear Jarndyce," returned Mr. Skimpole, "you'll pardon the simplicity of the question, coming from a simple child, but why isn't he a prisoner then? It seems to me that it would be wiser if he showed some misdirected energy that got him into prison. There would be more of an adventurous spirit in it, and a certain sort of poetry." "I believe," returned my guardian, resuming his uneasy walk, "that there is not such another child on earth as yourself." "In the meantime," I observed, "he is getting worse." "In the meantime," said Mr. Skimpole cheerfully, "as Miss Summerson, with her practical good sense, observes, he is getting worse. Therefore I recommend your turning him out before he gets worse still." The amiable face with which he said it, I think I shall never forget. "It's growing late," said my guardian, "and it is a very bad night, and the boy is worn out already. There is a bed in the wholesome loft-room by the stable; we had better keep him there till morning. We'll do that." "Oh!" said Mr. Skimpole, with his hands upon the keys of the piano. "How I envy you your constitution, Jarndyce! You don't mind these things; neither does Miss Summerson. You are ready at all times to do anything. Such is will! I have no will at all, and simply can't." We went back into the hall and explained to Jo what we proposed, which he received with languid unconcern. The servants were anxious to help, and we soon got the loft-room ready. Some of the men carried him across the wet yard, well wrapped up. It was pleasant to observe how kind they were, frequently calling him "Old Chap." Charley went to and fro between the loft-room and the house with such little stimulants and comforts as we thought it safe to give him. My guardian himself saw him before he was left for the night, and returned to the growlery to write a letter on the boy's behalf, which was to be delivered in the morning. The boy had seemed inclined to sleep, he said. They had fastened his door on the outside, in case of his being delirious, but if he made any noise he would be heard. Mr. Skimpole was left alone all this time and entertained himself by playing snatches of pathetic airs and sometimes singing to them with great expression and feeling. When we rejoined him in the drawing-room he sang us a little ballad about a peasant boy, "Thrown on the wide world, doomed to wander and roam, Bereft of his parents, bereft of a home." It was a song that always made him cry, he told us. He was extremely gay all the rest of the evening, and drank to "Better health to our young friend!" whom he gaily supposed would, like Dick Whittington, become Lord Mayor of London. In that event, no doubt, he would establish the Jarndyce and Summerson Almshouses. Charley's last report was that the boy was quiet. I could see, from my window, the lantern they had left him burning quietly; and I went to bed happy to think that he was sheltered. There was more movement and talking than usual before daybreak, and it awoke me. As I was dressing, I looked out of my window and asked one of our men whether there was anything wrong. The lantern was still burning in the loft-window. "It's the boy, miss," said he. "Is he worse?" I inquired. "Gone, miss." "Dead!" "Dead, miss? No. Gone clean off." At what time of the night he had gone, or how, or why, it seemed impossible to learn. It could only be supposed that he had got out by a trapdoor in the floor which led to an empty cart-house below. But he had shut it down again, if that were so; and it looked as if it had not been raised. Nothing was missing. We all yielded to the painful belief that delirium had come upon him in the night and that he had strayed away in that helpless state; all of us, that is to say, but Mr. Skimpole, who repeatedly suggested, in his usual easy light style, that it had occurred to our young friend that he was not a safe inmate, having a fever, and that he had politely taken himself off. Every possible inquiry was made. The brick-kilns were searched and the cottages were visited, but the two women knew nothing of him, and nobody could doubt that their wonder was genuine. The night had been too wet to allow any tracing by footsteps. Hedge and ditch were examined by our men for a long distance round, lest the boy should be lying insensible or dead; but he had vanished. The search continued for five days. It did not cease even then, but my attention was diverted into a current very memorable to me. As Charley was writing again in my room, and as I sat opposite her, I felt the table tremble. Looking up, I saw my little maid shivering from head to foot. "Charley," said I, "are you cold?" "I think I am, miss," she replied. "I don't know what it is. I can't hold myself still. Don't be uneasy, but I think I'm ill." I heard Ada's voice outside, and I hurried to the door between my room and our pretty sitting-room, and locked it. Just in time, for she tapped at it and called to me to let her in. I said, "Not now, my dearest. Go away. There's nothing the matter; I will come to you presently." Ah! It was a long, long time before my darling girl and I were companions again. Charley fell ill. In twelve hours she was very ill with the smallpox. I moved her to my room, and laid her in my bed, and sat down to nurse her. I told my guardian why I felt it was necessary that I should seclude myself, and not see my darling above all. At first Ada came very often to the door, and called to me, and even reproached me with sobs and tears; but I wrote her a long letter saying that she made me anxious and unhappy, and imploring her, as she loved me, to come no nearer than the garden. After that she came beneath the window often; and if I had learnt to love her dear sweet voice before, how did I learn to love it then, when I stood behind the window-curtain listening and replying, but not looking out! How did I learn to love it afterwards, when the harder time came! They put a bed for me in our sitting-room; and by keeping the door wide open, I turned the two rooms into one, and kept them always fresh and airy. The servants were so good that they would all gladly have come to me at any hour, but I thought it best to choose one worthy woman who was never to see Ada and whom I could trust to come and go with all precautions. Thus I got out to take the air with my guardian when there was no fear of meeting Ada. Poor Charley sickened and grew worse, and fell into heavy danger of death, and lay severely ill for many a long day and night. So patient she was, so uncomplaining, that often as I sat holding her head in my arms - for she could only sleep in that attitude - I silently prayed to our Father in heaven that I might not forget the lesson which this little sister taught me. I was very sorrowful to think that Charley's pretty looks would change and be disfigured, even if she recovered - but that thought was lost in her greater peril. When she was at the worst, she would murmur out the wanderings of her mind about her father's sick-bed and the two little children. At those times I used to think, how should I ever tell the two remaining babies that the baby who had learned to be a mother to them was dead! There were other times when Charley knew me well and talked to me, sending her love to Tom and Emma. She would speak to me of what she had read from the Bible to her father to comfort him. But she never lost her gentle qualities. And Charley did not die. She flutteringly and slowly turned the dangerous point, and then began to mend. I even began to hope that her appearance would remain unchanged, as I saw her growing into her old childish likeness again. It was a great morning when I could tell Ada all this as she stood out in the garden; and it was a great evening when Charley and I at last took tea together. But on that same evening, I felt that I was stricken cold. It was not until Charley was asleep in bed again that I began to think the contagion of her illness was upon me. I knew that I was rapidly following in her steps. I was well enough, however, to be up early in the morning, and to return my darling's cheerful blessing from the garden. But I felt as if I had been walking about the two rooms in the night, a little beside myself; and I felt confused at times - with a curious sense of fullness, as if I were becoming too large altogether. In the evening I was so much worse that I resolved to prepare Charley. So I said, "You're getting quite strong, Charley, are you not?' "Oh, quite!" said Charley. "Strong enough to be told a secret, I think, Charley?" "Quite strong enough for that, miss!" cried Charley. But her face fell when she saw the secret in my face; and she jumped up and fell upon my bosom, and said "Oh, miss, it's my doing! It's my doing!" "Now, Charley," said I, "if I am to be ill, my great trust is in you. And unless you are as quiet and composed for me as you always were for yourself, you can never fulfil it, Charley." "If you'll let me cry a little longer, miss," said Charley. "Oh, my dear! - I'll be good." So I let Charley cry a little longer, and it did us both good. "Trust in me now, if you please, miss," said Charley quietly. "I am listening to everything you say." "It's very little at present, Charley. I shall tell your doctor tonight that I don't think I am well and that you are going to nurse me. In the morning, when you hear Miss Ada in the garden, if I should not be able to go to the window as usual, do you go, Charley, and say I am asleep. At all times keep the room as I have kept it, Charley, and let no one come in." Charley promised, and I lay down, for I was very heavy. I saw the doctor that night and asked him to say nothing of my illness in the house yet. I have a very indistinct remembrance of that night melting into day, and of day melting into night again; but I was just able on the first morning to get to the window and speak to my darling. On the second morning I heard her dear voice outside; and I asked Charley, with some difficulty (speech being painful), to say I was asleep. I heard Ada answer softly, "Don't disturb her, Charley, for the world!" I called Charley to me and gave her a last charge. "Now, Charley, when she knows I am ill, she will try to make her way into the room. Keep her out, Charley, if you love me truly! Charley, if you let her in once, I shall die." "I never will!" she promised me. "I believe it, my dear Charley. And now sit beside me for a little while, and touch me with your hand. For I cannot see you, Charley; I am blind."

Bleak House

Chapter 31: Nurse and Patient

We came home from Mr. Boythorn's after six pleasant weeks. We were often in the park and in the woods and seldom passed the lodge where we had taken shelter without looking in to speak to the keeper's wife; but we saw no more of Lady Dedlock, except at church on Sundays. There was company at Chesney Wold; and although several beautiful faces surrounded her, her face retained the same influence on me as at first. I do not quite know even now whether it was painful or pleasurable, whether it drew me towards her or made me shrink from her. I think I admired her with a kind of fear, and I know that in her presence my thoughts always wandered back, as they had done at first, to that old time of my life. I had a fancy, on more than one of these Sundays, that what this lady so curiously was to me, I was to her--I mean that I disturbed her thoughts as she influenced mine, though in some different way. But when I stole a glance at her and saw her so composed and distant and unapproachable, I felt this to be a foolish weakness. Indeed, I felt the whole state of my mind in reference to her to be weak and unreasonable, and I remonstrated with myself about it as much as I could. One incident that occurred before we quitted Mr. Boythorn's house, I had better mention in this place. I was walking in the garden with Ada when I was told that some one wished to see me. Going into the breakfast-room where this person was waiting, I found it to be the French maid who had cast off her shoes and walked through the wet grass on the day when it thundered and lightened. "Mademoiselle," she began, looking fixedly at me with her too-eager eyes, though otherwise presenting an agreeable appearance and speaking neither with boldness nor servility, "I have taken a great liberty in coming here, but you know how to excuse it, being so amiable, mademoiselle." "No excuse is necessary," I returned, "if you wish to speak to me." "That is my desire, mademoiselle. A thousand thanks for the permission. I have your leave to speak. Is it not?" she said in a quick, natural way. "Certainly," said I. "Mademoiselle, you are so amiable! Listen then, if you please. I have left my Lady. We could not agree. My Lady is so high, so very high. Pardon! Mademoiselle, you are right!" Her quickness anticipated what I might have said presently but as yet had only thought. "It is not for me to come here to complain of my Lady. But I say she is so high, so very high. I will not say a word more. All the world knows that." "Go on, if you please," said I. "Assuredly; mademoiselle, I am thankful for your politeness. Mademoiselle, I have an inexpressible desire to find service with a young lady who is good, accomplished, beautiful. You are good, accomplished, and beautiful as an angel. Ah, could I have the honour of being your domestic!" "I am sorry--" I began. "Do not dismiss me so soon, mademoiselle!" she said with an involuntary contraction of her fine black eyebrows. "Let me hope a moment! Mademoiselle, I know this service would be more retired than that which I have quitted. Well! I wish that. I know this service would be less distinguished than that which I have quitted. Well! I wish that, I know that I should win less, as to wages here. Good. I am content." "I assure you," said I, quite embarrassed by the mere idea of having such an attendant, "that I keep no maid--" "Ah, mademoiselle, but why not? Why not, when you can have one so devoted to you! Who would be enchanted to serve you; who would be so true, so zealous, and so faithful every day! Mademoiselle, I wish with all my heart to serve you. Do not speak of money at present. Take me as I am. For nothing!" She was so singularly earnest that I drew back, almost afraid of her. Without appearing to notice it, in her ardour she still pressed herself upon me, speaking in a rapid subdued voice, though always with a certain grace and propriety. "Mademoiselle, I come from the South country where we are quick and where we like and dislike very strong. My Lady was too high for me; I was too high for her. It is done--past--finished! Receive me as your domestic, and I will serve you well. I will do more for you than you figure to yourself now. Chut! Mademoiselle, I will--no matter, I will do my utmost possible in all things. If you accept my service, you will not repent it. Mademoiselle, you will not repent it, and I will serve you well. You don't know how well!" There was a lowering energy in her face as she stood looking at me while I explained the impossibility of my engaging her (without thinking it necessary to say how very little I desired to do so), which seemed to bring visibly before me some woman from the streets of Paris in the reign of terror. She heard me out without interruption and then said with her pretty accent and in her mildest voice, "Hey, mademoiselle, I have received my answer! I am sorry of it. But I must go elsewhere and seek what I have not found here. Will you graciously let me kiss your hand?" She looked at me more intently as she took it, and seemed to take note, with her momentary touch, of every vein in it. "I fear I surprised you, mademoiselle, on the day of the storm?" she said with a parting curtsy. I confessed that she had surprised us all. "I took an oath, mademoiselle," she said, smiling, "and I wanted to stamp it on my mind so that I might keep it faithfully. And I will! Adieu, mademoiselle!" So ended our conference, which I was very glad to bring to a close. I supposed she went away from the village, for I saw her no more; and nothing else occurred to disturb our tranquil summer pleasures until six weeks were out and we returned home as I began just now by saying. At that time, and for a good many weeks after that time, Richard was constant in his visits. Besides coming every Saturday or Sunday and remaining with us until Monday morning, he sometimes rode out on horseback unexpectedly and passed the evening with us and rode back again early next day. He was as vivacious as ever and told us he was very industrious, but I was not easy in my mind about him. It appeared to me that his industry was all misdirected. I could not find that it led to anything but the formation of delusive hopes in connexion with the suit already the pernicious cause of so much sorrow and ruin. He had got at the core of that mystery now, he told us, and nothing could be plainer than that the will under which he and Ada were to take I don't know how many thousands of pounds must be finally established if there were any sense or justice in the Court of Chancery--but oh, what a great IF that sounded in my ears--and that this happy conclusion could not be much longer delayed. He proved this to himself by all the weary arguments on that side he had read, and every one of them sunk him deeper in the infatuation. He had even begun to haunt the court. He told us how he saw Miss Flite there daily, how they talked together, and how he did her little kindnesses, and how, while he laughed at her, he pitied her from his heart. But he never thought--never, my poor, dear, sanguine Richard, capable of so much happiness then, and with such better things before him--what a fatal link was riveting between his fresh youth and her faded age, between his free hopes and her caged birds, and her hungry garret, and her wandering mind. Ada loved him too well to mistrust him much in anything he said or did, and my guardian, though he frequently complained of the east wind and read more than usual in the growlery, preserved a strict silence on the subject. So I thought one day when I went to London to meet Caddy Jellyby, at her solicitation, I would ask Richard to be in waiting for me at the coach-office, that we might have a little talk together. I found him there when I arrived, and we walked away arm in arm. "Well, Richard," said I as soon as I could begin to be grave with him, "are you beginning to feel more settled now?" "Oh, yes, my dear!" returned Richard. "I'm all right enough." "But settled?" said I. "How do you mean, settled?" returned Richard with his gay laugh. "Settled in the law," said I. "Oh, aye," replied Richard, "I'm all right enough." "You said that before, my dear Richard." "And you don't think it's an answer, eh? Well! Perhaps it's not. Settled? You mean, do I feel as if I were settling down?" "Yes." "Why, no, I can't say I am settling down," said Richard, strongly emphasizing "down," as if that expressed the difficulty, "because one can't settle down while this business remains in such an unsettled state. When I say this business, of course I mean the--forbidden subject." "Do you think it will ever be in a settled state?" said I. "Not the least doubt of it," answered Richard. We walked a little way without speaking, and presently Richard addressed me in his frankest and most feeling manner, thus: "My dear Esther, I understand you, and I wish to heaven I were a more constant sort of fellow. I don't mean constant to Ada, for I love her dearly--better and better every day--but constant to myself. (Somehow, I mean something that I can't very well express, but you'll make it out.) If I were a more constant sort of fellow, I should have held on either to Badger or to Kenge and Carboy like grim death, and should have begun to be steady and systematic by this time, and shouldn't be in debt, and--" "ARE you in debt, Richard?" "Yes," said Richard, "I am a little so, my dear. Also, I have taken rather too much to billiards and that sort of thing. Now the murder's out; you despise me, Esther, don't you?" "You know I don't," said I. "You are kinder to me than I often am to myself," he returned. "My dear Esther, I am a very unfortunate dog not to be more settled, but how CAN I be more settled? If you lived in an unfinished house, you couldn't settle down in it; if you were condemned to leave everything you undertook unfinished, you would find it hard to apply yourself to anything; and yet that's my unhappy case. I was born into this unfinished contention with all its chances and changes, and it began to unsettle me before I quite knew the difference between a suit at law and a suit of clothes; and it has gone on unsettling me ever since; and here I am now, conscious sometimes that I am but a worthless fellow to love my confiding cousin Ada." We were in a solitary place, and he put his hands before his eyes and sobbed as he said the words. "Oh, Richard!" said I. "Do not be so moved. You have a noble nature, and Ada's love may make you worthier every day." "I know, my dear," he replied, pressing my arm, "I know all that. You mustn't mind my being a little soft now, for I have had all this upon my mind for a long time, and have often meant to speak to you, and have sometimes wanted opportunity and sometimes courage. I know what the thought of Ada ought to do for me, but it doesn't do it. I am too unsettled even for that. I love her most devotedly, and yet I do her wrong, in doing myself wrong, every day and hour. But it can't last for ever. We shall come on for a final hearing and get judgment in our favour, and then you and Ada shall see what I can really be!" It had given me a pang to hear him sob and see the tears start out between his fingers, but that was infinitely less affecting to me than the hopeful animation with which he said these words. "I have looked well into the papers, Esther. I have been deep in them for months," he continued, recovering his cheerfulness in a moment, "and you may rely upon it that we shall come out triumphant. As to years of delay, there has been no want of them, heaven knows! And there is the greater probability of our bringing the matter to a speedy close; in fact, it's on the paper now. It will be all right at last, and then you shall see!" Recalling how he had just now placed Messrs. Kenge and Carboy in the same category with Mr. Badger, I asked him when he intended to be articled in Lincoln's Inn. "There again! I think not at all, Esther," he returned with an effort. "I fancy I have had enough of it. Having worked at Jarndyce and Jarndyce like a galley slave, I have slaked my thirst for the law and satisfied myself that I shouldn't like it. Besides, I find it unsettles me more and more to be so constantly upon the scene of action. So what," continued Richard, confident again by this time, "do I naturally turn my thoughts to?" "I can't imagine," said I. "Don't look so serious," returned Richard, "because it's the best thing I can do, my dear Esther, I am certain. It's not as if I wanted a profession for life. These proceedings will come to a termination, and then I am provided for. No. I look upon it as a pursuit which is in its nature more or less unsettled, and therefore suited to my temporary condition--I may say, precisely suited. What is it that I naturally turn my thoughts to?" I looked at him and shook my head. "What," said Richard, in a tone of perfect conviction, "but the army!" "The army?" said I. "The army, of course. What I have to do is to get a commission; and--there I am, you know!" said Richard. And then he showed me, proved by elaborate calculations in his pocket-book, that supposing he had contracted, say, two hundred pounds of debt in six months out of the army; and that he contracted no debt at all within a corresponding period in the army--as to which he had quite made up his mind; this step must involve a saving of four hundred pounds in a year, or two thousand pounds in five years, which was a considerable sum. And then he spoke so ingenuously and sincerely of the sacrifice he made in withdrawing himself for a time from Ada, and of the earnestness with which he aspired--as in thought he always did, I know full well--to repay her love, and to ensure her happiness, and to conquer what was amiss in himself, and to acquire the very soul of decision, that he made my heart ache keenly, sorely. For, I thought, how would this end, how could this end, when so soon and so surely all his manly qualities were touched by the fatal blight that ruined everything it rested on! 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 opinion 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 announcing 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!" "I can't help it, Charley." "No, miss, nor I can't help it," says Charley. "And if you please, miss, Mr. Jarndyce's love, and he thinks you'll like to teach me now and then. And if you please, Tom and Emma and me is to see each other once a month. And I'm so happy and so thankful, miss," cried Charley with a heaving heart, "and I'll try to be such a good maid!" "Oh, Charley dear, never forget who did all this!" "No, miss, I never will. Nor Tom won't. Nor yet Emma. It was all you, miss." "I have known nothing of it. It was Mr. Jarndyce, Charley." "Yes, miss, but it was all done for the love of you and that you might be my mistress. If you please, miss, I am a little present with his love, and it was all done for the love of you. Me and Tom was to be sure to remember it." Charley dried her eyes and entered on her functions, going in her matronly little way about and about the room and folding up everything she could lay her hands upon. Presently Charley came creeping back to my side and said, "Oh, don't cry, if you please, miss." And I said again, "I can't help it, Charley." And Charley said again, "No, miss, nor I can't help it." And so, after all, I did cry for joy indeed, and so did she.

We came home from Mr. Boythorn's after six pleasant weeks. We were often in the park and woods, and passed the lodge where we had taken shelter; but we saw no more of Lady Dedlock, except at church on Sundays. Her face retained the same influence on me as at first. I do not quite know even now whether it was painful or pleasurable, whether it drew me towards her or made me shrink from her. I think I admired her with a kind of fear, and in her presence my thoughts always wandered back, as they had done at first, to that old time of my life. I had a fancy, on these Sundays, that I disturbed this lady's thoughts as she influenced mine, though in some different way. But when I stole a glance at her and saw her so composed and distant, I felt this to be a foolish weakness. Indeed, I felt the whole state of my mind in reference to her to be weak and unreasonable, and I remonstrated with myself. One day I was walking in the garden with Ada when I was told that some one wished to see me. Going into the breakfast-room, I found it to be the French maid who had cast off her shoes and walked through the wet grass on the day when it thundered. "Mademoiselle," she began, looking fixedly at me with her too-eager eyes, "I have taken a great liberty in coming here, but you know how to excuse it, being so amiable, mademoiselle." "No excuse is necessary," I returned, "if you wish to speak to me." "A thousand thanks, mademoiselle. You are so amiable! Listen then, if you please. I have left my Lady. We could not agree. My Lady is so high, so very high. Pardon! It is not for me to complain of my Lady. I will not say a word more. But all the world knows that." "Go on, if you please," said I. "Thank you, mademoiselle. I desire to find service with a young lady who is good, accomplished, and beautiful. Ah, could I have the honour of being your domestic!" "I am sorry-" I began. "Do not dismiss me so soon, mademoiselle!" she said with an involuntary contraction of her fine black eyebrows. "Let me hope a moment! Mademoiselle, I know this service would be more retired and less distinguished than that which I have quitted. I know that the wages would be less. Good. I am content." "I assure you," said I, quite embarrassed by the mere idea of having such an attendant, "that I keep no maid-" "Ah, mademoiselle, but why not? When you can have one so devoted to you! So enchanted to serve you; so true and zealous! Mademoiselle, I wish with all my heart to serve you. Do not speak of money at present. Take me as I am. For nothing!" She was so singularly earnest that I drew back, almost afraid of her. She continued speaking in a rapid subdued voice, though always with a certain grace and propriety. "Mademoiselle, I come from the South country where we are quick and where we like and dislike very strong. My Lady was too high for me; I was too high for her. It is done - finished! Receive me as your domestic, and I will serve you well. You will not repent it. Mademoiselle, I will serve you well. You don't know how well!" As I explained the impossibility of my engaging her (without thinking it necessary to say how very little I desired to do so), I seemed to see her as some woman from the streets of Paris in the reign of terror. She heard me out, then said in her mildest voice, "Mademoiselle, I have received my answer! I am sorry of it. But I must go elsewhere. Will you graciously let me kiss your hand?" She looked at me intently as she took it. "I fear I surprised you, mademoiselle, on the day of the storm?" she said. I confessed that she had surprised us all. "I took an oath, mademoiselle," she said, smiling, "and I wanted to stamp it on my mind so that I might keep it faithfully. And I will! Adieu, mademoiselle!" So ended our conference, which I was very glad to bring to a close. I supposed she went away from the village, for I saw her no more; and nothing else occurred to disturb our tranquil summer pleasures until we returned home. At that time, and for a good many weeks afterwards, Richard was constant in his visits. Besides coming every Saturday or Sunday and staying until Monday morning, he sometimes rode out on horseback unexpectedly and passed the evening with us and rode back again early next day. He was as vivacious as ever and told us he was very industrious, but I was not easy in my mind about him. I felt that his industry was all misdirected, and could not lead to anything but delusive hopes about the lawsuit, already the pernicious cause of so much sorrow and ruin. He had got at the core of that mystery now, he told us, and it was plain that the will under which he and Ada were to take thousands of pounds must be finally established if there were any sense or justice in the Court of Chancery - oh, what a great IF that sounded in my ears - and that could not be much longer delayed. He had begun to haunt the court. He told us how he saw Miss Flite there daily, and how he did her little kindnesses, and how, while he laughed at her, he pitied her. But he never thought - my poor, dear, sanguine Richard, capable of so much happiness then - what a fatal link was joining his fresh youth to her faded age, and her hungry garret, and her wandering mind. Ada loved him too well to mistrust him, and my guardian, though he frequently complained of the east wind, preserved a strict silence on the subject. So one day when I went to London to meet Caddy Jellyby, at her request, I asked Richard to wait for me at the coach-office, so that we might have a little talk together. I found him there when I arrived, and we walked away arm in arm. "Well, Richard," said I, "are you beginning to feel more settled now?" "Oh, yes, my dear!" returned Richard. "I'm all right enough." "But settled?" said I. "How do you mean, settled?" returned Richard with his gay laugh. "Settled in the law." "Oh, aye," replied Richard, "I'm all right enough." "You said that before, my dear Richard." "Well! You mean, do I feel as if I were settling down?" "Yes." "Why, no, I can't say I am settling down," said Richard, "because one can't settle down while this business remains in such an unsettled state. When I say this business, of course I mean the - forbidden subject." "Do you think it will ever be in a settled state?" said I. "Certainly," answered Richard. After a moment he said in his frankest and most feeling manner, "My dear Esther, I understand you, and I wish to heaven I were a more constant sort of fellow. I don't mean constant to Ada, for I love her better every day - but constant to myself. If I were a more constant sort of fellow, I should have held on either to Badger or to Kenge and Carboy, and should have begun to be steady by this time, and shouldn't be in debt, and-" "Are you in debt, Richard?" "Yes," said Richard, "A little, my dear. Also, I have taken rather too much to billiards and that sort of thing. Now the murder's out; you despise me, Esther, don't you?" "You know I don't," said I. "You are kinder to me than I often am to myself. My dear Esther, how can I be more settled? If you lived in an unfinished house, you couldn't settle down in it; yet that's my unhappy case. I was born into this unfinished contention with all its chances and changes, and it began to unsettle me before I knew the difference between a suit at law and a suit of clothes; and it has gone on unsettling me ever since; and I know that I am but a worthless fellow to love my cousin Ada." We were in a solitary place, and he put his hands before his eyes and sobbed as he said this. "Oh, Richard!" said I. "You have a noble nature, and Ada's love may make you worthier every day." "I know, my dear," he replied, pressing my arm, "I know all that. But I have had all this upon my mind for a long time, and have often meant to speak to you, if I had the courage. I know what the thought of Ada ought to do for me, but it doesn't. I am too unsettled even for that. I love her most devotedly, and yet I do her wrong, in doing myself wrong, every day. But it can't last for ever. We shall come on for a final hearing and get judgment in our favour, and then you and Ada shall see what I can really be!" It had given me a pang to hear him sob, but it was worse to see the hopeful animation with which he said these words. "I have looked well into the papers, Esther. I have been deep in them for months," he continued, recovering his cheerfulness in a moment, "and you may rely upon it that we shall come out triumphant. As to years of delay, there has been no want of them, heaven knows! But they are coming to an end, and it will be all right at last, and then you shall see!" I asked him when he intended to be articled in Lincoln's Inn. "I think not at all, Esther," he returned with an effort. "I fancy I have had enough of it. Having worked at Jarndyce and Jarndyce like a galley slave, I have slaked my thirst for the law and found that I shouldn't like it. Besides, it unsettles me to be so constantly upon the scene of action. So what," continued Richard, confident again, "do I naturally turn my thoughts to?" "I can't imagine," said I. "It's the best thing I can do, my dear Esther, I am certain. It's not as if I wanted a profession for life. The suit will end, and then I am provided for. Now this profession is unsettled, and is therefore suited to my temporary condition. It is the army!" "The army?" "All I have to do is to get a commission; and - there I am, you know!" said Richard. And then he showed me, proved by elaborate calculations in his pocket-book, that supposing he had contracted two hundred pounds of debt in six months out of the army; and that he contracted no debt at all during six months in the army - as he intended; this way he would save four hundred pounds a year, which was a considerable sum. And then he spoke so sincerely of the sacrifice he made in withdrawing himself for a time from Ada, and of the earnestness with which he hoped to repay her love, and to conquer what was amiss in himself, that he made my heart ache sorely. For, I thought, how would this end, how could this end, when all his manly qualities were touched by the fatal blight that ruined everything it rested on! I spoke earnestly to Richard, imploring him for Ada's sake not to put any trust in Chancery. Richard readily assented, drawing the brightest pictures of the character he was to settle into - alas, when the grievous suit should loose its hold upon him! It always came back to that. At last we arrived at Soho Square, where Caddy Jellyby was waiting for me at the garden in the centre. After a few cheerful words, Richard left us together. "Prince has a pupil over the way, Esther," said Caddy, "and got the garden key for us. So if you will walk 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. So Caddy, after affectionately hugging me, locked the gate, and took my arm, and we began to walk round the garden very cosily. "You see, Esther," said Caddy, "after you spoke to me about its being wrong to marry without Ma's knowledge, or even to keep Ma long in the dark about our engagement, I thought it right to mention your opinions to 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 opinion he has of you!" "Indeed!" "Esther, it's enough to make anybody but me jealous," said Caddy, laughing; "but it only makes me joyful, for you are the first friend I ever had, and the best friend I ever can have. So we talked a good deal about it, and I said to Prince, 'As Esther is decidedly of that opinion, Prince, 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 more honourable position 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, because he is so considerate of the feelings of old Mr. Turveydrop; and he feared he might break his heart, or faint away 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 feelings are extremely sensitive." "Are they, my dear?" "Prince says so. Now, this has caused my darling child - I didn't mean to use the expression to you, Esther," Caddy apologized, blushing, "but I generally call Prince my darling child." I laughed; and Caddy laughed and blushed, and went on. "This has caused him weeks of uneasiness and has made him delay, from day to day. At last he said to me, 'Caddy, if Miss Summerson, who is a great favourite with my father, could 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 I would ask you afterwards to come with me to Ma. 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 am at your service and the darling child's, my dear, whenever you like." Caddy was quite transported by this reply; and so we went to Newman Street. Prince was teaching a stubborn little girl with a sulky forehead and a dissatisfied mama. The lesson at last came to an end; and when the little girl had changed her shoes and had been wrapped in shawls, she was taken away. We then went in search of Mr. Turveydrop, whom we found, 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 lunch, and his elegant dressing-case, brushes, and so forth, lay about. "Father, Miss Summerson; Miss Jellyby." "Charmed! Enchanted!" said Mr. Turveydrop, rising with his high-shouldered bow, kissing the tips of his left fingers. "My little retreat is made a paradise. You find us, Miss Summerson, using our little arts to polish, polish! Deportment can yet bask in the smile of beauty, my dear madam." He took a pinch of snuff, and added, "My dear son, 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?" "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 advised that we should declare the fact to you. 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. "Our first desire is to consider your comfort." Mr. Turveydrop sobbed. "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!" "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, and with your approval, father, we will devote ourselves to making your life agreeable." "Strike home!" murmured Mr. Turveydrop. But he seemed to listen, I thought, too. "My dear father," returned Prince, "it will always be our study and our pride to provide your comforts. 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 shall exert ourselves in every possible way to please you." Mr. Turveydrop underwent a severe internal struggle and came upright on the sofa again, a perfect model of parental deportment. "My son!" said Mr. Turveydrop. "My children! I cannot resist your prayer. Be happy!" He stretched out his hand to his son, who kissed it with gratitude. "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 were overcome with thankfulness, as if he were making some sacrifice in their favour. "For myself, my children," said Mr. Turveydrop, "I am falling into the sere and yellow leaf, and it is impossible to say how long the last feeble traces of gentlemanly deportment may linger. 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 dressing, my frugal morning meal, and my little dinner will suffice. I ask you to supply these requirements, and I will supply the rest." They were overpowered afresh by his generosity. "My son," said Mr. Turveydrop, "for those little points of deportment in which you are deficient, 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. For yourself, Prince, work, be industrious and earn money. Your qualities are not shining, my dear child, but they are steady and useful. And to both of you, my children, take care of my simple wants, and bless you both!" Old Mr. Turveydrop then became so very gallant that I told Caddy we must really go at once if we were to go at all that day. So we left 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 against him. The Jellybys' house in Thavies Inn had bills in the windows announcing that it was to let, and it looked dirtier and gloomier than ever. The name of poor Mr. Jellyby had appeared in the list of bankrupts a day or two before, and he was shut up in the dining-room with two gentlemen and a heap of account-books, making the most desperate endeavours to understand his affairs. When Caddy took me into the dining-room by mistake, we came upon Mr. Jellyby forlornly fenced into a corner by the great dining-table and the two gentlemen, speechless. 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 opening, reading, and sorting letters, with a great pile of envelopes on the floor. She was so preoccupied that at first she did not know me. "Ah! Miss Summerson!" she said at last. "I was thinking of something so different! I hope you are 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 present, one hundred and seventy families, Miss Summerson, 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 Niger, and wondered how she could be so placid. "You have brought Caddy back, I see," observed Mrs. Jellyby. "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." "Ma," returned Caddy, "surely you wouldn't have me be a mere drudge all my life." "I believe, my dear," said Mrs. Jellyby, still opening her letters, "that you have a business example before you in your mother. 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 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, "this would distress and disappoint me. But I have so much to think of in connexion with Borrioboola-Gha that there is my remedy, you see." Caddy gave me a glance of entreaty, and I thought it a good opportunity to come to the subject of my visit. "Perhaps," I began, "you will wonder what has brought me here." "I am always delighted to see Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Jellyby, sorting letters with a placid smile. "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 aid her in imparting one." "Caddy," said Mrs. Jellyby, pausing for a moment to shake her head, "you are going to tell me some nonsense." Caddy took her bonnet off, and crying, said, "Ma, I am engaged." "Oh, you ridiculous child!" observed Mrs. Jellyby with an abstracted air as she looked over the letter 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) has given his consent, and I beg and pray you'll give us yours, Ma, because I never could be happy without it!" "You see again, Miss Summerson," observed Mrs. Jellyby serenely, "what a happiness it is to be so much occupied as I am. 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 might be interested in her!" "Ma, I always hated and detested Mr. Quale!" sobbed Caddy. "Caddy, Caddy!" returned Mrs. Jellyby. "I have no doubt you did. How could you do otherwise, being totally destitute of his sympathies! Now, if I were not occupied with public duties, these petty details might grieve me very much, Miss Summerson. But can I permit a silly proceeding on the part of Caddy (from whom I expect nothing else) to come between me and the great African continent? No. No," repeated Mrs. Jellyby calmly, as she opened more letters. "No, indeed." I was so unprepared for the perfect coolness of this reception that I did not know what to say. Poor Caddy seemed equally at a loss. "I hope, Ma," she sobbed 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." "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. "But the step is taken, and I have engaged a boy, and there is no more to be said. Now, pray, Caddy," for Caddy was kissing her, "don't delay me in my work, but let me clear off this batch of papers before the afternoon post comes in!" "You won't object to my bringing him to see you, Ma?" "Caddy, Caddy!" said Mrs. Jellyby, quite weary of such little matters. "You must bring him some evening which is not a Parent Society night, or a Branch night. My dear Miss Summerson, it was very kind of you to come here to help out this silly girl. Good-bye!" I was not surprised by Caddy's being in low spirits when we went downstairs, or by her sobbing afresh on my neck, saying she would rather have been scolded than treated with such indifference, or by her confiding that she was so poor in clothes that how she was 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 a play and some 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 out whenever he made any new attempt to understand his affairs. As I rode quietly home 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 was only a slender chance of her and her husband ever finding out what the model of deportment really was, that was all for the best too, and who would wish them to be wiser? Indeed I was half ashamed of not entirely believing in him myself. And I looked up at the stars, and hoped I might always be so blest 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 would not have made me disagreeable. Everybody in the house showed me such a bright face of welcome, and spoke so cheerily, that I suppose there never was such a fortunate creature in the world. That night Ada and my guardian asked me to tell them all about Caddy, so that I went on prosing for a long time. At last I went to my own room, quite red to think how I had been holding forth, and then I heard a soft tap at my door. 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, I'm your maid." "Charley?" "I'm a present to you, with Mr. Jarndyce's love. And oh, miss," says Charley, clapping her hands, with the tears starting down her 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 they would have been there sooner, miss; only Mr. Jarndyce thought that we had better get used to parting first, we was so small. Don't cry, please, miss!" "I can't help it, Charley." "No, miss, nor I can't help it," says Charley. "And if you please, miss, Mr. Jarndyce's love, and he thinks you'll like to teach me now and then. And Tom and Emma and me is to see each other once a month. And I'm so happy and thankful, miss," cried Charley, "and I'll try to be such a good maid!" "Oh, Charley dear, never forget who did all this!" "No, miss, I never will. It was all you, miss." "I have known nothing of it. It was Mr. Jarndyce, Charley." "Yes, miss, but it was all done for the love of you. If you please, miss, I am a little present with his love, and it was all done for the love of you. Me and Tom was to be sure to remember it." Charley dried her eyes and went about the room in her matronly little way, folding up everything she could lay her hands upon. Presently she came creeping back to my side and said, "Oh, don't cry, please, miss." And I said again, "I can't help it, Charley." And Charley said again, "No, miss, nor I can't help it." And so, after all, I did cry for joy indeed, and so did she.

Bleak House

Chapter 23: Esther's Narrative

When our time came for returning to Bleak House again, we were punctual to the day and were received with an overpowering welcome. I was perfectly restored to health and strength, and finding my housekeeping keys laid ready for me in my room, rang myself in as if I had been a new year, with a merry little peal. "Once more, duty, duty, Esther," said I; "and if you are not overjoyed to do it, more than cheerfully and contentedly, through anything and everything, you ought to be. That's all I have to say to you, my dear!" The first few mornings were mornings of so much bustle and business, devoted to such settlements of accounts, such repeated journeys to and fro between the growlery and all other parts of the house, so many rearrangements of drawers and presses, and such a general new beginning altogether, that I had not a moment's leisure. But when these arrangements were completed and everything was in order, I paid a visit of a few hours to London, which something in the letter I had destroyed at Chesney Wold had induced me to decide upon in my own mind. I made Caddy Jellyby--her maiden name was so natural to me that I always called her by it--the pretext for this visit and wrote her a note previously asking the favour of her company on a little business expedition. Leaving home very early in the morning, I got to London by stage-coach in such good time that I got to Newman Street with the day before me. Caddy, who had not seen me since her wedding-day, was so glad and so affectionate that I was half inclined to fear I should make her husband jealous. But he was, in his way, just as bad--I mean as good; and in short it was the old story, and nobody would leave me any possibility of doing anything meritorious. The elder Mr. Turveydrop was in bed, I found, and Caddy was milling his chocolate, which a melancholy little boy who was an apprentice--it seemed such a curious thing to be apprenticed to the trade of dancing--was waiting to carry upstairs. Her father-in-law was extremely kind and considerate, Caddy told me, and they lived most happily together. (When she spoke of their living together, she meant that the old gentleman had all the good things and all the good lodging, while she and her husband had what they could get, and were poked into two corner rooms over the Mews.) "And how is your mama, Caddy?" said I. "Why, I hear of her, Esther," replied Caddy, "through Pa, but I see very little of her. We are good friends, I am glad to say, but Ma thinks there is something absurd in my having married a dancing-master, and she is rather afraid of its extending to her." It struck me that if Mrs. Jellyby had discharged her own natural duties and obligations before she swept the horizon with a telescope in search of others, she would have taken the best precautions against becoming absurd, but I need scarcely observe that I kept this to myself. "And your papa, Caddy?" "He comes here every evening," returned Caddy, "and is so fond of sitting in the corner there that it's a treat to see him." Looking at the corner, I plainly perceived the mark of Mr. Jellyby's head against the wall. It was consolatory to know that he had found such a resting-place for it. "And you, Caddy," said I, "you are always busy, I'll be bound?" "Well, my dear," returned Caddy, "I am indeed, for to tell you a grand secret, I am qualifying myself to give lessons. Prince's health is not strong, and I want to be able to assist him. What with schools, and classes here, and private pupils, AND the apprentices, he really has too much to do, poor fellow!" The notion of the apprentices was still so odd to me that I asked Caddy if there were many of them. "Four," said Caddy. "One in-door, and three out. They are very good children; only when they get together they WILL play--children-like--instead of attending to their work. So the little boy you saw just now waltzes by himself in the empty kitchen, and we distribute the others over the house as well as we can." "That is only for their steps, of course?" said I. "Only for their steps," said Caddy. "In that way they practise, so many hours at a time, whatever steps they happen to be upon. They dance in the academy, and at this time of year we do figures at five every morning." "Why, what a laborious life!" I exclaimed. "I assure you, my dear," returned Caddy, smiling, "when the out-door apprentices ring us up in the morning (the bell rings into our room, not to disturb old Mr. Turveydrop), and when I put up the window and see them standing on the door-step with their little pumps under their arms, I am actually reminded of the Sweeps." All this presented the art to me in a singular light, to be sure. Caddy enjoyed the effect of her communication and cheerfully recounted the particulars of her own studies. "You see, my dear, to save expense I ought to know something of the piano, and I ought to know something of the kit too, and consequently I have to practise those two instruments as well as the details of our profession. If Ma had been like anybody else, I might have had some little musical knowledge to begin upon. However, I hadn't any; and that part of the work is, at first, a little discouraging, I must allow. But I have a very good ear, and I am used to drudgery--I have to thank Ma for that, at all events--and where there's a will there's a way, you know, Esther, the world over." Saying these words, Caddy laughingly sat down at a little jingling square piano and really rattled off a quadrille with great spirit. Then she good-humouredly and blushingly got up again, and while she still laughed herself, said, "Don't laugh at me, please; that's a dear girl!" I would sooner have cried, but I did neither. I encouraged her and praised her with all my heart. For I conscientiously believed, dancing-master's wife though she was, and dancing-mistress though in her limited ambition she aspired to be, she had struck out a natural, wholesome, loving course of industry and perseverance that was quite as good as a mission. "My dear," said Caddy, delighted, "you can't think how you cheer me. I shall owe you, you don't know how much. What changes, Esther, even in my small world! You recollect that first night, when I was so unpolite and inky? Who would have thought, then, of my ever teaching people to dance, of all other possibilities and impossibilities!" Her husband, who had left us while we had this chat, now coming back, preparatory to exercising the apprentices in the ball-room, Caddy informed me she was quite at my disposal. But it was not my time yet, I was glad to tell her, for I should have been vexed to take her away then. Therefore we three adjourned to the apprentices together, and I made one in the dance. The apprentices were the queerest little people. Besides the melancholy boy, who, I hoped, had not been made so by waltzing alone in the empty kitchen, there were two other boys and one dirty little limp girl in a gauzy dress. Such a precocious little girl, with such a dowdy bonnet on (that, too, of a gauzy texture), who brought her sandalled shoes in an old threadbare velvet reticule. Such mean little boys, when they were not dancing, with string, and marbles, and cramp-bones in their pockets, and the most untidy legs and feet--and heels particularly. I asked Caddy what had made their parents choose this profession for them. Caddy said she didn't know; perhaps they were designed for teachers, perhaps for the stage. They were all people in humble circumstances, and the melancholy boy's mother kept a ginger-beer shop. We danced for an hour with great gravity, the melancholy child doing wonders with his lower extremities, in which there appeared to be some sense of enjoyment though it never rose above his waist. Caddy, while she was observant of her husband and was evidently founded upon him, had acquired a grace and self-possession of her own, which, united to her pretty face and figure, was uncommonly agreeable. She already relieved him of much of the instruction of these young people, and he seldom interfered except to walk his part in the figure if he had anything to do in it. He always played the tune. The affectation of the gauzy child, and her condescension to the boys, was a sight. And thus we danced an hour by the clock. When the practice was concluded, Caddy's husband made himself ready to go out of town to a school, and Caddy ran away to get ready to go out with me. I sat in the ball-room in the interval, contemplating the apprentices. The two out-door boys went upon the staircase to put on their half-boots and pull the in-door boy's hair, as I judged from the nature of his objections. Returning with their jackets buttoned and their pumps stuck in them, they then produced packets of cold bread and meat and bivouacked under a painted lyre on the wall. The little gauzy child, having whisked her sandals into the reticule and put on a trodden-down pair of shoes, shook her head into the dowdy bonnet at one shake, and answering my inquiry whether she liked dancing by replying, "Not with boys," tied it across her chin, and went home contemptuous. "Old Mr. Turveydrop is so sorry," said Caddy, "that he has not finished dressing yet and cannot have the pleasure of seeing you before you go. You are such a favourite of his, Esther." I expressed myself much obliged to him, but did not think it necessary to add that I readily dispensed with this attention. "It takes him a long time to dress," said Caddy, "because he is very much looked up to in such things, you know, and has a reputation to support. You can't think how kind he is to Pa. He talks to Pa of an evening about the Prince Regent, and I never saw Pa so interested." There was something in the picture of Mr. Turveydrop bestowing his deportment on Mr. Jellyby that quite took my fancy. I asked Caddy if he brought her papa out much. "No," said Caddy, "I don't know that he does that, but he talks to Pa, and Pa greatly admires him, and listens, and likes it. Of course I am aware that Pa has hardly any claims to deportment, but they get on together delightfully. You can't think what good companions they make. I never saw Pa take snuff before in my life, but he takes one pinch out of Mr. Turveydrop's box regularly and keeps putting it to his nose and taking it away again all the evening." That old Mr. Turveydrop should ever, in the chances and changes of life, have come to the rescue of Mr. Jellyby from Borrioboola-Gha appeared to me to be one of the pleasantest of oddities. "As to Peepy," said Caddy with a little hesitation, "whom I was most afraid of--next to having any family of my own, Esther--as an inconvenience to Mr. Turveydrop, the kindness of the old gentleman to that child is beyond everything. He asks to see him, my dear! He lets him take the newspaper up to him in bed; he gives him the crusts of his toast to eat; he sends him on little errands about the house; he tells him to come to me for sixpences. In short," said Caddy cheerily, "and not to prose, I am a very fortunate girl and ought to be very grateful. Where are we going, Esther?" "To the Old Street Road," said I, "where I have a few words to say to the solicitor's clerk who was sent to meet me at the coach-office on the very day when I came to London and first saw you, my dear. Now I think of it, the gentleman who brought us to your house." "Then, indeed, I seem to be naturally the person to go with you," returned Caddy. To the Old Street Road we went and there inquired at Mrs. Guppy's residence for Mrs. Guppy. Mrs. Guppy, occupying the parlours and having indeed been visibly in danger of cracking herself like a nut in the front-parlour door by peeping out before she was asked for, immediately presented herself and requested us to walk in. She was an old lady in a large cap, with rather a red nose and rather an unsteady eye, but smiling all over. Her close little sitting-room was prepared for a visit, and there was a portrait of her son in it which, I had almost written here, was more like than life: it insisted upon him with such obstinacy, and was so determined not to let him off. Not only was the portrait there, but we found the original there too. He was dressed in a great many colours and was discovered at a table reading law-papers with his forefinger to his forehead. "Miss Summerson," said Mr. Guppy, rising, "this is indeed an oasis. Mother, will you be so good as to put a chair for the other lady and get out of the gangway." Mrs. Guppy, whose incessant smiling gave her quite a waggish appearance, did as her son requested and then sat down in a corner, holding her pocket handkerchief to her chest, like a fomentation, with both hands. I presented Caddy, and Mr. Guppy said that any friend of mine was more than welcome. I then proceeded to the object of my visit. "I took the liberty of sending you a note, sir," said I. Mr. Guppy acknowledged the receipt by taking it out of his breast-pocket, putting it to his lips, and returning it to his pocket with a bow. Mr. Guppy's mother was so diverted that she rolled her head as she smiled and made a silent appeal to Caddy with her elbow. "Could I speak to you alone for a moment?" said I. Anything like the jocoseness of Mr. Guppy's mother just now, I think I never saw. She made no sound of laughter, but she rolled her head, and shook it, and put her handkerchief to her mouth, and appealed to Caddy with her elbow, and her hand, and her shoulder, and was so unspeakably entertained altogether that it was with some difficulty she could marshal Caddy through the little folding-door into her bedroom adjoining. "Miss Summerson," said Mr. Guppy, "you will excuse the waywardness of a parent ever mindful of a son's appiness. My mother, though highly exasperating to the feelings, is actuated by maternal dictates." I could hardly have believed that anybody could in a moment have turned so red or changed so much as Mr. Guppy did when I now put up my veil. "I asked the favour of seeing you for a few moments here," said I, "in preference to calling at Mr. Kenge's because, remembering what you said on an occasion when you spoke to me in confidence, I feared I might otherwise cause you some embarrassment, Mr. Guppy." I caused him embarrassment enough as it was, I am sure. I never saw such faltering, such confusion, such amazement and apprehension. "Miss Summerson," stammered Mr. Guppy, "I--I--beg your pardon, but in our profession--we--we--find it necessary to be explicit. You have referred to an occasion, miss, when I--when I did myself the honour of making a declaration which--" Something seemed to rise in his throat that he could not possibly swallow. He put his hand there, coughed, made faces, tried again to swallow it, coughed again, made faces again, looked all round the room, and fluttered his papers. "A kind of giddy sensation has come upon me, miss," he explained, "which rather knocks me over. I--er--a little subject to this sort of thing--er--by George!" I gave him a little time to recover. He consumed it in putting his hand to his forehead and taking it away again, and in backing his chair into the corner behind him. "My intention was to remark, miss," said Mr. Guppy, "dear me--something bronchial, I think--hem!--to remark that you was so good on that occasion as to repel and repudiate that declaration. You--you wouldn't perhaps object to admit that? Though no witnesses are present, it might be a satisfaction to--to your mind--if you was to put in that admission." "There can be no doubt," said I, "that I declined your proposal without any reservation or qualification whatever, Mr. Guppy." "Thank you, miss," he returned, measuring the table with his troubled hands. "So far that's satisfactory, and it does you credit. Er--this is certainly bronchial!--must be in the tubes--er--you wouldn't perhaps be offended if I was to mention--not that it's necessary, for your own good sense or any person's sense must show 'em that--if I was to mention that such declaration on my part was final, and there terminated?" "I quite understand that," said I. "Perhaps--er--it may not be worth the form, but it might be a satisfaction to your mind--perhaps you wouldn't object to admit that, miss?" said Mr. Guppy. "I admit it most fully and freely," said I. "Thank you," returned Mr. Guppy. "Very honourable, I am sure. I regret that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over which I have no control, will put it out of my power ever to fall back upon that offer or to renew it in any shape or form whatever, but it will ever be a retrospect entwined--er--with friendship's bowers." Mr. Guppy's bronchitis came to his relief and stopped his measurement of the table. "I may now perhaps mention what I wished to say to you?" I began. "I shall be honoured, I am sure," said Mr. Guppy. "I am so persuaded that your own good sense and right feeling, miss, will--will keep you as square as possible--that I can have nothing but pleasure, I am sure, in hearing any observations you may wish to offer." "You were so good as to imply, on that occasion--" "Excuse me, miss," said Mr. Guppy, "but we had better not travel out of the record into implication. I cannot admit that I implied anything." "You said on that occasion," I recommenced, "that you might possibly have the means of advancing my interests and promoting my fortunes by making discoveries of which I should be the subject. I presume that you founded that belief upon your general knowledge of my being an orphan girl, indebted for everything to the benevolence of Mr. Jarndyce. Now, the beginning and the end of what I have come to beg of you is, Mr. Guppy, that you will have the kindness to relinquish all idea of so serving me. I have thought of this sometimes, and I have thought of it most lately--since I have been ill. At length I have decided, in case you should at any time recall that purpose and act upon it in any way, to come to you and assure you that you are altogether mistaken. You could make no discovery in reference to me that would do me the least service or give me the least pleasure. I am acquainted with my personal history, and I have it in my power to assure you that you never can advance my welfare by such means. You may, perhaps, have abandoned this project a long time. If so, excuse my giving you unnecessary trouble. If not, I entreat you, on the assurance I have given you, henceforth to lay it aside. I beg you to do this, for my peace." "I am bound to confess," said Mr. Guppy, "that you express yourself, miss, with that good sense and right feeling for which I gave you credit. Nothing can be more satisfactory than such right feeling, and if I mistook any intentions on your part just now, I am prepared to tender a full apology. I should wish to be understood, miss, as hereby offering that apology--limiting it, as your own good sense and right feeling will point out the necessity of, to the present proceedings." I must say for Mr. Guppy that the snuffling manner he had had upon him improved very much. He seemed truly glad to be able to do something I asked, and he looked ashamed. "If you will allow me to finish what I have to say at once so that I may have no occasion to resume," I went on, seeing him about to speak, "you will do me a kindness, sir. I come to you as privately as possible because you announced this impression of yours to me in a confidence which I have really wished to respect--and which I always have respected, as you remember. I have mentioned my illness. There really is no reason why I should hesitate to say that I know very well that any little delicacy I might have had in making a request to you is quite removed. Therefore I make the entreaty I have now preferred, and I hope you will have sufficient consideration for me to accede to it." I must do Mr. Guppy the further justice of saying that he had looked more and more ashamed and that he looked most ashamed and very earnest when he now replied with a burning face, "Upon my word and honour, upon my life, upon my soul, Miss Summerson, as I am a living man, I'll act according to your wish! I'll never go another step in opposition to it. I'll take my oath to it if it will be any satisfaction to you. In what I promise at this present time touching the matters now in question," continued Mr. Guppy rapidly, as if he were repeating a familiar form of words, "I speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so--" "I am quite satisfied," said I, rising at this point, "and I thank you very much. Caddy, my dear, I am ready!" Mr. Guppy's mother returned with Caddy (now making me the recipient of her silent laughter and her nudges), and we took our leave. Mr. Guppy saw us to the door with the air of one who was either imperfectly awake or walking in his sleep; and we left him there, staring. But in a minute he came after us down the street without any hat, and with his long hair all blown about, and stopped us, saying fervently, "Miss Summerson, upon my honour and soul, you may depend upon me!" "I do," said I, "quite confidently." "I beg your pardon, miss," said Mr. Guppy, going with one leg and staying with the other, "but this lady being present--your own witness--it might be a satisfaction to your mind (which I should wish to set at rest) if you was to repeat those admissions." "Well, Caddy," said I, turning to her, "perhaps you will not be surprised when I tell you, my dear, that there never has been any engagement--" "No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever," suggested Mr. Guppy. "No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever," said I, "between this gentleman--" "William Guppy, of Penton Place, Pentonville, in the county of Middlesex," he murmured. "Between this gentleman, Mr. William Guppy, of Penton Place, Pentonville, in the county of Middlesex, and myself." "Thank you, miss," said Mr. Guppy. "Very full--er--excuse me--lady's name, Christian and surname both?" I gave them. "Married woman, I believe?" said Mr. Guppy. "Married woman. Thank you. Formerly Caroline Jellyby, spinster, then of Thavies Inn, within the city of London, but extra-parochial; now of Newman Street, Oxford Street. Much obliged." He ran home and came running back again. "Touching that matter, you know, I really and truly am very sorry that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over which I have no control, should prevent a renewal of what was wholly terminated some time back," said Mr. Guppy to me forlornly and despondently, "but it couldn't be. Now COULD it, you know! I only put it to you." I replied it certainly could not. The subject did not admit of a doubt. He thanked me and ran to his mother's again--and back again. "It's very honourable of you, miss, I am sure," said Mr. Guppy. "If an altar could be erected in the bowers of friendship--but, upon my soul, you may rely upon me in every respect save and except the tender passion only!" The struggle in Mr. Guppy's breast and the numerous oscillations it occasioned him between his mother's door and us were sufficiently conspicuous in the windy street (particularly as his hair wanted cutting) to make us hurry away. I did so with a lightened heart; but when we last looked back, Mr. Guppy was still oscillating in the same troubled state of mind.

When we returned to Bleak House, we were received with an overpowering welcome. I was perfectly restored to health, and finding my housekeeping keys laid ready for me in my room, rang myself in with a merry little peal. "Once more, duty, Esther," said I; "and if you are not overjoyed to do it cheerfully and contentedly, you ought to be!" The first few mornings involved so much bustle and business, settlements of accounts, repeated journeys to the growlery and rearrangements of cupboards, that I had not a moment's leisure. But when everything was in order, I paid a short visit to London - a visit which something in the letter I had destroyed at Chesney Wold induced me to take. I made Caddy the pretext for this visit and wrote her a note asking the favour of her company on a little business expedition. Leaving home very early, I got to London by stage-coach in good time. Caddy, who had not seen me since her wedding-day, was so glad and so affectionate that I was half inclined to fear I should make her husband jealous. But he was just as good to me. The elder Mr. Turveydrop was in bed, I found, and Caddy was mixing his chocolate, which a melancholy little apprentice-boy - it seemed curious to be apprenticed to the trade of dancing - was waiting to carry upstairs. Her father-in-law was extremely kind and considerate, Caddy told me, and they lived most happily together. (In other words, the old gentleman had all the good things and the good lodging, while she and her husband were poked into two corner rooms over the Mews.) "And how is your mama, Caddy?" said I. "Why, I hear of her, Esther," replied Caddy, "through Pa, but I see very little of her. We are good friends, I am glad to say, but Ma thinks there is something absurd in my having married a dancing-master, and she is afraid of its extending to her." It struck me that if Mrs. Jellyby had discharged her own natural duties before she swept the horizon with a telescope in search of others, she would have taken the best precautions against becoming absurd; but I kept this to myself. "And your papa, Caddy?" "He comes here every evening, and is so fond of sitting in the corner there that it's a treat to see him." "And you, Caddy," said I, "you are always busy, I'll be bound?" "I am indeed," returned Caddy, "for I am qualifying myself to give lessons. Prince's health is not strong, and I want to assist him. What with schools, and classes, and private pupils, and the apprentices, he really has too much to do, poor fellow!" I asked Caddy if there were many apprentices. "Four," said Caddy. "They are very good children; only when they get together they will play instead of attending to their work. So the little boy you saw just now waltzes by himself in the kitchen, and we distribute the others over the house to practise their steps. To save expense," she continued, "I am learning the piano, and the kit. If Ma had been like anybody else, I might have had some musical knowledge. However, I have a good ear, and I am used to drudgery - I have to thank Ma for that, at all events - and where there's a will there's a way, you know." With this, Caddy laughingly sat down at a little jingling square piano and rattled off a quadrille with great spirit. Then she blushingly said, "Don't laugh at me, please; that's a dear girl!" I would sooner have cried, but I did neither. I praised her with all my heart. For limited though her ambitions were, she had struck out a natural, wholesome, loving course of industry that was quite as good as a mission. "My dear," said Caddy, delighted, "you can't think how you cheer me. I owe you, you don't know how much. You recollect that first night, when I was so unpolite and inky? Who would have thought, then, of my ever teaching people to dance!" Before we went out, we saw the apprentices at work. They were the queerest little people. Besides the melancholy boy, there were two other boys and one dirty little limp girl in a gauzy dress. Such a precocious little girl, with a dowdy bonnet, who brought her shoes in an old threadbare velvet reticule; such shabby little boys, with string and marbles in their pockets, and the most untidy legs and feet. I asked Caddy what had made their parents choose this profession for them. Caddy said she didn't know; perhaps they were designed for teachers, perhaps for the stage. They were all people in humble circumstances, and the melancholy boy's mother kept a ginger-beer shop. We danced for an hour with great gravity, the melancholy child doing wonders with his lower half, in which there appeared to be some enjoyment though it never rose above his waist. Caddy had acquired an agreeable grace and self-possession of her own, while her husband played the music. The affectation of the gauzy child, and her condescension to the boys, was a sight. When the practice was finished, Caddy's husband got ready to go out of town to a school, and Caddy got ready to go out with me. "Old Mr. Turveydrop is so sorry," she said, "that he has not finished dressing yet and cannot have the pleasure of seeing you before you go. You are such a favourite of his, Esther. It takes him a long time to dress because he has a reputation to support. You can't think how kind he is to Pa. He talks to him of an evening about the Prince Regent, and I never saw Pa so interested." I asked Caddy if he induced her papa to talk much. "No," said Caddy, "but Pa greatly admires him, and listens, and likes it. Of course I am aware that Pa has hardly any claims to deportment, but they get on together delightfully. I never saw Pa take snuff before, but he takes one pinch out of Mr. Turveydrop's box regularly and keeps putting it to his nose and taking it away again all evening." That old Mr. Turveydrop should have come to the rescue of Mr. Jellyby appeared to me to be one of the pleasantest of oddities. "As to Peepy," said Caddy with a little hesitation, "whom I was most afraid of as an inconvenience to Mr. Turveydrop - next to having any family of my own, Esther - the kindness of the old gentleman is beyond everything. He asks to see him, my dear! He lets Peepy take the newspaper up to him in bed; he gives him the crusts of his toast to eat; he sends him on little errands about the house; he tells him to come to me for sixpences. In short," said Caddy cheerily, "I am a very fortunate girl. Where are we going, Esther?" "To the Old Street Road," said I, "where I have a few words to say to the solicitor's clerk who met me at the coach-office on the very day when I came to London and first saw you, my dear." To the Old Street Road we went, to Mrs. Guppy's residence. Mrs. Guppy was an old lady in a large cap, with rather a red nose and an unsteady eye, but smiling all over. Her close little sitting-room was prepared for a visit, and her son was sitting at a table reading law-papers with his forefinger to his forehead. "Miss Summerson," said Mr. Guppy, rising, "this is indeed an oasis. Mother, be so good as to put a chair for the other lady." Mrs. Guppy, smiling incessantly, did as her son requested and then sat down in a corner. "I took the liberty of sending you a note, sir," said I. Mr. Guppy acknowledged this by taking it out of his breast-pocket, putting it to his lips, and returning it to his pocket with a bow. His mother was so diverted that she rolled her head as she smiled and made a silent appeal to Caddy with her elbow. "Could I speak to you alone for a moment?" said I. At this Mrs. Guppy rolled her head, and shook it, and put her handkerchief to her mouth, and was so unspeakably entertained altogether that it was with some difficulty that she could marshal Caddy into the adjoining room. "Miss Summerson," said Mr. Guppy, "you will excuse the waywardness of a parent ever mindful of a son's 'appiness. My mother, though highly exasperating to the feelings, is actuated by maternal dictates." I now put up my veil. I could hardly have believed that anybody could in a moment have turned so red or changed so much as Mr. Guppy did. "I asked the favour of seeing you for a few moments here," said I, "in preference to calling at Mr. Kenge's, because I feared I might otherwise cause you some embarrassment, Mr. Guppy." I caused him embarrassment enough as it was. I never saw such faltering and confusion. "Miss Summerson," stammered Mr. Guppy, "I - I beg your pardon, but in our profession we - we find it necessary to be explicit. There was an occasion, miss, when I - when I made a declaration which-" Something seemed to rise in his throat that he could not swallow. He coughed, made faces, looked all round the room, coughed some more, and fluttered his papers. "A giddy sensation has come upon me, miss," he explained, "which rather knocks me over. I - er - by George! I - I think, miss - dear me, something bronchial - er - I think you was so good on that occasion as to repel that declaration. You - you wouldn't perhaps object to admitting that?" "There can be no doubt," said I, "that I declined your proposal without any reservation, Mr. Guppy." "Thank you, miss," he returned. "Er - perhaps you wouldn't perhaps be offended if I was to mention - not that it's necessary - but if I was to mention that such declaration on my part was terminated?" "I quite understand that," said I. "I admit it fully and freely." "Thank you," returned Mr. Guppy. "Very honourable, I am sure. I regret that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over which I have no control, will put it out of my power ever to renew that offer, but it will ever be a retrospect entwined - er - with friendship's bowers." "I may now perhaps mention what I wished to say to you?" "I shall be honoured, I am sure," said Mr. Guppy. "You were so good as to imply, on that occasion-" "Excuse me, miss," said Mr. Guppy, "but we had better not travel out of the record into implication. I cannot admit that I implied anything." "You said on that occasion," I recommenced, "that you might possibly have the means of advancing my interests by making discoveries about me, as an orphan girl, indebted for everything to the benevolence of Mr. Jarndyce. Now, I have come to beg you, Mr. Guppy, to have the kindness to relinquish all idea of so serving me. I have thought of this since I have been ill. I have decided, in case you should at any time recall that purpose, to come to you and assure you that you could make no discovery about me that would do me the least service or give me the least pleasure. I am acquainted with my personal history, and I can tell you that you never can advance my welfare by such means. I beg you to lay this project aside, for my peace." "I am bound to confess," said Mr. Guppy, "that you express yourself, miss, with good sense and right feeling. If I mistook any intentions on your part just now, I apologise." "If you will allow me to finish what I have to say," I went on, "you will do me a kindness, sir. I come to you privately because you spoke to me about the matter in a confidence which I have really wished to respect. I hope you will agree to my entreaty." I must do Mr. Guppy the justice of saying that he looked ashamed and very earnest when he replied with a burning face, "Upon my word and honour, Miss Summerson, I'll act according to your wish! I'll take my oath to it if you like. In what I promise touching the matters now in question," he continued rapidly, "I speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so-" "I am quite satisfied," said I, rising, "and I thank you very much. Caddy, my dear, I am ready!" Mr. Guppy's mother returned with Caddy, and we took our leave. Mr. Guppy saw us to the door with the air of a sleep-walker; and we left him there, staring. But in a minute he came after us down the street without any hat, and stopped us, saying fervently, "Miss Summerson, upon my honour and soul, you may depend upon me!" "I do," said I, "quite confidently." "I beg your pardon, miss," said Mr. Guppy, "but this lady being present - your own witness - it might be a satisfaction to your mind (which I should wish to set at rest) if you was to repeat those admissions." "Well, Caddy," said I, turning to her, "perhaps you will not be surprised when I tell you, my dear, that there never has been any engagement-" "No promise of marriage whatsoever," suggested Mr. Guppy. "No promise of marriage whatsoever," said I, "between this gentleman-" "William Guppy, of Penton Place, Pentonville." "Between this gentleman, Mr. William Guppy, of Penton Place, Pentonville, and myself." "Thank you, miss," said Mr. Guppy. "Er - excuse me - lady's name?" I gave it. "Thank you. Much obliged." He ran home and came running back again. "Touching that matter, you know, I really and truly am very sorry that circumstances over which I have no control should prevent a renewal of what was terminated some time back," said Mr. Guppy forlornly and despondently, "but it couldn't be." I replied it certainly could not. The subject did not admit of a doubt. He thanked me and ran to his mother's - and back again. "It's very honourable of you, miss," said Mr. Guppy. "Upon my soul, you may rely upon me in every respect save and except the tender passion only!" The struggle in Mr. Guppy's breast and the oscillations it occasioned him between his mother's door and us were sufficiently conspicuous to make us hurry away. I did so with a lightened heart; but when we last looked back, Mr. Guppy was still oscillating in the same troubled state of mind.

Bleak House

Chapter 38: A Struggle

Richard left us on the very next evening to begin his new career, and committed Ada to my charge with great love for her and great trust in me. It touched me then to reflect, and it touches me now, more nearly, to remember (having what I have to tell) how they both thought of me, even at that engrossing time. I was a part of all their plans, for the present and the future. I was to write Richard once a week, making my faithful report of Ada, who was to write to him every alternate day. I was to be informed, under his own hand, of all his labours and successes; I was to observe how resolute and persevering he would be; I was to be Ada's bridesmaid when they were married; I was to live with them afterwards; I was to keep all the keys of their house; I was to be made happy for ever and a day. "And if the suit SHOULD make us rich, Esther--which it may, you know!" said Richard to crown all. A shade crossed Ada's face. "My dearest Ada," asked Richard, "why not?" "It had better declare us poor at once," said Ada. "Oh! I don't know about that," returned Richard, "but at all events, it won't declare anything at once. It hasn't declared anything in heaven knows how many years." "Too true," said Ada. "Yes, but," urged Richard, answering what her look suggested rather than her words, "the longer it goes on, dear cousin, the nearer it must be to a settlement one way or other. Now, is not that reasonable?" "You know best, Richard. But I am afraid if we trust to it, it will make us unhappy." "But, my Ada, we are not going to trust to it!" cried Richard gaily. "We know it better than to trust to it. We only say that if it SHOULD make us rich, we have no constitutional objection to being rich. The court is, by solemn settlement of law, our grim old guardian, and we are to suppose that what it gives us (when it gives us anything) is our right. It is not necessary to quarrel with our right." "No," said Ada, "but it may be better to forget all about it." "Well, well," cried Richard, "then we will forget all about it! We consign the whole thing to oblivion. Dame Durden puts on her approving face, and it's done!" "Dame Durden's approving face," said I, looking out of the box in which I was packing his books, "was not very visible when you called it by that name; but it does approve, and she thinks you can't do better." So, Richard said there was an end of it, and immediately began, on no other foundation, to build as many castles in the air as would man the Great Wall of China. He went away in high spirits. Ada and I, prepared to miss him very much, commenced our quieter career. On our arrival in London, we had called with Mr. Jarndyce at Mrs. Jellyby's but had not been so fortunate as to find her at home. It appeared that she had gone somewhere to a tea-drinking and had taken Miss Jellyby with her. Besides the tea-drinking, there was to be some considerable speech-making and letter-writing on the general merits of the cultivation of coffee, conjointly with natives, at the Settlement of Borrioboola-Gha. All this involved, no doubt, sufficient active exercise of pen and ink to make her daughter's part in the proceedings anything but a holiday. It being now beyond the time appointed for Mrs. Jellyby's return, we called again. She was in town, but not at home, having gone to Mile End directly after breakfast on some Borrioboolan business, arising out of a society called the East London Branch Aid Ramification. As I had not seen Peepy on the occasion of our last call (when he was not to be found anywhere, and when the cook rather thought he must have strolled away with the dustman's cart), I now inquired for him again. The oyster shells he had been building a house with were still in the passage, but he was nowhere discoverable, and the cook supposed that he had "gone after the sheep." When we repeated, with some surprise, "The sheep?" she said, Oh, yes, on market days he sometimes followed them quite out of town and came back in such a state as never was! I was sitting at the window with my guardian on the following morning, and Ada was busy writing--of course to Richard--when Miss Jellyby was announced, and entered, leading the identical Peepy, whom she had made some endeavours to render presentable by wiping the dirt into corners of his face and hands and making his hair very wet and then violently frizzling it with her fingers. Everything the dear child wore was either too large for him or too small. Among his other contradictory decorations he had the hat of a bishop and the little gloves of a baby. His boots were, on a small scale, the boots of a ploughman, while his legs, so crossed and recrossed with scratches that they looked like maps, were bare below a very short pair of plaid drawers finished off with two frills of perfectly different patterns. The deficient buttons on his plaid frock had evidently been supplied from one of Mr. Jellyby's coats, they were so extremely brazen and so much too large. Most extraordinary specimens of needlework appeared on several parts of his dress, where it had been hastily mended, and I recognized the same hand on Miss Jellyby's. She was, however, unaccountably improved in her appearance and looked very pretty. She was conscious of poor little Peepy being but a failure after all her trouble, and she showed it as she came in by the way in which she glanced first at him and then at us. "Oh, dear me!" said my guardian. "Due east!" Ada and I gave her a cordial welcome and presented her to Mr. Jarndyce, to whom she said as she sat down, "Ma's compliments, and she hopes you'll excuse her, because she's correcting proofs of the plan. She's going to put out five thousand new circulars, and she knows you'll be interested to hear that. I have brought one of them with me. Ma's compliments." With which she presented it sulkily enough. "Thank you," said my guardian. "I am much obliged to Mrs. Jellyby. Oh, dear me! This is a very trying wind!" We were busy with Peepy, taking off his clerical hat, asking him if he remembered us, and so on. Peepy retired behind his elbow at first, but relented at the sight of sponge-cake and allowed me to take him on my lap, where he sat munching quietly. Mr. Jarndyce then withdrawing into the temporary growlery, Miss Jellyby opened a conversation with her usual abruptness. "We are going on just as bad as ever in Thavies Inn," said she. "I have no peace of my life. Talk of Africa! I couldn't be worse off if I was a what's-his-name--man and a brother!" I tried to say something soothing. "Oh, it's of no use, Miss Summerson," exclaimed Miss Jellyby, "though I thank you for the kind intention all the same. I know how I am used, and I am not to be talked over. YOU wouldn't be talked over if you were used so. Peepy, go and play at Wild Beasts under the piano!" "I shan't!" said Peepy. "Very well, you ungrateful, naughty, hard-hearted boy!" returned Miss Jellyby with tears in her eyes. "I'll never take pains to dress you any more." "Yes, I will go, Caddy!" cried Peepy, who was really a good child and who was so moved by his sister's vexation that he went at once. "It seems a little thing to cry about," said poor Miss Jellyby apologetically, "but I am quite worn out. I was directing the new circulars till two this morning. I detest the whole thing so that that alone makes my head ache till I can't see out of my eyes. And look at that poor unfortunate child! Was there ever such a fright as he is!" Peepy, happily unconscious of the defects in his appearance, sat on the carpet behind one of the legs of the piano, looking calmly out of his den at us while he ate his cake. "I have sent him to the other end of the room," observed Miss Jellyby, drawing her chair nearer ours, "because I don't want him to hear the conversation. Those little things are so sharp! I was going to say, we really are going on worse than ever. Pa will be a bankrupt before long, and then I hope Ma will be satisfied. There'll he nobody but Ma to thank for it." We said we hoped Mr. Jellyby's affairs were not in so bad a state as that. "It's of no use hoping, though it's very kind of you," returned Miss Jellyby, shaking her head. "Pa told me only yesterday morning (and dreadfully unhappy he is) that he couldn't weather the storm. I should be surprised if he could. When all our tradesmen send into our house any stuff they like, and the servants do what they like with it, and I have no time to improve things if I knew how, and Ma don't care about anything, I should like to make out how Pa is to weather the storm. I declare if I was Pa, I'd run away." "My dear!" said I, smiling. "Your papa, no doubt, considers his family." "Oh, yes, his family is all very fine, Miss Summerson," replied Miss Jellyby; "but what comfort is his family to him? His family is nothing but bills, dirt, waste, noise, tumbles downstairs, confusion, and wretchedness. His scrambling home, from week's end to week's end, is like one great washing-day--only nothing's washed!" Miss Jellyby tapped her foot upon the floor and wiped her eyes. "I am sure I pity Pa to that degree," she said, "and am so angry with Ma that I can't find words to express myself! However, I am not going to bear it, I am determined. I won't be a slave all my life, and I won't submit to be proposed to by Mr. Quale. A pretty thing, indeed, to marry a philanthropist. As if I hadn't had enough of THAT!" said poor Miss Jellyby. I must confess that I could not help feeling rather angry with Mrs. Jellyby myself, seeing and hearing this neglected girl and knowing how much of bitterly satirical truth there was in what she said. "If it wasn't that we had been intimate when you stopped at our house," pursued Miss Jellyby, "I should have been ashamed to come here to-day, for I know what a figure I must seem to you two. But as it is, I made up my mind to call, especially as I am not likely to see you again the next time you come to town." She said this with such great significance that Ada and I glanced at one another, foreseeing something more. "No!" said Miss Jellyby, shaking her head. "Not at all likely! I know I may trust you two. I am sure you won't betray me. I am engaged." "Without their knowledge at home?" said I. "Why, good gracious me, Miss Summerson," she returned, justifying herself in a fretful but not angry manner, "how can it be otherwise? You know what Ma is--and I needn't make poor Pa more miserable by telling HIM." "But would it not be adding to his unhappiness to marry without his knowledge or consent, my dear?" said I. "No," said Miss Jellyby, softening. "I hope not. I should try to make him happy and comfortable when he came to see me, and Peepy and the others should take it in turns to come and stay with me, and they should have some care taken of them then." There was a good deal of affection in poor Caddy. She softened more and more while saying this and cried so much over the unwonted little home-picture she had raised in her mind that Peepy, in his cave under the piano, was touched, and turned himself over on his back with loud lamentations. It was not until I had brought him to kiss his sister, and had restored him to his place on my lap, and had shown him that Caddy was laughing (she laughed expressly for the purpose), that we could recall his peace of mind; even then it was for some time conditional on his taking us in turns by the chin and smoothing our faces all over with his hand. At last, as his spirits were not equal to the piano, we put him on a chair to look out of window; and Miss Jellyby, holding him by one leg, resumed her confidence. "It began in your coming to our house," she said. We naturally asked how. "I felt I was so awkward," she replied, "that I made up my mind to be improved in that respect at all events and to learn to dance. I told Ma I was ashamed of myself, and I must be taught to dance. Ma looked at me in that provoking way of hers as if I wasn't in sight, but I was quite determined to be taught to dance, and so I went to Mr. Turveydrop's Academy in Newman Street." "And was it there, my dear--" I began. "Yes, it was there," said Caddy, "and I am engaged to Mr. Turveydrop. There are two Mr. Turveydrops, father and son. My Mr. Turveydrop is the son, of course. I only wish I had been better brought up and was likely to make him a better wife, for I am very fond of him." "I am sorry to hear this," said I, "I must confess." "I don't know why you should be sorry," she retorted a little anxiously, "but I am engaged to Mr. Turveydrop, whether or no, and he is very fond of me. It's a secret as yet, even on his side, because old Mr. Turveydrop has a share in the connexion and it might break his heart or give him some other shock if he was told of it abruptly. Old Mr. Turveydrop is a very gentlemanly man indeed--very gentlemanly." "Does his wife know of it?" asked Ada. "Old Mr. Turveydrop's wife, Miss Clare?" returned Miss Jellyby, opening her eyes. "There's no such person. He is a widower." We were here interrupted by Peepy, whose leg had undergone so much on account of his sister's unconsciously jerking it like a bell-rope whenever she was emphatic that the afflicted child now bemoaned his sufferings with a very low-spirited noise. As he appealed to me for compassion, and as I was only a listener, I undertook to hold him. Miss Jellyby proceeded, after begging Peepy's pardon with a kiss and assuring him that she hadn't meant to do it. "That's the state of the case," said Caddy. "If I ever blame myself, I still think it's Ma's fault. We are to be married whenever we can, and then I shall go to Pa at the office and write to Ma. It won't much agitate Ma; I am only pen and ink to HER. One great comfort is," said Caddy with a sob, "that I shall never hear of Africa after I am married. Young Mr. Turveydrop hates it for my sake, and if old Mr. Turveydrop knows there is such a place, it's as much as he does." "It was he who was very gentlemanly, I think!" said I. "Very gentlemanly indeed," said Caddy. "He is celebrated almost everywhere for his deportment." "Does he teach?" asked Ada. "No, he don't teach anything in particular," replied Caddy. "But his deportment is beautiful." Caddy went on to say with considerable hesitation and reluctance that there was one thing more she wished us to know, and felt we ought to know, and which she hoped would not offend us. It was that she had improved her acquaintance with Miss Flite, the little crazy old lady, and that she frequently went there early in the morning and met her lover for a few minutes before breakfast--only for a few minutes. "I go there at other times," said Caddy, "but Prince does not come then. Young Mr. Turveydrop's name is Prince; I wish it wasn't, because it sounds like a dog, but of course he didn't christen himself. Old Mr. Turveydrop had him christened Prince in remembrance of the Prince Regent. Old Mr. Turveydrop adored the Prince Regent on account of his deportment. I hope you won't think the worse of me for having made these little appointments at Miss Flite's, where I first went with you, because I like the poor thing for her own sake and I believe she likes me. If you could see young Mr. Turveydrop, I am sure you would think well of him--at least, I am sure you couldn't possibly think any ill of him. I am going there now for my lesson. I couldn't ask you to go with me, Miss Summerson; but if you would," said Caddy, who had said all this earnestly and tremblingly, "I should be very glad--very glad." It happened that we had arranged with my guardian to go to Miss Flite's that day. We had told him of our former visit, and our account had interested him; but something had always happened to prevent our going there again. As I trusted that I might have sufficient influence with Miss Jellyby to prevent her taking any very rash step if I fully accepted the confidence she was so willing to place in me, poor girl, I proposed that she and I and Peepy should go to the academy and afterwards meet my guardian and Ada at Miss Flite's, whose name I now learnt for the first time. This was on condition that Miss Jellyby and Peepy should come back with us to dinner. The last article of the agreement being joyfully acceded to by both, we smartened Peepy up a little with the assistance of a few pins, some soap and water, and a hair-brush, and went out, bending our steps towards Newman Street, which was very near. I found the academy established in a sufficiently dingy house at the corner of an archway, with busts in all the staircase windows. In the same house there were also established, as I gathered from the plates on the door, a drawing-master, a coal-merchant (there was, certainly, no room for his coals), and a lithographic artist. On the plate which, in size and situation, took precedence of all the rest, I read, MR. TURVEYDROP. The door was open, and the hall was blocked up by a grand piano, a harp, and several other musical instruments in cases, all in progress of removal, and all looking rakish in the daylight. Miss Jellyby informed me that the academy had been lent, last night, for a concert. We went upstairs--it had been quite a fine house once, when it was anybody's business to keep it clean and fresh, and nobody's business to smoke in it all day--and into Mr. Turveydrop's great room, which was built out into a mews at the back and was lighted by a skylight. It was a bare, resounding room smelling of stables, with cane forms along the walls, and the walls ornamented at regular intervals with painted lyres and little cut-glass branches for candles, which seemed to be shedding their old-fashioned drops as other branches might shed autumn leaves. Several young lady pupils, ranging from thirteen or fourteen years of age to two or three and twenty, were assembled; and I was looking among them for their instructor when Caddy, pinching my arm, repeated the ceremony of introduction. "Miss Summerson, Mr. Prince Turveydrop!" I curtsied to a little blue-eyed fair man of youthful appearance with flaxen hair parted in the middle and curling at the ends all round his head. He had a little fiddle, which we used to call at school a kit, under his left arm, and its little bow in the same hand. His little dancing-shoes were particularly diminutive, and he had a little innocent, feminine manner which not only appealed to me in an amiable way, but made this singular effect upon me, that I received the impression that he was like his mother and that his mother had not been much considered or well used. "I am very happy to see Miss Jellyby's friend," he said, bowing low to me. "I began to fear," with timid tenderness, "as it was past the usual time, that Miss Jellyby was not coming." "I beg you will have the goodness to attribute that to me, who have detained her, and to receive my excuses, sir," said I. "Oh, dear!" said he. "And pray," I entreated, "do not allow me to be the cause of any more delay." With that apology I withdrew to a seat between Peepy (who, being well used to it, had already climbed into a corner place) and an old lady of a censorious countenance whose two nieces were in the class and who was very indignant with Peepy's boots. Prince Turveydrop then tinkled the strings of his kit with his fingers, and the young ladies stood up to dance. Just then there appeared from a side-door old Mr. Turveydrop, in the full lustre of his deportment. He was a fat old gentleman with a false complexion, false teeth, false whiskers, and a wig. He had a fur collar, and he had a padded breast to his coat, which only wanted a star or a broad blue ribbon to be complete. He was pinched in, and swelled out, and got up, and strapped down, as much as he could possibly bear. He had such a neckcloth on (puffing his very eyes out of their natural shape), and his chin and even his ears so sunk into it, that it seemed as though he must inevitably double up if it were cast loose. He had under his arm a hat of great size and weight, shelving downward from the crown to the brim, and in his hand a pair of white gloves with which he flapped it as he stood poised on one leg in a high-shouldered, round-elbowed state of elegance not to be surpassed. He had a cane, he had an eye-glass, he had a snuff-box, he had rings, he had wristbands, he had everything but any touch of nature; he was not like youth, he was not like age, he was not like anything in the world but a model of deportment. "Father! A visitor. Miss Jellyby's friend, Miss Summerson." "Distinguished," said Mr. Turveydrop, "by Miss Summerson's presence." As he bowed to me in that tight state, I almost believe I saw creases come into the whites of his eyes. "My father," said the son, aside, to me with quite an affecting belief in him, "is a celebrated character. My father is greatly admired." "Go on, Prince! Go on!" said Mr. Turveydrop, standing with his back to the fire and waving his gloves condescendingly. "Go on, my son!" At this command, or by this gracious permission, the lesson went on. Prince Turveydrop sometimes played the kit, dancing; sometimes played the piano, standing; sometimes hummed the tune with what little breath he could spare, while he set a pupil right; always conscientiously moved with the least proficient through every step and every part of the figure; and never rested for an instant. His distinguished father did nothing whatever but stand before the fire, a model of deportment. "And he never does anything else," said the old lady of the censorious countenance. "Yet would you believe that it's HIS name on the door-plate?" "His son's name is the same, you know," said I. "He wouldn't let his son have any name if he could take it from him," returned the old lady. "Look at the son's dress!" It certainly was plain--threadbare--almost shabby. "Yet the father must be garnished and tricked out," said the old lady, "because of his deportment. I'd deport him! Transport him would be better!" I felt curious to know more concerning this person. I asked, "Does he give lessons in deportment now?" "Now!" returned the old lady shortly. "Never did." After a moment's consideration, I suggested that perhaps fencing had been his accomplishment. "I don't believe he can fence at all, ma'am," said the old lady. I looked surprised and inquisitive. The old lady, becoming more and more incensed against the master of deportment as she dwelt upon the subject, gave me some particulars of his career, with strong assurances that they were mildly stated. He had married a meek little dancing-mistress, with a tolerable connexion (having never in his life before done anything but deport himself), and had worked her to death, or had, at the best, suffered her to work herself to death, to maintain him in those expenses which were indispensable to his position. At once to exhibit his deportment to the best models and to keep the best models constantly before himself, he had found it necessary to frequent all public places of fashionable and lounging resort, to be seen at Brighton and elsewhere at fashionable times, and to lead an idle life in the very best clothes. To enable him to do this, the affectionate little dancing-mistress had toiled and laboured and would have toiled and laboured to that hour if her strength had lasted so long. For the mainspring of the story was that in spite of the man's absorbing selfishness, his wife (overpowered by his deportment) had, to the last, believed in him and had, on her death-bed, in the most moving terms, confided him to their son as one who had an inextinguishable claim upon him and whom he could never regard with too much pride and deference. The son, inheriting his mother's belief, and having the deportment always before him, had lived and grown in the same faith, and now, at thirty years of age, worked for his father twelve hours a day and looked up to him with veneration on the old imaginary pinnacle. "The airs the fellow gives himself!" said my informant, shaking her head at old Mr. Turveydrop with speechless indignation as he drew on his tight gloves, of course unconscious of the homage she was rendering. "He fully believes he is one of the aristocracy! And he is so condescending to the son he so egregiously deludes that you might suppose him the most virtuous of parents. Oh!" said the old lady, apostrophizing him with infinite vehemence. "I could bite you!" I could not help being amused, though I heard the old lady out with feelings of real concern. It was difficult to doubt her with the father and son before me. What I might have thought of them without the old lady's account, or what I might have thought of the old lady's account without them, I cannot say. There was a fitness of things in the whole that carried conviction with it. My eyes were yet wandering, from young Mr. Turveydrop working so hard, to old Mr. Turveydrop deporting himself so beautifully, when the latter came ambling up to me and entered into conversation. He asked me, first of all, whether I conferred a charm and a distinction on London by residing in it? I did not think it necessary to reply that I was perfectly aware I should not do that, in any case, but merely told him where I did reside. "A lady so graceful and accomplished," he said, kissing his right glove and afterwards extending it towards the pupils, "will look leniently on the deficiencies here. We do our best to polish--polish--polish!" He sat down beside me, taking some pains to sit on the form, I thought, in imitation of the print of his illustrious model on the sofa. And really he did look very like it. "To polish--polish--polish!" he repeated, taking a pinch of snuff and gently fluttering his fingers. "But we are not, if I may say so to one formed to be graceful both by Nature and Art--" with the high-shouldered bow, which it seemed impossible for him to make without lifting up his eyebrows and shutting his eyes "--we are not what we used to be in point of deportment." "Are we not, sir?" said I. "We have degenerated," he returned, shaking his head, which he could do to a very limited extent in his cravat. "A levelling age is not favourable to deportment. It develops vulgarity. Perhaps I speak with some little partiality. It may not be for me to say that I have been called, for some years now, Gentleman Turveydrop, or that his Royal Highness the Prince Regent did me the honour to inquire, on my removing my hat as he drove out of the Pavilion at Brighton (that fine building), 'Who is he? Who the devil is he? Why don't I know him? Why hasn't he thirty thousand a year?' But these are little matters of anecdote--the general property, ma'am--still repeated occasionally among the upper classes." "Indeed?" said I. He replied with the high-shouldered bow. "Where what is left among us of deportment," he added, "still lingers. England--alas, my country!--has degenerated very much, and is degenerating every day. She has not many gentlemen left. We are few. I see nothing to succeed us but a race of weavers." "One might hope that the race of gentlemen would be perpetuated here," said I. "You are very good." He smiled with a high-shouldered bow again. "You flatter me. But, no--no! I have never been able to imbue my poor boy with that part of his art. Heaven forbid that I should disparage my dear child, but he has--no deportment." "He appears to be an excellent master," I observed. "Understand me, my dear madam, he IS an excellent master. All that can be acquired, he has acquired. All that can be imparted, he can impart. But there ARE things--" He took another pinch of snuff and made the bow again, as if to add, "This kind of thing, for instance." I glanced towards the centre of the room, where Miss Jellyby's lover, now engaged with single pupils, was undergoing greater drudgery than ever. "My amiable child," murmured Mr. Turveydrop, adjusting his cravat. "Your son is indefatigable," said I. "It is my reward," said Mr. Turveydrop, "to hear you say so. In some respects, he treads in the footsteps of his sainted mother. She was a devoted creature. But wooman, lovely wooman," said Mr. Turveydrop with very disagreeable gallantry, "what a sex you are!" I rose and joined Miss Jellyby, who was by this time putting on her bonnet. The time allotted to a lesson having fully elapsed, there was a general putting on of bonnets. When Miss Jellyby and the unfortunate Prince found an opportunity to become betrothed I don't know, but they certainly found none on this occasion to exchange a dozen words. "My dear," said Mr. Turveydrop benignly to his son, "do you know the hour?" "No, father." The son had no watch. The father had a handsome gold one, which he pulled out with an air that was an example to mankind. "My son," said he, "it's two o'clock. Recollect your school at Kensington at three." "That's time enough for me, father," said Prince. "I can take a morsel of dinner standing and be off." "My dear boy," returned his father, "you must be very quick. You will find the cold mutton on the table." "Thank you, father. Are YOU off now, father?" "Yes, my dear. I suppose," said Mr. Turveydrop, shutting his eyes and lifting up his shoulders with modest consciousness, "that I must show myself, as usual, about town." "You had better dine out comfortably somewhere," said his son. "My dear child, I intend to. I shall take my little meal, I think, at the French house, in the Opera Colonnade." "That's right. Good-bye, father!" said Prince, shaking hands. "Good-bye, my son. Bless you!" Mr. Turveydrop said this in quite a pious manner, and it seemed to do his son good, who, in parting from him, was so pleased with him, so dutiful to him, and so proud of him that I almost felt as if it were an unkindness to the younger man not to be able to believe implicitly in the elder. The few moments that were occupied by Prince in taking leave of us (and particularly of one of us, as I saw, being in the secret), enhanced my favourable impression of his almost childish character. I felt a liking for him and a compassion for him as he put his little kit in his pocket--and with it his desire to stay a little while with Caddy--and went away good-humouredly to his cold mutton and his school at Kensington, that made me scarcely less irate with his father than the censorious old lady. The father opened the room door for us and bowed us out in a manner, I must acknowledge, worthy of his shining original. In the same style he presently passed us on the other side of the street, on his way to the aristocratic part of the town, where he was going to show himself among the few other gentlemen left. For some moments, I was so lost in reconsidering what I had heard and seen in Newman Street that I was quite unable to talk to Caddy or even to fix my attention on what she said to me, especially when I began to inquire in my mind whether there were, or ever had been, any other gentlemen, not in the dancing profession, who lived and founded a reputation entirely on their deportment. This became so bewildering and suggested the possibility of so many Mr. Turveydrops that I said, "Esther, you must make up your mind to abandon this subject altogether and attend to Caddy." I accordingly did so, and we chatted all the rest of the way to Lincoln's Inn. Caddy told me that her lover's education had been so neglected that it was not always easy to read his notes. She said if he were not so anxious about his spelling and took less pains to make it clear, he would do better; but he put so many unnecessary letters into short words that they sometimes quite lost their English appearance. "He does it with the best intention," observed Caddy, "but it hasn't the effect he means, poor fellow!" Caddy then went on to reason, how could he be expected to be a scholar when he had passed his whole life in the dancing-school and had done nothing but teach and fag, fag and teach, morning, noon, and night! And what did it matter? She could write letters enough for both, as she knew to her cost, and it was far better for him to be amiable than learned. "Besides, it's not as if I was an accomplished girl who had any right to give herself airs," said Caddy. "I know little enough, I am sure, thanks to Ma! "There's another thing I want to tell you, now we are alone," continued Caddy, "which I should not have liked to mention unless you had seen Prince, Miss Summerson. You know what a house ours is. It's of no use my trying to learn anything that it would be useful for Prince's wife to know in OUR house. We live in such a state of muddle that it's impossible, and I have only been more disheartened whenever I have tried. So I get a little practice with--who do you think? Poor Miss Flite! Early in the morning I help her to tidy her room and clean her birds, and I make her cup of coffee for her (of course she taught me), and I have learnt to make it so well that Prince says it's the very best coffee he ever tasted, and would quite delight old Mr. Turveydrop, who is very particular indeed about his coffee. I can make little puddings too; and I know how to buy neck of mutton, and tea, and sugar, and butter, and a good many housekeeping things. I am not clever at my needle, yet," said Caddy, glancing at the repairs on Peepy's frock, "but perhaps I shall improve, and since I have been engaged to Prince and have been doing all this, I have felt better-tempered, I hope, and more forgiving to Ma. It rather put me out at first this morning to see you and Miss Clare looking so neat and pretty and to feel ashamed of Peepy and myself too, but on the whole I hope I am better-tempered than I was and more forgiving to Ma." The poor girl, trying so hard, said it from her heart, and touched mine. "Caddy, my love," I replied, "I begin to have a great affection for you, and I hope we shall become friends." "Oh, do you?" cried Caddy. "How happy that would make me!" "My dear Caddy," said I, "let us be friends from this time, and let us often have a chat about these matters and try to find the right way through them." Caddy was overjoyed. I said everything I could in my old-fashioned way to comfort and encourage her, and I would not have objected to old Mr. Turveydrop that day for any smaller consideration than a settlement on his daughter-in-law. By this time we were come to Mr. Krook's, whose private door stood open. There was a bill, pasted on the door-post, announcing a room to let on the second floor. It reminded Caddy to tell me as we proceeded upstairs that there had been a sudden death there and an inquest and that our little friend had been ill of the fright. The door and window of the vacant room being open, we looked in. It was the room with the dark door to which Miss Flite had secretly directed my attention when I was last in the house. A sad and desolate place it was, a gloomy, sorrowful place that gave me a strange sensation of mournfulness and even dread. "You look pale," said Caddy when we came out, "and cold!" I felt as if the room had chilled me. We had walked slowly while we were talking, and my guardian and Ada were here before us. We found them in Miss Flite's garret. They were looking at the birds, while a medical gentleman who was so good as to attend Miss Flite with much solicitude and compassion spoke with her cheerfully by the fire. "I have finished my professional visit," he said, coming forward. "Miss Flite is much better and may appear in court (as her mind is set upon it) to-morrow. She has been greatly missed there, I understand." Miss Flite received the compliment with complacency and dropped a general curtsy to us. "Honoured, indeed," said she, "by another visit from the wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy to receive Jarndyce of Bleak House beneath my humble roof!" with a special curtsy. "Fitz-Jarndyce, my dear"--she had bestowed that name on Caddy, it appeared, and always called her by it--"a double welcome!" "Has she been very ill?" asked Mr. Jarndyce of the gentleman whom we had found in attendance on her. She answered for herself directly, though he had put the question in a whisper. "Oh, decidedly unwell! Oh, very unwell indeed," she said confidentially. "Not pain, you know--trouble. Not bodily so much as nervous, nervous! The truth is," in a subdued voice and trembling, "we have had death here. There was poison in the house. I am very susceptible to such horrid things. It frightened me. Only Mr. Woodcourt knows how much. My physician, Mr. Woodcourt!" with great stateliness. "The wards in Jarndyce--Jarndyce of Bleak House--Fitz-Jarndyce!" "Miss Flite," said Mr. Woodcourt in a grave kind of voice, as if he were appealing to her while speaking to us, and laying his hand gently on her arm, "Miss Flite describes her illness with her usual accuracy. She was alarmed by an occurrence in the house which might have alarmed a stronger person, and was made ill by the distress and agitation. She brought me here in the first hurry of the discovery, though too late for me to be of any use to the unfortunate man. I have compensated myself for that disappointment by coming here since and being of some small use to her." "The kindest physician in the college," whispered Miss Flite to me. "I expect a judgment. On the day of judgment. And shall then confer estates." "She will be as well in a day or two," said Mr. Woodcourt, looking at her with an observant smile, "as she ever will be. In other words, quite well of course. Have you heard of her good fortune?" "Most extraordinary!" said Miss Flite, smiling brightly. "You never heard of such a thing, my dear! Every Saturday, Conversation Kenge or Guppy (clerk to Conversation K.) places in my hand a paper of shillings. Shillings. I assure you! Always the same number in the paper. Always one for every day in the week. Now you know, really! So well-timed, is it not? Ye-es! From whence do these papers come, you say? That is the great question. Naturally. Shall I tell you what I think? I think," said Miss Flite, drawing herself back with a very shrewd look and shaking her right forefinger in a most significant manner, "that the Lord Chancellor, aware of the length of time during which the Great Seal has been open (for it has been open a long time!), forwards them. Until the judgment I expect is given. Now that's very creditable, you know. To confess in that way that he IS a little slow for human life. So delicate! Attending court the other day--I attend it regularly, with my documents--I taxed him with it, and he almost confessed. That is, I smiled at him from my bench, and HE smiled at me from his bench. But it's great good fortune, is it not? And Fitz-Jarndyce lays the money out for me to great advantage. Oh, I assure you to the greatest advantage!" I congratulated her (as she addressed herself to me) upon this fortunate addition to her income and wished her a long continuance of it. I did not speculate upon the source from which it came or wonder whose humanity was so considerate. My guardian stood before me, contemplating the birds, and I had no need to look beyond him. "And what do you call these little fellows, ma'am?" said he in his pleasant voice. "Have they any names?" "I can answer for Miss Flite that they have," said I, "for she promised to tell us what they were. Ada remembers?" Ada remembered very well. "Did I?" said Miss Flite. "Who's that at my door? What are you listening at my door for, Krook?" The old man of the house, pushing it open before him, appeared there with his fur cap in his hand and his cat at his heels. "I warn't listening, Miss Flite," he said, "I was going to give a rap with my knuckles, only you're so quick!" "Make your cat go down. Drive her away!" the old lady angrily exclaimed. "Bah, bah! There ain't no danger, gentlefolks," said Mr. Krook, looking slowly and sharply from one to another until he had looked at all of us; "she'd never offer at the birds when I was here unless I told her to it." "You will excuse my landlord," said the old lady with a dignified air. "M, quite M! What do you want, Krook, when I have company?" "Hi!" said the old man. "You know I am the Chancellor." "Well?" returned Miss Flite. "What of that?" "For the Chancellor," said the old man with a chuckle, "not to be acquainted with a Jarndyce is queer, ain't it, Miss Flite? Mightn't I take the liberty? Your servant, sir. I know Jarndyce and Jarndyce a'most as well as you do, sir. I knowed old Squire Tom, sir. I never to my knowledge see you afore though, not even in court. Yet, I go there a mortal sight of times in the course of the year, taking one day with another." "I never go there," said Mr. Jarndyce (which he never did on any consideration). "I would sooner go--somewhere else." "Would you though?" returned Krook, grinning. "You're bearing hard upon my noble and learned brother in your meaning, sir, though perhaps it is but nat'ral in a Jarndyce. The burnt child, sir! What, you're looking at my lodger's birds, Mr. Jarndyce?" The old man had come by little and little into the room until he now touched my guardian with his elbow and looked close up into his face with his spectacled eyes. "It's one of her strange ways that she'll never tell the names of these birds if she can help it, though she named 'em all." This was in a whisper. "Shall I run 'em over, Flite?" he asked aloud, winking at us and pointing at her as she turned away, affecting to sweep the grate. "If you like," she answered hurriedly. The old man, looking up at the cages after another look at us, went through the list. "Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach. That's the whole collection," said the old man, "all cooped up together, by my noble and learned brother." "This is a bitter wind!" muttered my guardian. "When my noble and learned brother gives his judgment, they're to be let go free," said Krook, winking at us again. "And then," he added, whispering and grinning, "if that ever was to happen--which it won't--the birds that have never been caged would kill 'em." "If ever the wind was in the east," said my guardian, pretending to look out of the window for a weathercock, "I think it's there to-day!" We found it very difficult to get away from the house. It was not Miss Flite who detained us; she was as reasonable a little creature in consulting the convenience of others as there possibly could be. It was Mr. Krook. He seemed unable to detach himself from Mr. Jarndyce. If he had been linked to him, he could hardly have attended him more closely. He proposed to show us his Court of Chancery and all the strange medley it contained; during the whole of our inspection (prolonged by himself) he kept close to Mr. Jarndyce and sometimes detained him under one pretence or other until we had passed on, as if he were tormented by an inclination to enter upon some secret subject which he could not make up his mind to approach. I cannot imagine a countenance and manner more singularly expressive of caution and indecision, and a perpetual impulse to do something he could not resolve to venture on, than Mr. Krook's was that day. His watchfulness of my guardian was incessant. He rarely removed his eyes from his face. If he went on beside him, he observed him with the slyness of an old white fox. If he went before, he looked back. When we stood still, he got opposite to him, and drawing his hand across and across his open mouth with a curious expression of a sense of power, and turning up his eyes, and lowering his grey eyebrows until they appeared to be shut, seemed to scan every lineament of his face. At last, having been (always attended by the cat) all over the house and having seen the whole stock of miscellaneous lumber, which was certainly curious, we came into the back part of the shop. Here on the head of an empty barrel stood on end were an ink-bottle, some old stumps of pens, and some dirty playbills; and against the wall were pasted several large printed alphabets in several plain hands. "What are you doing here?" asked my guardian. "Trying to learn myself to read and write," said Krook. "And how do you get on?" "Slow. Bad," returned the old man impatiently. "It's hard at my time of life." "It would be easier to be taught by some one," said my guardian. "Aye, but they might teach me wrong!" returned the old man with a wonderfully suspicious flash of his eye. "I don't know what I may have lost by not being learned afore. I wouldn't like to lose anything by being learned wrong now." "Wrong?" said my guardian with his good-humoured smile. "Who do you suppose would teach you wrong?" "I don't know, Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House!" replied the old man, turning up his spectacles on his forehead and rubbing his hands. "I don't suppose as anybody would, but I'd rather trust my own self than another!" These answers and his manner were strange enough to cause my guardian to inquire of Mr. Woodcourt, as we all walked across Lincoln's Inn together, whether Mr. Krook were really, as his lodger represented him, deranged. The young surgeon replied, no, he had seen no reason to think so. He was exceedingly distrustful, as ignorance usually was, and he was always more or less under the influence of raw gin, of which he drank great quantities and of which he and his back-shop, as we might have observed, smelt strongly; but he did not think him mad as yet. On our way home, I so conciliated Peepy's affections by buying him a windmill and two flour-sacks that he would suffer nobody else to take off his hat and gloves and would sit nowhere at dinner but at my side. Caddy sat upon the other side of me, next to Ada, to whom we imparted the whole history of the engagement as soon as we got back. We made much of Caddy, and Peepy too; and Caddy brightened exceedingly; and my guardian was as merry as we were; and we were all very happy indeed until Caddy went home at night in a hackney-coach, with Peepy fast asleep, but holding tight to the windmill. I have forgotten to mention--at least I have not mentioned--that Mr. Woodcourt was the same dark young surgeon whom we had met at Mr. Badger's. Or that Mr. Jarndyce invited him to dinner that day. Or that he came. Or that when they were all gone and I said to Ada, "Now, my darling, let us have a little talk about Richard!" Ada laughed and said-- But I don't think it matters what my darling said. She was always merry.

Richard left us on the very next evening to begin his new career, and committed Ada to my charge with great love for her and great trust in me. It touched me to reflect how they both thought of me, even at that engrossing time. I was a part of all their plans. I was to write to Richard once a week, making my faithful report of Ada, who was to write to him every alternate day. He would tell me all his labours and successes; I was to observe how resolute and persevering he would be; I was to be Ada's bridesmaid when they were married; I was to live with them afterwards and keep the keys of their house; I was to be made happy for ever. "And if the lawsuit should make us rich, Esther - which it may, you know!" said Richard. A shade crossed Ada's face. "My dearest Ada," asked Richard, "why not?" "It had better declare us poor at once," said Ada. "Oh! I don't know about that," returned Richard, "but at all events, it won't declare anything at once. It hasn't declared anything in years." "Too true," said Ada. "But the longer it goes on, the nearer it must be to a settlement one way or other. Is not that reasonable?" "You know best, Richard. But I am afraid if we trust to it, it will make us unhappy." "My Ada, we are not going to trust to it!" cried Richard gaily. "We know better than that. We only say that if it should make us rich, we have no objection. The court is our grim old guardian, and whatever it gives us is our right. It is not necessary to quarrel with our right." "No," said Ada, "but it may be better to forget all about it." "Well, well," cried Richard, "then we will forget all about it! Dame Durden puts on her approving face, and it's done!" "Dame Durden does approve," said I, "and she thinks you can't do better." So, Richard said there was an end of it, and immediately began to build as many castles in the air as would man the Great Wall of China. He went away in high spirits. Ada and I, prepared to miss him very much, commenced our quieter career. On our arrival in London, we had called at Mrs. Jellyby's but had not found her at home. Now we called again. She was not in, having gone to Mile End directly after breakfast on some Borrioboolan business. As I had not seen Peepy on our last call, I now inquired for him. He was nowhere to be found, and the cook supposed that he had "gone after the sheep." When we repeated, with surprise, "The sheep?" she said, Oh, yes, on market days he sometimes followed them quite out of town and came back in such a state as never was! I was sitting at the window with my guardian on the following morning, and Ada was busy writing to Richard - when Miss Jellyby was announced, and entered, leading the same Peepy, whom she had tried to make presentable by wiping the dirt into the corners of his face and making his hair very wet. Everything the dear child wore was either too large for him or too small. He had the hat of a bishop and the little gloves of a baby. His boots were like small ploughman's boots, below a very short pair of plaid drawers finished off with two different frills. Extraordinary specimens of needlework appeared on several parts of his dress, where it had been hastily mended, and I recognized the same hand on Miss Jellyby's. She was, however, unaccountably improved in her appearance and looked very pretty. But she was conscious of poor little Peepy being a failure after all her trouble, and she showed it by the way in which she glanced first at him and then at us. "Oh, dear me!" said my guardian. "Due east!" Ada and I gave her a cordial welcome and presented her to Mr. Jarndyce. "Ma's compliments," she said, "and she hopes you'll excuse her, because she's correcting proofs. She's going to put out five thousand new circulars. I have brought one of them with me. Ma's compliments." She presented it sulkily. "Thank you," said my guardian. "I am much obliged to Mrs. Jellyby. Oh, dear me! This is a very trying wind!" We asked Peepy if he remembered us. He retired behind his elbow at first, but relented at the sight of sponge-cake and allowed me to take him on my lap, where he sat quietly munching. Mr. Jarndyce then withdrawing, Miss Jellyby opened a conversation abruptly. "We are going on just as bad as ever," said she. "I have no peace. Talk of Africa! I couldn't be worse off if I was a what's-his-name!" I tried to say something soothing. "Oh, it's of no use, Miss Summerson," exclaimed Miss Jellyby, "though I thank you all the same. I know how I am used. Peepy, go and play at Wild Beasts under the piano!" "I shan't!" said Peepy. "Very well, you ungrateful, naughty boy!" returned Miss Jellyby with tears in her eyes. "I'll never take pains to dress you any more." "Yes, I will go, Caddy!" cried Peepy, so moved by his sister's vexation that he went at once. "It seems a little thing to cry about," said poor Miss Jellyby apologetically, "but I am quite worn out. I was addressing the new circulars till two this morning. The whole thing makes my head ache till I can't see. And look at that poor unfortunate child! Was there ever such a fright as he is!" Peepy, happily unconscious of the defects in his appearance, sat behind one of the legs of the piano, eating his cake. "I have sent him over there," said Miss Jellyby, "because I don't want him to hear what I say. We really are going on worse than ever. Pa will be a bankrupt before long, and then I hope Ma will be satisfied. There'll be nobody but Ma to thank for it." We said we hoped Mr. Jellyby's affairs were not in so bad a state as that. "It's of no use hoping, though it's very kind of you," returned Miss Jellyby, shaking her head. "Pa told me only yesterday morning (and dreadfully unhappy he is) that he couldn't weather the storm. I have no time to improve things if I knew how, and Ma don't care about anything. I declare if I was Pa, I'd run away." "My dear!" said I, smiling. "Your papa, no doubt, considers his family." "Oh, yes, his family is all very fine, Miss Summerson," replied Miss Jellyby; "but what comfort is his family to him? His family is nothing but bills, dirt, waste, noise, tumbles downstairs, confusion, and wretchedness. It's like one great washing-day - only nothing's washed!" Miss Jellyby wiped her eyes. "I am sure I pity Pa so much," she said, "and am so angry with Ma that I can't find words to express myself! However, I am not going to bear it. I won't be a slave all my life, and I won't submit to be proposed to by Mr. Quale. A pretty thing, indeed, to marry a philanthropist. As if I hadn't had enough of that!" said poor Miss Jellyby. I must confess that I could not help feeling rather angry with Mrs. Jellyby myself, seeing and hearing this neglected girl. "I was almost ashamed to come here today, for I know what a figure I must seem to you two. But I made up my mind to call, as I am not likely to see you again the next time you come to town." She said this with such great significance that Ada and I glanced at one another, foreseeing something more. "I know I may trust you two," said Miss Jellyby. "You won't betray me. I am engaged." "Without their knowledge at home?" said I. "Why, Miss Summerson," she returned fretfully, "how can it be otherwise? You know what Ma is - and I needn't make poor Pa more miserable by telling him." "But would it not be adding to his unhappiness to marry without his knowledge, my dear?" said I. "No," said Miss Jellyby, softening. "I hope not. I should try to make him happy and comfortable when he came to see me, and Peepy and the others should take it in turns to come and stay with me, and have some care taken of them." There was a good deal of affection in poor Caddy. She cried so much over the little home-picture she had imagined that Peepy, in his cave under the piano, was touched, and lay on his back with loud lamentations. It was not until I had brought him to kiss his sister, and had shown him that Caddy was laughing (she laughed expressly for the purpose), that we could quieten him; even then he took us in turns by the chin, smoothing our faces all over with his hand. At last we put him on a chair to look out of a window; and Miss Jellyby, holding him by one leg, resumed. "It began in your coming to our house," she said. "I felt I was so awkward then, that I made up my mind to be improved. I told Ma I was ashamed of myself, and I must be taught to dance. Ma looked at me in that provoking way of hers as if I wasn't in sight, but I was quite determined to be taught to dance, and so I went to Mr. Turveydrop's Academy in Newman Street." "And was it there, my dear-" I began. "Yes," said Caddy, "and I am engaged to Mr. Turveydrop. There are two Mr. Turveydrops, father and son. My Mr. Turveydrop is the son, of course. I only wish I had been better brought up and was likely to make him a better wife, for I am very fond of him." "I am sorry to hear this," said I, "I must confess." "I don't know why you should be sorry," she retorted anxiously; "but I am engaged to Mr. Turveydrop, whether or no, and he is very fond of me. It's still a secret, even on his side, because it might break old Mr. Turveydrop's heart or give him a shock if he was told abruptly. Old Mr. Turveydrop is very gentlemanly. He is a widower." We were here interrupted by Peepy, whose leg was being unconsciously jerked like a bell-rope by his sister. I held him, and Miss Jellyby proceeded, after begging Peepy's pardon with a kiss. "We are to be married whenever we can," she said, "and then I shall go to Pa at the office and write to Ma. It won't much agitate Ma; I am only pen and ink to her. One great comfort is that I shall never hear of Africa after I am married. Young Mr. Turveydrop hates it for my sake, and old Mr. Turveydrop has never heard of it, I dare say." "Does old Mr. Turveydrop teach?" asked Ada. "No, he don't teach anything in particular," replied Caddy. "But his deportment is beautiful. He is famous for his deportment." Caddy went on to say hesitantly that there was one thing more she wished us to know, and which she hoped would not offend us. It was that she had improved her acquaintance with Miss Flite, the little crazy old lady, and that she frequently went there early in the morning and met her lover for a few minutes before breakfast. "I go there at other times," said Caddy, "but Prince does not come then. Young Mr. Turveydrop's name is Prince; I wish it wasn't, because it sounds like a dog, but of course he didn't christen himself. Old Mr. Turveydrop had him christened Prince after the Prince Regent. He adored the Prince Regent on account of his deportment. I hope you won't think the worse of me for having made these little appointments at Miss Flite's, because I like the poor thing for her own sake and I believe she likes me. If you could see young Mr. Turveydrop, I am sure you would think well of him. I am going there now for my lesson. I couldn't ask you to go with me, Miss Summerson; but if you would," said Caddy, earnestly and tremblingly, "I should be very glad." It happened that we had arranged with my guardian to go to Miss Flite's that day. We had told him of our former visit, and our account had interested him. So I proposed that she and I and Peepy should go to the academy and afterwards meet my guardian and Ada at Miss Flite's, whose name I now learnt for the first time. This was on condition that Miss Jellyby and Peepy should come back with us to dinner. We smartened Peepy up a little with some soap and water, and a hair-brush, and went out to Newman Street. The academy was in a dingy house at the corner of an archway, with busts in all the staircase windows. In the same house there were also established, as I gathered from the plates on the door, a drawing-master, a coal-merchant, and a lithographic artist. But the biggest plate read MR. TURVEYDROP. The door was open, and the hall was blocked by a grand piano, a harp, and several other musical instruments in cases. Miss Jellyby informed me that the academy had been lent, last night, for a concert. We went upstairs - it had been quite a fine house once - and into Mr. Turveydrop's great room. It was a bare, resounding room with benches along the walls, which were ornamented with painted lyres and little cut-glass branches for candles. Several young lady pupils were assembled; and I was looking at them when Caddy announced, "Miss Summerson, Mr. Prince Turveydrop!" I curtsied to a little blue-eyed man with flaxen hair and curling all round his head. He had a little fiddle, called a kit, under his left arm, and its little bow in the same hand. His dancing-shoes were particularly small, and he had an innocent, feminine manner which appealed, and gave me the singular impression that he was like his mother and that his mother had not been much considered or well used. "I am very happy to see Miss Jellyby's friend," he said, bowing low. "I had begun to fear that Miss Jellyby was not coming." "We detained her; please receive my excuses, sir," said I. I withdrew to a seat between Peepy and an old lady with a censorious look whose two nieces were in the class and who was very indignant with Peepy's boots. Prince Turveydrop tinkled the strings of his kit, and the young ladies stood up to dance. Just then there appeared from a side-door old Mr. Turveydrop. He was a fat old gentleman with a false complexion, false teeth, false whiskers, and a wig. He had a fur collar, and a padded breast to his coat, which only wanted a star or a broad blue ribbon to be complete. He was pinched in, and swelled out, and got up, and strapped down, as much as he could possibly bear. He wore such a neckcloth that his chin and even his ears sunk into it. He had under his arm a hat of great size and weight, and in his hand a pair of white gloves; he stood poised on one leg in a state of elegance not to be surpassed. He had a cane, an eye-glass, a snuff-box, he had rings, he had wristbands, he had everything but any touch of nature; he was a model of deportment. "Father! A visitor. Miss Jellyby's friend, Miss Summerson." "Distinguished," said Mr. Turveydrop. "My father," said the son, aside, "is a celebrated character. He is greatly admired." "Go on, Prince! Go on!" said Mr. Turveydrop, waving his gloves condescendingly. At this command, the lesson went on. Prince Turveydrop sometimes played the little fiddle, dancing; sometimes played the piano, standing; sometimes hummed, while he set a pupil right; always conscientiously moved with the least proficient pupils through every step; and never rested for an instant. His distinguished father did nothing whatever but stand before the fire, a model of deportment. "And he never does anything else," said the old lady of the censorious look. "Yet it's his name on the door-plate!" "His son's name is the same, you know," said I. "He wouldn't let his son have any name if he could take it from him," returned the old lady. "Look at the son's clothes!" They certainly were threadbare - almost shabby. "Yet the father must be garnished," said the old lady, "because of his deportment. I'd deport him! Transport him would be better!" I asked, "Does he give lessons in deportment now?" "Never did!" And the old lady, becoming more and more incensed against the master of deportment, gave me some details of his career. He had married a meek little dancing-mistress, (having never in his life before done anything but deport himself), and had worked her to death, or let her work herself to death, to maintain him in those expenses which were indispensable to his position. He had found it necessary to frequent all fashionable public places at Brighton and elsewhere in the very best clothes. To enable him to do this, the affectionate little dancing-mistress had toiled and laboured. To the last, she had believed in him. The son, inheriting his mother's belief, had lived and grown in the same faith, and now worked for his father twelve hours a day and looked up to him with veneration. "The airs the fellow gives himself!" said my informant, shaking her head with indignation. "He fully believes he is one of the aristocracy! And he is so condescending to his son. Oh! I could bite you!" I could not help being amused, though I also felt real concern. My eyes were wandering from young Mr. Turveydrop working so hard, to old Mr. Turveydrop deporting himself so beautifully, when the latter came ambling up to me. He asked me whether I conferred a charm and a distinction on London by residing in it? I did not think it necessary to reply that I was perfectly aware I should not do that, but merely told him where I did reside. "A lady so graceful and accomplished," he said, kissing his right glove and extending it towards the pupils, "will look leniently on the deficiencies here. We do our best to polish!" He sat elegantly down beside me. "To polish!" he repeated, taking a pinch of snuff and gently fluttering his fingers. "But we are not, if I may say so to one gracefully formed both by Nature and Art - we are not what we used to be in point of deportment." "Are we not, sir?" said I. "We have degenerated," he returned, shaking his head, which he could do to a very limited extent in his cravat. "Perhaps I am prejudiced. It may not be for me to say that I have been called, for some years now, Gentleman Turveydrop, or that his Royal Highness the Prince Regent did me the honour to inquire, on my removing my hat as he drove out of the Pavilion at Brighton, 'Who is he? Why hasn't he thirty thousand a year?' But these are little matters of anecdote, ma'am, still repeated occasionally among the upper classes." "Indeed?" said I. He replied with a high-shouldered bow. "Where what is left among us of deportment," he added, "still lingers. England - alas, my country! - has degenerated very much. She has not many gentlemen left. We are few. I see nothing to succeed us but a race of weavers." "One might hope that the race of gentlemen would be perpetuated here," said I. "You are very good." He smiled. "You flatter me. But, no! I have never been able to imbue my poor boy with that part of his art. He has no deportment." "He appears to be an excellent teacher," I observed. "He is. All that can be imparted, he can impart. But there are things-" He took another pinch of snuff and bowed again. I glanced towards the centre of the room, where Miss Jellyby's lover was undergoing his drudgery. "Your son is indefatigable," said I. "He treads in the footsteps of his sainted mother. She was a devoted creature. But wooman, lovely wooman," said Mr. Turveydrop with very disagreeable gallantry, "what a sex you are!" I rose and joined Miss Jellyby, who was putting on her bonnet, for the lesson was over, and there was a general putting on of bonnets. When Miss Jellyby and the unfortunate Prince found an opportunity to become betrothed I don't know, but they certainly found none on this occasion to exchange a dozen words. "My dear," said Mr. Turveydrop benignly to his son, "do you know the hour?" "No, father." The son had no watch. The father had a handsome gold one, which he pulled out with an air. "My son, it's two o'clock. Recollect your school at Kensington at three." "That's time enough, father," said Prince. "I can take a morsel of dinner standing and be off." "My dear boy," returned his father, "you must be very quick. You will find the cold mutton on the table." "Thank you, father. Are you off now, father?" "Yes, my dear. I suppose," said Mr. Turveydrop, shutting his eyes modestly, "that I must show myself, as usual, about town." "Dine out comfortably somewhere," said his son. "My dear child, I intend to. I shall take my little meal, I think, at the French house, in the Opera Colonnade." "Good-bye, father!" said Prince. "Good-bye, my son. Bless you!" Mr. Turveydrop said this in quite a pious manner, and it seemed to do his son good. He seemed so pleased and dutifully proud of his father that I almost felt as if it were unkind to him not to believe implicitly in his parent. I felt a liking for Prince, and compassion for him as he put away his kit and went good-humouredly to his cold mutton and his school at Kensington. The father opened the door for us and bowed us out in a regal manner. For some moments, I was so lost in wondering if there had ever been any other gentlemen who lived and founded a reputation entirely on their deportment. Then I resolved to attend to Caddy; and we chatted all the rest of the way to Lincoln's Inn. Caddy told me that her lover's education had been so neglected that it was not always easy to read his notes. But how could he be expected to be a scholar when he had passed his whole life in the dancing-school and had done nothing but teach and work, morning, noon, and night! And what did it matter? She could write letters enough for both, and it was better for him to be amiable than learned. "Besides, I'm not an accomplished girl myself," said Caddy. "I know little enough, I am sure, thanks to Ma! "There's another thing I want to tell you, now we are alone," she continued. "Miss Summerson, you know what a house ours is. It's no use my trying to learn anything about house-keeping in our house. We live in such a state of muddle that it's impossible. So I get a little practice with - who do you think? Poor Miss Flite! Early in the morning I help her to tidy her room and clean her birds, and I make her cup of coffee for her (of course she taught me), and I have learnt to make it so well that Prince says it's the very best coffee he ever tasted, and would quite delight old Mr. Turveydrop, who is very particular about his coffee. I can make little puddings too; and I know a good many housekeeping things. I am not clever at my needle, yet," said Caddy, glancing at the repairs on Peepy's frock, "but perhaps I shall improve, and since I have been engaged to Prince and have been doing all this, I have felt better-tempered, I hope, and more forgiving to Ma. It rather put me out at first this morning to see you and Miss Clare looking so neat and pretty and to feel ashamed of Peepy and myself, but on the whole I hope I am better-tempered than I was." The poor girl said it from her heart, and touched mine. "Caddy, my love," I replied, "I begin to have a great affection for you, and I hope we shall become friends." "Oh, do you?" cried Caddy. "How happy that would make me!" "My dear Caddy," said I, "let us be friends, and often have a chat about these matters and try to find the right way through them." Caddy was overjoyed. I said everything I could in my old-fashioned way to comfort and encourage her. By this time we were come to Mr. Krook's, whose private door stood open. There was a bill pasted on the door-post, announcing a room to let on the second floor. Caddy told me as we went upstairs that there had been a sudden death there and an inquest, and that our little friend had been ill of the fright. The door of the vacant room being open, we looked in. A sad and desolate place it was, a gloomy place that gave me a strange sensation of mournfulness and even dread. "You look pale," said Caddy, "and cold!" I felt as if the room had chilled me. My guardian and Ada were here before us, in Miss Flite's garret. They were looking at the birds, while a medical gentleman who was so good as to attend Miss Flite spoke with her cheerfully by the fire. "I have finished my professional visit," he said, coming forward. "Miss Flite is much better and may appear in court (as her mind is set upon it) tomorrow. She has been greatly missed there, I understand." Miss Flite dropped us a curtsy. "Honoured, indeed," said she, "by another visit from the wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy! Fitz-Jarndyce, my dear" - she had bestowed that name on Caddy, it appeared - "a double welcome!" "Has she been very ill?" asked Mr. Jarndyce of the doctor in a whisper. She answered for herself. "Oh, very unwell indeed," she said confidentially. "Not bodily pain, you know, so much as nervous trouble. The truth is," in a subdued voice, "we have had death here. There was poison in the house. It frightened me. Only Mr. Woodcourt knows how much. My physician, Mr. Woodcourt!" "Miss Flite," said Mr. Woodcourt, laying his hand gently on her arm, "was alarmed by an occurrence in the house which might have alarmed a stronger person, and was made ill by the distress and agitation. She brought me here in the first hurry of the discovery, though too late for me to be of any use to the unfortunate man. I hope I have been of some small use to her." "The kindest physician in the college," whispered Miss Flite to me. "I expect a judgment. And shall then confer estates." "She will be as well as ever in a day or two," said Mr. Woodcourt, looking at her with an observant smile. "Have you heard of her good fortune?" "Most extraordinary!" said Miss Flite, smiling brightly. "You never heard of such a thing, my dear! Every Saturday, Mr. Kenge or Guppy his clerk places in my hand a paper of shillings. Always the same number. Always one for every day in the week. From whence do these papers come, you say? That is the great question. Naturally. Shall I tell you what I think? I think," said she, with a very shrewd look, "that the Lord Chancellor, aware of the length of time during which the Great Seal has been open, forwards them. Until the judgment I expect is given. Now that's very creditable, you know. So delicate! Attending court the other day - I attend it regularly, with my documents - I taxed him with it, and he almost confessed. That is, I smiled at him from my bench, and he smiled at me from his bench. But it's great good fortune, is it not?" I congratulated her upon this fortunate addition to her income. I did not speculate upon its source. My guardian stood before me, contemplating the birds, and I had no need to look beyond him. "And what do you call these little fellows, ma'am?" said he in his pleasant voice. "Have they any names?" "I can answer for Miss Flite that they have," said I, "for she promised to tell us what they were." "Did I?" said Miss Flite. "Who's that at my door? What are you listening at my door for, Krook?" The old man of the house, pushing it open, appeared there with his cat at his heels. "I warn't listening, Miss Flite," he said, "I was going to give a rap, only you're so quick!" "Make your cat go down!" the old lady angrily exclaimed. "Bah, bah! There ain't no danger, gentlefolks," said Mr. Krook, looking slowly and sharply at each of us in turn; "she'd never go at the birds when I was here unless I told her to." "You will excuse my landlord," said the old lady with a dignified air. "M, quite M! What do you want, Krook?" "Hi!" said the old man with a chuckle. "You know I am the Chancellor; and for the Chancellor not to be acquainted with a Jarndyce is queer, ain't it, Miss Flite? Your servant, sir. I know Jarndyce and Jarndyce a'most as well as you do, sir. I knowed old Squire Tom, sir. I never to my knowledge see you afore though, not even in court." "I never go there," said Mr. Jarndyce. "Well, perhaps it is but nat'ral in a Jarndyce, sir! You're looking at my lodger's birds, Mr. Jarndyce?" The old man had come into the room, and now looked close up into my guardian's face. "It's one of her strange ways that she'll never tell the names of these birds if she can help it." This was in a whisper. "Shall I run 'em over, Flite?" he asked aloud, winking at us. "If you like." The old man, looking at the cages, went through the list. "Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach. That's the whole collection," said the old man, "all cooped up together, by my noble and learned brother the Chancellor." "This is a bitter wind!" muttered my guardian. "When my noble and learned brother gives his judgment, they're to be let go free," said Krook, winking at us again, and adding in a whisper. "And if that ever was to happen - which it won't - the birds that have never been caged would kill 'em." "If ever the wind was in the east," said my guardian, "I think it's there today!" We found it very difficult to get away from the house. It was not Miss Flite who detained us; it was Mr. Krook. He seemed unable to detach himself from Mr. Jarndyce. He proposed to show us his Court of Chancery and all the strange medley it contained. During the inspection he kept close to Mr. Jarndyce and sometimes detained him, as if he were tormented by a wish to enter upon some secret subject which he could not make up his mind to approach. He rarely removed his watchful eyes from my guardian's face, but observed him with the slyness of an old fox and a curious expression of a sense of power. At last, having been all over the house and having seen the whole curious stock, we came into the back of the shop. Here on an empty barrel stood on end were an ink-bottle, pens, and some dirty playbills; and against the wall were pasted several large printed alphabets. "What are you doing here?" asked my guardian. "Trying to learn myself to read and write," said Krook. "And how do you get on?" "Slow. Bad," returned the old man impatiently. "It's hard at my time of life." "It would be easier to be taught by some one," said my guardian. "Aye, but they might teach me wrong!" returned the old man with a suspicious flash of his eye. "Wrong?" said my guardian with his good-humoured smile. "Who do you suppose would teach you wrong?" "I don't know, Mr. Jarndyce!" replied the old man. "I don't suppose as anybody would, but I'd rather trust my own self than another!" His manner was strange enough to cause my guardian to ask Mr. Woodcourt, as we walked across Lincoln's Inn together, whether Mr. Krook were really deranged, as Miss Flite suggested. The young surgeon replied no, he had seen no reason to think so. Krook was exceedingly distrustful, and generally under the influence of gin, of which he and his back-shop smelt strongly; but he did not think him mad. On our way home, I bought Peepy a windmill - so he would sit nowhere at dinner but at my side. Caddy sat upon my other side, next to Ada, to whom we told the history of the engagement. We made much of Caddy, and Peepy too; and Caddy brightened, and my guardian was merry; and we were all very happy indeed until Caddy went home at night in a hackney-coach, with Peepy fast asleep, but holding tight to the windmill. I have forgotten to mention that Mr. Woodcourt was the same dark young surgeon whom we had met at Mr. Badger's. Or that Mr. Jarndyce invited him to dinner that day, and that he came. Or that when they were all gone and I said to Ada, "Now, my darling, let us have a little talk about Richard!", Ada laughed and said- But I don't think it matters what my darling said. She was always merry.

Bleak House

Chapter 14: Deportment

George's Shooting Gallery is to let, and the stock is sold off, and George himself is at Chesney Wold attending on Sir Leicester in his rides and riding very near his bridle-rein because of the uncertain hand with which he guides his horse. But not to-day is George so occupied. He is journeying to-day into the iron country farther north to look about him. As he comes into the iron country farther north, such fresh green woods as those of Chesney Wold are left behind; and coal pits and ashes, high chimneys and red bricks, blighted verdure, scorching fires, and a heavy never-lightening cloud of smoke become the features of the scenery. Among such objects rides the trooper, looking about him and always looking for something he has come to find. At last, on the black canal bridge of a busy town, with a clang of iron in it, and more fires and more smoke than he has seen yet, the trooper, swart with the dust of the coal roads, checks his horse and asks a workman does he know the name of Rouncewell thereabouts. "Why, master," quoth the workman, "do I know my own name?" "'Tis so well known here, is it, comrade?" asks the trooper. "Rouncewell's? Ah! You're right." "And where might it be now?" asks the trooper with a glance before him. "The bank, the factory, or the house?" the workman wants to know. "Hum! Rouncewell's is so great apparently," mutters the trooper, stroking his chin, "that I have as good as half a mind to go back again. Why, I don't know which I want. Should I find Mr. Rouncewell at the factory, do you think?" "Tain't easy to say where you'd find him--at this time of the day you might find either him or his son there, if he's in town; but his contracts take him away." And which is the factory? Why, he sees those chimneys--the tallest ones! Yes, he sees THEM. Well! Let him keep his eye on those chimneys, going on as straight as ever he can, and presently he'll see 'em down a turning on the left, shut in by a great brick wall which forms one side of the street. That's Rouncewell's. The trooper thanks his informant and rides slowly on, looking about him. He does not turn back, but puts up his horse (and is much disposed to groom him too) at a public-house where some of Rouncewell's hands are dining, as the ostler tells him. Some of Rouncewell's hands have just knocked off for dinner-time and seem to be invading the whole town. They are very sinewy and strong, are Rouncewell's hands--a little sooty too. He comes to a gateway in the brick wall, looks in, and sees a great perplexity of iron lying about in every stage and in a vast variety of shapes--in bars, in wedges, in sheets; in tanks, in boilers, in axles, in wheels, in cogs, in cranks, in rails; twisted and wrenched into eccentric and perverse forms as separate parts of machinery; mountains of it broken up, and rusty in its age; distant furnaces of it glowing and bubbling in its youth; bright fireworks of it showering about under the blows of the steam-hammer; red-hot iron, white-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste, an iron smell, and a Babel of iron sounds. "This is a place to make a man's head ache too!" says the trooper, looking about him for a counting-house. "Who comes here? This is very like me before I was set up. This ought to be my nephew, if likenesses run in families. Your servant, sir." "Yours, sir. Are you looking for any one?" "Excuse me. Young Mr. Rouncewell, I believe?" "Yes." "I was looking for your father, sir. I wish to have a word with him." The young man, telling him he is fortunate in his choice of a time, for his father is there, leads the way to the office where he is to be found. "Very like me before I was set up--devilish like me!" thinks the trooper as he follows. They come to a building in the yard with an office on an upper floor. At sight of the gentleman in the office, Mr. George turns very red. "What name shall I say to my father?" asks the young man. George, full of the idea of iron, in desperation answers "Steel," and is so presented. He is left alone with the gentleman in the office, who sits at a table with account-books before him and some sheets of paper blotted with hosts of figures and drawings of cunning shapes. It is a bare office, with bare windows, looking on the iron view below. Tumbled together on the table are some pieces of iron, purposely broken to be tested at various periods of their service, in various capacities. There is iron-dust on everything; and the smoke is seen through the windows rolling heavily out of the tall chimneys to mingle with the smoke from a vaporous Babylon of other chimneys. "I am at your service, Mr. Steel," says the gentleman when his visitor has taken a rusty chair. "Well, Mr. Rouncewell," George replies, leaning forward with his left arm on his knee and his hat in his hand, and very chary of meeting his brother's eye, "I am not without my expectations that in the present visit I may prove to be more free than welcome. I have served as a dragoon in my day, and a comrade of mine that I was once rather partial to was, if I don't deceive myself, a brother of yours. I believe you had a brother who gave his family some trouble, and ran away, and never did any good but in keeping away?" "Are you quite sure," returns the ironmaster in an altered voice, "that your name is Steel?" The trooper falters and looks at him. His brother starts up, calls him by his name, and grasps him by both hands. "You are too quick for me!" cries the trooper with the tears springing out of his eyes. "How do you do, my dear old fellow? I never could have thought you would have been half so glad to see me as all this. How do you do, my dear old fellow, how do you do!" They shake hands and embrace each other over and over again, the trooper still coupling his "How do you do, my dear old fellow!" with his protestation that he never thought his brother would have been half so glad to see him as all this! "So far from it," he declares at the end of a full account of what has preceded his arrival there, "I had very little idea of making myself known. I thought if you took by any means forgivingly to my name I might gradually get myself up to the point of writing a letter. But 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 smoke and fires, and the trooper to the green country. Early in the afternoon the subdued sound of his heavy military trot is heard on the turf in the avenue as he rides on with imaginary clank and jingle of accoutrements under the old elm-trees.

George's Shooting Gallery is to let, and the stock is sold off, and George himself is at Chesney Wold attending on Sir Leicester in his rides, and riding very near because of the uncertain hand with which Sir Leicester guides his horse. But today George is not so occupied. He is journeying today into the iron country farther north. As he comes into the iron country, the fresh green woods are left behind; and coal pits and ashes, high chimneys and red bricks, and a heavy cloud of smoke become the features of the scenery. The trooper rides looking about him, looking for something he has come to find. At last, on the black canal bridge of a busy town, with more fires and smoke than he has seen yet, the trooper, dark with dust, stops his horse and asks a workman does he know the name of Rouncewell thereabouts. "Why, master, 'tis well known. The bank, the factory, or the house?" "Hum! Rouncewell's is so great apparently," mutters the trooper, stroking his chin, "that I have half a mind to go back again. Why, I don't know. Should I find Mr. Rouncewell at the factory, do you think?" "'Tain't easy to say - you might find either him or his son there, if he's in town; but his contracts take him away." And which is the factory? Why, he sees those tall chimneys? Let him keep his eye on those, going on straight, and presently he'll see 'em down a turning on the left, shut in by a great brick wall. That's Rouncewell's. The trooper thanks his informant and rides slowly on. He puts up his horse at a public-house where some of Rouncewell's factory-hands are dining, as the ostler tells him. They have just knocked off for dinner-time and seem to be invading the whole town. They are very sinewy and strong, and sooty too. He comes to a gateway in the brick wall, looks in, and sees a great perplexity of iron lying about in a vast variety of shapes - in bars, sheets, tanks, boilers, axles, wheels, cogs and rails; mountains of it broken up and rusty; distant furnaces glow, and bright fireworks shower under the blows of the steam-hammer. There is an iron taste, an iron smell, and a Babel of iron sounds. "This is a place to make a man's head ache!" says the trooper. "Who comes here? He looks very like me before I was set up. This ought to be my nephew. Excuse me, sir. Young Mr. Rouncewell, I believe?" "Yes, sir. Were you looking for anyone?" "I was looking for your father, sir. I wish to have a word with him." The young man leads the way to the office. "Devilish like me!" thinks the trooper as he follows. They come to a building in the yard with an office on an upper floor. At the sight of the gentleman in the office, Mr. George turns very red. "What name shall I say to my father?" asks the young man. George in desperation answers "Steel," and is so presented. He is left alone with the gentleman in the office, who sits at a table with account-books before him. Tumbled together on the table are some pieces of iron, purposely broken to be tested in various capacities. There is iron-dust on everything; and the smoke is seen through the windows rolling heavily out of the tall chimneys. "I am at your service, Mr. Steel," says the gentleman. "Well, Mr. Rouncewell," George replies, leaning forward and very chary of meeting his brother's eye, "I may not be fully welcome. I have served as a dragoon in my day, and a comrade of mine was a brother of yours. I believe you had a brother who gave his family some trouble, and ran away, and never did any good but in keeping away?" "Are you quite sure," returns the ironmaster in an altered voice, "that your name is Steel?" The trooper falters and looks at him. His brother starts up, calls him by his name, and grasps him by both hands. "You are too quick for me!" cries the trooper with the tears springing out of his eyes. "How do you do, my dear old fellow? I never could have thought you would have been half so glad to see me as all this." They embrace each other, the trooper still protesting that he never thought his brother would have been half so glad to see him as all this! "So far from it," he declares, after a full account of what has preceded his arrival, "I had very little idea of making myself known. I thought if you reacted forgivingly to my name I might get myself up to the point of writing a letter. But I should not have been surprised, brother, if you had considered it unwelcome news to hear of me." "We will show you at home what kind of news we think it, George," returns his brother. "You could not have arrived on a better day. I make an agreement with my son Watt today that on this day twelvemonth he shall marry as pretty and good a girl as you have seen in all your travels. She goes to Germany tomorrow with one of your nieces for a little polishing up in her education. We make a feast of the event, and you will be the hero of it." Mr. George is so entirely overcome that at first he resists the proposed honour. Being overborne, however, by his brother and his nephew, he is taken home to an elegant house which shows a pleasant mixture of the originally simple habits of the father and mother with the higher fortunes of their children. Here Mr. George is much dismayed by the graces and affection of his nieces and by the beauty of Rosa, his niece that is to be. He is sorely taken aback, too, by the dutiful behaviour of his nephew and has a woeful consciousness of being a scapegrace. However, there is great rejoicing and a very hearty company, and Mr. George comes bluff and martial through it all. His pledge to be present at the marriage is received with universal favour. A whirling head has Mr. George that night when he lies down in bed. The brothers are closeted next morning in the ironmaster's room. The elder is proceeding, in his sensible way, to show how he thinks he may place George in his business, when George squeezes his hand and stops him. "Brother, I thank you a million times for your welcome, and a million times more for your brotherly intentions. But my plans are made. Before I say a word about them, I wish to consult you upon one family point. How," says the trooper, folding his arms firmly, "how is my mother to be got to scratch me?" "I am not sure that I understand you, George," replies the ironmaster. "Scratch you out of her will, you mean?" "Of course I do. I have not sneaked home to rob your children of their rights. I, who forfeited mine long ago! If I am to hold up my head, I must be scratched." "George," replies the ironmaster deliberately, "look at our mother, recall her emotion when she recovered you. Do you believe anything in the world would induce her to take such a step against her favourite son? 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?" "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. "Would you mind mentioning that, brother, to your wife and family?" "Not at all." "You wouldn't object to say, perhaps, that although an undoubted vagabond, I am a vagabond of the harum-scarum type, and not of the mean sort?" The ironmaster, repressing his smile, assents. "Thank you. It's a weight off my mind," says the trooper, "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 is all on the trooper's side. "Well," he proceeds, "next and last, those plans of mine. You have been so brotherly as to propose to me to fall in here, and I thank you heartily," shaking him a long time by the hand. "But the truth is, brother, I am a kind of weed, and it's too late to plant me in a regular garden. It is not to be done, sir! Whereas, on the other hand, I am able to be of some use to Sir Leicester Dedlock since his illness, and 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 shadow upon his open face, "if you prefer to serve in Sir Leicester Dedlock's household brigade-" "There it is, brother," cries the trooper, stopping him. "You don't take kindly to that idea; I don't mind it. Everything about you is in perfect order and discipline; everything about me requires to be kept so. 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 Sir Leicester Dedlock's proposals. 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 long as we don't lose one another again." "No fear of that!" returns the trooper. "Now, before I go home, 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, and I want this letter to be both straightforward and delicate." Herewith he hands a letter, closely written in a neat round hand, to the ironmaster, who reads as follows: Miss Esther Summerson, Inspector Bucket having informed me 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, about when and where 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, unless shot through the heart. I further take the liberty to mention that if I could have supposed a certain unfortunate gentleman to have been living, I never could have rested until I had discovered him and shared my last farthing with him. But he was 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. I further take the liberty to state that in my humble quality as one of the rank and file, I am, and shall ever be, your thoroughly devoted and admiring servant. 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 modest young lady?" asks the younger. "Nothing at all." Therefore it is deposited for posting among the iron correspondence of the day. This done, Mr. George takes a hearty farewell of the family and prepares to saddle. His brother, however, unwilling to part with him so soon, proposes to ride with him to the inn where he will rest for the night, and there remain with him until morning. The offer, 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 and part, the ironmaster turning his face to the smoke and fires, and the trooper to the green country. Early in the afternoon the subdued sound of his heavy military trot is heard on the turf in the avenue, as he rides on under the old elm-trees.

Bleak House

Chapter 63: Steel and Iron

I don't know how it is I seem to be always writing about myself. I mean all the time to write about other people, and I try to think about myself as little as possible, and I am sure, when I find myself coming into the story again, I am really vexed and say, "Dear, dear, you tiresome little creature, I wish you wouldn't!" but it is all of no use. I hope any one who may read what I write will understand that if these pages contain a great deal about me, I can only suppose it must be because I have really something to do with them and can't be kept out. My darling and I read together, and worked, and practised, and found so much employment for our time that the winter days flew by us like bright-winged birds. Generally in the afternoons, and always in the evenings, Richard gave us his company. Although he was one of the most restless creatures in the world, he certainly was very fond of our society. He was very, very, very fond of Ada. I mean it, and I had better say it at once. I had never seen any young people falling in love before, but I found them out quite soon. I could not say so, of course, or show that I knew anything about it. On the contrary, I was so demure and used to seem so unconscious that sometimes I considered within myself while I was sitting at work whether I was not growing quite deceitful. But there was no help for it. All I had to do was to be quiet, and I was as quiet as a mouse. They were as quiet as mice too, so far as any words were concerned, but the innocent manner in which they relied more and more upon me as they took more and more to one another was so charming that I had great difficulty in not showing how it interested me. "Our dear little old woman is such a capital old woman," Richard would say, coming up to meet me in the garden early, with his pleasant laugh and perhaps the least tinge of a blush, "that I can't get on without her. Before I begin my harum-scarum day--grinding away at those books and instruments and then galloping up hill and down dale, all the country round, like a highwayman--it does me so much good to come and have a steady walk with our comfortable friend, that here I am again!" "You know, Dame Durden, dear," Ada would say at night, with her head upon my shoulder and the firelight shining in her thoughtful eyes, "I don't want to talk when we come upstairs here. Only to sit a little while thinking, with your dear face for company, and to hear the wind and remember the poor sailors at sea--" Ah! Perhaps Richard was going to be a sailor. We had talked it over very often now, and there was some talk of gratifying the inclination of his childhood for the sea. Mr. Jarndyce had written to a relation of the family, a great Sir Leicester Dedlock, for his interest in Richard's favour, generally; and Sir Leicester had replied in a gracious manner that he would be happy to advance the prospects of the young gentleman if it should ever prove to be within his power, which was not at all probable, and that my Lady sent her compliments to the young gentleman (to whom she perfectly remembered that she was allied by remote consanguinity) and trusted that he would ever do his duty in any honourable profession to which he might devote himself. "So I apprehend it's pretty clear," said Richard to me, "that I shall have to work my own way. Never mind! Plenty of people have had to do that before now, and have done it. I only wish I had the command of a clipping privateer to begin with and could carry off the Chancellor and keep him on short allowance until he gave judgment in our cause. He'd find himself growing thin, if he didn't look sharp!" With a buoyancy and hopefulness and a gaiety that hardly ever flagged, Richard had a carelessness in his character that quite perplexed me, principally because he mistook it, in such a very odd way, for prudence. It entered into all his calculations about money in a singular manner which I don't think I can better explain than by reverting for a moment to our loan to Mr. Skimpole. Mr. Jarndyce had ascertained the amount, either from Mr. Skimpole himself or from Coavinses, and had placed the money in my hands with instructions to me to retain my own part of it and hand the rest to Richard. The number of little acts of thoughtless expenditure which Richard justified by the recovery of his ten pounds, and the number of times he talked to me as if he had saved or realized that amount, would form a sum in simple addition. "My prudent Mother Hubbard, why not?" he said to me when he wanted, without the least consideration, to bestow five pounds on the brickmaker. "I made ten pounds, clear, out of Coavinses' business." "How was that?" said I. "Why, I got rid of ten pounds which I was quite content to get rid of and never expected to see any more. You don't deny that?" "No," said I. "Very well! Then I came into possession of ten pounds--" "The same ten pounds," I hinted. "That has nothing to do with it!" returned Richard. "I have got ten pounds more than I expected to have, and consequently I can afford to spend it without being particular." In exactly the same way, when he was persuaded out of the sacrifice of these five pounds by being convinced that it would do no good, he carried that sum to his credit and drew upon it. "Let me see!" he would say. "I saved five pounds out of the brickmaker's affair, so if I have a good rattle to London and back in a post-chaise and put that down at four pounds, I shall have saved one. And it's a very good thing to save one, let me tell you: a penny saved is a penny got!" I believe Richard's was as frank and generous a nature as there possibly can be. He was ardent and brave, and in the midst of all his wild restlessness, was so gentle that I knew him like a brother in a few weeks. His gentleness was natural to him and would have shown itself abundantly even without Ada's influence; but with it, he became one of the most winning of companions, always so ready to be interested and always so happy, sanguine, and light-hearted. I am sure that I, sitting with them, and walking with them, and talking with them, and noticing from day to day how they went on, falling deeper and deeper in love, and saying nothing about it, and each shyly thinking that this love was the greatest of secrets, perhaps not yet suspected even by the other--I am sure that I was scarcely less enchanted than they were and scarcely less pleased with the pretty dream. We were going on in this way, when one morning at breakfast Mr. Jarndyce received a letter, and looking at the superscription, said, "From Boythorn? Aye, aye!" and opened and read it with evident pleasure, announcing to us in a parenthesis when he was about half-way through, that Boythorn was "coming down" on a visit. Now who was Boythorn, we all thought. And I dare say we all thought too--I am sure I did, for one--would Boythorn at all interfere with what was going forward? "I went to school with this fellow, Lawrence Boythorn," said Mr. Jarndyce, tapping the letter as he laid it on the table, "more than five and forty years ago. He was then the most impetuous boy in the world, and he is now the most impetuous man. He was then the loudest boy in the world, and he is now the loudest man. He was then the heartiest and sturdiest boy in the world, and he is now the heartiest and sturdiest man. He is a tremendous fellow." "In stature, sir?" asked Richard. "Pretty well, Rick, in that respect," said Mr. Jarndyce; "being some ten years older than I and a couple of inches taller, with his head thrown back like an old soldier, his stalwart chest squared, his hands like a clean blacksmith's, and his lungs! There's no simile for his lungs. Talking, laughing, or snoring, they make the beams of the house shake." As Mr. Jarndyce sat enjoying the image of his friend Boythorn, we observed the favourable omen that there was not the least indication of any change in the wind. "But it's the inside of the man, the warm heart of the man, the passion of the man, the fresh blood of the man, Rick--and Ada, and little Cobweb too, for you are all interested in a visitor--that I speak of," he pursued. "His language is as sounding as his voice. He is always in extremes, perpetually in the superlative degree. In his condemnation he is all ferocity. You might suppose him to be an ogre from what he says, and I believe he has the reputation of one with some people. There! I tell you no more of him beforehand. You must not be surprised to see him take me under his protection, for he has never forgotten that I was a low boy at school and that our friendship began in his knocking two of my head tyrant's teeth out (he says six) before breakfast. Boythorn and his man," to me, "will be here this afternoon, my dear." I took care that the necessary preparations were made for Mr. Boythorn's reception, and we looked forward to his arrival with some curiosity. The afternoon wore away, however, and he did not appear. The dinner-hour arrived, and still he did not appear. The dinner was put back an hour, and we were sitting round the fire with no light but the blaze when the hall-door suddenly burst open and the hall resounded with these words, uttered with the greatest vehemence and in a stentorian tone: "We have been misdirected, Jarndyce, by a most abandoned ruffian, who told us to take the turning to the right instead of to the left. He is the most intolerable scoundrel on the face of the earth. His father must have been a most consummate villain, ever to have such a son. I would have had that fellow shot without the least remorse!" "Did he do it on purpose?" Mr. Jarndyce inquired. "I have not the slightest doubt that the scoundrel has passed his whole existence in misdirecting travellers!" returned the other. "By my soul, I thought him the worst-looking dog I had ever beheld when he was telling me to take the turning to the right. And yet I stood before that fellow face to face and didn't knock his brains out!" "Teeth, you mean?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, really making the whole house vibrate. "What, you have not forgotten it yet! Ha, ha, ha! And that was another most consummate vagabond! By my soul, the countenance of that fellow when he was a boy was the blackest image of perfidy, cowardice, and cruelty ever set up as a scarecrow in a field of scoundrels. If I were to meet that most unparalleled despot in the streets to-morrow, I would fell him like a rotten tree!" "I have no doubt of it," said Mr. Jarndyce. "Now, will you come upstairs?" "By my soul, Jarndyce," returned his guest, who seemed to refer to his watch, "if you had been married, I would have turned back at the garden-gate and gone away to the remotest summits of the Himalaya Mountains sooner than I would have presented myself at this unseasonable hour." "Not quite so far, I hope?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "By my life and honour, yes!" cried the visitor. "I wouldn't be guilty of the audacious insolence of keeping a lady of the house waiting all this time for any earthly consideration. I would infinitely rather destroy myself--infinitely rather!" Talking thus, they went upstairs, and presently we heard him in his bedroom thundering "Ha, ha, ha!" and again "Ha, ha, ha!" until the flattest echo in the neighbourhood seemed to catch the contagion and to laugh as enjoyingly as he did or as we did when we heard him laugh. We all conceived a prepossession in his favour, for there was a sterling quality in this laugh, and in his vigorous, healthy voice, and in the roundness and fullness with which he uttered every word he spoke, and in the very fury of his superlatives, which seemed to go off like blank cannons and hurt nothing. But we were hardly prepared to have it so confirmed by his appearance when Mr. Jarndyce presented him. He was not only a very handsome old gentleman--upright and stalwart as he had been described to us--with a massive grey head, a fine composure of face when silent, a figure that might have become corpulent but for his being so continually in earnest that he gave it no rest, and a chin that might have subsided into a double chin but for the vehement emphasis in which it was constantly required to assist; but he was such a true gentleman in his manner, so chivalrously polite, his face was lighted by a smile of so much sweetness and tenderness, and it seemed so plain that he had nothing to hide, but showed himself exactly as he was--incapable, as Richard said, of anything on a limited scale, and firing away with those blank great guns because he carried no small arms whatever--that really I could not help looking at him with equal pleasure as he sat at dinner, whether he smilingly conversed with Ada and me, or was led by Mr. Jarndyce into some great volley of superlatives, or threw up his head like a bloodhound and gave out that tremendous "Ha, ha, ha!" "You have brought your bird with you, I suppose?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "By heaven, he is the most astonishing bird in Europe!" replied the other. "He IS the most wonderful creature! I wouldn't take ten thousand guineas for that bird. I have left an annuity for his sole support in case he should outlive me. He is, in sense and attachment, a phenomenon. And his father before him was one of the most astonishing birds that ever lived!" The subject of this laudation was a very little canary, who was so tame that he was brought down by Mr. Boythorn's man, on his forefinger, and after taking a gentle flight round the room, alighted on his master's head. To hear Mr. Boythorn presently expressing the most implacable and passionate sentiments, with this fragile mite of a creature quietly perched on his forehead, was to have a good illustration of his character, I thought. "By my soul, Jarndyce," he said, very gently holding up a bit of bread to the canary to peck at, "if I were in your place I would seize every master in Chancery by the throat to-morrow morning and shake him until his money rolled out of his pockets and his bones rattled in his skin. I would have a settlement out of somebody, by fair means or by foul. If you would empower me to do it, I would do it for you with the greatest satisfaction!" (All this time the very small canary was eating out of his hand.) "I thank you, Lawrence, but the suit is hardly at such a point at present," returned Mr. Jarndyce, laughing, "that it would be greatly advanced even by the legal process of shaking the bench and the whole bar." "There never was such an infernal cauldron as that Chancery on the face of the earth!" said Mr. Boythorn. "Nothing but a mine below it on a busy day in term time, with all its records, rules, and precedents collected in it and every functionary belonging to it also, high and low, upward and downward, from its son the Accountant-General to its father the Devil, and the whole blown to atoms with ten thousand hundredweight of gunpowder, would reform it in the least!" It was impossible not to laugh at the energetic gravity with which he recommended this strong measure of reform. When we laughed, he threw up his head and shook his broad chest, and again the whole country seemed to echo to his "Ha, ha, ha!" It had not the least effect in disturbing the bird, whose sense of security was complete and who hopped about the table with its quick head now on this side and now on that, turning its bright sudden eye on its master as if he were no more than another bird. "But how do you and your neighbour get on about the disputed right of way?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "You are not free from the toils of the law yourself!" "The fellow has brought actions against ME for trespass, and I have brought actions against HIM for trespass," returned Mr. Boythorn. "By heaven, he is the proudest fellow breathing. It is morally impossible that his name can be Sir Leicester. It must be Sir Lucifer." "Complimentary to our distant relation!" said my guardian laughingly to Ada and Richard. "I would beg Miss Clare's pardon and Mr. Carstone's pardon," resumed our visitor, "if I were not reassured by seeing in the fair face of the lady and the smile of the gentleman that it is quite unnecessary and that they keep their distant relation at a comfortable distance." "Or he keeps us," suggested Richard. "By my soul," exclaimed Mr. Boythorn, suddenly firing another volley, "that fellow is, and his father was, and his grandfather was, the most stiff-necked, arrogant imbecile, pig-headed numskull, ever, by some inexplicable mistake of Nature, born in any station of life but a walking-stick's! The whole of that family are the most solemnly conceited and consummate blockheads! But it's no matter; he should not shut up my path if he were fifty baronets melted into one and living in a hundred Chesney Wolds, one within another, like the ivory balls in a Chinese carving. The fellow, by his agent, or secretary, or somebody, writes to me 'Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, presents his compliments to Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, and has to call his attention to the fact that the green pathway by the old parsonage-house, now the property of Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, is Sir Leicester's right of way, being in fact a portion of the park of Chesney Wold, and that Sir Leicester finds it convenient to close up the same.' I write to the fellow, 'Mr. Lawrence Boythorn presents his compliments to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and has to call HIS attention to the fact that he totally denies the whole of Sir Leicester Dedlock's positions on every possible subject and has to add, in reference to closing up the pathway, that he will be glad to see the man who may undertake to do it.' The fellow sends a most abandoned villain with one eye to construct a gateway. I play upon that execrable scoundrel with a fire-engine until the breath is nearly driven out of his body. The fellow erects a gate in the night. I chop it down and burn it in the morning. He sends his myrmidons to come over the fence and pass and repass. I catch them in humane man traps, fire split peas at their legs, play upon them with the engine--resolve to free mankind from the insupportable burden of the existence of those lurking ruffians. He brings actions for trespass; I bring actions for trespass. He brings actions for assault and battery; I defend them and continue to assault and batter. Ha, ha, ha!" To hear him say all this with unimaginable energy, one might have thought him the angriest of mankind. To see him at the very same time, looking at the bird now perched upon his thumb and softly smoothing its feathers with his forefinger, one might have thought him the gentlest. To hear him laugh and see the broad good nature of his face then, one might have supposed that he had not a care in the world, or a dispute, or a dislike, but that his whole existence was a summer joke. "No, no," he said, "no closing up of my paths by any Dedlock! Though I willingly confess," here he softened in a moment, "that Lady Dedlock is the most accomplished lady in the world, to whom I would do any homage that a plain gentleman, and no baronet with a head seven hundred years thick, may. A man who joined his regiment at twenty and within a week challenged the most imperious and presumptuous coxcomb of a commanding officer that ever drew the breath of life through a tight waist--and got broke for it--is not the man to be walked over by all the Sir Lucifers, dead or alive, locked or unlocked. Ha, ha, ha!" "Nor the man to allow his junior to be walked over either?" said my guardian. "Most assuredly not!" said Mr. Boythorn, clapping him on the shoulder with an air of protection that had something serious in it, though he laughed. "He will stand by the low boy, always. Jarndyce, you may rely upon him! But speaking of this trespass--with apologies to Miss Clare and Miss Summerson for the length at which I have pursued so dry a subject--is there nothing for me from your men Kenge and Carboy?" "I think not, Esther?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "Nothing, guardian." "Much obliged!" said Mr. Boythorn. "Had no need to ask, after even my slight experience of Miss Summerson's forethought for every one about her." (They all encouraged me; they were determined to do it.) "I inquired because, coming from Lincolnshire, I of course have not yet been in town, and I thought some letters might have been sent down here. I dare say they will report progress to-morrow morning." I saw him so often in the course of the evening, which passed very pleasantly, contemplate Richard and Ada with an interest and a satisfaction that made his fine face remarkably agreeable as he sat at a little distance from the piano listening to the music--and he had small occasion to tell us that he was passionately fond of music, for his face showed it--that I asked my guardian as we sat at the backgammon board whether Mr. Boythorn had ever been married. "No," said he. "No." "But he meant to be!" said I. "How did you find out that?" he returned with a smile. "Why, guardian," I explained, not without reddening a little at hazarding what was in my thoughts, "there is something so tender in his manner, after all, and he is so very courtly and gentle to us, and--" Mr. Jarndyce directed his eyes to where he was sitting as I have just described him. I said no more. "You are right, little woman," he answered. "He was all but married once. Long ago. And once." "Did the lady die?" "No--but she died to him. That time has had its influence on all his later life. Would you suppose him to have a head and a heart full of romance yet?" "I think, guardian, I might have supposed so. But it is easy to say that when you have told me so." "He has never since been what he might have been," said Mr. Jarndyce, "and now you see him in his age with no one near him but his servant and his little yellow friend. It's your throw, my dear!" I felt, from my guardian's manner, that beyond this point I could not pursue the subject without changing the wind. I therefore forbore to ask any further questions. I was interested, but not curious. I thought a little while about this old love story in the night, when I was awakened by Mr. Boythorn's lusty snoring; and I tried to do that very difficult thing, imagine old people young again and invested with the graces of youth. But I fell asleep before I had succeeded, and dreamed of the days when I lived in my godmother's house. I am not sufficiently acquainted with such subjects to know whether it is at all remarkable that I almost always dreamed of that period of my life. With the morning there came a letter from Messrs. Kenge and Carboy to Mr. Boythorn informing him that one of their clerks would wait upon him at noon. As it was the day of the week on which I paid the bills, and added up my books, and made all the household affairs as compact as possible, I remained at home while Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and Richard took advantage of a very fine day to make a little excursion, Mr. Boythorn was to wait for Kenge and Carboy's clerk and then was to go on foot to meet them on their return. Well! I was full of business, examining tradesmen's books, adding up columns, paying money, filing receipts, and I dare say making a great bustle about it when Mr. Guppy was announced and shown in. I had had some idea that the clerk who was to be sent down might be the young gentleman who had met me at the coach-office, and I was glad to see him, because he was associated with my present happiness. I scarcely knew him again, he was so uncommonly smart. He had an entirely new suit of glossy clothes on, a shining hat, lilac-kid gloves, a neckerchief of a variety of colours, a large hot-house flower in his button-hole, and a thick gold ring on his little finger. Besides which, he quite scented the dining-room with bear's-grease and other perfumery. He looked at me with an attention that quite confused me when I begged him to take a seat until the servant should return; and as he sat there crossing and uncrossing his legs in a corner, and I asked him if he had had a pleasant ride, and hoped that Mr. Kenge was well, I never looked at him, but I found him looking at me in the same scrutinizing and curious way. When the request was brought to him that he would go upstairs to Mr. Boythorn's room, I mentioned that he would find lunch prepared for him when he came down, of which Mr. Jarndyce hoped he would partake. He said with some embarrassment, holding the handle of the door, "Shall I have the honour of finding you here, miss?" I replied yes, I should be there; and he went out with a bow and another look. I thought him only awkward and shy, for he was evidently much embarrassed; and I fancied that the best thing I could do would be to wait until I saw that he had everything he wanted and then to leave him to himself. The lunch was soon brought, but it remained for some time on the table. The interview with Mr. Boythorn was a long one, and a stormy one too, I should think, for although his room was at some distance I heard his loud voice rising every now and then like a high wind, and evidently blowing perfect broadsides of denunciation. At last Mr. Guppy came back, looking something the worse for the conference. "My eye, miss," he said in a low voice, "he's a Tartar!" "Pray take some refreshment, sir," said I. Mr. Guppy sat down at the table and began nervously sharpening the carving-knife on the carving-fork, still looking at me (as I felt quite sure without looking at him) in the same unusual manner. The sharpening lasted so long that at last I felt a kind of obligation on me to raise my eyes in order that I might break the spell under which he seemed to labour, of not being able to leave off. He immediately looked at the dish and began to carve. "What will you take yourself, miss? You'll take a morsel of something?" "No, thank you," said I. "Shan't I give you a piece of anything at all, miss?" said Mr. Guppy, hurriedly drinking off a glass of wine. "Nothing, thank you," said I. "I have only waited to see that you have everything you want. Is there anything I can order for you?" "No, I am much obliged to you, miss, I'm sure. I've everything that I can require to make me comfortable--at least I--not comfortable--I'm never that." He drank off two more glasses of wine, one after another. I thought I had better go. "I beg your pardon, miss!" said Mr. Guppy, rising when he saw me rise. "But would you allow me the favour of a minute's private conversation?" Not knowing what to say, I sat down again. "What follows is without prejudice, miss?" said Mr. Guppy, anxiously bringing a chair towards my table. "I don't understand what you mean," said I, wondering. "It's one of our law terms, miss. You won't make any use of it to my detriment at Kenge and Carboy's or elsewhere. If our conversation shouldn't lead to anything, I am to be as I was and am not to be prejudiced in my situation or worldly prospects. In short, it's in total confidence." "I am at a loss, sir," said I, "to imagine what you can have to communicate in total confidence to me, whom you have never seen but once; but I should be very sorry to do you any injury." "Thank you, miss. I'm sure of it--that's quite sufficient." All this time Mr. Guppy was either planing his forehead with his handkerchief or tightly rubbing the palm of his left hand with the palm of his right. "If you would excuse my taking another glass of wine, miss, I think it might assist me in getting on without a continual choke that cannot fail to be mutually unpleasant." He did so, and came back again. I took the opportunity of moving well behind my table. "You wouldn't allow me to offer you one, would you miss?" said Mr. Guppy, apparently refreshed. "Not any," said I. "Not half a glass?" said Mr. Guppy. "Quarter? No! Then, to proceed. My present salary, Miss Summerson, at Kenge and Carboy's, is two pound a week. When I first had the happiness of looking upon you, it was one fifteen, and had stood at that figure for a lengthened period. A rise of five has since taken place, and a further rise of five is guaranteed at the expiration of a term not exceeding twelve months from the present date. My mother has a little property, which takes the form of a small life annuity, upon which she lives in an independent though unassuming manner in the Old Street Road. She is eminently calculated for a mother-in-law. She never interferes, is all for peace, and her disposition easy. She has her failings--as who has not?--but I never knew her do it when company was present, at which time you may freely trust her with wines, spirits, or malt liquors. My own abode is lodgings at Penton Place, Pentonville. It is lowly, but airy, open at the back, and considered one of the 'ealthiest outlets. Miss Summerson! In the mildest language, I adore you. Would you be so kind as to allow me (as I may say) to file a declaration--to make an offer!" Mr. Guppy went down on his knees. I was well behind my table and not much frightened. I said, "Get up from that ridiculous position immediately, sir, or you will oblige me to break my implied promise and ring the bell!" "Hear me out, miss!" said Mr. Guppy, folding his hands. "I cannot consent to hear another word, sir," I returned, "Unless you get up from the carpet directly and go and sit down at the table as you ought to do if you have any sense at all." He looked piteously, but slowly rose and did so. "Yet what a mockery it is, miss," he said with his hand upon his heart and shaking his head at me in a melancholy manner over the tray, "to be stationed behind food at such a moment. The soul recoils from food at such a moment, miss." "I beg you to conclude," said I; "you have asked me to hear you out, and I beg you to conclude." "I will, miss," said Mr. Guppy. "As I love and honour, so likewise I obey. Would that I could make thee the subject of that vow before the shrine!" "That is quite impossible," said I, "and entirely out of the question." "I am aware," said Mr. Guppy, leaning forward over the tray and regarding me, as I again strangely felt, though my eyes were not directed to him, with his late intent look, "I am aware that in a worldly point of view, according to all appearances, my offer is a poor one. But, Miss Summerson! Angel! No, don't ring--I have been brought up in a sharp school and am accustomed to a variety of general practice. Though a young man, I have ferreted out evidence, got up cases, and seen lots of life. Blest with your hand, what means might I not find of advancing your interests and pushing your fortunes! What might I not get to know, nearly concerning you? I know nothing now, certainly; but what MIGHT I not if I had your confidence, and you set me on?" I told him that he addressed my interest or what he supposed to be my interest quite as unsuccessfully as he addressed my inclination, and he would now understand that I requested him, if he pleased, to go away immediately. "Cruel miss," said Mr. Guppy, "hear but another word! I think you must have seen that I was struck with those charms on the day when I waited at the Whytorseller. I think you must have remarked that I could not forbear a tribute to those charms when I put up the steps of the 'ackney-coach. It was a feeble tribute to thee, but it was well meant. Thy image has ever since been fixed in my breast. I have walked up and down of an evening opposite Jellyby's house only to look upon the bricks that once contained thee. This out of to-day, quite an unnecessary out so far as the attendance, which was its pretended object, went, was planned by me alone for thee alone. If I speak of interest, it is only to recommend myself and my respectful wretchedness. Love was before it, and is before it." "I should be pained, Mr. Guppy," said I, rising and putting my hand upon the bell-rope, "to do you or any one who was sincere the injustice of slighting any honest feeling, however disagreeably expressed. If you have really meant to give me a proof of your good opinion, though ill-timed and misplaced, I feel that I ought to thank you. I have very little reason to be proud, and I am not proud. I hope," I think I added, without very well knowing what I said, "that you will now go away as if you had never been so exceedingly foolish and attend to Messrs. Kenge and Carboy's business." "Half a minute, miss!" cried Mr. Guppy, checking me as I was about to ring. "This has been without prejudice?" "I will never mention it," said I, "unless you should give me future occasion to do so." "A quarter of a minute, miss! In case you should think better at any time, however distant--THAT'S no consequence, for my feelings can never alter--of anything I have said, particularly what might I not do, Mr. William Guppy, eighty-seven, Penton Place, or if removed, or dead (of blighted hopes or anything of that sort), care of Mrs. Guppy, three hundred and two, Old Street Road, will be sufficient." I rang the bell, the servant came, and Mr. Guppy, laying his written card upon the table and making a dejected bow, departed. Raising my eyes as he went out, I once more saw him looking at me after he had passed the door. I sat there for another hour or more, finishing my books and payments and getting through plenty of business. Then I arranged my desk, and put everything away, and was so composed and cheerful that I thought I had quite dismissed this unexpected incident. But, when I went upstairs to my own room, I surprised myself by beginning to laugh about it and then surprised myself still more by beginning to cry about it. In short, I was in a flutter for a little while and felt as if an old chord had been more coarsely touched than it ever had been since the days of the dear old doll, long buried in the garden.

I don't know how it is I seem to be always writing about myself. I mean all the time to write about other people, and when I find myself coming into the story again, I am really vexed; but it is of no use. I hope anyone who may read this will understand that it is because I have really something to do with the story and can't be kept out. My darling Ada and I read together, and worked, and practised so busily that the winter days flew by like bright-winged birds. In some afternoons, and always in the evenings, Richard gave us his company. Although he was a restless creature, he was very fond of our society. He was very, very fond of Ada. I had better say it at once. I had never seen any young people falling in love before, but I found them out quite soon. I could not say so, of course, or show that I knew anything about it. On the contrary, I used to seem so unconscious of it that sometimes I wondered whether I was growing deceitful. I was as quiet as a mouse, and they were as quiet as mice too, so far as any words were concerned, but as they took more and more to one another, they relied more and more upon me, with an innocent charm. "Our dear little old woman is such a capital old woman," Richard would say, coming up to meet me in the garden early, with his pleasant laugh and perhaps the least tinge of a blush, "that I can't get on without her. Before I begin grinding away at my books, it does me so much good to come and have a steady walk with our comfortable friend!" "You know, Dame Durden, dear," Ada would say at night, with her head upon my shoulder, "I don't want to talk. Only to sit a little while thinking, with your dear face for company, and to hear the wind and remember the poor sailors at sea-" Ah! Perhaps Richard was going to be a sailor. We had talked it over often now, for he had had a boyhood leaning toward the sea. Mr. Jarndyce had written to a relation of the family, a great Sir Leicester Dedlock, for his interest in Richard's favour; and Sir Leicester had replied graciously that he would be happy to advance the prospects of the young gentleman if it should ever prove to be within his power, which was not at all probable, and that my Lady sent her compliments to her young relation and trusted that he would do his duty in any honourable profession to which he might devote himself. "So it's pretty clear," said Richard to me, "that I shall have to work my own way. Never mind! Plenty of people have had to do that before now!" With a buoyancy and hopefulness and a gaiety that hardly ever flagged, Richard had a carelessness in his character that quite perplexed me, principally because he mistook it, in a very odd way, for prudence. It entered into his calculations about money in a singular manner which I can best explain by reverting to our loan to Mr. Skimpole. Mr. Jarndyce had learnt the amount, either from Mr. Skimpole himself or from Coavinses, and had given me the money. Once I handed Richard his ten pounds, he used it to justify any number of thoughtless expenses. "My prudent Mother Hubbard, why not?" he said to me when he wanted to give five pounds to the brickmaker. "I made ten pounds out of Coavinses' business." "How was that?" said I. "Why, I got rid of ten pounds which I was quite content to get rid of and never expected to see any more. Then I came into possession of ten pounds-" "The same ten pounds." "That has nothing to do with it!" returned Richard. "I have got ten pounds more than I expected to have, and so I can afford to spend it without being particular." In the same way, when he was persuaded not to sacrifice those five pounds, by being convinced that it would do no good, he carried that sum to his credit and drew upon it. "Let me see!" he would say. "I saved five pounds out of the brickmaker's affair, so if I go to London and back in a post-chaise for four pounds, I shall have saved one!" I believe Richard's was as frank and generous a nature as can be. He was ardent and brave, and, for all his wild restlessness, was so gentle that I knew him like a brother in a few weeks. With Ada's influence, he became a winning companion, always ready to be interested and happy and light-hearted. I am sure that I, walking and talking with them, and noticing from day to day how they were falling deeper and deeper in love, and saying nothing, and each shyly thinking that this love was perhaps not yet suspected even by the other - I am sure that I was scarcely less enchanted than they were with the pretty dream. We were going on in this way, when one morning at breakfast Mr. Jarndyce received a letter. Reading it with evident pleasure, he announced that Boythorn was coming on a visit that day. Now who was Boythorn, we wondered? "I went to school with this fellow, Lawrence Boythorn," said Mr. Jarndyce, "five and forty years ago. He was then the most impetuous boy in the world, and the loudest and heartiest, and he is now the most impetuous and loudest and heartiest of men. He is a tremendous fellow." "In stature, sir?" asked Richard. "Pretty well, Rick," said Mr. Jarndyce; "being ten years older than I and a couple of inches taller - and his lungs! Talking, laughing, or snoring, they make the beams of the house shake." As Mr. Jarndyce talked, we observed the favourable omen that there was not the least sign of any change in the wind. "But it's the warm heart of the man, the passion of the man, that I speak of," he pursued. "He is always in extremes. In his condemnation he is all ferocity, so that you might suppose him to be an ogre. There! I'll tell you no more beforehand. You must not be surprised to see him take me under his protection, for he has never forgotten that at school our friendship began in his knocking two of my head tyrant's teeth out." I took care that the preparations were made for Mr. Boythorn's reception, and we looked forward to his arrival with curiosity. The afternoon wore away, however, and he did not appear. The dinner-hour arrived, and still he did not appear. The dinner was put back an hour, and we were sitting round the fire when the hall-door suddenly burst open and the hall resounded with these words, uttered with the greatest vehemence: "We have been misdirected, Jarndyce, by a ruffian, who told us to turn right instead of left. He is the most intolerable scoundrel on the face of the earth. I would have had the fellow shot!" "Did he do it on purpose?" Mr. Jarndyce inquired. "I have not the slightest doubt that the scoundrel has spent his whole life in misdirecting travellers!" returned the other. "I thought him the worst-looking dog I had ever beheld when he was telling me to take the turning to the right. And yet I didn't knock his brains out!" "Teeth, you mean?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, making the whole house vibrate. "What, you have not forgotten it yet! And that was another great vagabond! If I were to meet that cowardly scoundrel tomorrow, I would fell him like a rotten tree!" "I have no doubt of it," said Mr. Jarndyce. Talking thus, they went upstairs, and presently we heard him in his bedroom thundering "Ha, ha, ha!" in a most contagious way. There was a sterling quality in this laugh, and in his vigorous, healthy voice, and in the very fury of his superlatives, which seemed to go off like blank cannons and hurt nothing. When Mr. Jarndyce presented him, we saw not only a very handsome old gentleman - upright and stalwart, with a massive grey head - but such a true gentleman in his manner, so chivalrously polite, with such a sweet smile, that I could not help looking at him with pleasure as he sat at dinner, giving out that tremendous "Ha, ha, ha!" "You have brought your bird with you, I suppose?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "By heaven, he is the most astonishing bird in Europe!" replied the other. "I wouldn't take ten thousand guineas for that bird. He is a phenomenon. And his father before him was one of the most astonishing birds that ever lived!" The subject of this speech was a very little canary, who was so tame that he was brought down by Mr. Boythorn's man, on his forefinger, and after taking a gentle flight round the room, alighted on his master's head. To hear Mr. Boythorn expressing the sternest sentiments, with this fragile mite of a creature quietly perched on his forehead, was to have a good illustration of his character, I thought. "By my soul, Jarndyce," he said, gently holding up a bit of bread for the canary, "if I were in your place I would seize every master in Chancery by the throat and shake him until his money rolled out of his pockets. I would have a settlement, by fair means or by foul. If you would allow me, I would do it for you with the greatest satisfaction!" "I thank you, Lawrence, but I hardly think that would advance the suit," returned Mr. Jarndyce, laughing. "There never was such an infernal cauldron as that Chancery!" said Mr. Boythorn. "Nothing but a bomb would reform it!" It was impossible not to laugh at his energetic gravity. When we laughed, he did too, and again the whole country seemed to echo to his "Ha, ha, ha!" It did not disturb the bird, who hopped about the table turning its bright sudden eye on its master. "But how do you and your neighbour get on about the disputed right of way?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "You are not free from the toils of the law yourself!" "The fellow has brought actions against me for trespass, and I have brought actions against him for trespass," returned Mr. Boythorn. "By heaven, he is the proudest fellow breathing, He should be called Sir Lucifer, not Sir Leicester." "Complimentary to our distant relation!" said my guardian laughingly to Ada and Richard. "I would beg your pardons," said our visitor to them, "if I were not reassured by seeing in your smiles that you keep your distant relation at a comfortable distance. By my soul," suddenly firing another volley, "that fellow is the most stiff-necked, arrogant, imbecile, pig-headed numskull ever born! The fellow, or his agent, or somebody, writes to me 'Sir Leicester Dedlock calls attention to the fact that the green pathway by the old parsonage, now the property of Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, is Sir Leicester's right of way, being in fact a portion of the park of Chesney Wold, and that Sir Leicester finds it convenient to close up the same.' I write to the fellow that I would like to see him try. The fellow sends a villain with one eye to construct a gateway. I chop it down and burn it. He sends his servants over the fence. I catch them in humane man traps and spray them with a fire hose. He brings actions for trespass; I bring actions for trespass. He brings actions for assault and battery; I defend them and continue to assault and batter. Ha, ha, ha!" To hear him say all this, one might have thought him the angriest of mankind. To see him at the very same time softly smoothing his bird's feathers, one might have thought him the gentlest. "No, no," he said, "no closing up of my paths by any Dedlock! Though I willingly confess," here he softened, "that Lady Dedlock is the most accomplished lady in the world. But I am not the man to be walked over by any Sir Lucifer. Ha, ha, ha! But speaking of this trespass, is there nothing for me from your men Kenge and Carboy?" "I think not, Esther?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "Nothing, guardian." "Much obliged!" said Mr. Boythorn. "I inquired because I thought some letters might have been sent down here. I dare say they will report progress tomorrow morning." During that pleasant evening I saw him contemplate Richard and Ada with interest and satisfaction. I asked my guardian as we sat at the backgammon board whether Mr. Boythorn had ever been married. "No," said he. "But he meant to be!" said I. "How did you find out that?" he returned with a smile. "Why, guardian," I explained, reddening a little, "there is something so tender in his manner, and he is so very courtly and gentle to us." "You are right, little woman," he answered. "He was all but married once, long ago." "Did the lady die?" "No - but she died to him. That time has had its influence on all his later life. He has never been what he might have been," said Mr. Jarndyce, "and now you see him in his age with no one near him but his servant and his little bird. It's your throw, my dear!" I felt, from my guardian's manner, that I could not pursue the subject without changing the wind, and asked no more questions. But I thought a little while about this old love story in the night; and I tried to do that very difficult thing, imagine old people young again. I fell asleep before I had succeeded, and dreamed of the days when I lived in my godmother's house. I do not know whether it is at all remarkable that I almost always dreamed of that period of my life. With the morning there came a letter from Messrs. Kenge and Carboy to Mr. Boythorn informing him that one of their clerks would call upon him at noon. As it was the day of the week on which I paid the bills, and added up my house-keeping books, I remained at home while Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and Richard went out. Mr. Boythorn was to wait for the clerk and then would go and meet them. Well! I was full of business, adding up columns and filing receipts, when Mr. Guppy was announced and shown in. I scarcely knew him again, he was so uncommonly smart. He had an entirely new suit of glossy clothes on, a shining hat, a large hot-house flower in his button-hole, and a thick gold ring on his little finger. He looked at me with an attention that quite confused me when I begged him to take a seat; and as he sat there crossing and uncrossing his legs, I found him looking at me in the same scrutinizing and curious way. When the servant invited him to go upstairs to Mr. Boythorn's room, I mentioned that he would find lunch prepared when he came down. He said with some embarrassment, "Shall I have the honour of finding you here, miss?" I replied yes; and he went out with a bow and another look. I thought him only awkward and shy, and I fancied that the best thing I could do would be to wait until he had everything he wanted and then to leave him to himself. The lunch was soon brought, but it remained for some time on the table. The interview with Mr. Boythorn was a long and stormy one, for although his room was at some distance I heard his loud voice rising every now and then like a high wind. At last Mr. Guppy came back, looking something the worse for the conference. "My eye, miss," he said in a low voice, "he's a Tartar!" "Pray take some refreshment, sir," said I. Mr. Guppy sat down at the table and began nervously sharpening the carving-knife, still looking at me in the same unusual manner. "What will you take yourself, miss? You'll take a morsel of something?" "No, thank you," said I. "I have only waited to see that you have everything you want. Is there anything I can order for you?" "No, I am much obliged to you, miss, I'm sure. I've everything that I can require to make me comfortable - at least - not comfortable - I'm never that." He drank off two glasses of wine, one after another. I thought I had better go. "I beg your pardon, miss!" said Mr. Guppy, rising. "But would you allow me the favour of a minute's private conversation?" Not knowing what to say, I sat down again. "What follows is without prejudice, miss?" said Mr. Guppy anxiously. "I don't understand what you mean," said I, wondering. "It's one of our law terms, miss. You won't make any use of it to my detriment at Kenge and Carboy's or elsewhere. If our conversation shouldn't lead to anything, I am not to be prejudiced in my situation. In short, it's in total confidence." "I am at a loss, sir," said I, "to imagine what you can have to say in total confidence to me; but I should be very sorry to do you any injury." "Thank you, miss." Mr. Guppy wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. "If you would excuse my taking another glass of wine, miss, I think it might assist me." He did so. I took the opportunity of moving well behind the table. "To proceed," said Mr. Guppy. "My present salary, Miss Summerson, is two pound a week. When I first had the happiness of looking upon you, it was one fifteen, but a rise of five has since taken place, and a further rise of five is guaranteed at the end of a term not exceeding twelve months from the present. My mother has a little property, which takes the form of a small life annuity, and is eminently calculated for a mother-in-law. She is all for peace, and her disposition easy. She has her failings - as who has not? - but I never knew her do it when company was present, at which time you may freely trust her with wines, spirits, or malt liquors. My own abode is lodgings at Penton Place. It is lowly, but airy. Miss Summerson! In the mildest language, I adore you. Would you be so kind as to allow me to file a declaration - to make an offer!" Mr. Guppy went down on his knees. I was not much frightened. I said, "Get up from that ridiculous position immediately, sir, or you will oblige me to ring the bell!" "Hear me out, miss!" said Mr. Guppy, clasping his hands. "I cannot consent to hear another word, sir," I returned, "unless you get up from the carpet directly and sit down at the table." He looked piteously, but slowly rose and did so. "I beg you to conclude," said I; "since you have asked me to hear you out." "I will, miss," said Mr. Guppy. "As I love and honour, so likewise I obey. Would that I could make thee the subject of that vow before the shrine!" "That is quite impossible," said I, "and entirely out of the question." "I am aware," said Mr. Guppy, leaning forward over the tray intently, "that in a worldly point of view, my offer is a poor one. But, Miss Summerson! Angel! No, don't ring - I have been brought up in a sharp school. I have ferreted out evidence, got up cases, and seen lots of life. Blest with your hand, I might find means of advancing your interests! What might I not get to know concerning you? I know nothing now, certainly; but what if I had your confidence, and you set me on?" I told him that he would now understand that I requested him, if he pleased, to go away immediately. "Cruel miss," said Mr. Guppy, "hear but another word! I think you must have seen that I was struck with those charms on that first day I saw you. Thy image has ever since been fixed in my breast. I have walked up and down of an evening opposite Jellyby's house only to look upon the bricks that once contained thee. This meeting today, quite unnecessary as far as its pretended object went, was planned by me alone for thee alone." "I should be pained, Mr. Guppy," said I, rising and putting my hand upon the bell-rope, "to slight any honest feeling, however disagreeably expressed. If you have really meant to give me a proof of your good opinion, though ill-timed and misplaced, I feel that I ought to thank you. I hope that you will now go away as if you had never been so exceedingly foolish and attend to Messrs. Kenge and Carboy's business." "Half a minute, miss!" cried Mr. Guppy. "This has been without prejudice?" "I will never mention it," said I, "unless you should give me future occasion to do so." "A quarter of a minute, miss! In case you should think better at any time of anything I have said, Mr. William Guppy, eighty-seven, Penton Place, or if removed, or dead (of blighted hopes or anything of that sort), care of Mrs. Guppy, three hundred and two, Old Street Road, will be sufficient." I rang the bell, the servant came, and Mr. Guppy, with a dejected bow, departed. I sat there for another hour, getting through plenty of business. Then I arranged my desk, and put everything away, and was so composed and cheerful that I thought I had quite dismissed this unexpected incident. But, when I went upstairs to my own room, I surprised myself by beginning to laugh about it and then surprised myself still more by beginning to cry. In short, I was in a flutter for a little while and felt as if an old chord had been more coarsely touched than it ever had been since the days of the dear old doll, long buried in the garden.

Bleak House

Chapter 9: Signs and Tokens

It is the long vacation in the regions of Chancery Lane. The good ships Law and Equity, those teak-built, copper-bottomed, iron-fastened, brazen-faced, and not by any means fast-sailing clippers are laid up in ordinary. The Flying Dutchman, with a crew of ghostly clients imploring all whom they may encounter to peruse their papers, has drifted, for the time being, heaven knows where. The courts are all shut up; the public offices lie in a hot sleep. Westminster Hall itself is a shady solitude where nightingales might sing, and a tenderer class of suitors than is usually found there, walk. The Temple, Chancery Lane, Serjeants' Inn, and Lincoln's Inn even unto the Fields are like tidal harbours at low water, where stranded proceedings, offices at anchor, idle clerks lounging on lop-sided stools that will not recover their perpendicular until the current of Term sets in, lie high and dry upon the ooze of the long vacation. Outer doors of chambers are shut up by the score, messages and parcels are to be left at the Porter's Lodge by the bushel. A crop of grass would grow in the chinks of the stone pavement outside Lincoln's Inn Hall, but that the ticket-porters, who have nothing to do beyond sitting in the shade there, with their white aprons over their heads to keep the flies off, grub it up and eat it thoughtfully. There is only one judge in town. Even he only comes twice a week to sit in chambers. If the country folks of those assize towns on his circuit could see him now! No full-bottomed wig, no red petticoats, no fur, no javelin-men, no white wands. Merely a close-shaved gentleman in white trousers and a white hat, with sea-bronze on the judicial countenance, and a strip of bark peeled by the solar rays from the judicial nose, who calls in at the shell-fish shop as he comes along and drinks iced ginger-beer! The bar of England is scattered over the face of the earth. How England can get on through four long summer months without its bar--which is its acknowledged refuge in adversity and its only legitimate triumph in prosperity--is beside the question; assuredly that shield and buckler of Britannia are not in present wear. The learned gentleman who is always so tremendously indignant at the unprecedented outrage committed on the feelings of his client by the opposite party that he never seems likely to recover it is doing infinitely better than might be expected in Switzerland. The learned gentleman who does the withering business and who blights all opponents with his gloomy sarcasm is as merry as a grig at a French watering-place. The learned gentleman who weeps by the pint on the smallest provocation has not shed a tear these six weeks. The very learned gentleman who has cooled the natural heat of his gingery complexion in pools and fountains of law until he has become great in knotty arguments for term-time, when he poses the drowsy bench with legal "chaff," inexplicable to the uninitiated and to most of the initiated too, is roaming, with a characteristic delight in aridity and dust, about Constantinople. Other dispersed fragments of the same great palladium are to be found on the canals of Venice, at the second cataract of the Nile, in the baths of Germany, and sprinkled on the sea-sand all over the English coast. Scarcely one is to be encountered in the deserted region of Chancery Lane. If such a lonely member of the bar do flit across the waste and come upon a prowling suitor who is unable to leave off haunting the scenes of his anxiety, they frighten one another and retreat into opposite shades. It is the hottest long vacation known for many years. All the young clerks are madly in love, and according to their various degrees, pine for bliss with the beloved object, at Margate, Ramsgate, or Gravesend. All the middle-aged clerks think their families too large. All the unowned dogs who stray into the Inns of Court and pant about staircases and other dry places seeking water give short howls of aggravation. All the blind men's dogs in the streets draw their masters against pumps or trip them over buckets. A shop with a sun-blind, and a watered pavement, and a bowl of gold and silver fish in the window, is a sanctuary. Temple Bar gets so hot that it is, to the adjacent Strand and Fleet Street, what a heater is in an urn, and keeps them simmering all night. There are offices about the Inns of Court in which a man might be cool, if any coolness were worth purchasing at such a price in dullness; but the little thoroughfares immediately outside those retirements seem to blaze. In Mr. Krook's court, it is so hot that the people turn their houses inside out and sit in chairs upon the pavement--Mr. Krook included, who there pursues his studies, with his cat (who never is too hot) by his side. The Sol's Arms has discontinued the Harmonic Meetings for the season, and Little Swills is engaged at the Pastoral Gardens down the river, where he comes out in quite an innocent manner and sings comic ditties of a juvenile complexion calculated (as the bill says) not to wound the feelings of the most fastidious mind. Over all the legal neighbourhood there hangs, like some great veil of rust or gigantic cobweb, the idleness and pensiveness of the long vacation. Mr. Snagsby, law-stationer of Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, is sensible of the influence not only in his mind as a sympathetic and contemplative man, but also in his business as a law-stationer aforesaid. He has more leisure for musing in Staple Inn and in the Rolls Yard during the long vacation than at other seasons, and he says to the two 'prentices, what a thing it is in such hot weather to think that you live in an island with the sea a-rolling and a-bowling right round you. Guster is busy in the little drawing-room on this present afternoon in the long vacation, when Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby have it in contemplation to receive company. The expected guests are rather select than numerous, being Mr. and Mrs. Chadband and no more. From Mr. Chadband's being much given to describe himself, both verbally and in writing, as a vessel, he is occasionally mistaken by strangers for a gentleman connected with navigation, but he is, as he expresses it, "in the ministry." Mr. Chadband is attached to no particular denomination and is considered by his persecutors to have nothing so very remarkable to say on the greatest of subjects as to render his volunteering, on his own account, at all incumbent on his conscience; but he has his followers, and Mrs. Snagsby is of the number. Mrs. Snagsby has but recently taken a passage upward by the vessel, Chadband; and her attention was attracted to that Bark A 1, when she was something flushed by the hot weather. "My little woman," says Mr. Snagsby to the sparrows in Staple Inn, "likes to have her religion rather sharp, you see!" So Guster, much impressed by regarding herself for the time as the handmaid of Chadband, whom she knows to be endowed with the gift of holding forth for four hours at a stretch, prepares the little drawing-room for tea. All the furniture is shaken and dusted, the portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are touched up with a wet cloth, the best tea-service is set forth, and there is excellent provision made of dainty new bread, crusty twists, cool fresh butter, thin slices of ham, tongue, and German sausage, and delicate little rows of anchovies nestling in parsley, not to mention new-laid eggs, to be brought up warm in a napkin, and hot buttered toast. For Chadband is rather a consuming vessel--the persecutors say a gorging vessel--and can wield such weapons of the flesh as a knife and fork remarkably well. Mr. Snagsby in his best coat, looking at all the preparations when they are completed and coughing his cough of deference behind his hand, says to Mrs. Snagsby, "At what time did you expect Mr. and Mrs. Chadband, my love?" "At six," says Mrs. Snagsby. Mr. Snagsby observes in a mild and casual way that "it's gone that." "Perhaps you'd like to begin without them," is Mrs. Snagsby's reproachful remark. Mr. Snagsby does look as if he would like it very much, but he says, with his cough of mildness, "No, my dear, no. I merely named the time." "What's time," says Mrs. Snagsby, "to eternity?" "Very true, my dear," says Mr. Snagsby. "Only when a person lays in victuals for tea, a person does it with a view--perhaps--more to time. And when a time is named for having tea, it's better to come up to it." "To come up to it!" Mrs. Snagsby repeats with severity. "Up to it! As if Mr. Chadband was a fighter!" "Not at all, my dear," says Mr. Snagsby. Here, Guster, who had been looking out of the bedroom window, comes rustling and scratching down the little staircase like a popular ghost, and falling flushed into the drawing-room, announces that Mr. and Mrs. Chadband have appeared in the court. The bell at the inner door in the passage immediately thereafter tinkling, she is admonished by Mrs. Snagsby, on pain of instant reconsignment to her patron saint, not to omit the ceremony of announcement. Much discomposed in her nerves (which were previously in the best order) by this threat, she so fearfully mutilates that point of state as to announce "Mr. and Mrs. Cheeseming, least which, Imeantersay, whatsername!" and retires conscience-stricken from the presence. Mr. Chadband is a large yellow man with a fat smile and a general appearance of having a good deal of train oil in his system. Mrs. Chadband is a stern, severe-looking, silent woman. Mr. Chadband moves softly and cumbrously, not unlike a bear who has been taught to walk upright. He is very much embarrassed about the arms, as if they were inconvenient to him and he wanted to grovel, is very much in a perspiration about the head, and never speaks without first putting up his great hand, as delivering a token to his hearers that he is going to edify them. "My friends," says Mr. Chadband, "peace be on this house! On the master thereof, on the mistress thereof, on the young maidens, and on the young men! My friends, why do I wish for peace? What is peace? Is it war? No. Is it strife? No. Is it lovely, and gentle, and beautiful, and pleasant, and serene, and joyful? Oh, yes! Therefore, my friends, I wish for peace, upon you and upon yours." In consequence of Mrs. Snagsby looking deeply edified, Mr. Snagsby thinks it expedient on the whole to say amen, which is well received. "Now, my friends," proceeds Mr. Chadband, "since I am upon this theme--" Guster presents herself. Mrs. Snagsby, in a spectral bass voice and without removing her eyes from Chadband, says with dreadful distinctness, "Go away!" "Now, my friends," says Chadband, "since I am upon this theme, and in my lowly path improving it--" Guster is heard unaccountably to murmur "one thousing seven hundred and eighty-two." The spectral voice repeats more solemnly, "Go away!" "Now, my friends," says Mr. Chadband, "we will inquire in a spirit of love--" Still Guster reiterates "one thousing seven hundred and eighty-two." Mr. Chadband, pausing with the resignation of a man accustomed to be persecuted and languidly folding up his chin into his fat smile, says, "Let us hear the maiden! Speak, maiden!" "One thousing seven hundred and eighty-two, if you please, sir. Which he wish to know what the shilling ware for," says Guster, breathless. "For?" returns Mrs. Chadband. "For his fare!" Guster replied that "he insistes on one and eightpence or on summonsizzing the party." Mrs. Snagsby and Mrs. Chadband are proceeding to grow shrill in indignation when Mr. Chadband quiets the tumult by lifting up his hand. "My friends," says he, "I remember a duty unfulfilled yesterday. It is right that I should be chastened in some penalty. I ought not to murmur. Rachael, pay the eightpence!" While Mrs. Snagsby, drawing her breath, looks hard at Mr. Snagsby, as who should say, "You hear this apostle!" and while Mr. Chadband glows with humility and train oil, Mrs. Chadband pays the money. It is Mr. Chadband's habit--it is the head and front of his pretensions indeed--to keep this sort of debtor and creditor account in the smallest items and to post it publicly on the most trivial occasions. "My friends," says Chadband, "eightpence is not much; it might justly have been one and fourpence; it might justly have been half a crown. O let us be joyful, joyful! O let us be joyful!" With which remark, which appears from its sound to be an extract in verse, Mr. Chadband stalks to the table, and before taking a chair, lifts up his admonitory hand. "My friends," says he, "what is this which we now behold as being spread before us? Refreshment. Do we need refreshment then, my friends? We do. And why do we need refreshment, my friends? Because we are but mortal, because we are but sinful, because we are but of the earth, because we are not of the air. Can we fly, my friends? We cannot. Why can we not fly, my friends?" Mr. Snagsby, presuming on the success of his last point, ventures to observe in a cheerful and rather knowing tone, "No wings." But is immediately frowned down by Mrs. Snagsby. "I say, my friends," pursues Mr. Chadband, utterly rejecting and obliterating Mr. Snagsby's suggestion, "why can we not fly? Is it because we are calculated to walk? It is. Could we walk, my friends, without strength? We could not. What should we do without strength, my friends? Our legs would refuse to bear us, our knees would double up, our ankles would turn over, and we should come to the ground. Then from whence, my friends, in a human point of view, do we derive the strength that is necessary to our limbs? Is it," says Chadband, glancing over the table, "from bread in various forms, from butter which is churned from the milk which is yielded unto us by the cow, from the eggs which are laid by the fowl, from ham, from tongue, from sausage, and from such like? It is. Then let us partake of the good things which are set before us!" The persecutors denied that there was any particular gift in Mr. Chadband's piling verbose flights of stairs, one upon another, after this fashion. But this can only be received as a proof of their determination to persecute, since it must be within everybody's experience that the Chadband style of oratory is widely received and much admired. Mr. Chadband, however, having concluded for the present, sits down at Mr. Snagsby's table and lays about him prodigiously. The conversion of nutriment of any sort into oil of the quality already mentioned appears to be a process so inseparable from the constitution of this exemplary vessel that in beginning to eat and drink, he may be described as always becoming a kind of considerable oil mills or other large factory for the production of that article on a wholesale scale. On the present evening of the long vacation, in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, he does such a powerful stroke of business that the warehouse appears to be quite full when the works cease. At this period of the entertainment, Guster, who has never recovered her first failure, but has neglected no possible or impossible means of bringing the establishment and herself into contempt--among which may be briefly enumerated her unexpectedly performing clashing military music on Mr. Chadband's head with plates, and afterwards crowning that gentleman with muffins--at which period of the entertainment, Guster whispers Mr. Snagsby that he is wanted. "And being wanted in the--not to put too fine a point upon it--in the shop," says Mr. Snagsby, rising, "perhaps this good company will excuse me for half a minute." Mr. Snagsby descends and finds the two 'prentices intently contemplating a police constable, who holds a ragged boy by the arm. "Why, bless my heart," says Mr. Snagsby, "what's the matter!" "This boy," says the constable, "although he's repeatedly told to, won't move on--" "I'm always a-moving on, sar," cries the boy, wiping away his grimy tears with his arm. "I've always been a-moving and a-moving on, ever since I was born. Where can I possibly move to, sir, more nor I do move!" "He won't move on," says the constable calmly, with a slight professional hitch of his neck involving its better settlement in his stiff stock, "although he has been repeatedly cautioned, and therefore I am obliged to take him into custody. He's as obstinate a young gonoph as I know. He WON'T move on." "Oh, my eye! Where can I move to!" cries the boy, clutching quite desperately at his hair and beating his bare feet upon the floor of Mr. Snagsby's passage. "Don't you come none of that or I shall make blessed short work of you!" says the constable, giving him a passionless shake. "My instructions are that you are to move on. I have told you so five hundred times." "But where?" cries the boy. "Well! Really, constable, you know," says Mr. Snagsby wistfully, and coughing behind his hand his cough of great perplexity and doubt, "really, that does seem a question. Where, you know?" "My instructions don't go to that," replies the constable. "My instructions are that this boy is to move on." Do you hear, Jo? It is nothing to you or to any one else that the great lights of the parliamentary sky have failed for some few years in this business to set you the example of moving on. The one grand recipe remains for you--the profound philosophical prescription--the be-all and the end-all of your strange existence upon earth. Move on! You are by no means to move off, Jo, for the great lights can't at all agree about that. Move on! Mr. Snagsby says nothing to this effect, says nothing at all indeed, but coughs his forlornest cough, expressive of no thoroughfare in any direction. By this time Mr. and Mrs. Chadband and Mrs. Snagsby, hearing the altercation, have appeared upon the stairs. Guster having never left the end of the passage, the whole household are assembled. "The simple question is, sir," says the constable, "whether you know this boy. He says you do." Mrs. Snagsby, from her elevation, instantly cries out, "No he don't!" "My lit-tle woman!" says Mr. Snagsby, looking up the staircase. "My love, permit me! Pray have a moment's patience, my dear. I do know something of this lad, and in what I know of him, I can't say that there's any harm; perhaps on the contrary, constable." To whom the law-stationer relates his Joful and woeful experience, suppressing the half-crown fact. "Well!" says the constable, "so far, it seems, he had grounds for what he said. When I took him into custody up in Holborn, he said you knew him. Upon that, a young man who was in the crowd said he was acquainted with you, and you were a respectable housekeeper, and if I'd call and make the inquiry, he'd appear. The young man don't seem inclined to keep his word, but--Oh! Here IS the young man!" Enter Mr. Guppy, who nods to Mr. Snagsby and touches his hat with the chivalry of clerkship to the ladies on the stairs. "I was strolling away from the office just now when I found this row going on," says Mr. Guppy to the law-stationer, "and as your name was mentioned, I thought it was right the thing should be looked into." "It was very good-natured of you, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, "and I am obliged to you." And Mr. Snagsby again relates his experience, again suppressing the half-crown fact. "Now, I know where you live," says the constable, then, to Jo. "You live down in Tom-all-Alone's. That's a nice innocent place to live in, ain't it?" "I can't go and live in no nicer place, sir," replies Jo. "They wouldn't have nothink to say to me if I wos to go to a nice innocent place fur to live. Who ud go and let a nice innocent lodging to such a reg'lar one as me!" "You are very poor, ain't you?" says the constable. "Yes, I am indeed, sir, wery poor in gin'ral," replies Jo. "I leave you to judge now! I shook these two half-crowns out of him," says the constable, producing them to the company, "in only putting my hand upon him!" "They're wot's left, Mr. Snagsby," says Jo, "out of a sov-ring as wos give me by a lady in a wale as sed she wos a servant and as come to my crossin one night and asked to be showd this 'ere ouse and the ouse wot him as you giv the writin to died at, and the berrin-ground wot he's berrid in. She ses to me she ses 'are you the boy at the inkwhich?' she ses. I ses 'yes' I ses. She ses to me she ses 'can you show me all them places?' I ses 'yes I can' I ses. And she ses to me 'do it' and I dun it and she giv me a sov'ring and hooked it. And I an't had much of the sov'ring neither," says Jo, with dirty tears, "fur I had to pay five bob, down in Tom-all-Alone's, afore they'd square it fur to give me change, and then a young man he thieved another five while I was asleep and another boy he thieved ninepence and the landlord he stood drains round with a lot more on it." "You don't expect anybody to believe this, about the lady and the sovereign, do you?" says the constable, eyeing him aside with ineffable disdain. "I don't know as I do, sir," replies Jo. "I don't expect nothink at all, sir, much, but that's the true hist'ry on it." "You see what he is!" the constable observes to the audience. "Well, Mr. Snagsby, if I don't lock him up this time, will you engage for his moving on?" "No!" cries Mrs. Snagsby from the stairs. "My little woman!" pleads her husband. "Constable, I have no doubt he'll move on. You know you really must do it," says Mr. Snagsby. "I'm everyways agreeable, sir," says the hapless Jo. "Do it, then," observes the constable. "You know what you have got to do. Do it! And recollect you won't get off so easy next time. Catch hold of your money. Now, the sooner you're five mile off, the better for all parties." With this farewell hint and pointing generally to the setting sun as a likely place to move on to, the constable bids his auditors good afternoon and makes the echoes of Cook's Court perform slow music for him as he walks away on the shady side, carrying his iron-bound hat in his hand for a little ventilation. Now, Jo's improbable story concerning the lady and the sovereign has awakened more or less the curiosity of all the company. Mr. Guppy, who has an inquiring mind in matters of evidence and who has been suffering severely from the lassitude of the long vacation, takes that interest in the case that he enters on a regular cross-examination of the witness, which is found so interesting by the ladies that Mrs. Snagsby politely invites him to step upstairs and drink a cup of tea, if he will excuse the disarranged state of the tea-table, consequent on their previous exertions. Mr. Guppy yielding his assent to this proposal, Jo is requested to follow into the drawing-room doorway, where Mr. Guppy takes him in hand as a witness, patting him into this shape, that shape, and the other shape like a butterman dealing with so much butter, and worrying him according to the best models. Nor is the examination unlike many such model displays, both in respect of its eliciting nothing and of its being lengthy, for Mr. Guppy is sensible of his talent, and Mrs. Snagsby feels not only that it gratifies her inquisitive disposition, but that it lifts her husband's establishment higher up in the law. During the progress of this keen encounter, the vessel Chadband, being merely engaged in the oil trade, gets aground and waits to be floated off. "Well!" says Mr. Guppy. "Either this boy sticks to it like cobbler's-wax or there is something out of the common here that beats anything that ever came into my way at Kenge and Carboy's." Mrs. Chadband whispers Mrs. Snagsby, who exclaims, "You don't say so!" "For years!" replied Mrs. Chadband. "Has known Kenge and Carboy's office for years," Mrs. Snagsby triumphantly explains to Mr. Guppy. "Mrs. Chadband--this gentleman's wife--Reverend Mr. Chadband." "Oh, indeed!" says Mr. Guppy. "Before I married my present husband," says Mrs. Chadband. "Was you a party in anything, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy, transferring his cross-examination. "No." "NOT a party in anything, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy. Mrs. Chadband shakes her head. "Perhaps you were acquainted with somebody who was a party in something, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy, who likes nothing better than to model his conversation on forensic principles. "Not exactly that, either," replies Mrs. Chadband, humouring the joke with a hard-favoured smile. "Not exactly that, either!" repeats Mr. Guppy. "Very good. Pray, ma'am, was it a lady of your acquaintance who had some transactions (we will not at present say what transactions) with Kenge and Carboy's office, or was it a gentleman of your acquaintance? Take time, ma'am. We shall come to it presently. Man or woman, ma'am?" "Neither," says Mrs. Chadband as before. "Oh! A child!" says Mr. Guppy, throwing on the admiring Mrs. Snagsby the regular acute professional eye which is thrown on British jurymen. "Now, ma'am, perhaps you'll have the kindness to tell us WHAT child." "You have got it at last, sir," says Mrs. Chadband with another hard-favoured smile. "Well, sir, it was before your time, most likely, judging from your appearance. I was left in charge of a child named Esther Summerson, who was put out in life by Messrs. Kenge and Carboy." "Miss Summerson, ma'am!" cries Mr. Guppy, excited. "I call her Esther Summerson," says Mrs. Chadband with austerity. "There was no Miss-ing of the girl in my time. It was Esther. 'Esther, do this! Esther, do that!' and she was made to do it." "My dear ma'am," returns Mr. Guppy, moving across the small apartment, "the humble individual who now addresses you received that young lady in London when she first came here from the establishment to which you have alluded. Allow me to have the pleasure of taking you by the hand." Mr. Chadband, at last seeing his opportunity, makes his accustomed signal and rises with a smoking head, which he dabs with his pocket-handkerchief. Mrs. Snagsby whispers "Hush!" "My friends," says Chadband, "we have partaken in moderation" (which was certainly not the case so far as he was concerned) "of the comforts which have been provided for us. May this house live upon the fatness of the land; may corn and wine be plentiful therein; may it grow, may it thrive, may it prosper, may it advance, may it proceed, may it press forward! But, my friends, have we partaken of anything else? We have. My friends, of what else have we partaken? Of spiritual profit? Yes. From whence have we derived that spiritual profit? My young friend, stand forth!" Jo, thus apostrophized, gives a slouch backward, and another slouch forward, and another slouch to each side, and confronts the eloquent Chadband with evident doubts of his intentions. "My young friend," says Chadband, "you are to us a pearl, you are to us a diamond, you are to us a gem, you are to us a jewel. And why, my young friend?" "I don't know," replies Jo. "I don't know nothink." "My young friend," says Chadband, "it is because you know nothing that you are to us a gem and jewel. For what are you, my young friend? Are you a beast of the field? No. A bird of the air? No. A fish of the sea or river? No. You are a human boy, my young friend. A human boy. O glorious to be a human boy! And why glorious, my young friend? Because you are capable of receiving the lessons of wisdom, because you are capable of profiting by this discourse which I now deliver for your good, because you are not a stick, or a staff, or a stock, or a stone, or a post, or a pillar. O running stream of sparkling joy To be a soaring human boy! And do you cool yourself in that stream now, my young friend? No. Why do you not cool yourself in that stream now? Because you are in a state of darkness, because you are in a state of obscurity, because you are in a state of sinfulness, because you are in a state of bondage. My young friend, what is bondage? Let us, in a spirit of love, inquire." At this threatening stage of the discourse, Jo, who seems to have been gradually going out of his mind, smears his right arm over his face and gives a terrible yawn. Mrs. Snagsby indignantly expresses her belief that he is a limb of the arch-fiend. "My friends," says Mr. Chadband with his persecuted chin folding itself into its fat smile again as he looks round, "it is right that I should be humbled, it is right that I should be tried, it is right that I should be mortified, it is right that I should be corrected. I stumbled, on Sabbath last, when I thought with pride of my three hours' improving. The account is now favourably balanced: my creditor has accepted a composition. O let us be joyful, joyful! O let us be joyful!" Great sensation on the part of Mrs. Snagsby. "My friends," says Chadband, looking round him in conclusion, "I will not proceed with my young friend now. Will you come to-morrow, my young friend, and inquire of this good lady where I am to be found to deliver a discourse unto you, and will you come like the thirsty swallow upon the next day, and upon the day after that, and upon the day after that, and upon many pleasant days, to hear discourses?" (This with a cow-like lightness.) Jo, whose immediate object seems to be to get away on any terms, gives a shuffling nod. Mr. Guppy then throws him a penny, and Mrs. Snagsby calls to Guster to see him safely out of the house. But before he goes downstairs, Mr. Snagsby loads him with some broken meats from the table, which he carries away, hugging in his arms. So, Mr. Chadband--of whom the persecutors say that it is no wonder he should go on for any length of time uttering such abominable nonsense, but that the wonder rather is that he should ever leave off, having once the audacity to begin--retires into private life until he invests a little capital of supper in the oil-trade. Jo moves on, through the long vacation, down to Blackfriars Bridge, where he finds a baking stony corner wherein to settle to his repast. And there he sits, munching and gnawing, and looking up at the great cross on the summit of St. Paul's Cathedral, glittering above a red-and-violet-tinted cloud of smoke. From the boy's face one might suppose that sacred emblem to be, in his eyes, the crowning confusion of the great, confused city--so golden, so high up, so far out of his reach. There he sits, the sun going down, the river running fast, the crowd flowing by him in two streams--everything moving on to some purpose and to one end--until he is stirred up and told to "move on" too.

It is the long vacation in the regions of Chancery Lane. The good ships Law and Equity, those teak-built, iron-fastened, slowly-sailing clippers are laid up. The courts are all shut; the public offices lie in a hot sleep. The Temple, Chancery Lane, Serjeants' Inn, and Lincoln's Inn Fields are like tidal harbours at low water, where stranded proceedings, offices at anchor, and idle clerks lounging on lop-sided stools, lie high and dry upon the ooze of the long vacation. Outer doors of chambers are shut, messages and parcels are left at the Porter's Lodge by the bushel. There is only one judge in town. Even he only comes twice a week to sit in chambers; a gentleman in white trousers and a white hat - no wig; his nose is peeling from the sun and he drinks iced ginger-beer. The bar of England is scattered over the face of the earth. How England can get on through four long summer months without its lawyers is beside the question. Dispersed fragments of the bar are to be found on the canals of Venice, by the Nile, in the baths of Germany, and sprinkled on the sea-sand all over the English coast. Scarcely one is to be encountered in the deserted region of Chancery Lane. It is the hottest long vacation known for many years. All the young clerks are madly in love, and pine for the beloved object at Margate, Ramsgate, or Gravesend. All the middle-aged clerks think their families too large. A shop with a sun-blind, and a watered pavement, and a bowl of goldfish in the window, is a sanctuary. Temple Bar and Fleet Street are simmering all night. There are offices about the Inns of Court in which a man might be cool; but the little alleys outside them seem to blaze. In Mr. Krook's court, it is so hot that the people turn their houses inside out and sit in chairs upon the pavement - Mr. Krook included, who pursues his studies with his cat by his side. Over all the legal neighbourhood there hangs, like some gigantic cobweb, the idleness and pensiveness of the long vacation. Mr. Snagsby, law-stationer, has more leisure for musing during the long vacation than at other seasons, and he says to the two apprentices, what a thing it is in such hot weather to think that you live in an island with the sea a-bowling right round you. Guster is busy in the little drawing-room this afternoon, when Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are to receive company. The expected guests are Mr. and Mrs. Chadband. From Mr. Chadband's being much given to describe himself as a vessel, he is occasionally mistaken by strangers for a sailor, but he is, he says, "in the ministry." Mr. Chadband is attached to no particular denomination and is considered by his persecutors to have nothing very remarkable to say; but he has his followers, and Mrs. Snagsby is one of them. "My little woman," says Mr. Snagsby to the sparrows in Staple Inn, "likes to have her religion rather sharp, you see!" So Guster prepares the drawing-room for tea. All the furniture is dusted, the best tea-service is set forth, and there is excellent provision of dainty new bread, cool fresh butter, thin slices of ham, tongue, and German sausage, and delicate little rows of anchovies nestling in parsley, eggs and hot buttered toast. For Chadband is rather a consuming vessel. Mr. Snagsby in his best coat, looking at all the preparations, says to Mrs. Snagsby, "At what time did you expect Mr. and Mrs. Chadband, my love?" "At six," says Mrs. Snagsby. Mr. Snagsby observes mildly that "it's gone that." "Perhaps you'd like to begin without them," is Mrs. Snagsby's reproachful remark. Mr. Snagsby does look as if he would like it, but he says, with his cough of mildness, "No, my dear, no. I merely named the time." "What's time," says Mrs. Snagsby, "to eternity?" "Very true, my dear," says Mr. Snagsby. Here, Guster, who has been looking out of the bedroom window, comes flushed and rustling down the little staircase to announce that Mr. and Mrs. Chadband have appeared in the court. The bell immediately tinkles; and much discomposed in her nerves, she announces them as "Mr. and Mrs. Cheeseming, least which, Imeantersay, whatsername!" Mr. Chadband is a large yellow man with a fat smile and a general appearance of having a good deal of train oil in his system. Mrs. Chadband is a stern, severe-looking, silent woman. Mr. Chadband moves softly and cumbrously, not unlike a bear who has been taught to walk upright. He is in a perspiration about the head, and never speaks without first putting up his great hand, signalling to his hearers that he is going to edify them. "My friends," says Mr. Chadband, "peace be on this house! On the master thereof, on the mistress thereof! My friends, why do I wish for peace? What is peace? Is it war? No. Is it strife? No. Is it lovely, and gentle, and beautiful, and serene? Oh, yes! Therefore, my friends, I wish for peace, upon you and upon yours." As Mrs. Snagsby is looking deeply edified, Mr. Snagsby thinks it expedient to say amen, which is well received. "Now, my friends," proceeds Mr. Chadband, "since I am upon this theme-" Guster comes in. Mrs. Snagsby, in a spectral bass voice, says, "Go away!" "Now, my friends," says Chadband, "since I am upon this theme, and in my lowly path improving it-" Guster is heard unaccountably to murmur "one thousing seven hundred and eighty-two." Mr. Chadband, pausing with the resignation of a man accustomed to be persecuted, folds up his chin into his fat smile, and says, "Let us hear the maiden!" "Cab number one thousing seven hundred and eighty-two, if you please, sir. Which he wish to know what the shilling ware for," says Guster, breathless. "For?" returns Mrs. Chadband. "His fare!" Guster replies that "he insists on one and eightpence or on summonsizzing the party." Mrs. Snagsby and Mrs. Chadband are growing shrill in indignation when Mr. Chadband quiets the tumult by lifting up his hand. "My friends," says he, "I remember a duty unfulfilled yesterday. It is right that I should be chastened in some penalty. Rachael, pay the eightpence!" While Mr. Chadband glows with humility and train oil, Mrs. Chadband pays the money. "My friends," says Chadband, "eightpence is not much; it might have been half a crown. O let us be joyful, joyful!" With which remark, he stalks to the table, and before taking a chair, lifts up his hand. "My friends," says he, "what is this which is spread before us? Refreshment. Do we need refreshment, my friends? We do. And why, my friends? Because we are but mortal, because we are but sinful, because we are but of the earth, and not of the air. Can we fly, my friends? We cannot. Why can we not fly, my friends?" Mr. Snagsby to observe in a cheerful and rather knowing tone, "No wings." He is immediately frowned down by Mrs. Snagsby. "I say, my friends," pursues Mr. Chadband, obliterating Mr. Snagsby's suggestion, "why can we not fly? Is it because we are meant to walk? It is. Could we walk, my friends, without strength? We could not. Our knees would double up, our ankles would turn over, and we should come to the ground. Then from whence, my friends, do we derive the strength that is necessary to our limbs? Is it," says Chadband, glancing over the table, "from bread in various forms, from butter, from eggs, from ham, from tongue, from sausage, and from such like? It is. Then let us partake of the good things which are set before us!" Mr. Chadband, having concluded for the present, sits down at Mr. Snagsby's table and lays about him prodigiously. The conversion of food into oil of the quality already mentioned appears to be a process so inevitable for this vessel, that in eating he may be described as becoming a kind of oil mill. At this period, Guster whispers to Mr. Snagsby that he is wanted in the shop. "Perhaps this good company will excuse me for half a minute," says Mr. Snagsby, rising. He descends and finds the two apprentices contemplating a police constable, who holds a ragged boy by the arm. "Why, bless my heart," says Mr. Snagsby, "what's the matter!" "This boy," says the constable, "although he's repeatedly told to, won't move on-" "I'm always a-moving on, sar," cries the boy, wiping away his grimy tears with his arm. "I've always been a-moving and a-moving on, ever since I was born. Where can I possibly move to, sir, more nor I do!" "He won't move on," says the constable calmly, "although he has been repeatedly cautioned, and therefore I am obliged to take him into custody. He won't move on." "Oh, my eye! Where can I move to!" cries the boy, clutching quite desperately at his hair and beating his bare feet upon the floor of Mr. Snagsby's passage. "Don't you come none of that!" says the constable, giving him a passionless shake. "My instructions are that you are to move on. I have told you so five hundred times." "But where?" cries the boy. "Well! Really, constable, you know," says Mr. Snagsby wistfully, and coughing behind his hand his cough of perplexity and doubt, "really, that does seem a question. Where, you know?" "My instructions don't go to that," replies the constable. "My instructions are that this boy is to move on." By this time Mr. and Mrs. Chadband and Mrs. Snagsby, hearing the altercation, have appeared upon the stairs. "The simple question is, sir," says the constable, "whether you know this boy. He says you do." Mrs. Snagsby instantly cries out, "No he don't!" "My lit-tle woman!" says Mr. Snagsby, looking up the staircase. "My love, permit me! I do know something of this lad, and in what I know of him, I can't say that there's any harm; perhaps on the contrary, constable." The law-stationer relates his Joful and woeful experience. "Well!" says the constable, "it seems he had grounds for what he said. When I took him into custody up in Holborn, he said you knew him. A young man who was in the crowd said he was acquainted with you, and if I'd call and make the inquiry - oh! Here is the young man!" Enter Mr. Guppy, who nods to Mr. Snagsby and touches his hat to the ladies on the stairs. "I was strolling away from the office just now when I found this row going on," says Mr. Guppy to the law-stationer, "and as your name was mentioned, I thought it was right the thing should be looked into." "It was very good-natured of you, sir," says Mr. Snagsby. "Now, I know where you live," says the constable to Jo. "You live down in Tom-all-Alone's. That's a nice innocent place to live in, ain't it?" "I can't go and live in no nicer place, sir," replies Jo. "You are very poor, ain't you?" says the constable. "Yes, I am indeed, sir, wery poor in gin'ral," replies Jo. "I leave you to judge! I shook these two half-crowns out of him," says the constable, producing them to the company. "They're wot's left, Mr. Snagsby," says Jo, "out of a sov-ring as wos give me by a lady as sed she wos a servant and as come to my crossin one night and asked to be showd this 'ere ouse and the ouse wot him as you giv the writin to died at and the berrin-ground wot he's berrid in. She ses to me 'are you the boy at the inkwhich?' I ses 'yes.' She ses to me she ses 'can you show me all them places?' I ses 'yes I can.' And she ses to me 'do it' and I dun it and she giv me a sov'ring and hooked it. And I an't had much of the sov'ring neither," says Jo, with dirty tears, "fur I had to pay five bob, down in Tom-all-Alone's, afore they'd change it fur me, and then a man he thieved another five while I was asleep and another boy he thieved ninepence of it." "You don't expect anybody to believe this, about the lady and the sovereign, do you?" says the constable with disdain. "I don't expect nothink at all, sir, much, but it's true." "You see what he is!" the constable observes to the audience. "Well, Mr. Snagsby, if I don't lock him up this time, will you engage for his moving on?" "No!" cries Mrs. Snagsby from the stairs. "My little woman!" pleads her husband. "Constable, I have no doubt he'll move on. You know you really must do it, Jo." "I'm everyways agreeable, sir," says the hapless Jo. "Do it, then," observes the constable. "You won't get off so easy next time. Take your money. Now, the sooner you're five mile off, the better for all parties." The constable bids good afternoon and walks away. Now, Jo's improbable story concerning the lady and the sovereign has awakened the curiosity of all the company, especially Mr. Guppy, who has an inquiring mind. He enters on a regular cross-examination of the witness, which is found so interesting by the ladies that Mrs. Snagsby politely invites him to step upstairs and drink a cup of tea. Mr. Guppy accepting, Jo is requested to follow into the drawing-room doorway, where Mr. Guppy takes him in hand as a witness. His cross examination is both long and fruitless, but Mrs. Snagsby feels that it lifts her husband's establishment higher up in the law. Meanwhile the vessel Chadband, being merely engaged in the oil trade, waits to be floated off. "Well!" says Mr. Guppy. "Either this boy sticks to it like cobbler's-wax or there is something out of the common here that beats anything that ever came into my way at Kenge and Carboy's." Mrs. Chadband whispers to Mrs. Snagsby, who exclaims, "You don't say so!" "Mrs. Chadband - this gentleman's wife - has known Kenge and Carboy's office for years," Mrs. Snagsby triumphantly explains to Mr. Guppy. "Oh, indeed!" says Mr. Guppy. "Before I married my present husband," says Mrs. Chadband. "Was you a party in any suit, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy. "No." "Perhaps you were acquainted with somebody who was a party in something, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy. "Not exactly that, either," replies Mrs. Chadband, with a hard-favoured smile. "Very good. Pray, ma'am, was it a lady of your acquaintance who had some transactions with Kenge and Carboy's office, or was it a gentleman? Take time, ma'am. Man or woman, ma'am?" "Neither," says Mrs. Chadband. "Oh! A child!" says Mr. Guppy, throwing on the admiring Mrs. Snagsby an acute professional eye. "Now, ma'am, perhaps you'll have the kindness to tell us what child." "You have got it at last, sir," says Mrs. Chadband with another hard-favoured smile. "Well, sir, it was before your time. I was left in charge of a child named Esther Summerson, who was put out in life by Messrs. Kenge and Carboy." "Miss Summerson!" cries Mr. Guppy, excited. "Esther Summerson," says Mrs. Chadband with austerity. "There was no Miss in my time. It was Esther. 'Esther, do this!' and she was made to do it." "My dear ma'am," returns Mr. Guppy, "I received that young lady in London when she first came here. Allow me to have the pleasure of shaking your hand." Mr. Chadband, at last seeing his opportunity, rises. "My friends," says Chadband, "we have partaken in moderation" (which was certainly not the case so far as he was concerned) "of the comforts which have been provided. May this house live upon the fatness of the land; may corn and wine be plentiful therein; may it grow, may it thrive, may it prosper, may it advance, may it proceed, may it press forward! But, my friends, have we partaken of anything else? We have. My friends, of what else have we partaken? Of spiritual profit? Yes. From whence have we derived that spiritual profit? My young friend, stand forth!" Jo gives a slouch backward, and another slouch forward. "My young friend," says Chadband, "you are to us a pearl, you are to us a gem, you are to us a jewel. And why?" "I don't know," replies Jo. "I don't know nothink." "My young friend," says Chadband, "it is because you know nothing that you are to us a gem and jewel. For what are you, my young friend? Are you a beast of the field? No. A bird of the air? No. A fish of the sea or river? No. You are a human boy, my young friend. O glorious to be a human boy! And why glorious, my young friend? Because you are capable of receiving the lessons of wisdom which I now deliver for your good, because you are not a stick, or a staff, or a stock, or a stone, or a post, or a pillar. But you are in a state of darkness, a state of obscurity, a state of sinfulness, a state of bondage. My young friend, what is bondage? Let us, in a spirit of love, inquire." At this threatening stage of the discourse, Jo smears his right arm over his face and gives a terrible yawn. Mrs. Snagsby indignantly expresses her belief that he is a limb of the arch-fiend. "My friends," says Mr. Chadband, "it is right that I should be humbled. I stumbled, on Sabbath last, when I thought with pride of my three hours' improving. The account is now favourably balanced: O let us be joyful, joyful!" Great sensation on the part of Mrs. Snagsby. "My friends," says Chadband, "I will not proceed with my young friend now. Will you come tomorrow, my young friend, and inquire of this good lady where I am to be found to deliver a discourse unto you, and will you come like the thirsty swallow upon the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, and upon many pleasant days, to hear discourses?" (This with a cow-like lightness.) Jo, whose immediate object seems to be to get away on any terms, gives a shuffling nod. Mr. Guppy throws him a penny, and Mrs. Snagsby calls to Guster to see him safely out of the house. But before he goes downstairs, Mr. Snagsby loads him with some food from the table, which he carries away, hugging in his arms, down to Blackfriars Bridge. He finds a stony corner to eat his repast; and there he sits, munching, and looking up at the great cross on the summit of St. Paul's Cathedral. From the boy's face one might suppose that sacred emblem to be, in his eyes, the crowning confusion of the great, confused city - so golden, so high, so far out of his reach. There he sits, the crowd flowing by him - until he is told to "move on".

Bleak House

Chapter 19: Moving On

Full seven happy years I have been the mistress of Bleak House. The few words that I have to add to what I have written are soon penned; then I and the unknown friend to whom I write will part for ever. Not without much dear remembrance on my side. Not without some, I hope, on his or hers. They gave my darling into my arms, and through many weeks I never left her. The little child who was to have done so much was born before the turf was planted on its father's grave. It was a boy; and I, my husband, and my guardian gave him his father's name. The help that my dear counted on did come to her, though it came, in the eternal wisdom, for another purpose. Though to bless and restore his mother, not his father, was the errand of this baby, its power was mighty to do it. When I saw the strength of the weak little hand and how its touch could heal my darling's heart and raised hope within her, I felt a new sense of the goodness and the tenderness of God. They throve, and by degrees I saw my dear girl pass into my country garden and walk there with her infant in her arms. I was married then. I was the happiest of the happy. It was at this time that my guardian joined us and asked Ada when she would come home. "Both houses are your home, my dear," said he, "but the older Bleak House claims priority. When you and my boy are strong enough to do it, come and take possession of your home." Ada called him "her dearest cousin, John." But he said, no, it must be guardian now. He was her guardian henceforth, and the boy's; and he had an old association with the name. So she called him guardian, and has called him guardian ever since. The children know him by no other name. I say the children; I have two little daughters. It is difficult to believe that Charley (round-eyed still, and not at all grammatical) is married to a miller in our neighbourhood; yet so it is; and even now, looking up from my desk as I write early in the morning at my summer window, I see the very mill beginning to go round. I hope the miller will not spoil Charley; but he is very fond of her, and Charley is rather vain of such a match, for he is well to do and was in great request. So far as my small maid is concerned, I might suppose time to have stood for seven years as still as the mill did half an hour ago, since little Emma, Charley's sister, is exactly what Charley used to be. As to Tom, Charley's brother, I am really afraid to say what he did at school in ciphering, but I think it was decimals. He is apprenticed to the miller, whatever it was, and is a good bashful fellow, always falling in love with somebody and being ashamed of it. Caddy Jellyby passed her very last holidays with us and was a dearer creature than ever, perpetually dancing in and out of the house with the children as if she had never given a dancing-lesson in her life. Caddy keeps her own little carriage now instead of hiring one, and lives full two miles further westward than Newman Street. She works very hard, her husband (an excellent one) being lame and able to do very little. Still, she is more than contented and does all she has to do with all her heart. Mr. Jellyby spends his evenings at her new house with his head against the wall as he used to do in her old one. I have heard that Mrs. Jellyby was understood to suffer great mortification from her daughter's ignoble marriage and pursuits, but I hope she got over it in time. She has been disappointed in Borrioboola-Gha, which turned out a failure in consequence of the king of Borrioboola wanting to sell everybody--who survived the climate--for rum, but she has taken up with the rights of women to sit in Parliament, and Caddy tells me it is a mission involving more correspondence than the old one. I had almost forgotten Caddy's poor little girl. She is not such a mite now, but she is deaf and dumb. I believe there never was a better mother than Caddy, who learns, in her scanty intervals of leisure, innumerable deaf and dumb arts to soften the affliction of her child. As if I were never to have done with Caddy, I am reminded here of Peepy and old Mr. Turveydrop. Peepy is in the Custom House, and doing extremely well. Old Mr. Turveydrop, very apoplectic, still exhibits his deportment about town, still enjoys himself in the old manner, is still believed in in the old way. He is constant in his patronage of Peepy and is understood to have bequeathed him a favourite French clock in his dressing-room--which is not his property. With the first money we saved at home, we added to our pretty house by throwing out a little growlery expressly for my guardian, which we inaugurated with great splendour the next time he came down to see us. I try to write all this lightly, because my heart is full in drawing to an end, but when I write of him, my tears will have their way. I never look at him but I hear our poor dear Richard calling him a good man. To Ada and her pretty boy, he is the fondest father; to me he is what he has ever been, and what name can I give to that? He is my husband's best and dearest friend, he is our children's darling, he is the object of our deepest love and veneration. Yet while I feel towards him as if he were a superior being, I am so familiar with him and so easy with him that I almost wonder at myself. I have never lost my old names, nor has he lost his; nor do I ever, when he is with us, sit in any other place than in my old chair at his side, Dame Trot, Dame Durden, Little Woman--all just the same as ever; and I answer, "Yes, dear guardian!" just the same. I have never known the wind to be in the east for a single moment since the day when he took me to the porch to read the name. I remarked to him once that the wind seemed never in the east now, and he said, no, truly; it had finally departed from that quarter on that very day. I think my darling girl is more beautiful than ever. The sorrow that has been in her face--for it is not there now--seems to have purified even its innocent expression and to have given it a diviner quality. Sometimes when I raise my eyes and see her in the black dress that she still wears, teaching my Richard, I feel--it is difficult to express--as if it were so good to know that she remembers her dear Esther in her prayers. I call him my Richard! But he says that he has two mamas, and I am one. We are not rich in the bank, but we have always prospered, and we have quite enough. I never walk out with my husband but I hear the people bless him. I never go into a house of any degree but I hear his praises or see them in grateful eyes. I never lie down at night but I know that in the course of that day he has alleviated pain and soothed some fellow-creature in the time of need. I know that from the beds of those who were past recovery, thanks have often, often gone up, in the last hour, for his patient ministration. Is not this to be rich? The people even praise me as the doctor's wife. The people even like me as I go about, and make so much of me that I am quite abashed. I owe it all to him, my love, my pride! They like me for his sake, as I do everything I do in life for his sake. A night or two ago, after bustling about preparing for my darling and my guardian and little Richard, who are coming to-morrow, I was sitting out in the porch of all places, that dearly memorable porch, when Allan came home. So he said, "My precious little woman, what are you doing here?" And I said, "The moon is shining so brightly, Allan, and the night is so delicious, that I have been sitting here thinking." "What have you been thinking about, my dear?" said Allan then. "How curious you are!" said I. "I am almost ashamed to tell you, but I will. I have been thinking about my old looks--such as they were." "And what have you been thinking about THEM, my busy bee?" said Allan. "I have been thinking that I thought it was impossible that you COULD have loved me any better, even if I had retained them." "'Such as they were'?" said Allan, laughing. "Such as they were, of course." "My dear Dame Durden," said Allan, drawing my arm through his, "do you ever look in the glass?" "You know I do; you see me do it." "And don't you know that you are prettier than you ever were?" "I did not know that; I am not certain that I know it now. But I know that my dearest little pets are very pretty, and that my darling is very beautiful, and that my husband is very handsome, and that my guardian has the brightest and most benevolent face that ever was seen, and that they can very well do without much beauty in me--even supposing--."

Full seven happy years I have been the mistress of Bleak House. My last few words are soon penned; then I and the unknown friend to whom I write will part for ever. They gave my darling into my arms, and through many weeks I never left her. The little child who was to have done so much was born before the turf was planted on its father's grave. It was a boy; and we called him Richard. The help that my dear counted on did come to her, though it came, in the eternal wisdom, for another purpose. To bless and restore his mother, not his father, was the errand of this baby, and its power was mighty. When I saw how the weak little hand could heal my darling's heart and raise hope within her, I felt a new sense of the tenderness of God. They throve, and soon I saw my dear girl walk in my country garden with her infant in her arms. I was married then. I was the happiest of the happy. It was at this time that my guardian joined us and asked Ada when she would come home. "Both houses are your home, my dear," said he, "but the older Bleak House claims priority. When you and my boy are strong enough to do it, come and take possession of your home." Ada called him "her dearest cousin, John." But he said, no, it must be guardian now. He was her guardian, and the boy's; she has called him guardian ever since. The children know him by no other name. I say the children; I have two little daughters. It is difficult to believe that Charley is married to a miller in our neighbourhood; yet so it is; and even now, looking up from my desk as I write early in the morning at my window, I see the very mill beginning to go round. I hope the miller will not spoil Charley; but he is very fond of her, and Charley is rather vain of such a match, for he is well to do and was in great request. Little Emma, Charley's sister, is now exactly what Charley used to be. As to Tom, Charley's brother, he is apprenticed to the miller, and is a good bashful fellow, always falling in love with somebody and being ashamed of it. Caddy passed her last holidays with us and was perpetually dancing in and out of the house with the children as if she had never given a dancing-lesson in her life. Caddy keeps her own little carriage now, and lives two miles west of her former house. She works very hard, but she is more than contented. Mr. Jellyby spends his evenings at her new house with his head against the wall as he used to do in her old one. Mrs. Jellyby was understood to suffer great mortification from her daughter's ignoble marriage and pursuits, but I hope she got over it in time. Caddy's poor little girl is not such a mite now, but she is deaf and dumb. I believe there never was a better mother than Caddy, who learns innumerable deaf and dumb arts to soften the affliction of her child. As for Peepy, he is in the Custom House, and doing extremely well. Old Mr. Turveydrop, very apoplectic, still exhibits his deportment about town, and enjoys himself in the old manner. He is constant in his patronage of Peepy and is understood to have bequeathed him a favourite French clock, which is not his property. With the first money we saved at home, we added to our pretty house by building a little growlery expressly for my guardian, which we inaugurated with great splendour the next time he came down to see us. I try to write all this lightly, but when I write of him, my tears will have their way. I never look at him but I hear our poor dear Richard calling him a good man. To Ada and her pretty boy, he is the fondest father; to me he is what he has ever been, and what name can I give to that? He is my husband's best and dearest friend, he is our children's darling, he is the object of our deepest love and veneration. Yet while I feel as if he were a superior being, I am so familiar and easy with him that I almost wonder at myself. I have never known the wind to be in the east for a single moment since the day when he took me to the porch to read the name. I remarked to him once that the wind seemed never in the east now, and he said, no, truly; it had finally departed from that quarter on that very day. I think my darling girl is more beautiful than ever. The sorrow that has been in her face - for it is not there now - seems to have given its innocent expression a diviner quality. Sometimes when I raise my eyes and see her in the black dress that she still wears, teaching my Richard, I feel as if it were so good to know that she remembers her dear Esther in her prayers. I call him my Richard! But he says that he has two mamas, and I am one. We are not rich in the bank, but we have quite enough. I never walk out with my husband but I hear the people bless him. I never go into a house without hearing his praises or seeing them in grateful eyes. Every day he alleviates pain and soothes some fellow-creature in the time of need. Is not this to be rich? The people even praise me as the doctor's wife. As I go about, they make so much of me that I am quite abashed. I owe it all to him, my love, my pride! They like me for his sake, as I do everything I do in life for his sake. A night or two ago, after bustling about preparing for my darling and my guardian and little Richard, who are coming tomorrow, I was sitting out in the porch when Allan came home. He said, "My precious little woman, what are you doing here?" And I said, "The moon is shining so brightly, Allan, and the night is so delicious, that I have been sitting here thinking." "What have you been thinking about, my dear?" said Allan. "I am almost ashamed to tell you, but I will. I have been thinking about my old looks - such as they were." "And what have you been thinking about them, my busy bee?" said Allan. "I have been thinking that it seems impossible that you could have loved me any better, even if I had retained them." "Such as they were?" said Allan, laughing. "Such as they were, of course." "My dear Dame Durden," said Allan, drawing my arm through his, "do you ever look in the glass?" "You know I do; you see me do it." "And don't you know that you are prettier than you ever were?" "I did not know that. But I know that my dearest little pets are very pretty, and that my darling is very beautiful, and that my husband is very handsome, and that my guardian has the brightest and most benevolent face that ever was seen, and that they can very well do without much beauty in me - even supposing-"

Bleak House

Chapter 67: The Close of Esther's Narrative

While Esther sleeps, and while Esther wakes, it is still wet weather down at the place in Lincolnshire. The rain is ever falling--drip, drip, drip--by day and night upon the broad flagged terrace-pavement, the Ghost's Walk. The weather is so very bad down in Lincolnshire that the liveliest imagination can scarcely apprehend its ever being fine again. Not that there is any superabundant life of imagination on the spot, for Sir Leicester is not here (and, truly, even if he were, would not do much for it in that particular), but is in Paris with my Lady; and solitude, with dusky wings, sits brooding upon Chesney Wold. There may be some motions of fancy among the lower animals at Chesney Wold. The horses in the stables--the long stables in a barren, red-brick court-yard, where there is a great bell in a turret, and a clock with a large face, which the pigeons who live near it and who love to perch upon its shoulders seem to be always consulting--THEY may contemplate some mental pictures of fine weather on occasions, and may be better artists at them than the grooms. The old roan, so famous for cross-country work, turning his large eyeball to the grated window near his rack, may remember the fresh leaves that glisten there at other times and the scents that stream in, and may have a fine run with the hounds, while the human helper, clearing out the next stall, never stirs beyond his pitchfork and birch-broom. The grey, whose place is opposite the door and who with an impatient rattle of his halter pricks his ears and turns his head so wistfully when it is opened, and to whom the opener says, "Woa grey, then, steady! Noabody wants you to-day!" may know it quite as well as the man. The whole seemingly monotonous and uncompanionable half-dozen, stabled together, may pass the long wet hours when the door is shut in livelier communication than is held in the servants' hall or at the Dedlock Arms, or may even beguile the time by improving (perhaps corrupting) the pony in the loose-box in the corner. So the mastiff, dozing in his kennel in the court-yard with his large head on his paws, may think of the hot sunshine when the shadows of the stable-buildings tire his patience out by changing and leave him at one time of the day no broader refuge than the shadow of his own house, where he sits on end, panting and growling short, and very much wanting something to worry besides himself and his chain. So now, half-waking and all-winking, he may recall the house full of company, the coach-houses full of vehicles, the stables full of horses, and the out-buildings full of attendants upon horses, until he is undecided about the present and comes forth to see how it is. Then, with that impatient shake of himself, he may growl in the spirit, "Rain, rain, rain! Nothing but rain--and no family here!" as he goes in again and lies down with a gloomy yawn. So with the dogs in the kennel-buildings across the park, who have their restless fits and whose doleful voices when the wind has been very obstinate have even made it known in the house itself--upstairs, downstairs, and in my Lady's chamber. They may hunt the whole country-side, while the raindrops are pattering round their inactivity. So the rabbits with their self-betraying tails, frisking in and out of holes at roots of trees, may be lively with ideas of the breezy days when their ears are blown about or of those seasons of interest when there are sweet young plants to gnaw. The turkey in the poultry-yard, always troubled with a class-grievance (probably Christmas), may be reminiscent of that summer morning wrongfully taken from him when he got into the lane among the felled trees, where there was a barn and barley. The discontented goose, who stoops to pass under the old gateway, twenty feet high, may gabble out, if we only knew it, a waddling preference for weather when the gateway casts its shadow on the ground. Be this as it may, there is not much fancy otherwise stirring at Chesney Wold. If there be a little at any odd moment, it goes, like a little noise in that old echoing place, a long way and usually leads off to ghosts and mystery. It has rained so hard and rained so long down in Lincolnshire that Mrs. Rouncewell, the old housekeeper at Chesney Wold, has several times taken off her spectacles and cleaned them to make certain that the drops were not upon the glasses. Mrs. Rouncewell might have been sufficiently assured by hearing the rain, but that she is rather deaf, which nothing will induce her to believe. She is a fine old lady, handsome, stately, wonderfully neat, and has such a back and such a stomacher that if her stays should turn out when she dies to have been a broad old-fashioned family fire-grate, nobody who knows her would have cause to be surprised. Weather affects Mrs. Rouncewell little. The house is there in all weathers, and the house, as she expresses it, "is what she looks at." She sits in her room (in a side passage on the ground floor, with an arched window commanding a smooth quadrangle, adorned at regular intervals with smooth round trees and smooth round blocks of stone, as if the trees were going to play at bowls with the stones), and the whole house reposes on her mind. She can open it on occasion and be busy and fluttered, but it is shut up now and lies on the breadth of Mrs. Rouncewell's iron-bound bosom in a majestic sleep. It is the next difficult thing to an impossibility to imagine Chesney Wold without Mrs. Rouncewell, but she has only been here fifty years. Ask her how long, this rainy day, and she shall answer "fifty year, three months, and a fortnight, by the blessing of heaven, if I live till Tuesday." Mr. Rouncewell died some time before the decease of the pretty fashion of pig-tails, and modestly hid his own (if he took it with him) in a corner of the churchyard in the park near the mouldy porch. He was born in the market-town, and so was his young widow. Her progress in the family began in the time of the last Sir Leicester and originated in the still-room. The present representative of the Dedlocks is an excellent master. He supposes all his dependents to be utterly bereft of individual characters, intentions, or opinions, and is persuaded that he was born to supersede the necessity of their having any. If he were to make a discovery to the contrary, he would be simply stunned--would never recover himself, most likely, except to gasp and die. But he is an excellent master still, holding it a part of his state to be so. He has a great liking for Mrs. Rouncewell; he says she is a most respectable, creditable woman. He always shakes hands with her when he comes down to Chesney Wold and when he goes away; and if he were very ill, or if he were knocked down by accident, or run over, or placed in any situation expressive of a Dedlock at a disadvantage, he would say if he could speak, "Leave me, and send Mrs. Rouncewell here!" feeling his dignity, at such a pass, safer with her than with anybody else. Mrs. Rouncewell has known trouble. She has had two sons, of whom the younger ran wild, and went for a soldier, and never came back. Even to this hour, Mrs. Rouncewell's calm hands lose their composure when she speaks of him, and unfolding themselves from her stomacher, hover about her in an agitated manner as she says what a likely lad, what a fine lad, what a gay, good-humoured, clever lad he was! Her second son would have been provided for at Chesney Wold and would have been made steward in due season, but he took, when he was a schoolboy, to constructing steam-engines out of saucepans and setting birds to draw their own water with the least possible amount of labour, so assisting them with artful contrivance of hydraulic pressure that a thirsty canary had only, in a literal sense, to put his shoulder to the wheel and the job was done. This propensity gave Mrs. Rouncewell great uneasiness. She felt it with a mother's anguish to be a move in the Wat Tyler direction, well knowing that Sir Leicester had that general impression of an aptitude for any art to which smoke and a tall chimney might be considered essential. But the doomed young rebel (otherwise a mild youth, and very persevering), showing no sign of grace as he got older but, on the contrary, constructing a model of a power-loom, she was fain, with many tears, to mention his backslidings to the baronet. "Mrs. Rouncewell," said Sir Leicester, "I can never consent to argue, as you know, with any one on any subject. You had better get rid of your boy; you had better get him into some Works. The iron country farther north is, I suppose, the congenial direction for a boy with these tendencies." Farther north he went, and farther north he grew up; and if Sir Leicester Dedlock ever saw him when he came to Chesney Wold to visit his mother, or ever thought of him afterwards, it is certain that he only regarded him as one of a body of some odd thousand conspirators, swarthy and grim, who were in the habit of turning out by torchlight two or three nights in the week for unlawful purposes. Nevertheless, Mrs. Rouncewell's son has, in the course of nature and art, grown up, and established himself, and married, and called unto him Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson, who, being out of his apprenticeship, and home from a journey in far countries, whither he was sent to enlarge his knowledge and complete his preparations for the venture of this life, stands leaning against the chimney-piece this very day in Mrs. Rouncewell's room at Chesney Wold. "And, again and again, I am glad to see you, Watt! And, once again, I am glad to see you, Watt!" says Mrs. Rouncewell. "You are a fine young fellow. You are like your poor uncle George. Ah!" Mrs. Rouncewell's hands unquiet, as usual, on this reference. "They say I am like my father, grandmother." "Like him, also, my dear--but most like your poor uncle George! And your dear father." Mrs. Rouncewell folds her hands again. "He is well?" "Thriving, grandmother, in every way." "I am thankful!" Mrs. Rouncewell is fond of her son but has a plaintive feeling towards him, much as if he were a very honourable soldier who had gone over to the enemy. "He is quite happy?" says she. "Quite." "I am thankful! So he has brought you up to follow in his ways and has sent you into foreign countries and the like? Well, he knows best. There may be a world beyond Chesney Wold that I don't understand. Though I am not young, either. And I have seen a quantity of good company too!" "Grandmother," says the young man, changing the subject, "what a very pretty girl that was I found with you just now. You called her Rosa?" "Yes, child. She is daughter of a widow in the village. Maids are so hard to teach, now-a-days, that I have put her about me young. She's an apt scholar and will do well. She shows the house already, very pretty. She lives with me at my table here." "I hope I have not driven her away?" "She supposes we have family affairs to speak about, I dare say. She is very modest. It is a fine quality in a young woman. And scarcer," says Mrs. Rouncewell, expanding her stomacher to its utmost limits, "than it formerly was!" The young man inclines his head in acknowledgment of the precepts of experience. Mrs. Rouncewell listens. "Wheels!" says she. They have long been audible to the younger ears of her companion. "What wheels on such a day as this, for gracious sake?" After a short interval, a tap at the door. "Come in!" A dark-eyed, dark-haired, shy, village beauty comes in--so fresh in her rosy and yet delicate bloom that the drops of rain which have beaten on her hair look like the dew upon a flower fresh gathered. "What company is this, Rosa?" says Mrs. Rouncewell. "It's two young men in a gig, ma'am, who want to see the house--yes, and if you please, I told them so!" in quick reply to a gesture of dissent from the housekeeper. "I went to the hall-door and told them it was the wrong day and the wrong hour, but the young man who was driving took off his hat in the wet and begged me to bring this card to you." "Read it, my dear Watt," says the housekeeper. Rosa is so shy as she gives it to him that they drop it between them and almost knock their foreheads together as they pick it up. Rosa is shyer than before. "Mr. Guppy" is all the information the card yields. "Guppy!" repeats Mrs. Rouncewell, "MR. Guppy! Nonsense, I never heard of him!" "If you please, he told ME that!" says Rosa. "But he said that he and the other young gentleman came from London only last night by the mail, on business at the magistrates' meeting, ten miles off, this morning, and that as their business was soon over, and they had heard a great deal said of Chesney Wold, and really didn't know what to do with themselves, they had come through the wet to see it. They are lawyers. He says he is not in Mr. Tulkinghorn's office, but he is sure he may make use of Mr. Tulkinghorn's name if necessary." Finding, now she leaves off, that she has been making quite a long speech, Rosa is shyer than ever. Now, Mr. Tulkinghorn is, in a manner, part and parcel of the place, and besides, is supposed to have made Mrs. Rouncewell's will. The old lady relaxes, consents to the admission of the visitors as a favour, and dismisses Rosa. The grandson, however, being smitten by a sudden wish to see the house himself, proposes to join the party. The grandmother, who is pleased that he should have that interest, accompanies him--though to do him justice, he is exceedingly unwilling to trouble her. "Much obliged to you, ma'am!" says Mr. Guppy, divesting himself of his wet dreadnought in the hall. "Us London lawyers don't often get an out, and when we do, we like to make the most of it, you know." The old housekeeper, with a gracious severity of deportment, waves her hand towards the great staircase. Mr. Guppy and his friend follow Rosa; Mrs. Rouncewell and her grandson follow them; a young gardener goes before to open the shutters. As is usually the case with people who go over houses, Mr. Guppy and his friend are dead beat before they have well begun. They straggle about in wrong places, look at wrong things, don't care for the right things, gape when more rooms are opened, exhibit profound depression of spirits, and are clearly knocked up. In each successive chamber that they enter, Mrs. Rouncewell, who is as upright as the house itself, rests apart in a window-seat or other such nook and listens with stately approval to Rosa's exposition. Her grandson is so attentive to it that Rosa is shyer than ever--and prettier. Thus they pass on from room to room, raising the pictured Dedlocks for a few brief minutes as the young gardener admits the light, and reconsigning them to their graves as he shuts it out again. It appears to the afflicted Mr. Guppy and his inconsolable friend that there is no end to the Dedlocks, whose family greatness seems to consist in their never having done anything to distinguish themselves for seven hundred years. Even the long drawing-room of Chesney Wold cannot revive Mr. Guppy's spirits. He is so low that he droops on the threshold and has hardly strength of mind to enter. But a portrait over the chimney-piece, painted by the fashionable artist of the day, acts upon him like a charm. He recovers in a moment. He stares at it with uncommon interest; he seems to be fixed and fascinated by it. "Dear me!" says Mr. Guppy. "Who's that?" "The picture over the fire-place," says Rosa, "is the portrait of the present Lady Dedlock. It is considered a perfect likeness, and the best work of the master." "Blest," says Mr. Guppy, staring in a kind of dismay at his friend, "if I can ever have seen her. Yet I know her! Has the picture been engraved, miss?" "The picture has never been engraved. Sir Leicester has always refused permission." "Well!" says Mr. Guppy in a low voice. "I'll be shot if it ain't very curious how well I know that picture! So that's Lady Dedlock, is it!" "The picture on the right is the present Sir Leicester Dedlock. The picture on the left is his father, the late Sir Leicester." Mr. Guppy has no eyes for either of these magnates. "It's unaccountable to me," he says, still staring at the portrait, "how well I know that picture! I'm dashed," adds Mr. Guppy, looking round, "if I don't think I must have had a dream of that picture, you know!" As no one present takes any especial interest in Mr. Guppy's dreams, the probability is not pursued. But he still remains so absorbed by the portrait that he stands immovable before it until the young gardener has closed the shutters, when he comes out of the room in a dazed state that is an odd though a sufficient substitute for interest and follows into the succeeding rooms with a confused stare, as if he were looking everywhere for Lady Dedlock again. He sees no more of her. He sees her rooms, which are the last shown, as being very elegant, and he looks out of the windows from which she looked out, not long ago, upon the weather that bored her to death. All things have an end, even houses that people take infinite pains to see and are tired of before they begin to see them. He has come to the end of the sight, and the fresh village beauty to the end of her description; which is always this: "The terrace below is much admired. It is called, from an old story in the family, the Ghost's Walk." "No?" says Mr. Guppy, greedily curious. "What's the story, miss? Is it anything about a picture?" "Pray tell us the story," says Watt in a half whisper. "I don't know it, sir." Rosa is shyer than ever. "It is not related to visitors; it is almost forgotten," says the housekeeper, advancing. "It has never been more than a family anecdote." "You'll excuse my asking again if it has anything to do with a picture, ma'am," observes Mr. Guppy, "because I do assure you that the more I think of that picture the better I know it, without knowing how I know it!" The story has nothing to do with a picture; the housekeeper can guarantee that. Mr. Guppy is obliged to her for the information and is, moreover, generally obliged. He retires with his friend, guided down another staircase by the young gardener, and presently is heard to drive away. It is now dusk. Mrs. Rouncewell can trust to the discretion of her two young hearers and may tell THEM how the terrace came to have that ghostly name. She seats herself in a large chair by the fast-darkening window and tells them: "In the wicked days, my dears, of King Charles the First--I mean, of course, in the wicked days of the rebels who leagued themselves against that excellent king--Sir Morbury Dedlock was the owner of Chesney Wold. Whether there was any account of a ghost in the family before those days, I can't say. I should think it very likely indeed." Mrs. Rouncewell holds this opinion because she considers that a family of such antiquity and importance has a right to a ghost. She regards a ghost as one of the privileges of the upper classes, a genteel distinction to which the common people have no claim. "Sir Morbury Dedlock," says Mrs. Rouncewell, "was, I have no occasion to say, on the side of the blessed martyr. But it IS supposed that his Lady, who had none of the family blood in her veins, favoured the bad cause. It is said that she had relations among King Charles's enemies, that she was in correspondence with them, and that she gave them information. When any of the country gentlemen who followed his Majesty's cause met here, it is said that my Lady was always nearer to the door of their council-room than they supposed. Do you hear a sound like a footstep passing along the terrace, Watt?" Rosa draws nearer to the housekeeper. "I hear the rain-drip on the stones," replies the young man, "and I hear a curious echo--I suppose an echo--which is very like a halting step." The housekeeper gravely nods and continues: "Partly on account of this division between them, and partly on other accounts, Sir Morbury and his Lady led a troubled life. She was a lady of a haughty temper. They were not well suited to each other in age or character, and they had no children to moderate between them. After her favourite brother, a young gentleman, was killed in the civil wars (by Sir Morbury's near kinsman), her feeling was so violent that she hated the race into which she had married. When the Dedlocks were about to ride out from Chesney Wold in the king's cause, she is supposed to have more than once stolen down into the stables in the dead of night and lamed their horses; and the story is that once at such an hour, her husband saw her gliding down the stairs and followed her into the stall where his own favourite horse stood. There he seized her by the wrist, and in a struggle or in a fall or through the horse being frightened and lashing out, she was lamed in the hip and from that hour began to pine away." The housekeeper has dropped her voice to a little more than a whisper. "She had been a lady of a handsome figure and a noble carriage. She never complained of the change; she never spoke to any one of being crippled or of being in pain, but day by day she tried to walk upon the terrace, and with the help of the stone balustrade, went up and down, up and down, up and down, in sun and shadow, with greater difficulty every day. At last, one afternoon her husband (to whom she had never, on any persuasion, opened her lips since that night), standing at the great south window, saw her drop upon the pavement. He hastened down to raise her, but she repulsed him as he bent over her, and looking at him fixedly and coldly, said, 'I will die here where I have walked. And I will walk here, though I am in my grave. I will walk here until the pride of this house is humbled. And when calamity or when disgrace is coming to it, let the Dedlocks listen for my step!'" Watt looks at Rosa. Rosa in the deepening gloom looks down upon the ground, half frightened and half shy. "There and then she died. And from those days," says Mrs. Rouncewell, "the name has come down--the Ghost's Walk. If the tread is an echo, it is an echo that is only heard after dark, and is often unheard for a long while together. But it comes back from time to time; and so sure as there is sickness or death in the family, it will be heard then." "And disgrace, grandmother--" says Watt. "Disgrace never comes to Chesney Wold," returns the housekeeper. Her grandson apologizes with "True. True." "That is the story. Whatever the sound is, it is a worrying sound," says Mrs. Rouncewell, getting up from her chair; "and what is to be noticed in it is that it MUST BE HEARD. My Lady, who is afraid of nothing, admits that when it is there, it must be heard. You cannot shut it out. Watt, there is a tall French clock behind you (placed there, 'a purpose) that has a loud beat when it is in motion and can play music. You understand how those things are managed?" "Pretty well, grandmother, I think." "Set it a-going." Watt sets it a-going--music and all. "Now, come hither," says the housekeeper. "Hither, child, towards my Lady's pillow. I am not sure that it is dark enough yet, but listen! Can you hear the sound upon the terrace, through the music, and the beat, and everything?" "I certainly can!" "So my Lady says."

While Esther sleeps, it is still wet weather down at the place in Lincolnshire. The rain is ever falling - drip, drip, drip - by day and night upon the broad stone-flagged terrace-pavement, the Ghost's Walk. The weather is so very bad there that no-one can imagine its ever being fine again. Sir Leicester is not here, but is in Paris with my Lady; and solitude, with dusky wings, sits brooding upon Chesney Wold. The horses in the long stables may contemplate fine weather on occasions. The old roan, turning his large eye to the window near his hay-rack, may remember the fresh leaves of other times. The mastiff, dozing in his kennel in the court-yard, may think of the hot sunshine and may recall the house full of company, the coach-houses full of vehicles, the stables full of horses. The turkey in the poultry-yard may recall that summer morning when he got into the lane amongst the barley. But there is not much fancy otherwise stirring at Chesney Wold. It has rained so hard that Mrs. Rouncewell, the old housekeeper at Chesney Wold, has several times taken off her spectacles and cleaned them to make certain that the drops were not upon the glasses. She is a fine old lady, handsome, stately, wonderfully neat and upright. Weather affects Mrs. Rouncewell little. She sits in her room on the ground floor, and the whole house reposes on her mind. She can open it on occasion and be busy and fluttered, but it is shut up now in a majestic sleep. Mrs. Rouncewell has been here fifty years. Her progress in the family began in the time of the last Sir Leicester, starting as a maid in the still-room. The present Sir Leicester Dedlock is an excellent master. He supposes all his servants to be utterly bereft of individual characters or opinions. If he were to make a discovery to the contrary, he would be simply stunned. But he has a great liking for Mrs. Rouncewell; he says she is a most respectable woman. He always shakes hands with her when he comes down to Chesney Wold and when he goes away; and if he were very ill, he would say, "send Mrs. Rouncewell here!" feeling his dignity safer with her than with anybody else. Mrs. Rouncewell has known trouble. Her husband died many years ago: she has two sons, of whom the younger ran wild, and went for a soldier, and never came back. Even to this hour, Mrs. Rouncewell's calm hands lose their composure when she speaks of him, trembling as she says what a fine lad, what a gay, good-humoured, clever lad he was! Her second son would have been made steward at Chesney Wold in due season, but he took, when he was a schoolboy, to constructing steam-engines out of saucepans; a propensity which gave Mrs. Rouncewell great uneasiness. When he built a model of a power-loom, she mentioned it, with many tears, to the baronet. "Mrs. Rouncewell," said Sir Leicester, "You had better get him into some Works. The iron country farther north is, I suppose, the right direction for a boy with these tendencies." So farther north he went, grew up, established himself, and married: and Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson, who is out of his apprenticeship, and home from a journey in far countries, stands leaning against the chimney-piece this very day in Mrs. Rouncewell's room at Chesney Wold. "Again, I am glad to see you, Watt!" says Mrs. Rouncewell. "You are a fine young fellow. You are like your poor uncle George. Ah!" Her hands tremble, as usual, on this reference. "They say I am like my father, grandmother." "Like him, also, my dear." Mrs. Rouncewell folds her hands again. "He is well and happy?" "Thriving, grandmother, in every way." "I am thankful! So he has sent you into foreign countries and the like? Well, he knows best. There may be a world beyond Chesney Wold that I don't understand." "Grandmother," says the young man, changing the subject, "what a very pretty girl that was I found with you just now. You called her Rosa?" "Yes, child. She is daughter of a widow in the village. Maids are hard to teach, but she's an apt scholar and will do well. She shows visitors around very prettily. She lives with me here." "I hope I have not driven her away?" "She supposes we have family affairs to speak about, I dare say. She is very modest - a fine quality in a young woman. And scarcer than it formerly was!" Then Mrs. Rouncewell listens. "Wheels!" says she. "What wheels on such a day as this, for gracious sake?" There is a tap at the door. A dark, shy, village beauty comes in - so fresh in her delicate bloom that the drops of rain on her hair look like the dew upon a flower. "What company is this, Rosa?" says Mrs. Rouncewell. "It's two young men in a gig, ma'am, who want to see the house. I told them it was the wrong day and the wrong hour, but the young man who was driving begged me to bring this card to you." "Read it, my dear Watt," says the housekeeper. Rosa is so shy as she gives it to him that they drop it between them and almost knock their foreheads together as they pick it up. "Mr. Guppy," the card says. "Guppy!" repeats Mrs. Rouncewell. "I never heard of him!" "If you please, he told me that!" says Rosa. "But he said that he and the other young gentleman came from London only last night by the mail-coach, on business at the magistrates' meeting, and that as their business was soon over, and they had heard a great deal about Chesney Wold, they had come through the wet to see it. They are lawyers. He says he is not in Mr. Tulkinghorn's office, but he knows Mr. Tulkinghorn." Now, Mr. Tulkinghorn is, in a manner, part of the place, and besides, is supposed to have made Mrs. Rouncewell's will. The old lady relaxes, and consents to the visitors' admission. The grandson, being smitten by a sudden wish to see the house himself, proposes to join the party. The grandmother, pleased, accompanies him - though he is exceedingly unwilling to trouble her. "Much obliged to you, ma'am!" says Mr. Guppy, removing his wet coat in the hall. "Us London lawyers don't often get out, and when we do, we like to make the most of it, you know." The old housekeeper, with gracious severity, waves her hand towards the great staircase. Mr. Guppy and his friend follow Rosa; Mrs. Rouncewell and her grandson follow them. As is usually the case with people who go over houses, Mr. Guppy and his friend straggle about in the wrong places, don't care for the right things, yawn when more rooms are opened, and are clearly tired out. In each chamber that they enter, Mrs. Rouncewell, as upright as the house itself, sits in a window-seat and listens with stately approval to Rosa's exposition. Her grandson is so attentive that Rosa is shyer than ever - and prettier. Thus they pass from room to room, viewing the pictured Dedlocks. It appears to Mr. Guppy and his friend that there is no end to these Dedlocks. Even the long drawing-room of Chesney Wold cannot revive Mr. Guppy's spirits. He droops on the threshold. But a portrait over the chimney-piece acts upon him like a charm. He stares at it with uncommon interest; he seems to be fixed and fascinated by it. "Dear me!" says he. "Who's that?" "That is the portrait of the present Lady Dedlock," says Rosa. "It is considered a perfect likeness, and the best work of the artist." "I can't ever have seen her," says Mr. Guppy, in a kind of dismay. "Yet I know her! Has the picture been reproduced, miss?" "No. Sir Leicester has always refused permission for it to be engraved." "Well!" says Mr. Guppy in a low voice. "Very curious. I know that picture! So that's Lady Dedlock, is it! Dashed if I don't think I must have had a dream of that picture, you know!" He remains so absorbed by the portrait that he stands immovable before it, and then comes out of the room dazed, walking around the succeeding rooms with a confused stare, as if he were looking for Lady Dedlock again. He sees her elegant rooms, which are the last shown, and he looks out of the windows onto the terrace. Rosa says, "The terrace below is much admired. It is called, from an old story in the family, the Ghost's Walk." "What's the story, miss?" asks Mr. Guppy. "Pray tell us the story," says Watt. "I don't know it, sir." Rosa is shyer than ever. "It is almost forgotten," says the housekeeper, advancing. "It has never been more than a family anecdote." "You'll excuse my asking if it has anything to do with a picture, ma'am," observes Mr. Guppy, "because the more I think of that picture the better I know it, without knowing how!" The story has nothing to do with a picture. Mr. Guppy retires with his friend, and presently is heard to drive away. It is now dusk. Mrs. Rouncewell tells her two young hearers how the terrace came to have that ghostly name. She seats herself in a large chair by the fast-darkening window and says: "In the days of King Charles the First, Sir Morbury Dedlock was the owner of Chesney Wold. Sir Morbury was, of course, on the side of the King. But it is said that his Lady favoured the bad cause, and that she gave the King's enemies information. When any of his Majesty's supporters met here, it is said that my Lady was always nearer to the door of their council-room than they supposed. Do you hear a sound like a footstep passing along the terrace, Watt?" Rosa draws nearer to the housekeeper. "I hear the rain-drip on the stones," replies the young man, "and I hear a curious echo which is very like a halting step." The housekeeper gravely nods and continues: "Partly on account of this division between them, Sir Morbury and his Lady led a troubled life. She was a lady of a haughty temper. They were not well suited to each other, and they had no children to moderate between them. After her favourite brother was killed in the civil wars by Sir Morbury's kinsman, her feeling was so violent that she hated the Dedlocks. When the Dedlocks were about to ride out from Chesney Wold in the king's cause, she is supposed to have crept down to the stables and lamed their horses at dead of night; and the story is that once, at such an hour, her husband saw her gliding down the stairs and followed her into the stall where his own favourite horse stood. There he seized her by the wrist, and in a struggle or a fall, she was lamed and from that hour began to pine away." The housekeeper has dropped her voice to a whisper. "She had been a lady of a handsome figure. She never complained of the change, or of being in pain, but day by day she tried to walk upon the terrace, and went up and down with greater difficulty every day. At last, one afternoon her husband (to whom she had never spoken since that night), standing at the window, saw her drop upon the pavement. He hastened down to raise her, but she repulsed him, and looking at him coldly, said, 'I will die here where I have walked. And I will walk here, though I am in my grave. I will walk here until the pride of this house is humbled. And when calamity or disgrace is coming to it, let the Dedlocks listen for my step!'" Watt looks at Rosa. Rosa looks down upon the ground, half frightened and half shy. "There and then she died. And from those days," says Mrs. Rouncewell, "the name has come down - the Ghost's Walk. If the tread is an echo, it is an echo that is only heard after dark, and is often unheard for a long while together. But it comes back from time to time; and so sure as there is sickness or death in the family, it will be heard then." "And disgrace, grandmother-" says Watt. "Disgrace never comes to Chesney Wold. Whatever the sound is, it is a worrying sound," says Mrs. Rouncewell, getting up from her chair; "and you cannot shut it out. Watt, there is a tall French clock behind you that has a loud beat and can play music. Set it a-going." Watt sets it a-going - music and all. "Now, come here," says the housekeeper. "I am not sure that it is dark enough yet, but listen! Can you hear the sound upon the terrace, through the music?" "I certainly can!" "So my Lady Dedlock says."

Bleak House

Chapter 7: The Ghost's Walk

England has been in a dreadful state for some weeks. Lord Coodle would go out, Sir Thomas Doodle wouldn't come in, and there being nobody in Great Britain (to speak of) except Coodle and Doodle, there has been no government. It is a mercy that the hostile meeting between those two great men, which at one time seemed inevitable, did not come off, because if both pistols had taken effect, and Coodle and Doodle had killed each other, it is to be presumed that England must have waited to be governed until young Coodle and young Doodle, now in frocks and long stockings, were grown up. This stupendous national calamity, however, was averted by Lord Coodle's making the timely discovery that if in the heat of debate he had said that he scorned and despised the whole ignoble career of Sir Thomas Doodle, he had merely meant to say that party differences should never induce him to withhold from it the tribute of his warmest admiration; while it as opportunely turned out, on the other hand, that Sir Thomas Doodle had in his own bosom expressly booked Lord Coodle to go down to posterity as the mirror of virtue and honour. Still England has been some weeks in the dismal strait of having no pilot (as was well observed by Sir Leicester Dedlock) to weather the storm; and the marvellous part of the matter is that England has not appeared to care very much about it, but has gone on eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage as the old world did in the days before the flood. But Coodle knew the danger, and Doodle knew the danger, and all their followers and hangers-on had the clearest possible perception of the danger. At last Sir Thomas Doodle has not only condescended to come in, but has done it handsomely, bringing in with him all his nephews, all his male cousins, and all his brothers-in-law. So there is hope for the old ship yet. Doodle has found that he must throw himself upon the country, chiefly in the form of sovereigns and beer. In this metamorphosed state he is available in a good many places simultaneously and can throw himself upon a considerable portion of the country at one time. Britannia being much occupied in pocketing Doodle in the form of sovereigns, and swallowing Doodle in the form of beer, and in swearing herself black in the face that she does neither--plainly to the advancement of her glory and morality--the London season comes to a sudden end, through all the Doodleites and Coodleites dispersing to assist Britannia in those religious exercises. Hence Mrs. Rouncewell, housekeeper at Chesney Wold, foresees, though no instructions have yet come down, that the family may shortly be expected, together with a pretty large accession of cousins and others who can in any way assist the great Constitutional work. And hence the stately old dame, taking Time by the forelock, leads him up and down the staircases, and along the galleries and passages, and through the rooms, to witness before he grows any older that everything is ready, that floors are rubbed bright, carpets spread, curtains shaken out, beds puffed and patted, still-room and kitchen cleared for action--all things prepared as beseems the Dedlock dignity. This present summer evening, as the sun goes down, the preparations are complete. Dreary and solemn the old house looks, with so many appliances of habitation and with no inhabitants except the pictured forms upon the walls. So did these come and go, a Dedlock in possession might have ruminated passing along; so did they see this gallery hushed and quiet, as I see it now; so think, as I think, of the gap that they would make in this domain when they were gone; so find it, as I find it, difficult to believe that it could be without them; so pass from my world, as I pass from theirs, now closing the reverberating door; so leave no blank to miss them, and so die. Through some of the fiery windows beautiful from without, and set, at this sunset hour, not in dull-grey stone but in a glorious house of gold, the light excluded at other windows pours in rich, lavish, overflowing like the summer plenty in the land. Then do the frozen Dedlocks thaw. Strange movements come upon their features as the shadows of leaves play there. A dense justice in a corner is beguiled into a wink. A staring baronet, with a truncheon, gets a dimple in his chin. Down into the bosom of a stony shepherdess there steals a fleck of light and warmth that would have done it good a hundred years ago. One ancestress of Volumnia, in high-heeled shoes, very like her--casting the shadow of that virgin event before her full two centuries--shoots out into a halo and becomes a saint. A maid of honour of the court of Charles the Second, with large round eyes (and other charms to correspond), seems to bathe in glowing water, and it ripples as it glows. But the fire of the sun is dying. Even now the floor is dusky, and shadow slowly mounts the walls, bringing the Dedlocks down like age and death. And now, upon my Lady's picture over the great chimney-piece, a weird shade falls from some old tree, that turns it pale, and flutters it, and looks as if a great arm held a veil or hood, watching an opportunity to draw it over her. Higher and darker rises shadow on the wall--now a red gloom on the ceiling--now the fire is out. All that prospect, which from the terrace looked so near, has moved solemnly away and changed--not the first nor the last of beautiful things that look so near and will so change--into a distant phantom. Light mists arise, and the dew falls, and all the sweet scents in the garden are heavy in the air. Now the woods settle into great masses as if they were each one profound tree. And now the moon rises to separate them, and to glimmer here and there in horizontal lines behind their stems, and to make the avenue a pavement of light among high cathedral arches fantastically broken. Now the moon is high; and the great house, needing habitation more than ever, is like a body without life. Now it is even awful, stealing through it, to think of the live people who have slept in the solitary bedrooms, to say nothing of the dead. Now is the time for shadow, when every corner is a cavern and every downward step a pit, when the stained glass is reflected in pale and faded hues upon the floors, when anything and everything can be made of the heavy staircase beams excepting their own proper shapes, when the armour has dull lights upon it not easily to be distinguished from stealthy movement, and when barred helmets are frightfully suggestive of heads inside. But of all the shadows in Chesney Wold, the shadow in the long drawing-room upon my Lady's picture is the first to come, the last to be disturbed. At this hour and by this light it changes into threatening hands raised up and menacing the handsome face with every breath that stirs. "She is not well, ma'am," says a groom in Mrs. Rouncewell's audience-chamber. "My Lady not well! What's the matter?" "Why, my Lady has been but poorly, ma'am, since she was last here--I don't mean with the family, ma'am, but when she was here as a bird of passage like. My Lady has not been out much, for her, and has kept her room a good deal." "Chesney Wold, Thomas," rejoins the housekeeper with proud complacency, "will set my Lady up! There is no finer air and no healthier soil in the world!" Thomas may have his own personal opinions on this subject, probably hints them in his manner of smoothing his sleek head from the nape of his neck to his temples, but he forbears to express them further and retires to the servants' hall to regale on cold meat-pie and ale. This groom is the pilot-fish before the nobler shark. Next evening, down come Sir Leicester and my Lady with their largest retinue, and down come the cousins and others from all the points of the compass. Thenceforth for some weeks backward and forward rush mysterious men with no names, who fly about all those particular parts of the country on which Doodle is at present throwing himself in an auriferous and malty shower, but who are merely persons of a restless disposition and never do anything anywhere. On these national occasions Sir Leicester finds the cousins useful. A better man than the Honourable Bob Stables to meet the Hunt at dinner, there could not possibly be. Better got up gentlemen than the other cousins to ride over to polling-booths and hustings here and there, and show themselves on the side of England, it would be hard to find. Volumnia is a little dim, but she is of the true descent; and there are many who appreciate her sprightly conversation, her French conundrums so old as to have become in the cycles of time almost new again, the honour of taking the fair Dedlock in to dinner, or even the privilege of her hand in the dance. On these national occasions dancing may be a patriotic service, and Volumnia is constantly seen hopping about for the good of an ungrateful and unpensioning country. My Lady takes no great pains to entertain the numerous guests, and being still unwell, rarely appears until late in the day. But at all the dismal dinners, leaden lunches, basilisk balls, and other melancholy pageants, her mere appearance is a relief. As to Sir Leicester, he conceives it utterly impossible that anything can be wanting, in any direction, by any one who has the good fortune to be received under that roof; and in a state of sublime satisfaction, he moves among the company, a magnificent refrigerator. Daily the cousins trot through dust and canter over roadside turf, away to hustings and polling-booths (with leather gloves and hunting-whips for the counties and kid gloves and riding-canes for the boroughs), and daily bring back reports on which Sir Leicester holds forth after dinner. Daily the restless men who have no occupation in life present the appearance of being rather busy. Daily Volumnia has a little cousinly talk with Sir Leicester on the state of the nation, from which Sir Leicester is disposed to conclude that Volumnia is a more reflecting woman than he had thought her. "How are we getting on?" says Miss Volumnia, clasping her hands. "ARE we safe?" The mighty business is nearly over by this time, and Doodle will throw himself off the country in a few days more. Sir Leicester has just appeared in the long drawing-room after dinner, a bright particular star surrounded by clouds of cousins. "Volumnia," replies Sir Leicester, who has a list in his hand, "we are doing tolerably." "Only tolerably!" Although it is summer weather, Sir Leicester always has his own particular fire in the evening. He takes his usual screened seat near it and repeats with much firmness and a little displeasure, as who should say, I am not a common man, and when I say tolerably, it must not be understood as a common expression, "Volumnia, we are doing tolerably." "At least there is no opposition to YOU," Volumnia asserts with confidence. "No, Volumnia. This distracted country has lost its senses in many respects, I grieve to say, but--" "It is not so mad as that. I am glad to hear it!" Volumnia's finishing the sentence restores her to favour. Sir Leicester, with a gracious inclination of his head, seems to say to himself, "A sensible woman this, on the whole, though occasionally precipitate." In fact, as to this question of opposition, the fair Dedlock's observation was superfluous, Sir Leicester on these occasions always delivering in his own candidateship, as a kind of handsome wholesale order to be promptly executed. Two other little seats that belong to him he treats as retail orders of less importance, merely sending down the men and signifying to the tradespeople, "You will have the goodness to make these materials into two members of Parliament and to send them home when done." "I regret to say, Volumnia, that in many places the people have shown a bad spirit, and that this opposition to the government has been of a most determined and most implacable description." "W-r-retches!" says Volumnia. "Even," proceeds Sir Leicester, glancing at the circumjacent cousins on sofas and ottomans, "even in many--in fact, in most--of those places in which the government has carried it against a faction--" (Note, by the way, that the Coodleites are always a faction with the Doodleites, and that the Doodleites occupy exactly the same position towards the Coodleites.) "--Even in them I am shocked, for the credit of Englishmen, to be constrained to inform you that the party has not triumphed without being put to an enormous expense. Hundreds," says Sir Leicester, eyeing the cousins with increasing dignity and swelling indignation, "hundreds of thousands of pounds!" If Volumnia have a fault, it is the fault of being a trifle too innocent, seeing that the innocence which would go extremely well with a sash and tucker is a little out of keeping with the rouge and pearl necklace. Howbeit, impelled by innocence, she asks, "What for?" "Volumnia," remonstrates Sir Leicester with his utmost severity. "Volumnia!" "No, no, I don't mean what for," cries Volumnia with her favourite little scream. "How stupid I am! I mean what a pity!" "I am glad," returns Sir Leicester, "that you do mean what a pity." Volumnia hastens to express her opinion that the shocking people ought to be tried as traitors and made to support the party. "I am glad, Volumnia," repeats Sir Leicester, unmindful of these mollifying sentiments, "that you do mean what a pity. It is disgraceful to the electors. But as you, though inadvertently and without intending so unreasonable a question, asked me 'what for?' let me reply to you. For necessary expenses. And I trust to your good sense, Volumnia, not to pursue the subject, here or elsewhere." Sir Leicester feels it incumbent on him to observe a crushing aspect towards Volumnia because it is whispered abroad that these necessary expenses will, in some two hundred election petitions, be unpleasantly connected with the word bribery, and because some graceless jokers have consequently suggested the omission from the Church service of the ordinary supplication in behalf of the High Court of Parliament and have recommended instead that the prayers of the congregation be requested for six hundred and fifty-eight gentlemen in a very unhealthy state. "I suppose," observes Volumnia, having taken a little time to recover her spirits after her late castigation, "I suppose Mr. Tulkinghorn has been worked to death." "I don't know," says Sir Leicester, opening his eyes, "why Mr. Tulkinghorn should be worked to death. I don't know what Mr. Tulkinghorn's engagements may be. He is not a candidate." Volumnia had thought he might have been employed. Sir Leicester could desire to know by whom, and what for. Volumnia, abashed again, suggests, by somebody--to advise and make arrangements. Sir Leicester is not aware that any client of Mr. Tulkinghorn has been in need of his assistance. Lady Dedlock, seated at an open window with her arm upon its cushioned ledge and looking out at the evening shadows falling on the park, has seemed to attend since the lawyer's name was mentioned. A languid cousin with a moustache in a state of extreme debility now observes from his couch that man told him ya'as'dy that Tulkinghorn had gone down t' that iron place t' give legal 'pinion 'bout something, and that contest being over t' day, 'twould be highly jawlly thing if Tulkinghorn should 'pear with news that Coodle man was floored. Mercury in attendance with coffee informs Sir Leicester, hereupon, that Mr. Tulkinghorn has arrived and is taking dinner. My Lady turns her head inward for the moment, then looks out again as before. Volumnia is charmed to hear that her delight is come. He is so original, such a stolid creature, such an immense being for knowing all sorts of things and never telling them! Volumnia is persuaded that he must be a Freemason. Is sure he is at the head of a lodge, and wears short aprons, and is made a perfect idol of with candlesticks and trowels. These lively remarks the fair Dedlock delivers in her youthful manner, while making a purse. "He has not been here once," she adds, "since I came. I really had some thoughts of breaking my heart for the inconstant creature. I had almost made up my mind that he was dead." It may be the gathering gloom of evening, or it may be the darker gloom within herself, but a shade is on my Lady's face, as if she thought, "I would he were!" "Mr. Tulkinghorn," says Sir Leicester, "is always welcome here and always discreet wheresoever he is. A very valuable person, and deservedly respected." The debilitated cousin supposes he is "'normously rich fler." "He has a stake in the country," says Sir Leicester, "I have no doubt. He is, of course, handsomely paid, and he associates almost on a footing of equality with the highest society." Everybody starts. For a gun is fired close by. "Good gracious, what's that?" cries Volumnia with her little withered scream. "A rat," says my Lady. "And they have shot him." Enter Mr. Tulkinghorn, followed by Mercuries with lamps and candles. "No, no," says Sir Leicester, "I think not. My Lady, do you object to the twilight?" On the contrary, my Lady prefers it. "Volumnia?" Oh! Nothing is so delicious to Volumnia as to sit and talk in the dark. "Then take them away," says Sir Leicester. "Tulkinghorn, I beg your pardon. How do you do?" Mr. Tulkinghorn with his usual leisurely ease advances, renders his passing homage to my Lady, shakes Sir Leicester's hand, and subsides into the chair proper to him when he has anything to communicate, on the opposite side of the Baronet's little newspaper-table. Sir Leicester is apprehensive that my Lady, not being very well, will take cold at that open window. My Lady is obliged to him, but would rather sit there for the air. Sir Leicester rises, adjusts her scarf about her, and returns to his seat. Mr. Tulkinghorn in the meanwhile takes a pinch of snuff. "Now," says Sir Leicester. "How has that contest gone?" "Oh, hollow from the beginning. Not a chance. They have brought in both their people. You are beaten out of all reason. Three to one." It is a part of Mr. Tulkinghorn's policy and mastery to have no political opinions; indeed, NO opinions. Therefore he says "you" are beaten, and not "we." Sir Leicester is majestically wroth. Volumnia never heard of such a thing. 'The debilitated cousin holds that it's sort of thing that's sure tapn slongs votes--giv'n--Mob. "It's the place, you know," Mr. Tulkinghorn goes on to say in the fast-increasing darkness when there is silence again, "where they wanted to put up Mrs. Rouncewell's son." "A proposal which, as you correctly informed me at the time, he had the becoming taste and perception," observes Sir Leicester, "to decline. I cannot say that I by any means approve of the sentiments expressed by Mr. Rouncewell when he was here for some half-hour in this room, but there was a sense of propriety in his decision which I am glad to acknowledge." "Ha!" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "It did not prevent him from being very active in this election, though." Sir Leicester is distinctly heard to gasp before speaking. "Did I understand you? Did you say that Mr. Rouncewell had been very active in this election?" "Uncommonly active." "Against--" "Oh, dear yes, against you. He is a very good speaker. Plain and emphatic. He made a damaging effect, and has great influence. In the business part of the proceedings he carried all before him." It is evident to the whole company, though nobody can see him, that Sir Leicester is staring majestically. "And he was much assisted," says Mr. Tulkinghorn as a wind-up, "by his son." "By his son, sir?" repeats Sir Leicester with awful politeness. "By his son." "The son who wished to marry the young woman in my Lady's service?" "That son. He has but one." "Then upon my honour," says Sir Leicester after a terrific pause during which he has been heard to snort and felt to stare, "then upon my honour, upon my life, upon my reputation and principles, the floodgates of society are burst open, and the waters have--a--obliterated the landmarks of the framework of the cohesion by which things are held together!" General burst of cousinly indignation. Volumnia thinks it is really high time, you know, for somebody in power to step in and do something strong. Debilitated cousin thinks--country's going--Dayvle--steeple-chase pace. "I beg," says Sir Leicester in a breathless condition, "that we may not comment further on this circumstance. Comment is superfluous. My Lady, let me suggest in reference to that young woman--" "I have no intention," observes my Lady from her window in a low but decided tone, "of parting with her." "That was not my meaning," returns Sir Leicester. "I am glad to hear you say so. I would suggest that as you think her worthy of your patronage, you should exert your influence to keep her from these dangerous hands. You might show her what violence would be done in such association to her duties and principles, and you might preserve her for a better fate. You might point out to her that she probably would, in good time, find a husband at Chesney Wold by whom she would not be--" Sir Leicester adds, after a moment's consideration, "dragged from the altars of her forefathers." These remarks he offers with his unvarying politeness and deference when he addresses himself to his wife. She merely moves her head in reply. The moon is rising, and where she sits there is a little stream of cold pale light, in which her head is seen. "It is worthy of remark," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "however, that these people are, in their way, very proud." "Proud?" Sir Leicester doubts his hearing. "I should not be surprised if they all voluntarily abandoned the girl--yes, lover and all--instead of her abandoning them, supposing she remained at Chesney Wold under such circumstances." "Well!" says Sir Leicester tremulously. "Well! You should know, Mr. Tulkinghorn. You have been among them." "Really, Sir Leicester," returns the lawyer, "I state the fact. Why, I could tell you a story--with Lady Dedlock's permission." Her head concedes it, and Volumnia is enchanted. A story! Oh, he is going to tell something at last! A ghost in it, Volumnia hopes? "No. Real flesh and blood." Mr. Tulkinghorn stops for an instant and repeats with some little emphasis grafted upon his usual monotony, "Real flesh and blood, Miss Dedlock. Sir Leicester, these particulars have only lately become known to me. They are very brief. They exemplify what I have said. I suppress names for the present. Lady Dedlock will not think me ill-bred, I hope?" By the light of the fire, which is low, he can be seen looking towards the moonlight. By the light of the moon Lady Dedlock can be seen, perfectly still. "A townsman of this Mrs. Rouncewell, a man in exactly parallel circumstances as I am told, had the good fortune to have a daughter who attracted the notice of a great lady. I speak of really a great lady, not merely great to him, but married to a gentleman of your condition, Sir Leicester." Sir Leicester condescendingly says, "Yes, Mr. Tulkinghorn," implying that then she must have appeared of very considerable moral dimensions indeed in the eyes of an iron-master. "The lady was wealthy and beautiful, and had a liking for the girl, and treated her with great kindness, and kept her always near her. Now this lady preserved a secret under all her greatness, which she had preserved for many years. In fact, she had in early life been engaged to marry a young rake--he was a captain in the army--nothing connected with whom came to any good. She never did marry him, but she gave birth to a child of which he was the father." By the light of the fire he can be seen looking towards the moonlight. By the moonlight, Lady Dedlock can be seen in profile, perfectly still. "The captain in the army being dead, she believed herself safe; but a train of circumstances with which I need not trouble you led to discovery. As I received the story, they began in an imprudence on her own part one day when she was taken by surprise, which shows how difficult it is for the firmest of us (she was very firm) to be always guarded. There was great domestic trouble and amazement, you may suppose; I leave you to imagine, Sir Leicester, the husband's grief. But that is not the present point. When Mr. Rouncewell's townsman heard of the disclosure, he no more allowed the girl to be patronized and honoured than he would have suffered her to be trodden underfoot before his eyes. Such was his pride, that he indignantly took her away, as if from reproach and disgrace. He had no sense of the honour done him and his daughter by the lady's condescension; not the least. He resented the girl's position, as if the lady had been the commonest of commoners. That is the story. I hope Lady Dedlock will excuse its painful nature." There are various opinions on the merits, more or less conflicting with Volumnia's. That fair young creature cannot believe there ever was any such lady and rejects the whole history on the threshold. The majority incline to the debilitated cousin's sentiment, which is in few words--"no business--Rouncewell's fernal townsman." Sir Leicester generally refers back in his mind to Wat Tyler and arranges a sequence of events on a plan of his own. There is not much conversation in all, for late hours have been kept at Chesney Wold since the necessary expenses elsewhere began, and this is the first night in many on which the family have been alone. It is past ten when Sir Leicester begs Mr. Tulkinghorn to ring for candles. Then the stream of moonlight has swelled into a lake, and then Lady Dedlock for the first time moves, and rises, and comes forward to a table for a glass of water. Winking cousins, bat-like in the candle glare, crowd round to give it; Volumnia (always ready for something better if procurable) takes another, a very mild sip of which contents her; Lady Dedlock, graceful, self-possessed, looked after by admiring eyes, passes away slowly down the long perspective by the side of that nymph, not at all improving her as a question of contrast.

England has been in a dreadful state for some weeks. The Prime Minister Lord Coodle has gone out, Sir Thomas Doodle won't come in, and there being nobody in Great Britain (to speak of) except Coodle and Doodle, there has been no government. It is amazing that England has not appeared to care very much about it, but has gone on eating and drinking just the same as ever. At last Sir Thomas Doodle has not only condescended to come in, but has done it handsomely, bringing with him all his nephews, his male cousins, and his brothers-in-law. So there is hope for the old ship yet. Doodle has found that he must throw himself upon the country, and campaign, chiefly in the form of sovereigns and beer. The London season comes to a sudden end, through all the Doodleites and Coodleites dispersing to assist in those exercises. Hence Mrs. Rouncewell, housekeeper at Chesney Wold, foresees that the family may shortly be expected, together with a pretty large party of cousins and others who can in any way assist the great Constitutional work. And hence the stately old dame proceeds up and down the staircases, and along the galleries and passages, and through the rooms, to witness that everything is ready, floors rubbed bright, carpets spread, curtains shaken out, beds puffed, and kitchen cleared for action. This summer evening, the preparations are complete. Dreary and solemn the old house looks, with no inhabitants except the pictured forms upon the walls. Through some of the fiery windows, which are beautiful from outside, and set, at this sunset hour, not in dull-grey stone but in a glorious house of gold, the light pours in, rich, lavish, overflowing. Then do the frozen Dedlocks thaw. Strange movements come upon their features as the shadows of leaves play there. But the fire of the sun is dying. Shadow slowly mounts the walls, bringing the Dedlocks down like age and death. And now, upon my Lady's picture over the great chimney-piece, a weird shade falls from some old tree, as if a great arm held a veil or hood, watching an opportunity to draw it over her. Higher and darker rises the shadow on the wall - now a red gloom on the ceiling - now the fire is out. Light mists arise, and the dew falls, and the sweet garden scents are heavy in the air. Now the woods settle into great masses as if they were each one profound tree. And now the moon rises to separate them, and to glimmer here and there in horizontal lines behind their stems, and to make the avenue a pavement of light among high cathedral arches fantastically broken. Now the moon is high; and the great house is like a body without life. Now is the time for shadow, when every corner is a cavern and every downward step a pit, when the stained glass is reflected in pale and faded hues upon the floors, when the armour has dull lights upon it not easily to be distinguished from stealthy movement, and when barred helmets are frightfully suggestive of heads inside. But of all the shadows in Chesney Wold, the shadow in the long drawing-room upon my Lady's picture is the first to come, its threatening hands raised up and menacing the handsome face. "She is not well, ma'am," says a groom in Mrs. Rouncewell's room. "My Lady not well! What's the matter?" "Why, my Lady has been poorly, ma'am, since she was last here, and has kept her room a good deal." "Chesney Wold, Thomas," rejoins the housekeeper with proud complacency, "will set my Lady up! There is no finer air in the world!" Thomas may have his own personal opinions on this subject, but he forbears to express them and retires to the servants' hall. This groom is the pilot-fish before the nobler shark. Next evening, down come Sir Leicester and my Lady with their retinue, and down come the cousins and others from all the points of the compass. Thenceforth for some weeks backward and forward rush mysterious men with no names, who fly about all those parts of the country on which Doodle is at present throwing himself. On these national occasions Sir Leicester finds the cousins useful. A better man than the Honourable Bob Stables to meet the Hunt at dinner, there could not possibly be. Better got-up gentlemen than the other cousins, to ride over to polling-booths and hustings, it would be hard to find. Volumnia is a little dim, but she is of the true descent; and there are many who appreciate her sprightly conversation, her French conundrums so old as to have become in the cycles of time almost new again. On these national occasions dancing may be a patriotic service, and Volumnia is constantly seen hopping about for the good of an ungrateful country. My Lady takes no great pains to entertain the numerous guests, and being still unwell, rarely appears until late in the day. But at all the dismal dinners, leaden lunches, basilisk balls, and other melancholy pageants, her mere appearance is a relief. As to Sir Leicester, he is in a state of sublime satisfaction; he moves among the company, a magnificent refrigerator. Daily the cousins trot away to hustings and polling-booths, and daily bring back reports on which Sir Leicester holds forth after dinner. Daily the restless men who have no occupation in life appear to be rather busy. Daily Volumnia has a little cousinly talk with Sir Leicester on the state of the nation, from which Sir Leicester concludes that Volumnia is a more reflecting woman than he had thought her. "How are we getting on?" says Miss Volumnia, clasping her hands. "Are we safe?" The mighty business is nearly over by this time. Sir Leicester has just appeared in the long drawing-room after dinner, a bright star surrounded by clouds of cousins. "Volumnia," replies Sir Leicester, who has a list in his hand, "we are doing tolerably." "Only tolerably! At least there is no opposition to you," Volumnia asserts with confidence. "No, Volumnia. This distracted country has lost its senses in many respects, I grieve to say, but-" "It is not so mad as that. I am glad to hear it!" On Volumnia's finishing the sentence, Sir Leicester graciously inclines his head. He seems to say to himself, "A sensible woman this." In fact, as to this question of opposition, Sir Leicester always delivers his own candidateship as a kind of handsome wholesale order to be promptly executed. Two other little seats that belong to him he treats as retail orders of less importance, merely sending down two men and signifying to the tradespeople, "You will have the goodness to make these materials into two Members of Parliament and to send them home when done." "I regret to say, Volumnia, that in many places the people have shown a bad spirit, and that this opposition to the government has been most determined." "W-r-retches!" says Volumnia. "In many places I am shocked to have to inform you that the party has not triumphed without being put to an enormous expense," says Sir Leicester, with swelling indignation. "Hundreds of thousands of pounds!" If Volumnia has a fault, it is the fault of being a trifle too innocent for her age. Impelled by innocence, she asks, "What for?" "Volumnia," remonstrates Sir Leicester, with his utmost severity. "No, no, I don't mean what for," cries Volumnia with her favourite little scream. "How stupid I am! I mean what a pity!" And she hastens to express her opinion that the shocking people ought to be tried as traitors and made to support the party. "I am glad, Volumnia," says Sir Leicester, "that you do mean 'what a pity'. But as you asked me 'what for?' let me reply. For necessary expenses. And I trust to your good sense, Volumnia, not to pursue the subject, here or elsewhere." Sir Leicester feels it necessary to crush Volumnia's enquiry because it is whispered abroad that these necessary expenses will, in some cases, be unpleasantly connected with the word bribery. "I suppose," observes Volumnia, having taken a little time to recover her spirits, "I suppose Mr. Tulkinghorn has been worked to death." "I don't know why he should be," says Sir Leicester. "He is not a candidate." Lady Dedlock, seated at an open window and looking out at the evening shadows, seems to attend since the lawyer's name was mentioned. A languid cousin with a moustache in a state of extreme debility now observes from his couch that man told him ya'sdy that Tulkinghorn had gone down t' that iron place t' give legal 'pinion 'bout something, and 'twould be highly jawlly thing if Tulkinghorn should bring news that Coodle man was floored. A footman with coffee informs Sir Leicester that Mr. Tulkinghorn has arrived and is taking dinner. My Lady turns her head, then looks out again as before. Volumnia is charmed to hear that her delight is come. He is so original, such a stolid creature, knowing all sorts of things and never telling them! Volumnia is sure he must be a Freemason. These lively remarks the fair Dedlock delivers in her youthful manner. "He has not been here once," she adds, "since I came. I really had some thoughts of breaking my heart for the inconstant creature. I had almost made up my mind that he was dead." It may be the gathering gloom of evening, but a shade is on my Lady's face, as if she thought, "I wish he were!" "Mr. Tulkinghorn," says Sir Leicester, "is always welcome here and always discreet. A very valuable person." The debilitated cousin supposes he is "'normously rich." "He is, of course, handsomely paid," says Sir Leicester, "and he associates almost on a footing of equality with the highest society." Everybody starts. For a gun is fired close by. "Good gracious, what's that?" cries Volumnia with her little withered scream. "A rat," says my Lady. "And they have shot him." Enter Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Tulkinghorn," says Sir Leicester. "How do you do?" Mr. Tulkinghorn with his usual leisurely ease advances, bows to my Lady, shakes Sir Leicester's hand, and subsides into the chair opposite the Baronet's newspaper-table. Sir Leicester fears that my Lady, not being very well, will take cold at that open window. My Lady is obliged to him, but would rather sit there for the air. Sir Leicester rises, adjusts her scarf about her, and returns to his seat. "Now," says Sir Leicester. "How has that contest gone?" "Oh, hollow from the beginning. Not a chance. They have brought in both their people. You are beaten out of all reason. Three to one." It is a part of Mr. Tulkinghorn's mastery to have no political opinions; indeed, no opinions at all. Therefore he says "you" are beaten, and not "we." Sir Leicester is majestically angry. Volumnia never heard of such a thing. "It's the place, you know," Mr. Tulkinghorn goes on, "where they wanted to put up Mrs. Rouncewell's son." "A proposal which, as you informed me at the time, he had the becoming taste to decline," observes Sir Leicester, "I cannot say that I approve of the sentiments expressed by Mr. Rouncewell when he was here, but there was a propriety in his decision which I am glad to acknowledge." "Ha!" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "It did not prevent him from being very active in this election, though." Sir Leicester is distinctly heard to gasp. "Did I understand you? Did you say that Mr. Rouncewell had been very active in this election?" "Uncommonly active." "Against-" "Oh, dear yes, against you. He is a very good speaker. Plain and emphatic. He made a damaging effect, and has great influence." Sir Leicester is staring majestically. "And he was much assisted," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "by his son." "The son who wished to marry the young woman in my Lady's service?" "That son. He has but one." "Then upon my honour," says Sir Leicester after a terrific pause, "upon my life, the floodgates of society are burst open, and the waters have - ah - obliterated the landmarks of the framework of the cohesion by which things are held together!" General burst of cousinly indignation. Volumnia thinks it is really high time, you know, for somebody in power to step in and do something strong. Debilitated cousin thinks - country's going - Dayvil. "I beg," says Sir Leicester, breathless, "that we may not comment further on this circumstance. My Lady, let me suggest in reference to that young woman-" "I have no intention," observes my Lady from her window, "of parting with her." "That was not my meaning," returns Sir Leicester. "I am glad to hear you say so. I would suggest that as you think her worthy of your patronage, you should exert your influence to keep her from these dangerous hands. You might point out to her that she probably would, in good time, find a husband at Chesney Wold." These remarks he offers with his unvarying politeness and deference to his wife. She merely moves her head in reply. The moon is rising, and where she sits there is a little stream of cold pale light, in which her head is seen. "It is worthy of remark," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "that these people are, in their way, very proud." "Proud?" Sir Leicester doubts his hearing. "I should not be surprised if they abandoned the girl instead of her abandoning them, supposing she remained at Chesney Wold." "Well!" says Sir Leicester tremulously. "You should know, Mr. Tulkinghorn. You have been among them." "Why, Sir Leicester," returns the lawyer, "I could tell you a story - with Lady Dedlock's permission." She nods, and Volumnia is enchanted. A story! Oh, a ghost in it, Volumnia hopes? "No. Real flesh and blood, Miss Dedlock," says the lawyer. "Sir Leicester, these details have only lately become known to me. They exemplify what I have said. I suppress names for the present. Lady Dedlock will not think me ill-bred, I hope?" By the light of the low fire, he can be seen looking towards the moonlight. By the light of the moon Lady Dedlock can be seen, perfectly still. "A townsman of this Mrs. Rouncewell, a man in exactly parallel circumstances, had the good fortune to have a daughter who attracted the notice of a great lady. I speak of really a great lady, married to a gentleman of your position, Sir Leicester." Sir Leicester condescendingly says, "Yes, Mr. Tulkinghorn," implying that then she must have appeared very considerable indeed in the eyes of an iron-master. "The lady was wealthy and beautiful, and had a liking for the girl, and treated her with great kindness, and kept her always near her. Now this lady preserved a secret under all her greatness, which she had kept for many years. In fact, she had in early life been engaged to marry a young rake - a captain in the army who came to no good. She never did marry him, but she gave birth to a child of which he was the father." By the light of the fire he can be seen looking towards the moonlight. By the moonlight, Lady Dedlock can be seen in profile, perfectly still. "The captain being dead, she believed herself safe; but a train of circumstances with which I need not trouble you led to discovery. As I heard it, they began in an imprudence on her own part one day when she was taken by surprise. There was great domestic trouble and amazement, you may suppose; I leave you to imagine, Sir Leicester, the husband's grief. But that is not the point. When Mr. Rouncewell's townsman heard of the disclosure, he no longer allowed the girl to be patronized and honoured by the lady. Such was his pride, that he indignantly took her away, as if from reproach and disgrace; as if the lady had been the commonest of commoners. That is the story. I hope Lady Dedlock will excuse its painful nature." Volumnia cannot believe there ever was any such lady and rejects the whole history. Sir Leicester thinks of Wat Tyler and the Peasants' Revolt. There is not much conversation in all, for it is late. Sir Leicester begs Mr. Tulkinghorn to ring for candles. The stream of moonlight has swelled into a lake, and then Lady Dedlock for the first time moves, and rises, coming forward to a table for a glass of water. Cousins, bat-like in the candle glare, crowd round to give it; Lady Dedlock, graceful, self-possessed, looked at by admiring eyes, passes slowly out of the long room.

Bleak House

Chapter 40: National and Domestic

Richard very often came to see us while we remained in London (though he soon failed in his letter-writing), and with his quick abilities, his good spirits, his good temper, his gaiety and freshness, was always delightful. But though I liked him more and more the better I knew him, I still felt more and more how much it was to be regretted that he had been educated in no habits of application and concentration. The system which had addressed him in exactly the same manner as it had addressed hundreds of other boys, all varying in character and capacity, had enabled him to dash through his tasks, always with fair credit and often with distinction, but in a fitful, dazzling way that had confirmed his reliance on those very qualities in himself which it had been most desirable to direct and train. They were good qualities, without which no high place can be meritoriously won, but like fire and water, though excellent servants, they were very bad masters. If they had been under Richard's direction, they would have been his friends; but Richard being under their direction, they became his enemies. I write down these opinions not because I believe that this or any other thing was so because I thought so, but only because I did think so and I want to be quite candid about all I thought and did. These were my thoughts about Richard. I thought I often observed besides how right my guardian was in what he had said, and that the uncertainties and delays of the Chancery suit had imparted to his nature something of the careless spirit of a gamester who felt that he was part of a great gaming system. Mr. and Mrs. Bayham Badger coming one afternoon when my guardian was not at home, in the course of conversation I naturally inquired after Richard. "Why, Mr. Carstone," said Mrs. Badger, "is very well and is, I assure you, a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser used to say of me that I was always better than land a-head and a breeze a-starn to the midshipmen's mess when the purser's junk had become as tough as the fore-topsel weather earings. It was his naval way of mentioning generally that I was an acquisition to any society. I may render the same tribute, I am sure, to Mr. Carstone. But I--you won't think me premature if I mention it?" I said no, as Mrs. Badger's insinuating tone seemed to require such an answer. "Nor Miss Clare?" said Mrs. Bayham Badger sweetly. Ada said no, too, and looked uneasy. "Why, you see, my dears," said Mrs. Badger, "--you'll excuse me calling you my dears?" We entreated Mrs. Badger not to mention it. "Because you really are, if I may take the liberty of saying so," pursued Mrs. Badger, "so perfectly charming. You see, my dears, that although I am still young--or Mr. Bayham Badger pays me the compliment of saying so--" "No," Mr. Badger called out like some one contradicting at a public meeting. "Not at all!" "Very well," smiled Mrs. Badger, "we will say still young." "Undoubtedly," said Mr. Badger. "My dears, though still young, I have had many opportunities of observing young men. There were many such on board the dear old Crippler, I assure you. After that, when I was with Captain Swosser in the Mediterranean, I embraced every opportunity of knowing and befriending the midshipmen under Captain Swosser's command. YOU never heard them called the young gentlemen, my dears, and probably would not understand allusions to their pipe-claying their weekly accounts, but it is otherwise with me, for blue water has been a second home to me, and I have been quite a sailor. Again, with Professor Dingo." "A man of European reputation," murmured Mr. Badger. "When I lost my dear first and became the wife of my dear second," said Mrs. Badger, speaking of her former husbands as if they were parts of a charade, "I still enjoyed opportunities of observing youth. The class attendant on Professor Dingo's lectures was a large one, and it became my pride, as the wife of an eminent scientific man seeking herself in science the utmost consolation it could impart, to throw our house open to the students as a kind of Scientific Exchange. Every Tuesday evening there was lemonade and a mixed biscuit for all who chose to partake of those refreshments. And there was science to an unlimited extent." "Remarkable assemblies those, Miss Summerson," said Mr. Badger reverentially. "There must have been great intellectual friction going on there under the auspices of such a man!" "And now," pursued Mrs. Badger, "now that I am the wife of my dear third, Mr. Badger, I still pursue those habits of observation which were formed during the lifetime of Captain Swosser and adapted to new and unexpected purposes during the lifetime of Professor Dingo. I therefore have not come to the consideration of Mr. Carstone as a neophyte. And yet I am very much of the opinion, my dears, that he has not chosen his profession advisedly." Ada looked so very anxious now that I asked Mrs. Badger on what she founded her supposition. "My dear Miss Summerson," she replied, "on Mr. Carstone's character and conduct. He is of such a very easy disposition that probably he would never think it worth-while to mention how he really feels, but he feels languid about the profession. He has not that positive interest in it which makes it his vocation. If he has any decided impression in reference to it, I should say it was that it is a tiresome pursuit. Now, this is not promising. Young men like Mr. Allan Woodcourt who take it from a strong interest in all that it can do will find some reward in it through a great deal of work for a very little money and through years of considerable endurance and disappointment. But I am quite convinced that this would never be the case with Mr. Carstone." "Does Mr. Badger think so too?" asked Ada timidly. "Why," said Mr. Badger, "to tell the truth, Miss Clare, this view of the matter had not occurred to me until Mrs. Badger mentioned it. But when Mrs. Badger put it in that light, I naturally gave great consideration to it, knowing that Mrs. Badger's mind, in addition to its natural advantages, has had the rare advantage of being formed by two such very distinguished (I will even say illustrious) public men as Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy and Professor Dingo. The conclusion at which I have arrived is--in short, is Mrs. Badger's conclusion." "It was a maxim of Captain Swosser's," said Mrs. Badger, "speaking in his figurative naval manner, that when you make pitch hot, you cannot make it too hot; and that if you only have to swab a plank, you should swab it as if Davy Jones were after you. It appears to me that this maxim is applicable to the medical as well as to the nautical profession. "To all professions," observed Mr. Badger. "It was admirably said by Captain Swosser. Beautifully said." "People objected to Professor Dingo when we were staying in the north of Devon after our marriage," said Mrs. Badger, "that he disfigured some of the houses and other buildings by chipping off fragments of those edifices with his little geological hammer. But the professor replied that he knew of no building save the Temple of Science. The principle is the same, I think?" "Precisely the same," said Mr. Badger. "Finely expressed! The professor made the same remark, Miss Summerson, in his last illness, when (his mind wandering) he insisted on keeping his little hammer under the pillow and chipping at the countenances of the attendants. The ruling passion!" Although we could have dispensed with the length at which Mr. and Mrs. Badger pursued the conversation, we both felt that it was disinterested in them to express the opinion they had communicated to us and that there was a great probability of its being sound. We agreed to say nothing to Mr. Jarndyce until we had spoken to Richard; and as he was coming next evening, we resolved to have a very serious talk with him. So after he had been a little while with Ada, I went in and found my darling (as I knew she would be) prepared to consider him thoroughly right in whatever he said. "And how do you get on, Richard?" said I. I always sat down on the other side of him. He made quite a sister of me. "Oh! Well enough!" said Richard. "He can't say better than that, Esther, can he?" cried my pet triumphantly. I tried to look at my pet in the wisest manner, but of course I couldn't. "Well enough?" I repeated. "Yes," said Richard, "well enough. It's rather jog-trotty and humdrum. But it'll do as well as anything else!" "Oh! My dear Richard!" I remonstrated. "What's the matter?" said Richard. "Do as well as anything else!" "I don't think there's any harm in that, Dame Durden," said Ada, looking so confidingly at me across him; "because if it will do as well as anything else, it will do very well, I hope." "Oh, yes, I hope so," returned Richard, carelessly tossing his hair from his forehead. "After all, it may be only a kind of probation till our suit is--I forgot though. I am not to mention the suit. Forbidden ground! Oh, yes, it's all right enough. Let us talk about something else." Ada would have done so willingly, and with a full persuasion that we had brought the question to a most satisfactory state. But I thought it would be useless to stop there, so I began again. "No, but Richard," said I, "and my dear Ada! Consider how important it is to you both, and what a point of honour it is towards your cousin, that you, Richard, should be quite in earnest without any reservation. I think we had better talk about this, really, Ada. It will be too late very soon." "Oh, yes! We must talk about it!" said Ada. "But I think Richard is right." What was the use of my trying to look wise when she was so pretty, and so engaging, and so fond of him! "Mr. and Mrs. Badger were here yesterday, Richard," said I, "and they seemed disposed to think that you had no great liking for the profession." "Did they though?" said Richard. "Oh! Well, that rather alters the case, because I had no idea that they thought so, and I should not have liked to disappoint or inconvenience them. The fact is, I don't care much about it. But, oh, it don't matter! It'll do as well as anything else!" "You hear him, Ada!" said I. "The fact is," Richard proceeded, half thoughtfully and half jocosely, "it is not quite in my way. I don't take to it. And I get too much of Mrs. Bayham Badger's first and second." "I am sure THAT'S very natural!" cried Ada, quite delighted. "The very thing we both said yesterday, Esther!" "Then," pursued Richard, "it's monotonous, and to-day is too like yesterday, and to-morrow is too like to-day." "But I am afraid," said I, "this is an objection to all kinds of application--to life itself, except under some very uncommon circumstances." "Do you think so?" returned Richard, still considering. "Perhaps! Ha! Why, then, you know," he added, suddenly becoming gay again, "we travel outside a circle to what I said just now. It'll do as well as anything else. Oh, it's all right enough! Let us talk about something else." But even Ada, with her loving face--and if it had seemed innocent and trusting when I first saw it in that memorable November fog, how much more did it seem now when I knew her innocent and trusting heart--even Ada shook her head at this and looked serious. So I thought it a good opportunity to hint to Richard that if he were sometimes a little careless of himself, I was very sure he never meant to be careless of Ada, and that it was a part of his affectionate consideration for her not to slight the importance of a step that might influence both their lives. This made him almost grave. "My dear Mother Hubbard," he said, "that's the very thing! I have thought of that several times and have been quite angry with myself for meaning to be so much in earnest and--somehow--not exactly being so. I don't know how it is; I seem to want something or other to stand by. Even you have no idea how fond I am of Ada (my darling cousin, I love you, so much!), but I don't settle down to constancy in other things. It's such uphill work, and it takes such a time!" said Richard with an air of vexation. "That may be," I suggested, "because you don't like what you have chosen." "Poor fellow!" said Ada. "I am sure I don't wonder at it!" No. It was not of the least use my trying to look wise. I tried again, but how could I do it, or how could it have any effect if I could, while Ada rested her clasped hands upon his shoulder and while he looked at her tender blue eyes, and while they looked at him! "You see, my precious girl," said Richard, passing her golden curls through and through his hand, "I was a little hasty perhaps; or I misunderstood my own inclinations perhaps. They don't seem to lie in that direction. I couldn't tell till I tried. Now the question is whether it's worth-while to undo all that has been done. It seems like making a great disturbance about nothing particular." "My dear Richard," said I, "how CAN you say about nothing particular?" "I don't mean absolutely that," he returned. "I mean that it MAY be nothing particular because I may never want it." Both Ada and I urged, in reply, not only that it was decidedly worth-while to undo what had been done, but that it must be undone. I then asked Richard whether he had thought of any more congenial pursuit. "There, my dear Mrs. Shipton," said Richard, "you touch me home. Yes, I have. I have been thinking that the law is the boy for me." "The law!" repeated Ada as if she were afraid of the name. "If I went into Kenge's office," said Richard, "and if I were placed under articles to Kenge, I should have my eye on the--hum!--the forbidden ground--and should be able to study it, and master it, and to satisfy myself that it was not neglected and was being properly conducted. I should be able to look after Ada's interests and my own interests (the same thing!); and I should peg away at Blackstone and all those fellows with the most tremendous ardour." I was not by any means so sure of that, and I saw how his hankering after the vague things yet to come of those long-deferred hopes cast a shade on Ada's face. But I thought it best to encourage him in any project of continuous exertion, and only advised him to be quite sure that his mind was made up now. "My dear Minerva," said Richard, "I am as steady as you are. I made a mistake; we are all liable to mistakes; I won't do so any more, and I'll become such a lawyer as is not often seen. That is, you know," said Richard, relapsing into doubt, "if it really is worth-while, after all, to make such a disturbance about nothing particular!" This led to our saying again, with a great deal of gravity, all that we had said already and to our coming to much the same conclusion afterwards. But we so strongly advised Richard to be frank and open with Mr. Jarndyce, without a moment's delay, and his disposition was naturally so opposed to concealment that he sought him out at once (taking us with him) and made a full avowal. "Rick," said my guardian, after hearing him attentively, "we can retreat with honour, and we will. But we must be careful--for our cousin's sake, Rick, for our cousin's sake--that we make no more such mistakes. Therefore, in the matter of the law, we will have a good trial before we decide. We will look before we leap, and take plenty of time about it." Richard's energy was of such an impatient and fitful kind that he would have liked nothing better than to have gone to Mr. Kenge's office in that hour and to have entered into articles with him on the spot. Submitting, however, with a good grace to the caution that we had shown to be so necessary, he contented himself with sitting down among us in his lightest spirits and talking as if his one unvarying purpose in life from childhood had been that one which now held possession of him. My guardian was very kind and cordial with him, but rather grave, enough so to cause Ada, when he had departed and we were going upstairs to bed, to say, "Cousin John, I hope you don't think the worse of Richard?" "No, my love," said he. "Because it was very natural that Richard should be mistaken in such a difficult case. It is not uncommon." "No, no, my love," said he. "Don't look unhappy." "Oh, I am not unhappy, cousin John!" said Ada, smiling cheerfully, with her hand upon his shoulder, where she had put it in bidding him good night. "But I should be a little so if you thought at all the worse of Richard." "My dear," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I should think the worse of him only if you were ever in the least unhappy through his means. I should be more disposed to quarrel with myself even then, than with poor Rick, for I brought you together. But, tut, all this is nothing! He has time before him, and the race to run. I think the worse of him? Not I, my loving cousin! And not you, I swear!" "No, indeed, cousin John," said Ada, "I am sure I could not--I am sure I would not--think any ill of Richard if the whole world did. I could, and I would, think better of him then than at any other time!" So quietly and honestly she said it, with her hands upon his shoulders--both hands now--and looking up into his face, like the picture of truth! "I think," said my guardian, thoughtfully regarding her, "I think it must be somewhere written that the virtues of the mothers shall occasionally be visited on the children, as well as the sins of the father. Good night, my rosebud. Good night, little woman. Pleasant slumbers! Happy dreams!" This was the first time I ever saw him follow Ada with his eyes with something of a shadow on their benevolent expression. I well remembered the look with which he had contemplated her and Richard when she was singing in the firelight; it was but a very little while since he had watched them passing down the room in which the sun was shining, and away into the shade; but his glance was changed, and even the silent look of confidence in me which now followed it once more was not quite so hopeful and untroubled as it had originally been. Ada praised Richard more to me that night than ever she had praised him yet. She went to sleep with a little bracelet he had given her clasped upon her arm. I fancied she was dreaming of him when I kissed her cheek after she had slept an hour and saw how tranquil and happy she looked. For I was so little inclined to sleep myself that night that I sat up working. It would not be worth mentioning for its own sake, but I was wakeful and rather low-spirited. I don't know why. At least I don't think I know why. At least, perhaps I do, but I don't think it matters. At any rate, I made up my mind to be so dreadfully industrious that I would leave myself not a moment's leisure to be low-spirited. For I naturally said, "Esther! You to be low-spirited. YOU!" And it really was time to say so, for I--yes, I really did see myself in the glass, almost crying. "As if you had anything to make you unhappy, instead of everything to make you happy, you ungrateful heart!" said I. If I could have made myself go to sleep, I would have done it directly, but not being able to do that, I took out of my basket some ornamental work for our house (I mean Bleak House) that I was busy with at that time and sat down to it with great determination. It was necessary to count all the stitches in that work, and I resolved to go on with it until I couldn't keep my eyes open, and then to go to bed. I soon found myself very busy. But I had left some silk downstairs in a work-table drawer in the temporary growlery, and coming to a stop for want of it, I took my candle and went softly down to get it. To my great surprise, on going in I found my guardian still there, and sitting looking at the ashes. He was lost in thought, his book lay unheeded by his side, his silvered iron-grey hair was scattered confusedly upon his forehead as though his hand had been wandering among it while his thoughts were elsewhere, and his face looked worn. Almost frightened by coming upon him so unexpectedly, I stood still for a moment and should have retired without speaking had he not, in again passing his hand abstractedly through his hair, seen me and started. "Esther!" I told him what I had come for. "At work so late, my dear?" "I am working late to-night," said I, "because I couldn't sleep and wished to tire myself. But, dear guardian, you are late too, and look weary. You have no trouble, I hope, to keep you waking?" "None, little woman, that YOU would readily understand," said he. He spoke in a regretful tone so new to me that I inwardly repeated, as if that would help me to his meaning, "That I could readily understand!" "Remain a moment, Esther," said he, "You were in my thoughts." "I hope I was not the trouble, guardian?" He slightly waved his hand and fell into his usual manner. The change was so remarkable, and he appeared to make it by dint of so much self-command, that I found myself again inwardly repeating, "None that I could understand!" "Little woman," said my guardian, "I was thinking--that is, I have been thinking since I have been sitting here--that you ought to know of your own history all I know. It is very little. Next to nothing." "Dear guardian," I replied, "when you spoke to me before on that subject--" "But since then," he gravely interposed, anticipating what I meant to say, "I have reflected that your having anything to ask me, and my having anything to tell you, are different considerations, Esther. It is perhaps my duty to impart to you the little I know." "If you think so, guardian, it is right." "I think so," he returned very gently, and kindly, and very distinctly. "My dear, I think so now. If any real disadvantage can attach to your position in the mind of any man or woman worth a thought, it is right that you at least of all the world should not magnify it to yourself by having vague impressions of its nature." I sat down and said after a little effort to be as calm as I ought to be, "One of my earliest remembrances, guardian, is of these words: 'Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. The time will come, and soon enough, when you will understand this better, and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can.'" I had covered my face with my hands in repeating the words, but I took them away now with a better kind of shame, I hope, and told him that to him I owed the blessing that I had from my childhood to that hour never, never, never felt it. He put up his hand as if to stop me. I well knew that he was never to be thanked, and said no more. "Nine years, my dear," he said after thinking for a little while, "have passed since I received a letter from a lady living in seclusion, written with a stern passion and power that rendered it unlike all other letters I have ever read. It was written to me (as it told me in so many words), perhaps because it was the writer's idiosyncrasy to put that trust in me, perhaps because it was mine to justify it. It told me of a child, an orphan girl then twelve years old, in some such cruel words as those which live in your remembrance. It told me that the writer had bred her in secrecy from her birth, had blotted out all trace of her existence, and that if the writer were to die before the child became a woman, she would be left entirely friendless, nameless, and unknown. It asked me to consider if I would, in that case, finish what the writer had begun." I listened in silence and looked attentively at him. "Your early recollection, my dear, will supply the gloomy medium through which all this was seen and expressed by the writer, and the distorted religion which clouded her mind with impressions of the need there was for the child to expiate an offence of which she was quite innocent. I felt concerned for the little creature, in her darkened life, and replied to the letter." I took his hand and kissed it. "It laid the injunction on me that I should never propose to see the writer, who had long been estranged from all intercourse with the world, but who would see a confidential agent if I would appoint one. I accredited Mr. Kenge. The lady said, of her own accord and not of his seeking, that her name was an assumed one. That she was, if there were any ties of blood in such a case, the child's aunt. That more than this she would never (and he was well persuaded of the steadfastness of her resolution) for any human consideration disclose. My dear, I have told you all." I held his hand for a little while in mine. "I saw my ward oftener than she saw me," he added, cheerily making light of it, "and I always knew she was beloved, useful, and happy. She repays me twenty-thousandfold, and twenty more to that, every hour in every day!" "And oftener still," said I, "she blesses the guardian who is a father to her!" At the word father, I saw his former trouble come into his face. He subdued it as before, and it was gone in an instant; but it had been there and it had come so swiftly upon my words that I felt as if they had given him a shock. I again inwardly repeated, wondering, "That I could readily understand. None that I could readily understand!" No, it was true. I did not understand it. Not for many and many a day. "Take a fatherly good night, my dear," said he, kissing me on the forehead, "and so to rest. These are late hours for working and thinking. You do that for all of us, all day long, little housekeeper!" I neither worked nor thought any more that night. I opened my grateful heart to heaven in thankfulness for its providence to me and its care of me, and fell asleep. We had a visitor next day. Mr. Allan Woodcourt came. He came to take leave of us; he had settled to do so beforehand. He was going to China and to India as a surgeon on board ship. He was to be away a long, long time. I believe--at least I know--that he was not rich. All his widowed mother could spare had been spent in qualifying him for his profession. It was not lucrative to a young practitioner, with very little influence in London; and although he was, night and day, at the service of numbers of poor people and did wonders of gentleness and skill for them, he gained very little by it in money. He was seven years older than I. Not that I need mention it, for it hardly seems to belong to anything. I think--I mean, he told us--that he had been in practice three or four years and that if he could have hoped to contend through three or four more, he would not have made the voyage on which he was bound. But he had no fortune or private means, and so he was going away. He had been to see us several times altogether. We thought it a pity he should go away. Because he was distinguished in his art among those who knew it best, and some of the greatest men belonging to it had a high opinion of him. When he came to bid us good-bye, he brought his mother with him for the first time. She was a pretty old lady, with bright black eyes, but she seemed proud. She came from Wales and had had, a long time ago, an eminent person for an ancestor, of the name of Morgan ap-Kerrig--of some place that sounded like Gimlet--who was the most illustrious person that ever was known and all of whose relations were a sort of royal family. He appeared to have passed his life in always getting up into mountains and fighting somebody; and a bard whose name sounded like Crumlinwallinwer had sung his praises in a piece which was called, as nearly as I could catch it, Mewlinnwillinwodd. Mrs. Woodcourt, after expatiating to us on the fame of her great kinsman, said that no doubt wherever her son Allan went he would remember his pedigree and would on no account form an alliance below it. She told him that there were many handsome English ladies in India who went out on speculation, and that there were some to be picked up with property, but that neither charms nor wealth would suffice for the descendant from such a line without birth, which must ever be the first consideration. She talked so much about birth that for a moment I half fancied, and with pain--But what an idle fancy to suppose that she could think or care what MINE was! Mr. Woodcourt seemed a little distressed by her prolixity, but he was too considerate to let her see it and contrived delicately to bring the conversation round to making his acknowledgments to my guardian for his hospitality and for the very happy hours--he called them the very happy hours--he had passed with us. The recollection of them, he said, would go with him wherever he went and would be always treasured. And so we gave him our hands, one after another--at least, they did--and I did; and so he put his lips to Ada's hand--and to mine; and so he went away upon his long, long voyage! I was very busy indeed all day and wrote directions home to the servants, and wrote notes for my guardian, and dusted his books and papers, and jingled my housekeeping keys a good deal, one way and another. I was still busy between the lights, singing and working by the window, when who should come in but Caddy, whom I had no expectation of seeing! "Why, Caddy, my dear," said I, "what beautiful flowers!" She had such an exquisite little nosegay in her hand. "Indeed, I think so, Esther," replied Caddy. "They are the loveliest I ever saw." "Prince, my dear?" said I in a whisper. "No," answered Caddy, shaking her head and holding them to me to smell. "Not Prince." "Well, to be sure, Caddy!" said I. "You must have two lovers!" "What? Do they look like that sort of thing?" said Caddy. "Do they look like that sort of thing?" I repeated, pinching her cheek. Caddy only laughed in return, and telling me that she had come for half an hour, at the expiration of which time Prince would be waiting for her at the corner, sat chatting with me and Ada in the window, every now and then handing me the flowers again or trying how they looked against my hair. At last, when she was going, she took me into my room and put them in my dress. "For me?" said I, surprised. "For you," said Caddy with a kiss. "They were left behind by somebody." "Left behind?" "At poor Miss Flite's," said Caddy. "Somebody who has been very good to her was hurrying away an hour ago to join a ship and left these flowers behind. No, no! Don't take them out. Let the pretty little things lie here," said Caddy, adjusting them with a careful hand, "because I was present myself, and I shouldn't wonder if somebody left them on purpose!" "Do they look like that sort of thing?" said Ada, coming laughingly behind me and clasping me merrily round the waist. "Oh, yes, indeed they do, Dame Durden! They look very, very like that sort of thing. Oh, very like it indeed, my dear!"

Richard often came to see us while we were in London (though he soon failed in his letter-writing), and with his quick abilities, his good temper, his gaiety and freshness, was always delightful. But though I liked him more and more the better I knew him, I still felt more and more how much it was to be regretted that he had been taught no habits of application. His education had enabled him to dash through his tasks with fair credit, and often with distinction, but in a fitful, dazzling way that had confirmed his reliance on those very qualities which it was most desirable to train. Those qualities were excellent servants, but very bad masters. If they had been under Richard's direction, they would have been his friends; but Richard being under their direction, they became his enemies. I write down these opinions only because I want to be quite candid about all I thought and did. I often observed how right my guardian was in what he had said, that the uncertainties of the Chancery suit had given Richard's nature something of the careless spirit of a gamester who felt that he was part of a great gaming system. Mr. and Mrs. Bayham Badger came one afternoon when my guardian was not at home. In the course of conversation I naturally inquired after Richard. "Why, he is very well," said Mrs. Badger, "and a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser used to say of me that I was an acquisition to any society. I may render the same tribute, I am sure, to Mr. Carstone. But - you won't think me premature if I mention it?" I said no. Ada said no, too, and looked uneasy. "Why, you see, my dears," said Mrs. Badger, "that although I am still young - or Mr. Bayham Badger pays me the compliment of saying so-" "Undoubtedly!" said Mr. Badger. "- my dears, though still young, I have had many opportunities of observing young men. There were many such on board the dear old Crippler, I assure you. I embraced every chance of befriending the midshipmen under Captain Swosser's command. Again, with Professor Dingo." "A man of European reputation," murmured Mr. Badger. "When I became the wife of my dear second husband," said Mrs. Badger, "I still enjoyed opportunities of observing youth. The class attending Professor Dingo's lectures was a large one, and it became my pride, as the wife of such an eminent scientific man, to throw our house open to the students. Every Tuesday evening there was lemonade and mixed biscuits for all who chose to partake." "Remarkable assemblies," said Mr. Badger reverentially. "And now," pursued Mrs. Badger, "I still have those habits of observation. And when I consider Mr. Carstone, I am very much of the opinion, my dears, that he has not chosen his profession advisedly." I asked Mrs. Badger why she said this. "My dear Miss Summerson," she replied, "Mr. Carstone is of such a very easy disposition that probably he would never think it worthwhile to mention how he really feels, but he feels languid about the profession. He has not that positive interest in it which makes it his vocation. If anything, I should say he sees it as a tiresome pursuit. Now, this is not promising. Young men like Mr. Allan Woodcourt who take a strong interest in the profession will find some reward in it through a great deal of work for a very little money. But I am quite convinced that this would never be the case with Mr. Carstone." "Does Mr. Badger think so too?" asked Ada timidly. "Why," said Mr. Badger, "to tell the truth, Miss Clare, I had not thought about it until Mrs. Badger put it in that light; but then I reached the same conclusion." Ada and I both felt that that it was very likely that this opinion was sound. We agreed to say nothing to Mr. Jarndyce until we had spoken to Richard; and as he was coming next evening, we resolved to have a very serious talk with him. So after he had been a little while with Ada, I went in. "How do you get on, Richard?" said I, and sat down on the other side of him. "Oh! Well enough!" said Richard. "He can't say better than that, Esther, can he?" cried my pet triumphantly. "Well enough?" I repeated. "Yes," said Richard, "well enough. It's rather jog-trotty and humdrum. But it'll do as well as anything else!" "Oh! My dear Richard!" I remonstrated. "I don't think there's any harm in that, Dame Durden," said Ada, looking confidingly at me across him; "if it will do as well as anything else, it will do very well, I hope." "Oh, yes, I hope so," returned Richard, carelessly tossing his hair from his forehead. "After all, it may be only a kind of probation till our lawsuit is - I forgot though. I am not to mention the suit! Oh, yes, it's all right. Let us talk about something else." Ada would have done so willingly. But I began again. "No, but Richard," said I, "and my dear Ada! Consider how important it is to you both. I think we had better talk about this, really. Mr. and Mrs. Badger were here yesterday, Richard, and they seemed to think that you had no great liking for the profession." "Did they though?" said Richard. "Oh! Well, the fact is, I don't care much about it. But it don't matter! It'll do as well as anything else!" "You hear him, Ada!" said I. "The fact is," Richard proceeded, half thoughtfully and half laughingly, "it is not quite in my way. I don't take to it. And I get too much of Mrs. Bayham Badger's first and second husbands." "I am sure that's very natural!" cried Ada, quite delighted. "Then," pursued Richard, "it's monotonous. Every day is the same." "But I am afraid," said I, "this is an objection to all kinds of application - often to life itself." "Do you think so?" returned Richard. "Perhaps! Ha! Why, then, you know," he added, suddenly becoming gay again, "like I said, it'll do as well as anything else!" But even Ada shook her head at this and looked serious. So I hinted to Richard that if he were sometimes a little careless of himself, I was very sure he never meant to be careless of Ada, and that he must not make light of a step that might influence both their lives. "My dear Mother Hubbard," he said, "I have indeed thought of that several times and have been quite angry with myself for meaning to be so much in earnest and - somehow - not exactly being so. I don't know how it is. You have no idea how fond I am of Ada (my darling cousin, I love you so much!), but I don't settle to constancy in other things. It's such uphill work, and it takes such a time!" said Richard with an air of vexation. "That may be," I suggested, "because you don't like what you have chosen." "Poor fellow!" said Ada. "I am sure I don't wonder at it!" She rested her clasped hands upon his shoulder. "You see, my precious girl," said Richard, passing her golden curls through his hand, "I was a little hasty perhaps; or I misunderstood my own inclinations. I couldn't tell till I tried. Now the question is whether it's worth-while to undo all that has been done. It seems like making a great disturbance about nothing particular." "My dear Richard," said I, "how can you say about nothing particular?" "I mean that it may be nothing particular because I may never need it." Both Ada and I urged, in reply, that it was worth-while to undo what had been done, and that it must be undone. I asked Richard whether he had thought of any more congenial pursuit. "Yes, I have. I have been thinking that the law is the boy for me. If I went into Kenge's office," said Richard, "I should have my eye on the - hum! - the forbidden ground - and should be able to study it, and master it, and satisfy myself that it was being properly conducted. I should be able to look after Ada's interests and mine (the same thing!); and I should peg away with the most tremendous ardour." I was not by any means so sure of that, and I saw how his hankering after the vague things yet to come cast a shade on Ada's face. But I thought it best to encourage him in any project of continuous exertion, and only advised him to be quite sure that his mind was made up. "I'll become such a lawyer as is not often seen," said Richard. "That is, you know, if it really is worth-while, after all, to make such a disturbance about nothing particular!" This led to our saying again, with a great deal of gravity, all that we had said already. We so strongly advised Richard to be frank and open with Mr. Jarndyce that he sought him out at once and made a full avowal. "Rick," said my guardian, after hearing him attentively, "we can retreat with honour, and we will. But we must be careful - for our cousin's sake, Rick - that we make no more such mistakes. Therefore, in the matter of the law, we will have a good trial before we decide. We will look before we leap, and take plenty of time about it." Richard's energy was of such an impatient and fitful kind that he would have liked nothing better than to have gone to Mr. Kenge's office and to have entered into articles with him on the spot. Submitting, however, with a good grace, he sat down in his lightest spirits, talking as if his one unvarying purpose in life from childhood had been the law. My guardian was very kind and cordial with him, but rather grave. When Richard had departed, Ada said, "Cousin John, I hope you don't think the worse of Richard?" "No, no, my love," said he. "Don't look unhappy." "Oh, I am not unhappy, cousin John!" said Ada, smiling cheerfully. "But I should be a little so if you thought the worse of Richard." "My dear," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I should think the worse of him only if you were ever unhappy through his means. But, tut, all this is nothing! He has time before him, and the race to run. I think the worse of him? Not I, my loving cousin! And not you, I swear!" "No, indeed, cousin John," said Ada, "I am sure I could not think any ill of Richard if the whole world did. I would think better of him then than at any other time!" Quietly and honestly she said it, looking up into his face, like the picture of truth! "I think," said my guardian, thoughtfully regarding her, "that it must be somewhere written that the virtues of the mothers shall occasionally be visited on the children, as well as the sins of the fathers. Good night, my rosebud. Good night, little woman. Pleasant slumbers!" This was the first time I ever saw him look at Ada with a shadow on his benevolent expression. I well remembered the look with which he had contemplated her and Richard when she was singing in the firelight, not long ago; but now his glance was changed, and was not quite so hopeful and untroubled as it had been. Ada praised Richard more to me that night than ever she had praised him yet. She went to sleep with a little bracelet he had given her clasped upon her arm. I was so little inclined to sleep myself that night that I sat up working. It would not be worth mentioning for its own sake, but I was wakeful and rather low-spirited. I don't know why. At least, perhaps I do, but I don't think it matters. At any rate, I made up my mind to be so dreadfully industrious that I would leave myself not a moment's leisure to be low-spirited. For I naturally said, "Esther! As if you had anything to make you unhappy, instead of everything to make you happy, you ungrateful heart!" If I could have made myself go to sleep, I would have done it, but not being able to do that, I took out of my basket some needlework and sat down to it with great determination. It was necessary to count all the stitches, and I resolved to go on with it until I couldn't keep my eyes open, and then to go to bed. I soon found myself very busy. But I had left some silk downstairs in a work-table drawer in the temporary growlery; so I took my candle and went softly down to get it. To my great surprise, on going in I found my guardian still there, sitting looking at the ashes. He was lost in thought, his book unheeded by his side, and his face looked worn. Almost frightened by coming upon him so unexpectedly, I stood still for a moment and should have retired without speaking had he not, in running his hand abstractedly through his hair, seen me and started. "Esther!" I told him what I had come for. "At work so late, my dear?" "I am working late tonight," said I, "because I couldn't sleep and wished to tire myself. But, dear guardian, you are late too, and look weary. You have no trouble, I hope, to keep you waking?" "None, little woman, that you would readily understand," said he. He spoke in a regretful tone that was new to me. "Remain a moment, Esther," said he. "You were in my thoughts." "I hope I was not the trouble, guardian?" He fell into his usual manner. The change was remarkable, and he appeared to make it by using great self-command. "Little woman," said my guardian, "I have been thinking that you ought to know of your own history all I know. It is very little. Next to nothing." "Dear guardian," I replied, "when you spoke to me before on that subject-" "But since then," he gravely interposed, "I have reflected that it is perhaps my duty to tell you the little I know." "If you think so, guardian, it is right." "My dear, I think so now," he returned very gently and kindly. "If any real disadvantage can attach to your position, it is right that you at least should not magnify it to yourself by having vague impressions of its nature." I sat down and said after a little effort to be calm, "One of my earliest memories is of these words: 'Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. The time will come when you will understand this better.'" I had covered my face with my hands in repeating the words, but I took them away now, and said that to him I owed the blessing that I had never felt shame since that time. He put up his hand as if to stop me. "Nine years, my dear," he said, "have passed since I received a letter from a lady living in seclusion, written with a stern passion and power unlike any I have ever read. It told me of a child, an orphan girl then twelve years old, in some such cruel words as those which you remember. It told me that the writer had bred her in secrecy from her birth, had blotted out all trace of her existence, and that if the writer were to die before the child became a woman, she would be left entirely friendless, nameless, and unknown. It asked me to consider if I would, in that case, finish what the writer had begun." I listened in silence and looked attentively at him. "You yourself will recollect, my dear, the gloomy atmosphere which affected the writer, and the distorted religion which clouded her mind. I felt concerned for the little innocent creature, in her darkened life, and replied to the letter." I took his hand and kissed it. "It laid the injunction on me that I should never ask to see the writer, but that I could appoint an agent whom she would see. I appointed Mr. Kenge. The lady said that her name was an assumed one, and that she was the child's aunt. More than this she would never reveal. My dear, I have told you all." I held his hand for a little while in mine. "I saw my ward oftener than she saw me," he added, cheerily making light of it, "and I always knew she was beloved, useful, and happy. She repays me twenty-thousandfold, every hour of every day!" "And oftener still," said I, "she blesses the guardian who is a father to her!" At the word father, I saw his former trouble come into his face. He subdued it as before, and it was gone in an instant; but I felt my words had given him a shock. Wondering, I inwardly repeated his words: "No trouble that I could readily understand!" No, I did not understand it. Not for many and many a day. "Take a fatherly good night, my dear," said he, kissing me on the forehead, "and so to rest. These are late hours for working and thinking. You do that for us all day long, little housekeeper!" I neither worked nor thought any more that night. I opened my grateful heart to heaven in thankfulness for its care of me, and fell asleep. We had a visitor next day. Mr. Allan Woodcourt came to take leave of us, as he had arranged to do beforehand. He was going to China and to India as a surgeon on board ship. He was to be away a long, long time. I believe that he was not rich. All his widowed mother could spare had been spent in qualifying him for his profession. Although he was, night and day, at the service of numerous poor people and did wonders of gentleness and skill for them, he gained very little money by it. He was seven years older than I. Not that I need mention it, for it hardly seems to belong to anything. I think - I mean, he told us - that he had been in practice three or four years and that if he could have managed three or four more, he would not have made the voyage on which he was bound. But he had no fortune or private means, and so he was going away. He had been to see us several times altogether. We thought it a pity he should go away, because he was distinguished in his art. When he came to bid us good-bye, he brought his mother with him for the first time. She was a pretty old lady, with bright black eyes, but she seemed proud. She came from Wales and had had, a long time ago, an eminent ancestor, of the name of Morgan ap-Kerrig - of some place that sounded like Gimlet - whose relations were a sort of royal family. This ancestor appeared to have passed his life in always getting up into mountains and fighting somebody; and a bard whose name sounded like Crumlinwallinwer had sung his praises in a piece which was called, as nearly as I could catch it, Mewlinnwillinwodd. Mrs. Woodcourt, after telling us of the fame of her great kinsman, said that no doubt wherever her son Allan went he would remember his pedigree, and would never form an alliance below it. She told him that there were many handsome English ladies in India who were looking for a husband, but that high birth must ever be the first consideration. She talked so much about birth that for a moment I half fancied, and with pain - but what an idle fancy to suppose that she could care what mine was! Mr. Woodcourt seemed a little distressed by her talk, but he was too considerate to let her see it and contrived delicately to bring the conversation round to thanking my guardian for his hospitality and for the very happy hours he had passed with us. The recollection of them, he said, would go with him and would be always treasured. And so we gave him our hands, one after another; and so he put his lips to Ada's hand - and to mine; and so he went away upon his long, long voyage! I was very busy indeed all day and wrote directions home to the servants, and wrote notes for my guardian, and dusted his books and papers, and jingled my housekeeping keys a good deal. I was still busy, singing and working by the window, when who should come in but Caddy Jellyby, whom I had no expectation of seeing! "Why, Caddy, my dear," said I, "what beautiful flowers!" She had an exquisite little nosegay in her hand. "Indeed, I think so, Esther," replied Caddy. "They are the loveliest I ever saw." "Prince, my dear?" said I in a whisper. "No," answered Caddy, shaking her head and holding them to me to smell. "Not Prince." "Well, to be sure, Caddy!" said I. "You must have two lovers!" Caddy only laughed in return, and telling me that she had come for half an hour, until Prince would be waiting for her at the corner, sat chatting with me and Ada in the window, every now and then handing me the flowers again. At last, when she was going, she took me into my room and put them in my dress. "For me?" said I, surprised. "For you," said Caddy with a kiss. "They were left behind by somebody." "Left behind?" "At poor Miss Flite's," said Caddy. "Somebody who has been very good to her was hurrying away an hour ago to join a ship and left these flowers behind. No, no! Don't take them out. Let the pretty little things lie here," she said, adjusting them carefully, "because I was present myself, and I shouldn't wonder if somebody left them on purpose!"

Bleak House

Chapter 17: Esther's Narrative

I lay ill through several weeks, and the usual tenor of my life became like an old remembrance. But this was not the effect of time so much as of the change in all my habits made by the helplessness and inaction of a sick-room. Before I had been confined to it many days, everything else seemed to have retired into a remote distance where there was little or no separation between the various stages of my life which had been really divided by years. In falling ill, I seemed to have crossed a dark lake and to have left all my experiences, mingled together by the great distance, on the healthy shore. My housekeeping duties, though at first it caused me great anxiety to think that they were unperformed, were soon as far off as the oldest of the old duties at Greenleaf or the summer afternoons when I went home from school with my portfolio under my arm, and my childish shadow at my side, to my godmother's house. I had never known before how short life really was and into how small a space the mind could put it. While I was very ill, the way in which these divisions of time became confused with one another distressed my mind exceedingly. At once a child, an elder girl, and the little woman I had been so happy as, I was not only oppressed by cares and difficulties adapted to each station, but by the great perplexity of endlessly trying to reconcile them. I suppose that few who have not been in such a condition can quite understand what I mean or what painful unrest arose from this source. For the same reason I am almost afraid to hint at that time in my disorder--it seemed one long night, but I believe there were both nights and days in it--when I laboured up colossal staircases, ever striving to reach the top, and ever turned, as I have seen a worm in a garden path, by some obstruction, and labouring again. I knew perfectly at intervals, and I think vaguely at most times, that I was in my bed; and I talked with Charley, and felt her touch, and knew her very well; yet I would find myself complaining, "Oh, more of these never-ending stairs, Charley--more and more--piled up to the sky', I think!" and labouring on again. Dare I hint at that worse time when, strung together somewhere in great black space, there was a flaming necklace, or ring, or starry circle of some kind, of which I was one of the beads! And when my only prayer was to be taken off from the rest and when it was such inexplicable agony and misery to be a part of the dreadful thing? Perhaps the less I say of these sick experiences, the less tedious and the more intelligible I shall be. I do not recall them to make others unhappy or because I am now the least unhappy in remembering them. It may be that if we knew more of such strange afflictions we might be the better able to alleviate their intensity. The repose that succeeded, the long delicious sleep, the blissful rest, when in my weakness I was too calm to have any care for myself and could have heard (or so I think now) that I was dying, with no other emotion than with a pitying love for those I left behind--this state can be perhaps more widely understood. I was in this state when I first shrunk from the light as it twinkled on me once more, and knew with a boundless joy for which no words are rapturous enough that I should see again. I had heard my Ada crying at the door, day and night; I had heard her calling to me that I was cruel and did not love her; I had heard her praying and imploring to be let in to nurse and comfort me and to leave my bedside no more; but I had only said, when I could speak, "Never, my sweet girl, never!" and I had over and over again reminded Charley that she was to keep my darling from the room whether I lived or died. Charley had been true to me in that time of need, and with her little hand and her great heart had kept the door fast. But now, my sight strengthening and the glorious light coming every day more fully and brightly on me, I could read the letters that my dear wrote to me every morning and evening and could put them to my lips and lay my cheek upon them with no fear of hurting her. I could see my little maid, so tender and so careful, going about the two rooms setting everything in order and speaking cheerfully to Ada from the open window again. I could understand the stillness in the house and the thoughtfulness it expressed on the part of all those who had always been so good to me. I could weep in the exquisite felicity of my heart and be as happy in my weakness as ever I had been in my strength. By and by my strength began to be restored. Instead of lying, with so strange a calmness, watching what was done for me, as if it were done for some one else whom I was quietly sorry for, I helped it a little, and so on to a little more and much more, until I became useful to myself, and interested, and attached to life again. How well I remember the pleasant afternoon when I was raised in bed with pillows for the first time to enjoy a great tea-drinking with Charley! The little creature--sent into the world, surely, to minister to the weak and sick--was so happy, and so busy, and stopped so often in her preparations to lay her head upon my bosom, and fondle me, and cry with joyful tears she was so glad, she was so glad, that I was obliged to say, "Charley, if you go on in this way, I must lie down again, my darling, for I am weaker than I thought I was!" So Charley became as quiet as a mouse and took her bright face here and there across and across the two rooms, out of the shade into the divine sunshine, and out of the sunshine into the shade, while I watched her peacefully. When all her preparations were concluded and the pretty tea-table with its little delicacies to tempt me, and its white cloth, and its flowers, and everything so lovingly and beautifully arranged for me by Ada downstairs, was ready at the bedside, I felt sure I was steady enough to say something to Charley that was not new to my thoughts. First I complimented Charley on the room, and indeed it was so fresh and airy, so spotless and neat, that I could scarce believe I had been lying there so long. This delighted Charley, and her face was brighter than before. "Yet, Charley," said I, looking round, "I miss something, surely, that I am accustomed to?" Poor little Charley looked round too and pretended to shake her head as if there were nothing absent. "Are the pictures all as they used to be?" I asked her. "Every one of them, miss," said Charley. "And the furniture, Charley?" "Except where I have moved it about to make more room, miss." "And yet," said I, "I miss some familiar object. Ah, I know what it is, Charley! It's the looking-glass." Charley got up from the table, making as if she had forgotten something, and went into the next room; and I heard her sob there. I had thought of this very often. I was now certain of it. I could thank God that it was not a shock to me now. I called Charley back, and when she came--at first pretending to smile, but as she drew nearer to me, looking grieved--I took her in my arms and said, "It matters very little, Charley. I hope I can do without my old face very well." I was presently so far advanced as to be able to sit up in a great chair and even giddily to walk into the adjoining room, leaning on Charley. The mirror was gone from its usual place in that room too, but what I had to bear was none the harder to bear for that. My guardian had throughout been earnest to visit me, and there was now no good reason why I should deny myself that happiness. He came one morning, and when he first came in, could only hold me in his embrace and say, "My dear, dear girl!" I had long known--who could know better?--what a deep fountain of affection and generosity his heart was; and was it not worth my trivial suffering and change to fill such a place in it? "Oh, yes!" I thought. "He has seen me, and he loves me better than he did; he has seen me and is even fonder of me than he was before; and what have I to mourn for!" He sat down by me on the sofa, supporting me with his arm. For a little while he sat with his hand over his face, but when he removed it, fell into his usual manner. There never can have been, there never can be, a pleasanter manner. "My little woman," said he, "what a sad time this has been. Such an inflexible little woman, too, through all!" "Only for the best, guardian," said I. "For the best?" he repeated tenderly. "Of course, for the best. But here have Ada and I been perfectly forlorn and miserable; here has your friend Caddy been coming and going late and early; here has every one about the house been utterly lost and dejected; here has even poor Rick been writing--to ME too--in his anxiety for you!" I had read of Caddy in Ada's letters, but not of Richard. I told him so. "Why, no, my dear," he replied. "I have thought it better not to mention it to her." "And you speak of his writing to YOU," said I, repeating his emphasis. "As if it were not natural for him to do so, guardian; as if he could write to a better friend!" "He thinks he could, my love," returned my guardian, "and to many a better. The truth is, he wrote to me under a sort of protest while unable to write to you with any hope of an answer--wrote coldly, haughtily, distantly, resentfully. Well, dearest little woman, we must look forbearingly on it. He is not to blame. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has warped him out of himself and perverted me in his eyes. I have known it do as bad deeds, and worse, many a time. If two angels could be concerned in it, I believe it would change their nature." "It has not changed yours, guardian." "Oh, yes, it has, my dear," he said laughingly. "It has made the south wind easterly, I don't know how often. Rick mistrusts and suspects me--goes to lawyers, and is taught to mistrust and suspect me. Hears I have conflicting interests, claims clashing against his and what not. Whereas, heaven knows that if I could get out of the mountains of wiglomeration on which my unfortunate name has been so long bestowed (which I can't) or could level them by the extinction of my own original right (which I can't either, and no human power ever can, anyhow, I believe, to such a pass have we got), I would do it this hour. I would rather restore to poor Rick his proper nature than be endowed with all the money that dead suitors, broken, heart and soul, upon the wheel of Chancery, have left unclaimed with the Accountant-General--and that's money enough, my dear, to be cast into a pyramid, in memory of Chancery's transcendent wickedness." "IS it possible, guardian," I asked, amazed, "that Richard can be suspicious of you?" "Ah, my love, my love," he said, "it is in the subtle poison of such abuses to breed such diseases. His blood is infected, and objects lose their natural aspects in his sight. It is not HIS fault." "But it is a terrible misfortune, guardian." "It is a terrible misfortune, little woman, to be ever drawn within the influences of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. I know none greater. By little and little he has been induced to trust in that rotten reed, and it communicates some portion of its rottenness to everything around him. But again I say with all my soul, we must be patient with poor Rick and not blame him. What a troop of fine fresh hearts like his have I seen in my time turned by the same means!" I could not help expressing something of my wonder and regret that his benevolent, disinterested intentions had prospered so little. "We must not say so, Dame Durden," he cheerfully replied; "Ada is the happier, I hope, and that is much. I did think that I and both these young creatures might be friends instead of distrustful foes and that we might so far counter-act the suit and prove too strong for it. But it was too much to expect. Jarndyce and Jarndyce was the curtain of Rick's cradle." "But, guardian, may we not hope that a little experience will teach him what a false and wretched thing it is?" "We WILL hope so, my Esther," said Mr. Jarndyce, "and that it may not teach him so too late. In any case we must not be hard on him. There are not many grown and matured men living while we speak, good men too, who if they were thrown into this same court as suitors would not be vitally changed and depreciated within three years--within two--within one. How can we stand amazed at poor Rick? A young man so unfortunate," here he fell into a lower tone, as if he were thinking aloud, "cannot at first believe (who could?) that Chancery is what it is. He looks to it, flushed and fitfully, to do something with his interests and bring them to some settlement. It procrastinates, disappoints, tries, tortures him; wears out his sanguine hopes and patience, thread by thread; but he still looks to it, and hankers after it, and finds his whole world treacherous and hollow. Well, well, well! Enough of this, my dear!" He had supported me, as at first, all this time, and his tenderness was so precious to me that I leaned my head upon his shoulder and loved him as if he had been my father. I resolved in my own mind in this little pause, by some means, to see Richard when I grew strong and try to set him right. "There are better subjects than these," said my guardian, "for such a joyful time as the time of our dear girl's recovery. And I had a commission to broach one of them as soon as I should begin to talk. When shall Ada come to see you, my love?" I had been thinking of that too. A little in connexion with the absent mirrors, but not much, for I knew my loving girl would be changed by no change in my looks. "Dear guardian," said I, "as I have shut her out so long--though indeed, indeed, she is like the light to me--" "I know it well, Dame Durden, well." He was so good, his touch expressed such endearing compassion and affection, and the tone of his voice carried such comfort into my heart that I stopped for a little while, quite unable to go on. "Yes, yes, you are tired," said he. "Rest a little." "As I have kept Ada out so long," I began afresh after a short while, "I think I should like to have my own way a little longer, guardian. It would be best to be away from here before I see her. If Charley and I were to go to some country lodging as soon as I can move, and if I had a week there in which to grow stronger and to be revived by the sweet air and to look forward to the happiness of having Ada with me again, I think it would be better for us." I hope it was not a poor thing in me to wish to be a little more used to my altered self before I met the eyes of the dear girl I longed so ardently to see, but it is the truth. I did. He understood me, I was sure; but I was not afraid of that. If it were a poor thing, I knew he would pass it over. "Our spoilt little woman," said my guardian, "shall have her own way even in her inflexibility, though at the price, I know, of tears downstairs. And see here! Here is Boythorn, heart of chivalry, breathing such ferocious vows as never were breathed on paper before, that if you don't go and occupy his whole house, he having already turned out of it expressly for that purpose, by heaven and by earth he'll pull it down and not leave one brick standing on another!" And my guardian put a letter in my hand, without any ordinary beginning such as "My dear Jarndyce," but rushing at once into the words, "I swear if Miss Summerson do not come down and take possession of my house, which I vacate for her this day at one o'clock, P.M.," and then with the utmost seriousness, and in the most emphatic terms, going on to make the extraordinary declaration he had quoted. We did not appreciate the writer the less for laughing heartily over it, and we settled that I should send him a letter of thanks on the morrow and accept his offer. It was a most agreeable one to me, for all the places I could have thought of, I should have liked to go to none so well as Chesney Wold. "Now, little housewife," said my guardian, looking at his watch, "I was strictly timed before I came upstairs, for you must not be tired too soon; and my time has waned away to the last minute. I have one other petition. Little Miss Flite, hearing a rumour that you were ill, made nothing of walking down here--twenty miles, poor soul, in a pair of dancing shoes--to inquire. It was heaven's mercy we were at home, or she would have walked back again." The old conspiracy to make me happy! Everybody seemed to be in it! "Now, pet," said my guardian, "if it would not be irksome to you to admit the harmless little creature one afternoon before you save Boythorn's otherwise devoted house from demolition, I believe you would make her prouder and better pleased with herself than I--though my eminent name is Jarndyce--could do in a lifetime." I have no doubt he knew there would be something in the simple image of the poor afflicted creature that would fall like a gentle lesson on my mind at that time. I felt it as he spoke to me. I could not tell him heartily enough how ready I was to receive her. I had always pitied her, never so much as now. I had always been glad of my little power to soothe her under her calamity, but never, never, half so glad before. We arranged a time for Miss Flite to come out by the coach and share my early dinner. When my guardian left me, I turned my face away upon my couch and prayed to be forgiven if I, surrounded by such blessings, had magnified to myself the little trial that I had to undergo. The childish prayer of that old birthday when I had aspired to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted and to do good to some one and win some love to myself if I could came back into my mind with a reproachful sense of all the happiness I had since enjoyed and all the affectionate hearts that had been turned towards me. If I were weak now, what had I profited by those mercies? I repeated the old childish prayer in its old childish words and found that its old peace had not departed from it. My guardian now came every day. In a week or so more I could walk about our rooms and hold long talks with Ada from behind the window-curtain. Yet I never saw her, for I had not as yet the courage to look at the dear face, though I could have done so easily without her seeing me. On the appointed day Miss Flite arrived. The poor little creature ran into my room quite forgetful of her usual dignity, and crying from her very heart of hearts, "My dear Fitz Jarndyce!" fell upon my neck and kissed me twenty times. "Dear me!" said she, putting her hand into her reticule, "I have nothing here but documents, my dear Fitz Jarndyce; I must borrow a pocket handkerchief." Charley gave her one, and the good creature certainly made use of it, for she held it to her eyes with both hands and sat so, shedding tears for the next ten minutes. "With pleasure, my dear Fitz Jarndyce," she was careful to explain. "Not the least pain. Pleasure to see you well again. Pleasure at having the honour of being admitted to see you. I am so much fonder of you, my love, than of the Chancellor. Though I DO attend court regularly. By the by, my dear, mentioning pocket handkerchiefs--" Miss Flite here looked at Charley, who had been to meet her at the place where the coach stopped. Charley glanced at me and looked unwilling to pursue the suggestion. "Ve-ry right!" said Miss Flite, "Ve-ry correct. Truly! Highly indiscreet of me to mention it; but my dear Miss Fitz Jarndyce, I am afraid I am at times (between ourselves, you wouldn't think it) a little--rambling you know," said Miss Flite, touching her forehead. "Nothing more." "What were you going to tell me?" said I, smiling, for I saw she wanted to go on. "You have roused my curiosity, and now you must gratify it." Miss Flite looked at Charley for advice in this important crisis, who said, "If you please, ma'am, you had better tell then," and therein gratified Miss Flite beyond measure. "So sagacious, our young friend," said she to me in her mysterious way. "Diminutive. But ve-ry sagacious! Well, my dear, it's a pretty anecdote. Nothing more. Still I think it charming. Who should follow us down the road from the coach, my dear, but a poor person in a very ungenteel bonnet--" "Jenny, if you please, miss," said Charley. "Just so!" Miss Flite acquiesced with the greatest suavity. "Jenny. Ye-es! And what does she tell our young friend but that there has been a lady with a veil inquiring at her cottage after my dear Fitz Jarndyce's health and taking a handkerchief away with her as a little keepsake merely because it was my amiable Fitz Jarndyce's! Now, you know, so very prepossessing in the lady with the veil!" "If you please, miss," said Charley, to whom I looked in some astonishment, "Jenny says that when her baby died, you left a handkerchief there, and that she put it away and kept it with the baby's little things. I think, if you please, partly because it was yours, miss, and partly because it had covered the baby." "Diminutive," whispered Miss Flite, making a variety of motions about her own forehead to express intellect in Charley. "But exceedingly sagacious! And so dear! My love, she's clearer than any counsel I ever heard!" "Yes, Charley," I returned. "I remember it. Well?" "Well, miss," said Charley, "and that's the handkerchief the lady took. And Jenny wants you to know that she wouldn't have made away with it herself for a heap of money but that the lady took it and left some money instead. Jenny don't know her at all, if you please, miss!" "Why, who can she be?" said I. "My love," Miss Flite suggested, advancing her lips to my ear with her most mysterious look, "in MY opinion--don't mention this to our diminutive friend--she's the Lord Chancellor's wife. He's married, you know. And I understand she leads him a terrible life. Throws his lordship's papers into the fire, my dear, if he won't pay the jeweller!" I did not think very much about this lady then, for I had an impression that it might be Caddy. Besides, my attention was diverted by my visitor, who was cold after her ride and looked hungry and who, our dinner being brought in, required some little assistance in arraying herself with great satisfaction in a pitiable old scarf and a much-worn and often-mended pair of gloves, which she had brought down in a paper parcel. I had to preside, too, over the entertainment, consisting of a dish of fish, a roast fowl, a sweetbread, vegetables, pudding, and Madeira; and it was so pleasant to see how she enjoyed it, and with what state and ceremony she did honour to it, that I was soon thinking of nothing else. When we had finished and had our little dessert before us, embellished by the hands of my dear, who would yield the superintendence of everything prepared for me to no one, Miss Flite was so very chatty and happy that I thought I would lead her to her own history, as she was always pleased to talk about herself. I began by saying "You have attended on the Lord Chancellor many years, Miss Flite?" "Oh, many, many, many years, my dear. But I expect a judgment. Shortly." There was an anxiety even in her hopefulness that made me doubtful if I had done right in approaching the subject. I thought I would say no more about it. "My father expected a judgment," said Miss Flite. "My brother. My sister. They all expected a judgment. The same that I expect." "They are all--" "Ye-es. Dead of course, my dear," said she. As I saw she would go on, I thought it best to try to be serviceable to her by meeting the theme rather than avoiding it. "Would it not be wiser," said I, "to expect this judgment no more?" "Why, my dear," she answered promptly, "of course it would!" "And to attend the court no more?" "Equally of course," said she. "Very wearing to be always in expectation of what never comes, my dear Fitz Jarndyce! Wearing, I assure you, to the bone!" She slightly showed me her arm, and it was fearfully thin indeed. "But, my dear," she went on in her mysterious way, "there's a dreadful attraction in the place. Hush! Don't mention it to our diminutive friend when she comes in. Or it may frighten her. With good reason. There's a cruel attraction in the place. You CAN'T leave it. And you MUST expect." I tried to assure her that this was not so. She heard me patiently and smilingly, but was ready with her own answer. "Aye, aye, aye! You think so because I am a little rambling. Ve-ry absurd, to be a little rambling, is it not? Ve-ry confusing, too. To the head. I find it so. But, my dear, I have been there many years, and I have noticed. It's the mace and seal upon the table." What could they do, did she think? I mildly asked her. "Draw," returned Miss Flite. "Draw people on, my dear. Draw peace out of them. Sense out of them. Good looks out of them. Good qualities out of them. I have felt them even drawing my rest away in the night. Cold and glittering devils!" She tapped me several times upon the arm and nodded good-humouredly as if she were anxious I should understand that I had no cause to fear her, though she spoke so gloomily, and confided these awful secrets to me. "Let me see," said she. "I'll tell you my own case. Before they ever drew me--before I had ever seen them--what was it I used to do? Tambourine playing? No. Tambour work. I and my sister worked at tambour work. Our father and our brother had a builder's business. We all lived together. Ve-ry respectably, my dear! First, our father was drawn--slowly. Home was drawn with him. In a few years he was a fierce, sour, angry bankrupt without a kind word or a kind look for any one. He had been so different, Fitz Jarndyce. He was drawn to a debtors' prison. There he died. Then our brother was drawn--swiftly--to drunkenness. And rags. And death. Then my sister was drawn. Hush! Never ask to what! Then I was ill and in misery, and heard, as I had often heard before, that this was all the work of Chancery. When I got better, I went to look at the monster. And then I found out how it was, and I was drawn to stay there." Having got over her own short narrative, in the delivery of which she had spoken in a low, strained voice, as if the shock were fresh upon her, she gradually resumed her usual air of amiable importance. "You don't quite credit me, my dear! Well, well! You will, some day. I am a little rambling. But I have noticed. I have seen many new faces come, unsuspicious, within the influence of the mace and seal in these many years. As my father's came there. As my brother's. As my sister's. As my own. I hear Conversation Kenge and the rest of them say to the new faces, 'Here's little Miss Flite. Oh, you are new here; and you must come and be presented to little Miss Flite!' Ve-ry good. Proud I am sure to have the honour! And we all laugh. But, Fitz Jarndyce, I know what will happen. I know, far better than they do, when the attraction has begun. I know the signs, my dear. I saw them begin in Gridley. And I saw them end. Fitz Jarndyce, my love," speaking low again, "I saw them beginning in our friend the ward in Jarndyce. Let some one hold him back. Or he'll be drawn to ruin." She looked at me in silence for some moments, with her face gradually softening into a smile. Seeming to fear that she had been too gloomy, and seeming also to lose the connexion in her mind, she said politely as she sipped her glass of wine, "Yes, my dear, as I was saying, I expect a judgment shortly. Then I shall release my birds, you know, and confer estates." I was much impressed by her allusion to Richard and by the sad meaning, so sadly illustrated in her poor pinched form, that made its way through all her incoherence. But happily for her, she was quite complacent again now and beamed with nods and smiles. "But, my dear," she said, gaily, reaching another hand to put it upon mine. "You have not congratulated me on my physician. Positively not once, yet!" I was obliged to confess that I did not quite know what she meant. "My physician, Mr. Woodcourt, my dear, who was so exceedingly attentive to me. Though his services were rendered quite gratuitously. Until the Day of Judgment. I mean THE judgment that will dissolve the spell upon me of the mace and seal." "Mr. Woodcourt is so far away, now," said I, "that I thought the time for such congratulation was past, Miss Flite." "But, my child," she returned, "is it possible that you don't know what has happened?" "No," said I. "Not what everybody has been talking of, my beloved Fitz Jarndyce!" "No," said I. "You forget how long I have been here." "True! My dear, for the moment--true. I blame myself. But my memory has been drawn out of me, with everything else, by what I mentioned. Ve-ry strong influence, is it not? Well, my dear, there has been a terrible shipwreck over in those East Indian seas." "Mr. Woodcourt shipwrecked!" "Don't be agitated, my dear. He is safe. An awful scene. Death in all shapes. Hundreds of dead and dying. Fire, storm, and darkness. Numbers of the drowning thrown upon a rock. There, and through it all, my dear physician was a hero. Calm and brave through everything. Saved many lives, never complained in hunger and thirst, wrapped naked people in his spare clothes, took the lead, showed them what to do, governed them, tended the sick, buried the dead, and brought the poor survivors safely off at last! My dear, the poor emaciated creatures all but worshipped him. They fell down at his feet when they got to the land and blessed him. The whole country rings with it. Stay! Where's my bag of documents? I have got it there, and you shall read it, you shall read it!" And I DID read all the noble history, though very slowly and imperfectly then, for my eyes were so dimmed that I could not see the words, and I cried so much that I was many times obliged to lay down the long account she had cut out of the newspaper. I felt so triumphant ever to have known the man who had done such generous and gallant deeds, I felt such glowing exultation in his renown, I so admired and loved what he had done, that I envied the storm-worn people who had fallen at his feet and blessed him as their preserver. I could myself have kneeled down then, so far away, and blessed him in my rapture that he should be so truly good and brave. I felt that no one--mother, sister, wife--could honour him more than I. I did, indeed! My poor little visitor made me a present of the account, and when as the evening began to close in she rose to take her leave, lest she should miss the coach by which she was to return, she was still full of the shipwreck, which I had not yet sufficiently composed myself to understand in all its details. "My dear," said she as she carefully folded up her scarf and gloves, "my brave physician ought to have a title bestowed upon him. And no doubt he will. You are of that opinion?" That he well deserved one, yes. That he would ever have one, no. "Why not, Fitz Jarndyce?" she asked rather sharply. I said it was not the custom in England to confer titles on men distinguished by peaceful services, however good and great, unless occasionally when they consisted of the accumulation of some very large amount of money. "Why, good gracious," said Miss Flite, "how can you say that? Surely you know, my dear, that all the greatest ornaments of England in knowledge, imagination, active humanity, and improvement of every sort are added to its nobility! Look round you, my dear, and consider. YOU must be rambling a little now, I think, if you don't know that this is the great reason why titles will always last in the land!" I am afraid she believed what she said, for there were moments when she was very mad indeed. And now I must part with the little secret I have thus far tried to keep. I had thought, sometimes, that Mr. Woodcourt loved me and that if he had been richer he would perhaps have told me that he loved me before he went away. I had thought, sometimes, that if he had done so, I should have been glad of it. But how much better it was now that this had never happened! What should I have suffered if I had had to write to him and tell him that the poor face he had known as mine was quite gone from me and that I freely released him from his bondage to one whom he had never seen! Oh, it was so much better as it was! With a great pang mercifully spared me, I could take back to my heart my childish prayer to be all he had so brightly shown himself; and there was nothing to be undone: no chain for me to break or for him to drag; and I could go, please God, my lowly way along the path of duty, and he could go his nobler way upon its broader road; and though we were apart upon the journey, I might aspire to meet him, unselfishly, innocently, better far than he had thought me when I found some favour in his eyes, at the journey's end.

I lay ill through several weeks, and the usual tenor of my life became like an old remembrance in the helpless inaction of a sick-room. Before many days, everything else seemed to have retired into a remote distance where there was little or no separation between the various stages of my life. In falling ill, I seemed to have crossed a dark lake and to have left all my experiences, mingled together by the great distance, on the healthy shore. My housekeeping duties were soon as far off as the summer afternoons when I went home from school to my godmother's house. I had never known before how short life really was and into how small a space the mind could put it. While I was very ill, the way in which these different times became confused with one another distressed my mind exceedingly. At once a child, an older girl, and a woman, I was not only oppressed by the cares of each stage, but by the great perplexity of endlessly trying to reconcile them. I suppose that few who have not been in such a condition can quite understand this. For the same reason I am almost afraid to say that in my disorder I laboured up colossal staircases, ever striving to reach the top, and ever turned, as I have seen a worm in a garden path, by some obstruction, and labouring again. I knew perfectly at intervals that I was in my bed; and I talked with Charley, and knew her very well; yet I would find myself complaining, "Oh, more of these never-ending stairs, Charley - piled up to the sky!" Dare I hint at that worse time when, strung together somewhere in great black space, there was a flaming necklace, or starry circle of some kind, of which I was one of the beads! And when my only prayer was to be taken off from the rest and when it was such inexplicable agony and misery to be a part of the dreadful thing? I do not recall these experiences to make others unhappy or because I am now unhappy in remembering them. If we knew more of such strange afflictions we might be better able to alleviate their intensity. The repose that followed, the long delicious sleep, the blissful rest, when in my weakness I was too calm to care even if I was dying, apart from feeling a pitying love for those I left behind - this state can be perhaps more widely understood. I was in this state when I first shrunk from the light, and knew with a boundless joy that I should see again. I had heard my Ada crying at the door, day and night, calling to me that I was cruel and did not love her; I had heard her imploring to be let in to nurse and comfort me; but I had only said, when I could speak, "Never, my sweet girl, never!" and had reminded Charley that she was to keep my darling from the room whether I lived or died. Charley had been true to me and had kept the door fast. But now, my sight strengthening and the glorious light coming every day more brightly on me, I could read the letters that my dear wrote daily to me and could put them to my lips and lay my cheek upon them. I could see my little maid, so tender and careful, setting everything in order and speaking cheerfully to Ada from the open window. I could understand the stillness in the house and the thoughtfulness it expressed on the part of all those who had always been so good to me. I could weep in my exquisite joy and be as happy in my weakness as ever I had been in my strength. By and by my strength began to be restored. Instead of lying and watching what was done for me, as if it were done for some one else, I helped it a little, and a little more, until I became useful to myself, and attached to life again. How well I remember the pleasant afternoon when I was raised in bed with pillows for the first time to take tea with Charley! The little creature was so happy, and so busy, and stopped so often in her preparations to lay her head upon my bosom, and cry with joyful tears, that I was obliged to say, "Charley, if you go on in this way, I must lie down again, my darling, for I am weaker than I thought!" So Charley became as quiet as a mouse about her preparations. When the pretty tea-table with its tempting delicacies, and its white cloth, and its flowers, beautifully arranged for me by Ada downstairs, was ready at the bedside, I felt steady enough to say something to Charley that had been in my thoughts. First I complimented Charley on the room, which was airy and neat. This delighted her. "Yet, Charley," said I, looking round, "I miss something, surely?" Poor little Charley looked round too and pretended to shake her head. "Are the pictures all as they used to be?" I asked her. "Every one of them, miss," said Charley. "And the furniture, Charley?" "Except where I have moved it about to make more room, miss." "And yet," said I, "I miss some familiar object. Ah, I know, Charley! It's the looking-glass." Charley got up from the table as if she had forgotten something, and went into the next room; and I heard her sob. I was now certain. I could thank God that it was not a shock to me. I called Charley back, and when she came, looking grieved - I took her in my arms and said, "It matters very little, Charley. I hope I can do without my old face very well." I was presently able to sit up in a great chair and even giddily to walk into the adjoining room, leaning on Charley. The mirror was gone from its usual place, but what I had to bear was none the harder to bear for that. My guardian had throughout wished earnestly to visit me, and there was now no good reason why I should deny him. He came in one morning, and at first could only hold me in his embrace and say, "My dear, dear girl!" I had long known what a deep fountain of affection and generosity his heart was; and was it not worth my trivial suffering to fill such a place in it? "Oh, yes!" I thought. "He has seen me, and is even fonder of me than he was before; and what have I to mourn for!" He sat down by me on the sofa. For a little while he sat with his hand over his face, but when he removed it, fell into his usual pleasant manner. "My little woman," said he, "Ada and I have been perfectly forlorn and miserable; your friend Caddy has been coming and going; everyone about the house has been utterly lost and dejected; even poor Rick has been writing - to me too - in his anxiety for you!" "You speak of his writing to you," said I. "As if it were not natural for him to do so, guardian; as if he could write to a better friend!" "He thinks he could, my love," returned my guardian, "to many a better. The truth is, he wrote to me under a sort of protest while unable to write to you - wrote coldly, haughtily, resentfully. Well, dearest little woman, we must forgive him. He is not to blame. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has warped him and perverted me in his eyes. I have known it do as bad deeds, and worse, many a time. If two angels were caught up in it, I believe it would change their nature." "It has not changed yours, guardian." "Oh, yes, it has, my dear," he said laughingly. "It has made the south wind easterly, I don't know how often. Rick goes to lawyers, and is taught to mistrust and suspect me. He hears I have conflicting interests, claims clashing against his. Whereas, heaven knows that if I could get out of those legal mountains of wiglomeration (which I can't) or could level them (which I can't either), I would do it this hour. I would rather restore to poor Rick his proper nature than be endowed with all the unclaimed money in Chancery." "Is it possible, guardian," I asked, amazed, "that Richard can be suspicious of you?" "Ah, my love," he said, "the subtle poison of such abuses breeds such diseases. It is not his fault." "But it is a terrible misfortune, guardian." "It is a terrible misfortune, little woman, to be ever drawn within the influences of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. I know none greater. But he has been induced to trust in that rotten reed, and it transmits rottenness to everything around him. We must be patient with poor Rick." I expressed my wonder and regret that his benevolent intentions had prospered so little. "We must not say so, Dame Durden," he cheerfully replied; "Ada is happier, I hope, and that is much. I did think that I and both these young creatures might be friends instead of distrustful foes and that we might prove stronger than the lawsuit. But it was too much to expect. Jarndyce and Jarndyce was the curtain round Rick's cradle." "But, guardian, may we not hope that experience will teach him what a false and wretched thing it is?" "We will hope so, my Esther," said Mr. Jarndyce. "In any case we must not be hard on him. There are not many grown men, good men too, who if they were thrown into this same court would not be changed for the worse within a year. How can we stand amazed at poor Rick? A young man cannot at first believe (who could?) that Chancery is what it is. He looks to it to do something with his interests and bring them to a settlement. It procrastinates, disappoints, tries, tortures him; wears out his hopes and patience, thread by thread; but he still hankers after it, and finds his whole world treacherous and hollow. Well, well! Enough of this, my dear!" I leaned my head upon his shoulder and loved him as if he had been my father. I resolved in my own mind to see Richard when I grew strong, and try to set him right. "There are better subjects than these," said my guardian, "for such a joyful time. When shall Ada come to see you, my love?" I had been thinking of that too. I knew my loving girl would be changed by no change in my looks. "Dear guardian," said I, "as I have shut her out so long - though indeed, she is like the light to me-" "I know it well, Dame Durden." He was so good, his touch expressed such compassion and affection, that I stopped for a little while, quite unable to go on. "As I have kept Ada out so long," I began afresh after a short while, "I think I should like to have my own way a little longer, guardian. It would be best to be away from here before I see her. If Charley and I were to go to some country lodging when I am strong enough, and if I had a week there to recover and to be revived by the sweet air before seeing Ada again, I think it would be better for us." I hope it was not weak to wish to be a little more used to my altered self before I met the dear girl I longed so ardently to see, but it is the truth. He understood me, I was sure. "Our spoilt little woman," said my guardian, "shall have her own way, though at the price, I know, of tears downstairs. And see here! Here is Boythorn, heart of chivalry, vowing that if you don't go and occupy his whole house, by heaven and by earth he'll pull it down and not leave one brick standing!" My guardian handed me a letter without any ordinary beginning such as "My dear Jarndyce," but rushing at once into the words, "I swear if Miss Summerson do not come down and take possession of my house, which I vacate for her this day at one o'clock," and then with the utmost seriousness, and in the most emphatic terms, going on to make the extraordinary declaration he had quoted. We settled that I should send Mr. Boythorn a letter of thanks and accept his offer. It was a most agreeable one to me, for there was nowhere I should have liked to go so well as Chesney Wold. "Now, little housewife," said my guardian, looking at his watch, "you must not be tired too soon; I have only one last minute. I have another petition. Little Miss Flite, hearing that you were ill, made nothing of walking down here - twenty miles, poor soul, in dancing shoes - to inquire. It was heaven's mercy we were at home, or she would have walked back again." I could not tell him heartily enough how ready I was to receive poor Miss Flite. We arranged a time for her to come out by the coach and share my early dinner. When my guardian left me, I prayed to be forgiven if I, surrounded by such blessings, had magnified to myself the little trial I had to undergo. The childish prayer of that old birthday when I had aspired to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted, and to do good to some one and win some love to myself, came back into my mind with a reproachful sense of all the happiness I had since enjoyed. I repeated the old childish prayer and found that its old peace had not departed from it. My guardian now came every day. In a week more I could walk about our rooms and hold long talks with Ada from behind the window-curtain. Yet I never saw her, for I had not as yet the courage to look at the dear face, though I could have done so easily without her seeing me. On the appointed day Miss Flite arrived. She ran into my room quite forgetful of her usual dignity, and crying "My dear Fitz Jarndyce!" fell upon my neck and kissed me twenty times. Then she sat shedding tears for the next ten minutes, and had to ask Charley for a pocket handkerchief. "Tears of pleasure, my dear Fitz Jarndyce," she was careful to explain. "Not the least pain. Pleasure to see you well again. Pleasure at having the honour of being admitted to see you. By the by, my dear, mentioning pocket handkerchiefs-" Miss Flite here looked at Charley, who had been to meet her off the coach. Charley glanced at me and looked unwilling to pursue the suggestion. "Ve-ry right!" said Miss Flite, "Highly indiscreet of me to mention it; but my dear Miss Fitz Jarndyce, I am afraid I am at times a little - rambling, you know." "What were you going to tell me?" said I, smiling, for I saw she wanted to go on. Miss Flite looked at Charley, who said, "If you please, ma'am, you had better tell then," gratifying Miss Flite beyond measure. "So sagacious, our young friend," said she to me. "Well, my dear, it's a pretty anecdote. Nothing more. Still I think it charming. Who should follow us down the road from the coach, my dear, but a poor person in a very ungenteel bonnet-" "Jenny, if you please, miss," said Charley. "Just so!" Miss Flite agreed. "Jenny. And she tells our young friend that there has been a lady with a veil inquiring at her cottage after your health, and taking a handkerchief away with her as a little keepsake merely because it was yours! Now, you know, so very prepossessing in the lady with the veil!" I looked at Charley in some astonishment. "If you please, miss," said Charley, "Jenny says that when her baby died, you left a handkerchief there, and that she kept it with the baby's little things. I think partly because it was yours, miss, and partly because it had covered the baby." "Exceedingly sagacious!" whispered Miss Flite. "Well, miss," said Charley, "that's the handkerchief the lady took. And Jenny wants you to know that she wouldn't have sold it for herself but that the lady took it and left some money. Jenny don't know her at all, if you please, miss!" "Why, who can she be?" said I. "My love," Miss Flite suggested with her most mysterious look, "in my opinion she's the Lord Chancellor's wife. I understand she leads him a terrible life. Throws his lordship's papers into the fire, my dear, if he won't pay the jeweller!" I did not think very much about this lady then, for I had an impression that it might be Caddy. Besides, dinner was brought in, and I had to preside over a dish of fish, roast fowl, sweetbread, vegetables, pudding, and Madeira; and it was so pleasant to see how Miss Flite enjoyed it, that I was soon thinking of nothing else. When we had finished, Miss Flite was so very chatty and happy that I thought I would lead her to her own history, as she was always pleased to talk about herself. I began by saying, "You have attended on the Lord Chancellor many years, Miss Flite?" "Oh, many, many years, my dear. But I expect a judgment. Shortly." There was some anxiety in her tone. "My father expected a judgment. My brother. My sister. They all expected a judgment. The same that I expect." "They are all-" "Dead, of course, my dear," said she. "Would it not be wiser," said I, "to expect this judgment no more?" "Why, my dear," she answered promptly, "of course it would!" "And to attend the court no more?" "Equally of course," said she. "Very wearing to be always in expectation of what never comes! Wearing, I assure you, to the bone!" She showed me her arm, and it was fearfully thin indeed. "But, my dear," she went on, "there's a dreadful attraction in the place. You can't leave it. And you must expect." I tried to assure her that this was not so. She heard me patiently and smilingly, but answered, "Aye, aye, aye! You think so because I am a little rambling. But, my dear, I have been there many years, and I have noticed. It's the mace and seal upon the table. They draw people on. Draw peace and sense out of them. I have felt them even drawing my rest away in the night. Cold and glittering devils!" She tapped me upon the arm and nodded good-humouredly. "Let me see," said she. "I'll tell you my own case. Before I had ever seen them - what was it I used to do? Tambourine playing? No. Tambour work. I and my sister did tambour embroidery. Our father and our brother had a builder's business. First, our father was drawn - slowly. In a few years he was a fierce, sour, angry bankrupt without a kind word for anyone. He had been so different, Fitz Jarndyce. He was drawn to a debtors' prison. There he died. Then our brother was drawn - swiftly - to drunkenness. And rags. And death. Then my sister was drawn. Hush! Never ask to what! Then I was ill and in misery, and heard that this was all the work of Chancery. When I got better, I went to look at the monster. And then I was drawn to stay there. I am a little rambling. But I have noticed. Fitz Jarndyce, I know what will happen. I know when the attraction has begun. I know the signs, my dear. I saw them," speaking low, "I saw them beginning in our friend the ward in Jarndyce. Let some one hold him back. Or he'll be drawn to ruin." She looked at me in silence for some moments, with her face gradually softening into a smile. Seeming to fear that she had been too gloomy, and seeming also to lose the connexion in her mind, she said politely, "Yes, my dear, I expect a judgment shortly. Then I shall release my birds, you know, and confer estates." Now she was quite complacent again and beamed with nods and smiles. "But, my dear," she said, gaily, "you have not congratulated me on my physician!" I said that I did not quite know what she meant. "My physician, Mr. Woodcourt, my dear, who was so exceedingly attentive to me." "Mr. Woodcourt is so far away, now," said I, "that I thought the time for such congratulation was past, Miss Flite." "But, my child," she returned, "is it possible that you don't know what has happened?" "No," said I. "Not what everybody has been talking of, my beloved Fitz Jarndyce!" "No," said I. "You forget how long I have been here." "True! Well, my dear, there has been a terrible shipwreck over in those East Indian seas." "Mr. Woodcourt shipwrecked!" "Don't be agitated, my dear. He is safe. An awful scene. Death in all shapes. Hundreds of dead and dying. Fire, storm, and darkness. Numbers of the drowning thrown upon a rock. Through it all, my dear physician was a hero. Calm and brave through everything. Saved many lives, never complained in hunger and thirst, took the lead, showed them what to do, tended the sick, buried the dead, and brought the poor survivors safely off at last! My dear, the creatures fell down at his feet when they got to land and blessed him. The whole country rings with it. Stay! Where's my bag of documents? I have got it there, and you shall read it!" And I did read all the noble history, though very slowly and imperfectly then, for my eyes were so dimmed that I could not see the words, and I cried so much that I was many times obliged to lay down the cutting from the newspaper. I felt so triumphant to have known the man who had done such generous and gallant deeds, I so admired and loved what he had done, that I envied the storm-worn people who had fallen at his feet and blessed him. I could myself have kneeled down then, and blessed him for being so truly good and brave. I felt that no one could honour him more than I. My poor little visitor made me a present of the account, and rose to take her leave, lest she should miss her coach. "My dear," said she, "my brave physician ought to have a title bestowed upon him. And no doubt he will. You are of that opinion?" That he well deserved one, yes. That he would ever have one, no. "Why not, Fitz Jarndyce?" she asked rather sharply. I said it was not the custom in England to confer titles on men distinguished by peaceful services, however good and great, unless occasionally when they consisted of making very large amounts of money. "Why, good gracious," said Miss Flite, "how can you say that? The greatest men of England in knowledge, imagination, active humanity, and improvement of every sort are added to its nobility!" I am afraid she believed what she said, for there were moments when she was very mad indeed. And now I must part with the little secret I have thus far tried to keep. I had thought, sometimes, that Mr. Woodcourt loved me and that if he had been richer he would perhaps have told me that he loved me before he went away. I had thought, sometimes, that if he had done so, I should have been glad of it. But how much better it was now that this had never happened! What should I have suffered if I had had to write to him, and tell him that the poor face he had known was quite gone from me, and that I released him from his bondage! Oh, it was so much better as it was! There was nothing to be undone: no chain for me to break or for him to drag; and I could go, please God, my lowly way along the path of duty, and he could go his nobler way upon its broader road; and though we were apart upon the journey, I might aspire to meet him, unselfishly, innocently, at the journey's end.

Bleak House

Chapter 35: Esther's Narrative

The name of Mr. Vholes, preceded by the legend Ground-Floor, is inscribed upon a door-post in Symond's Inn, Chancery Lane--a little, pale, wall-eyed, woebegone inn like a large dust-binn of two compartments and a sifter. It looks as if Symond were a sparing man in his way and constructed his inn of old building materials which took kindly to the dry rot and to dirt and all things decaying and dismal, and perpetuated Symond's memory with congenial shabbiness. Quartered in this dingy hatchment commemorative of Symond are the legal bearings of Mr. Vholes. Mr. Vholes's office, in disposition retiring and in situation retired, is squeezed up in a corner and blinks at a dead wall. Three feet of knotty-floored dark passage bring the client to Mr. Vholes's jet-black door, in an angle profoundly dark on the brightest midsummer morning and encumbered by a black bulk-head of cellarage staircase against which belated civilians generally strike their brows. Mr. Vholes's chambers are on so small a scale that one clerk can open the door without getting off his stool, while the other who elbows him at the same desk has equal facilities for poking the fire. A smell as of unwholesome sheep blending with the smell of must and dust is referable to the nightly (and often daily) consumption of mutton fat in candles and to the fretting of parchment forms and skins in greasy drawers. The atmosphere is otherwise stale and close. The place was last painted or whitewashed beyond the memory of man, and the two chimneys smoke, and there is a loose outer surface of soot everywhere, and the dull cracked windows in their heavy frames have but one piece of character in them, which is a determination to be always dirty and always shut unless coerced. This accounts for the phenomenon of the weaker of the two usually having a bundle of firewood thrust between its jaws in hot weather. Mr. Vholes is a very respectable man. He has not a large business, but he is a very respectable man. He is allowed by the greater attorneys who have made good fortunes or are making them to be a most respectable man. He never misses a chance in his practice, which is a mark of respectability. He never takes any pleasure, which is another mark of respectability. He is reserved and serious, which is another mark of respectability. His digestion is impaired, which is highly respectable. And he is making hay of the grass which is flesh, for his three daughters. And his father is dependent on him in the Vale of Taunton. The one great principle of the English law is to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by this light it becomes a coherent scheme and not the monstrous maze the laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their expense, and surely they will cease to grumble. But not perceiving this quite plainly--only seeing it by halves in a confused way--the laity sometimes suffer in peace and pocket, with a bad grace, and DO grumble very much. Then this respectability of Mr. Vholes is brought into powerful play against them. "Repeal this statute, my good sir?" says Mr. Kenge to a smarting client. "Repeal it, my dear sir? Never, with my consent. Alter this law, sir, and what will be the effect of your rash proceeding on a class of practitioners very worthily represented, allow me to say to you, by the opposite attorney in the case, Mr. Vholes? Sir, that class of practitioners would be swept from the face of the earth. Now you cannot afford--I will say, the social system cannot afford--to lose an order of men like Mr. Vholes. Diligent, persevering, steady, acute in business. My dear sir, I understand your present feelings against the existing state of things, which I grant to be a little hard in your case; but I can never raise my voice for the demolition of a class of men like Mr. Vholes." The respectability of Mr. Vholes has even been cited with crushing effect before Parliamentary committees, as in the following blue minutes of a distinguished attorney's evidence. "Question (number five hundred and seventeen thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine): If I understand you, these forms of practice indisputably occasion delay? Answer: Yes, some delay. Question: And great expense? Answer: Most assuredly they cannot be gone through for nothing. Question: And unspeakable vexation? Answer: I am not prepared to say that. They have never given ME any vexation; quite the contrary. Question: But you think that their abolition would damage a class of practitioners? Answer: I have no doubt of it. Question: Can you instance any type of that class? Answer: Yes. I would unhesitatingly mention Mr. Vholes. He would be ruined. Question: Mr. Vholes is considered, in the profession, a respectable man? Answer:"--which proved fatal to the inquiry for ten years--"Mr. Vholes is considered, in the profession, a MOST respectable man." So in familiar conversation, private authorities no less disinterested will remark that they don't know what this age is coming to, that we are plunging down precipices, that now here is something else gone, that these changes are death to people like Vholes--a man of undoubted respectability, with a father in the Vale of Taunton, and three daughters at home. Take a few steps more in this direction, say they, and what is to become of Vholes's father? Is he to perish? And of Vholes's daughters? Are they to be shirt-makers, or governesses? As though, Mr. Vholes and his relations being minor cannibal chiefs and it being proposed to abolish cannibalism, indignant champions were to put the case thus: Make man-eating unlawful, and you starve the Vholeses! In a word, Mr. Vholes, with his three daughters and his father in the Vale of Taunton, is continually doing duty, like a piece of timber, to shore up some decayed foundation that has become a pitfall and a nuisance. And with a great many people in a great many instances, the question is never one of a change from wrong to right (which is quite an extraneous consideration), but is always one of injury or advantage to that eminently respectable legion, Vholes. The Chancellor is, within these ten minutes, "up" for the long vacation. Mr. Vholes, and his young client, and several blue bags hastily stuffed out of all regularity of form, as the larger sort of serpents are in their first gorged state, have returned to the official den. Mr. Vholes, quiet and unmoved, as a man of so much respectability ought to be, takes off his close black gloves as if he were skinning his hands, lifts off his tight hat as if he were scalping himself, and sits down at his desk. The client throws his hat and gloves upon the ground--tosses them anywhere, without looking after them or caring where they go; flings himself into a chair, half sighing and half groaning; rests his aching head upon his hand and looks the portrait of young despair. "Again nothing done!" says Richard. "Nothing, nothing done!" "Don't say nothing done, sir," returns the placid Vholes. "That is scarcely fair, sir, scarcely fair!" "Why, what IS done?" says Richard, turning gloomily upon him. "That may not be the whole question," returns Vholes, "The question may branch off into what is doing, what is doing?" "And what is doing?" asks the moody client. Vholes, sitting with his arms on the desk, quietly bringing the tips of his five right fingers to meet the tips of his five left fingers, and quietly separating them again, and fixedly and slowly looking at his client, replies, "A good deal is doing, sir. We have put our shoulders to the wheel, Mr. Carstone, and the wheel is going round." "Yes, with Ixion on it. How am I to get through the next four or five accursed months?" exclaims the young man, rising from his chair and walking about the room. "Mr. C.," returns Vholes, following him close with his eyes wherever he goes, "your spirits are hasty, and I am sorry for it on your account. Excuse me if I recommend you not to chafe so much, not to be so impetuous, not to wear yourself out so. You should have more patience. You should sustain yourself better." "I ought to imitate you, in fact, Mr. Vholes?" says Richard, sitting down again with an impatient laugh and beating the devil's tattoo with his boot on the patternless carpet. "Sir," returns Vholes, always looking at the client as if he were making a lingering meal of him with his eyes as well as with his professional appetite. "Sir," returns Vholes with his inward manner of speech and his bloodless quietude, "I should not have had the presumption to propose myself as a model for your imitation or any man's. Let me but leave the good name to my three daughters, and that is enough for me; I am not a self-seeker. But since you mention me so pointedly, I will acknowledge that I should like to impart to you a little of my--come, sir, you are disposed to call it insensibility, and I am sure I have no objection--say insensibility--a little of my insensibility." "Mr. Vholes," explains the client, somewhat abashed, "I had no intention to accuse you of insensibility." "I think you had, sir, without knowing it," returns the equable Vholes. "Very naturally. It is my duty to attend to your interests with a cool head, and I can quite understand that to your excited feelings I may appear, at such times as the present, insensible. My daughters may know me better; my aged father may know me better. But they have known me much longer than you have, and the confiding eye of affection is not the distrustful eye of business. Not that I complain, sir, of the eye of business being distrustful; quite the contrary. In attending to your interests, I wish to have all possible checks upon me; it is right that I should have them; I court inquiry. But your interests demand that I should be cool and methodical, Mr. Carstone; and I cannot be otherwise--no, sir, not even to please you." Mr. Vholes, after glancing at the official cat who is patiently watching a mouse's hole, fixes his charmed gaze again on his young client and proceeds in his buttoned-up, half-audible voice as if there were an unclean spirit in him that will neither come out nor speak out, "What are you to do, sir, you inquire, during the vacation. I should hope you gentlemen of the army may find many means of amusing yourselves if you give your minds to it. If you had asked me what I was to do during the vacation, I could have answered you more readily. I am to attend to your interests. I am to be found here, day by day, attending to your interests. That is my duty, Mr. C., and term-time or vacation makes no difference to me. If you wish to consult me as to your interests, you will find me here at all times alike. Other professional men go out of town. I don't. Not that I blame them for going; I merely say I don't go. This desk is your rock, sir!" Mr. Vholes gives it a rap, and it sounds as hollow as a coffin. Not to Richard, though. There is encouragement in the sound to him. Perhaps Mr. Vholes knows there is. "I am perfectly aware, Mr. Vholes," says Richard, more familiarly and good-humouredly, "that you are the most reliable fellow in the world and that to have to do with you is to have to do with a man of business who is not to be hoodwinked. But put yourself in my case, dragging on this dislocated life, sinking deeper and deeper into difficulty every day, continually hoping and continually disappointed, conscious of change upon change for the worse in myself, and of no change for the better in anything else, and you will find it a dark-looking case sometimes, as I do." "You know," says Mr. Vholes, "that I never give hopes, sir. I told you from the first, Mr. C., that I never give hopes. Particularly in a case like this, where the greater part of the costs comes out of the estate, I should not be considerate of my good name if I gave hopes. It might seem as if costs were my object. Still, when you say there is no change for the better, I must, as a bare matter of fact, deny that." "Aye?" returns Richard, brightening. "But how do you make it out?" "Mr. Carstone, you are represented by--" "You said just now--a rock." "Yes, sir," says Mr. Vholes, gently shaking his head and rapping the hollow desk, with a sound as if ashes were falling on ashes, and dust on dust, "a rock. That's something. You are separately represented, and no longer hidden and lost in the interests of others. THAT'S something. The suit does not sleep; we wake it up, we air it, we walk it about. THAT'S something. It's not all Jarndyce, in fact as well as in name. THAT'S something. Nobody has it all his own way now, sir. And THAT'S something, surely." Richard, his face flushing suddenly, strikes the desk with his clenched hand. "Mr. Vholes! If any man had told me when I first went to John Jarndyce's house that he was anything but the disinterested friend he seemed--that he was what he has gradually turned out to be--I could have found no words strong enough to repel the slander; I could not have defended him too ardently. So little did I know of the world! Whereas now I do declare to you that he becomes to me the embodiment of the suit; that in place of its being an abstraction, it is John Jarndyce; that the more I suffer, the more indignant I am with him; that every new delay and every new disappointment is only a new injury from John Jarndyce's hand." "No, no," says Vholes. "Don't say so. We ought to have patience, all of us. Besides, I never disparage, sir. I never disparage." "Mr. Vholes," returns the angry client. "You know as well as I that he would have strangled the suit if he could." "He was not active in it," Mr. Vholes admits with an appearance of reluctance. "He certainly was not active in it. But however, but however, he might have had amiable intentions. Who can read the heart, Mr. C.!" "You can," returns Richard. "I, Mr. C.?" "Well enough to know what his intentions were. Are or are not our interests conflicting? Tell--me--that!" says Richard, accompanying his last three words with three raps on his rock of trust. "Mr. C.," returns Vholes, immovable in attitude and never winking his hungry eyes, "I should be wanting in my duty as your professional adviser, I should be departing from my fidelity to your interests, if I represented those interests as identical with the interests of Mr. Jarndyce. They are no such thing, sir. I never impute motives; I both have and am a father, and I never impute motives. But I must not shrink from a professional duty, even if it sows dissensions in families. I understand you to be now consulting me professionally as to your interests? You are so? I reply, then, they are not identical with those of Mr. Jarndyce." "Of course they are not!" cries Richard. "You found that out long ago." "Mr. C.," returns Vholes, "I wish to say no more of any third party than is necessary. I wish to leave my good name unsullied, together with any little property of which I may become possessed through industry and perseverance, to my daughters Emma, Jane, and Caroline. I also desire to live in amity with my professional brethren. When Mr. Skimpole did me the honour, sir--I will not say the very high honour, for I never stoop to flattery--of bringing us together in this room, I mentioned to you that I could offer no opinion or advice as to your interests while those interests were entrusted to another member of the profession. And I spoke in such terms as I was bound to speak of Kenge and Carboy's office, which stands high. You, sir, thought fit to withdraw your interests from that keeping nevertheless and to offer them to me. You brought them with clean hands, sir, and I accepted them with clean hands. Those interests are now paramount in this office. My digestive functions, as you may have heard me mention, are not in a good state, and rest might improve them; but I shall not rest, sir, while I am your representative. Whenever you want me, you will find me here. Summon me anywhere, and I will come. During the long vacation, sir, I shall devote my leisure to studying your interests more and more closely and to making arrangements for moving heaven and earth (including, of course, the Chancellor) after Michaelmas term; and when I ultimately congratulate you, sir," says Mr. Vholes with the severity of a determined man, "when I ultimately congratulate you, sir, with all my heart, on your accession to fortune--which, but that I never give hopes, I might say something further about--you will owe me nothing beyond whatever little balance may be then outstanding of the costs as between solicitor and client not included in the taxed costs allowed out of the estate. I pretend to no claim upon you, Mr. C., but for the zealous and active discharge--not the languid and routine discharge, sir: that much credit I stipulate for--of my professional duty. My duty prosperously ended, all between us is ended." Vholes finally adds, by way of rider to this declaration of his principles, that as Mr. Carstone is about to rejoin his regiment, perhaps Mr. C. will favour him with an order on his agent for twenty pounds on account. "For there have been many little consultations and attendances of late, sir," observes Vholes, turning over the leaves of his diary, "and these things mount up, and I don't profess to be a man of capital. When we first entered on our present relations I stated to you openly--it is a principle of mine that there never can be too much openness between solicitor and client--that I was not a man of capital and that if capital was your object you had better leave your papers in Kenge's office. No, Mr. C., you will find none of the advantages or disadvantages of capital here, sir. This," Vholes gives the desk one hollow blow again, "is your rock; it pretends to be nothing more." The client, with his dejection insensibly relieved and his vague hopes rekindled, takes pen and ink and writes the draft, not without perplexed consideration and calculation of the date it may bear, implying scant effects in the agent's hands. All the while, Vholes, buttoned up in body and mind, looks at him attentively. All the while, Vholes's official cat watches the mouse's hole. Lastly, the client, shaking hands, beseeches Mr. Vholes, for heaven's sake and earth's sake, to do his utmost to "pull him through" the Court of Chancery. Mr. Vholes, who never gives hopes, lays his palm upon the client's shoulder and answers with a smile, "Always here, sir. Personally, or by letter, you will always find me here, sir, with my shoulder to the wheel." Thus they part, and Vholes, left alone, employs himself in carrying sundry little matters out of his diary into his draft bill book for the ultimate behoof of his three daughters. So might an industrious fox or bear make up his account of chickens or stray travellers with an eye to his cubs, not to disparage by that word the three raw-visaged, lank, and buttoned-up maidens who dwell with the parent Vholes in an earthy cottage situated in a damp garden at Kennington. Richard, emerging from the heavy shade of Symond's Inn into the sunshine of Chancery Lane--for there happens to be sunshine there to-day--walks thoughtfully on, and turns into Lincoln's Inn, and passes under the shadow of the Lincoln's Inn trees. On many such loungers have the speckled shadows of those trees often fallen; on the like bent head, the bitten nail, the lowering eye, the lingering step, the purposeless and dreamy air, the good consuming and consumed, the life turned sour. This lounger is not shabby yet, but that may come. Chancery, which knows no wisdom but in precedent, is very rich in such precedents; and why should one be different from ten thousand? Yet the time is so short since his depreciation began that as he saunters away, reluctant to leave the spot for some long months together, though he hates it, Richard himself may feel his own case as if it were a startling one. While his heart is heavy with corroding care, suspense, distrust, and doubt, it may have room for some sorrowful wonder when he recalls how different his first visit there, how different he, how different all the colours of his mind. But injustice breeds injustice; the fighting with shadows and being defeated by them necessitates the setting up of substances to combat; from the impalpable suit which no man alive can understand, the time for that being long gone by, it has become a gloomy relief to turn to the palpable figure of the friend who would have saved him from this ruin and make HIM his enemy. Richard has told Vholes the truth. Is he in a hardened or a softened mood, he still lays his injuries equally at that door; he was thwarted, in that quarter, of a set purpose, and that purpose could only originate in the one subject that is resolving his existence into itself; besides, it is a justification to him in his own eyes to have an embodied antagonist and oppressor. Is Richard a monster in all this, or would Chancery be found rich in such precedents too if they could be got for citation from the Recording Angel? Two pairs of eyes not unused to such people look after him, as, biting his nails and brooding, he crosses the square and is swallowed up by the shadow of the southern gateway. Mr. Guppy and Mr. Weevle are the possessors of those eyes, and they have been leaning in conversation against the low stone parapet under the trees. He passes close by them, seeing nothing but the ground. "William," says Mr. Weevle, adjusting his whiskers, "there's combustion going on there! It's not a case of spontaneous, but it's smouldering combustion it is." "Ah!" says Mr. Guppy. "He wouldn't keep out of Jarndyce, and I suppose he's over head and ears in debt. I never knew much of him. He was as high as the monument when he was on trial at our place. A good riddance to me, whether as clerk or client! Well, Tony, that as I was mentioning is what they're up to." Mr. Guppy, refolding his arms, resettles himself against the parapet, as resuming a conversation of interest. "They are still up to it, sir," says Mr. Guppy, "still taking stock, still examining papers, still going over the heaps and heaps of rubbish. At this rate they'll be at it these seven years." "And Small is helping?" "Small left us at a week's notice. Told Kenge his grandfather's business was too much for the old gentleman and he could better himself by undertaking it. There had been a coolness between myself and Small on account of his being so close. But he said you and I began it, and as he had me there--for we did--I put our acquaintance on the old footing. That's how I come to know what they're up to." "You haven't looked in at all?" "Tony," says Mr. Guppy, a little disconcerted, "to be unreserved with you, I don't greatly relish the house, except in your company, and therefore I have not; and therefore I proposed this little appointment for our fetching away your things. There goes the hour by the clock! Tony"--Mr. Guppy becomes mysteriously and tenderly eloquent--"it is necessary that I should impress upon your mind once more that circumstances over which I have no control have made a melancholy alteration in my most cherished plans and in that unrequited image which I formerly mentioned to you as a friend. That image is shattered, and that idol is laid low. My only wish now in connexion with the objects which I had an idea of carrying out in the court with your aid as a friend is to let 'em alone and bury 'em in oblivion. Do you think it possible, do you think it at all likely (I put it to you, Tony, as a friend), from your knowledge of that capricious and deep old character who fell a prey to the--spontaneous element, do you, Tony, think it at all likely that on second thoughts he put those letters away anywhere, after you saw him alive, and that they were not destroyed that night?" Mr. Weevle reflects for some time. Shakes his head. Decidedly thinks not. "Tony," says Mr. Guppy as they walk towards the court, "once again understand me, as a friend. Without entering into further explanations, I may repeat that the idol is down. I have no purpose to serve now but burial in oblivion. To that I have pledged myself. I owe it to myself, and I owe it to the shattered image, as also to the circumstances over which I have no control. If you was to express to me by a gesture, by a wink, that you saw lying anywhere in your late lodgings any papers that so much as looked like the papers in question, I would pitch them into the fire, sir, on my own responsibility." Mr. Weevle nods. Mr. Guppy, much elevated in his own opinion by having delivered these observations, with an air in part forensic and in part romantic--this gentleman having a passion for conducting anything in the form of an examination, or delivering anything in the form of a summing up or a speech--accompanies his friend with dignity to the court. Never since it has been a court has it had such a Fortunatus' purse of gossip as in the proceedings at the rag and bottle shop. Regularly, every morning at eight, is the elder Mr. Smallweed brought down to the corner and carried in, accompanied by Mrs. Smallweed, Judy, and Bart; and regularly, all day, do they all remain there until nine at night, solaced by gipsy dinners, not abundant in quantity, from the cook's shop, rummaging and searching, digging, delving, and diving among the treasures of the late lamented. What those treasures are they keep so secret that the court is maddened. In its delirium it imagines guineas pouring out of tea-pots, crown-pieces overflowing punch-bowls, old chairs and mattresses stuffed with Bank of England notes. It possesses itself of the sixpenny history (with highly coloured folding frontispiece) of Mr. Daniel Dancer and his sister, and also of Mr. Elwes, of Suffolk, and transfers all the facts from those authentic narratives to Mr. Krook. Twice when the dustman is called in to carry off a cartload of old paper, ashes, and broken bottles, the whole court assembles and pries into the baskets as they come forth. Many times the two gentlemen who write with the ravenous little pens on the tissue-paper are seen prowling in the neighbourhood--shy of each other, their late partnership being dissolved. The Sol skilfully carries a vein of the prevailing interest through the Harmonic nights. Little Swills, in what are professionally known as "patter" allusions to the subject, is received with loud applause; and the same vocalist "gags" in the regular business like a man inspired. Even Miss M. Melvilleson, in the revived Caledonian melody of "We're a-Nodding," points the sentiment that "the dogs love broo" (whatever the nature of that refreshment may be) with such archness and such a turn of the head towards next door that she is immediately understood to mean Mr. Smallweed loves to find money, and is nightly honoured with a double encore. For all this, the court discovers nothing; and as Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins now communicate to the late lodger whose appearance is the signal for a general rally, it is in one continual ferment to discover everything, and more. Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, with every eye in the court's head upon them, knock at the closed door of the late lamented's house, in a high state of popularity. But being contrary to the court's expectation admitted, they immediately become unpopular and are considered to mean no good. The shutters are more or less closed all over the house, and the ground-floor is sufficiently dark to require candles. Introduced into the back shop by Mr. Smallweed the younger, they, fresh from the sunlight, can at first see nothing save darkness and shadows; but they gradually discern the elder Mr. Smallweed seated in his chair upon the brink of a well or grave of waste-paper, the virtuous Judy groping therein like a female sexton, and Mrs. Smallweed on the level ground in the vicinity snowed up in a heap of paper fragments, print, and manuscript which would appear to be the accumulated compliments that have been sent flying at her in the course of the day. The whole party, Small included, are blackened with dust and dirt and present a fiendish appearance not relieved by the general aspect of the room. There is more litter and lumber in it than of old, and it is dirtier if possible; likewise, it is ghostly with traces of its dead inhabitant and even with his chalked writing on the wall. On the entrance of visitors, Mr. Smallweed and Judy simultaneously fold their arms and stop in their researches. "Aha!" croaks the old gentleman. "How de do, gentlemen, how de do! Come to fetch your property, Mr. Weevle? That's well, that's well. Ha! Ha! We should have been forced to sell you up, sir, to pay your warehouse room if you had left it here much longer. You feel quite at home here again, I dare say? Glad to see you, glad to see you!" Mr. Weevle, thanking him, casts an eye about. Mr. Guppy's eye follows Mr. Weevle's eye. Mr. Weevle's eye comes back without any new intelligence in it. Mr. Guppy's eye comes back and meets Mr. Smallweed's eye. That engaging old gentleman is still murmuring, like some wound-up instrument running down, "How de do, sir--how de--how--" And then having run down, he lapses into grinning silence, as Mr. Guppy starts at seeing Mr. Tulkinghorn standing in the darkness opposite with his hands behind him. "Gentleman so kind as to act as my solicitor," says Grandfather Smallweed. "I am not the sort of client for a gentleman of such note, but he is so good!" Mr. Guppy, slightly nudging his friend to take another look, makes a shuffling bow to Mr. Tulkinghorn, who returns it with an easy nod. Mr. Tulkinghorn is looking on as if he had nothing else to do and were rather amused by the novelty. "A good deal of property here, sir, I should say," Mr. Guppy observes to Mr. Smallweed. "Principally rags and rubbish, my dear friend! Rags and rubbish! Me and Bart and my granddaughter Judy are endeavouring to make out an inventory of what's worth anything to sell. But we haven't come to much as yet; we--haven't--come--to--hah!" Mr. Smallweed has run down again, while Mr. Weevle's eye, attended by Mr. Guppy's eye, has again gone round the room and come back. "Well, sir," says Mr. Weevle. "We won't intrude any longer if you'll allow us to go upstairs." "Anywhere, my dear sir, anywhere! You're at home. Make yourself so, pray!" As they go upstairs, Mr. Guppy lifts his eyebrows inquiringly and looks at Tony. Tony shakes his head. They find the old room very dull and dismal, with the ashes of the fire that was burning on that memorable night yet in the discoloured grate. They have a great disinclination to touch any object, and carefully blow the dust from it first. Nor are they desirous to prolong their visit, packing the few movables with all possible speed and never speaking above a whisper. "Look here," says Tony, recoiling. "Here's that horrible cat coming in!" Mr. Guppy retreats behind a chair. "Small told me of her. She went leaping and bounding and tearing about that night like a dragon, and got out on the house-top, and roamed about up there for a fortnight, and then came tumbling down the chimney very thin. Did you ever see such a brute? Looks as if she knew all about it, don't she? Almost looks as if she was Krook. Shoohoo! Get out, you goblin!" Lady Jane, in the doorway, with her tiger snarl from ear to ear and her club of a tail, shows no intention of obeying; but Mr. Tulkinghorn stumbling over her, she spits at his rusty legs, and swearing wrathfully, takes her arched back upstairs. Possibly to roam the house-tops again and return by the chimney. "Mr. Guppy," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "could I have a word with you?" Mr. Guppy is engaged in collecting the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty from the wall and depositing those works of art in their old ignoble band-box. "Sir," he returns, reddening, "I wish to act with courtesy towards every member of the profession, and especially, I am sure, towards a member of it so well known as yourself--I will truly add, sir, so distinguished as yourself. Still, Mr. Tulkinghorn, sir, I must stipulate that if you have any word with me, that word is spoken in the presence of my friend." "Oh, indeed?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Yes, sir. My reasons are not of a personal nature at all, but they are amply sufficient for myself." "No doubt, no doubt." Mr. Tulkinghorn is as imperturbable as the hearthstone to which he has quietly walked. "The matter is not of that consequence that I need put you to the trouble of making any conditions, Mr. Guppy." He pauses here to smile, and his smile is as dull and rusty as his pantaloons. "You are to be congratulated, Mr. Guppy; you are a fortunate young man, sir." "Pretty well so, Mr. Tulkinghorn; I don't complain." "Complain? High friends, free admission to great houses, and access to elegant ladies! Why, Mr. Guppy, there are people in London who would give their ears to be you." Mr. Guppy, looking as if he would give his own reddening and still reddening ears to be one of those people at present instead of himself, replies, "Sir, if I attend to my profession and do what is right by Kenge and Carboy, my friends and acquaintances are of no consequence to them nor to any member of the profession, not excepting Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields. I am not under any obligation to explain myself further; and with all respect for you, sir, and without offence--I repeat, without offence--" "Oh, certainly!" "--I don't intend to do it." "Quite so," says Mr. Tulkinghorn with a calm nod. "Very good; I see by these portraits that you take a strong interest in the fashionable great, sir?" He addresses this to the astounded Tony, who admits the soft impeachment. "A virtue in which few Englishmen are deficient," observes Mr. Tulkinghorn. He has been standing on the hearthstone with his back to the smoked chimney-piece, and now turns round with his glasses to his eyes. "Who is this? 'Lady Dedlock.' Ha! A very good likeness in its way, but it wants force of character. Good day to you, gentlemen; good day!" When he has walked out, Mr. Guppy, in a great perspiration, nerves himself to the hasty completion of the taking down of the Galaxy Gallery, concluding with Lady Dedlock. "Tony," he says hurriedly to his astonished companion, "let us be quick in putting the things together and in getting out of this place. It were in vain longer to conceal from you, Tony, that between myself and one of the members of a swan-like aristocracy whom I now hold in my hand, there has been undivulged communication and association. The time might have been when I might have revealed it to you. It never will be more. It is due alike to the oath I have taken, alike to the shattered idol, and alike to circumstances over which I have no control, that the whole should be buried in oblivion. I charge you as a friend, by the interest you have ever testified in the fashionable intelligence, and by any little advances with which I may have been able to accommodate you, so to bury it without a word of inquiry!" This charge Mr. Guppy delivers in a state little short of forensic lunacy, while his friend shows a dazed mind in his whole head of hair and even in his cultivated whiskers.

The name of Mr. Vholes is inscribed upon a door-post in Symond's Inn, Chancery Lane - a little, pale, wall-eyed, woebegone building. Mr. Vholes's office is squeezed up in a corner and blinks at a dead wall. Three feet of knotty-floored dark passage bring the client to Mr. Vholes's jet-black door. Mr. Vholes's chambers are on so small a scale that one clerk can open the door without getting off his stool, while the other has equal facilities for poking the fire. An unwholesome smell of mutton is due to the nightly consumption of candles and to the keeping of parchment skins in greasy drawers. The two chimneys smoke, and there is a loose surface of soot everywhere, and the dull cracked windows are always dirty and always shut. Mr. Vholes is a very respectable man. He never takes any pleasure, which is a mark of respectability. He is reserved and serious, which is another mark of respectability. His digestion is impaired, which is highly respectable. And he has three daughters. And his father is dependent on him in the Vale of Taunton. The one great principle of the English law is to make business for itself. There is no other principle so consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by this light it becomes a coherent scheme and not the monstrous maze most people think it. If they perceive that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their expense, surely they will cease to grumble. But not perceiving this quite plainly, most people do grumble. Then this respectability of Mr. Vholes is brought into powerful play. "The social system cannot afford," Mr. Kenge will say, "to lose an order of men like Mr. Vholes. Diligent, persevering, steady, acute in business. My dear sir, I understand your feelings; but I can never raise my voice for the demolition of a class of men like Mr. Vholes." Some authorities will remark that they don't know what this age is coming to, that we are plunging down precipices, that these changes are death to people like Vholes - a man of undoubted respectability, with a father in the Vale of Taunton, and three daughters at home. Take a few steps more in this direction, say they, and what is to become of Vholes's father? Is he to perish? And what of Vholes's daughters? In a word, Mr. Vholes is continually doing duty, like a piece of timber, to shore up some decayed foundation that has become a pitfall and a nuisance. The Chancellor is "up" for the long vacation. Mr. Vholes, and his young client, and several blue bags hastily stuffed, have returned to the official den. Mr. Vholes, quiet and unmoved in his respectability, takes off his close black gloves as if he were skinning his hands, lifts off his tight hat and sits down at his desk. The client throws his hat and gloves anywhere, without caring where they go; flings himself into a chair, half sighing and half groaning; rests his aching head upon his hand and looks the portrait of young despair. "Again nothing done!" says Richard. "Don't say nothing done, sir," returns the placid Vholes. "That is scarcely fair, sir!" "Why, what is done?" says Richard gloomily. "That may not be the whole question," returns Vholes. "The question may be, what is doing?" "And what is doing?" asks the moody client. "A good deal is doing, sir. We have put our shoulders to the wheel, Mr. Carstone, and the wheel is going round." "How am I to get through the next four or five accursed months?" exclaims the young man, rising from his chair and walking about the room. "Mr. C.," returns Vholes, following him with his eyes wherever he goes, "your spirits are hasty. Excuse me if I recommend you not to be so impetuous, not to wear yourself out so. You should have more patience." "I ought to imitate you, in fact, Mr. Vholes?" says Richard, sitting down again with an impatient laugh. "Sir," returns Vholes, always looking at the client as if he were making a lingering meal of him with his eyes as well as with his professional appetite, "Sir, I should not have the presumption to propose myself as a model for your imitation. But I will acknowledge that I should like to impart to you a little of my - come, sir, you call it insensibility, and I have no objection - a little of my insensibility." "Mr. Vholes," explains the client, somewhat abashed, "I did not mean to accuse you of insensibility." "I think you did, sir, very naturally," returns the equable Vholes. "It is my duty to attend to your interests with a cool head, and I can quite understand that to your excited feelings I may appear insensible. My daughters may know me better; my aged father may know me better. But they have known me much longer than you have. Your interests demand that I should be cool and methodical, Mr. Carstone." Mr. Vholes fixes his charmed gaze again on his young client and proceeds in his half-audible voice, "What are you to do, sir, you inquire, during the vacation? I should hope you gentlemen of the army may find many means of amusing yourselves. If you had asked me what I was to do during the vacation, I could have answered you readily. I am to be found here, day by day, attending to your interests. That is my duty, Mr. C. Other professional men go out of town. I don't." "I am perfectly aware, Mr. Vholes," says Richard, more good-humouredly, "that you are the most reliable fellow in the world. But put yourself in my case, dragging on this dislocated life, sinking deeper and deeper into difficulty every day, continually hoping and continually disappointed, with no change for the better, and you will find it a dark-looking case sometimes, as I do." "You know," says Mr. Vholes, "that I never give hopes, sir. I told you that from the first, Mr. C. Particularly in a case like this, where the greater part of the costs comes out of the estate, I never give hopes. It might seem as if costs were my object. Still, when you say there is no change for the better, I must deny that." "Aye?" returns Richard, brightening. "Mr. Carstone, you are separately represented now, and no longer hidden and lost in the interests of others. That's something. The suit does not sleep; we wake it up, we walk it about. That's something. It's not all Jarndyce. That's something. Nobody has it all his own way now, sir. And that's something, surely." Richard, his face flushing suddenly, strikes the desk with his clenched hand. "Mr. Vholes! If any man had told me when I first went to John Jarndyce's house that he was anything but a disinterested friend - I could have found no words strong enough to repel the slander. So little did I know of the world! Whereas now he has become to me the embodiment of the suit; the more I suffer, the more indignant I am with him; every new delay and disappointment is only a new injury from John Jarndyce's hand." "No, no," says Vholes. "Don't say so. We ought to have patience. Besides, I never disparage, sir." "Mr. Vholes," returns the angry client. "You know as well as I that he would have strangled the suit if he could." "He certainly was not active in it," Mr. Vholes admits with an appearance of reluctance. "However, he might have had amiable intentions. Who can read the heart, Mr. C.!" "Are not our interests conflicting? Tell me that!" says Richard. "Mr. C.," returns Vholes, never winking his hungry eyes, "I should be wanting in my duty as your adviser, if I said your interests are identical with the interests of Mr. Jarndyce. They are no such thing, sir." "Of course they are not!" cries Richard. "You found that out long ago." "Mr. C.," returns Vholes, "I wish to say no more of any third party than is necessary. When Mr. Skimpole did me the honour, sir, of bringing us together, I mentioned to you that I could offer no advice while your interests were entrusted to another member of the profession. You, sir, thought fit to withdraw your interests from Kenge and Carboy's office and to offer them to me. Those interests are now paramount in this office. During the long vacation, sir, I shall devote my leisure to studying your interests closely; and when I ultimately congratulate you, sir, on your accession to fortune, you will owe me nothing beyond whatever little balance may be then outstanding of the costs as between solicitor and client not included in the taxed costs allowed out of the estate. I pretend to no claim upon you, Mr. C., but for the zealous and active discharge of my professional duty." Vholes finally adds that perhaps Mr. C. will favour him with an order on his agent for twenty pounds on account. "For there have been many little consultations of late, sir," observes Vholes, turning over the leaves of his diary, "and these things mount up." The client, with his vague hopes rekindled, writes the draft, not without perplexed consideration and calculation of the date it may bear. All the while, Vholes looks at him attentively. Lastly, the client, shaking hands, beseeches Mr. Vholes to do his utmost to "pull him through" the Court of Chancery. Mr. Vholes, who never gives hopes, answers with a smile, "You will always find me here, sir, with my shoulder to the wheel." Thus they part. Richard, emerging from the heavy shade of Symond's Inn into the sunshine, walks thoughtfully on to Lincoln's Inn, and passes under the shadow of the trees there. On many such loungers have the speckled shadows of those trees fallen; on the bent head, the bitten nail, the lingering step, the purposeless and dreamy air, the life turned sour. This lounger is not shabby yet, but that may come. As Richard saunters away, his heart is heavy with corroding care and doubt, yet he may feel some sorrowful wonder when he recalls how different his first visit there, how different all the colours of his mind. But injustice breeds injustice; the fighting with shadows necessitates the setting up of substances to combat; from the impalpable suit which no man alive can understand, it has become a gloomy relief to turn to the palpable figure of the friend who would have saved him from this ruin, and make him his enemy. Two pairs of eyes look after him, as, biting his nails and brooding, he crosses the square and is swallowed up by shadow. Mr. Guppy and Mr. Weevle have been leaning in conversation against the low stone parapet under the trees. "William," says Mr. Weevle, "there's combustion going on there! It's not spontaneous, but it's smouldering combustion, it is." "Ah!" says Mr. Guppy. "He wouldn't keep out of Jarndyce, and I suppose he's head over heels in debt. I never knew much of him. Well, Tony, that as I was mentioning is what they're up to." Mr. Guppy resettles himself against the parapet, resuming a conversation of interest. "They are still up to it, sir," says Mr. Guppy, "still examining papers, still going over the heaps of Krook's rubbish. At this rate they'll be at it these seven years." "And Small is helping?" "Small left us at a week's notice." "You haven't looked in at all?" "Tony," says Mr. Guppy, a little disconcerted, "I don't greatly relish the house, except in your company, and therefore I have not; and therefore I proposed this little appointment for our fetching away your things. There goes the hour! Tony-" Mr. Guppy becomes mysteriously eloquent - "circumstances over which I have no control have made a melancholy alteration in my most cherished plans and in that unrequited image which I formerly mentioned to you. That image is shattered. My only wish now in connexion with those objects which I had an idea of carrying out with your aid is to let 'em alone and bury 'em in oblivion. Do you think it possible, Tony, that he put those letters away anywhere, after you saw him alive, and that they were not destroyed that night?" Mr. Weevle reflects. Shakes his head. "Tony," says Mr. Guppy as they walk towards the court, "without entering into further explanations, I may repeat that the idol is laid low. I have no purpose now but burial in oblivion. If you was to tell me with a wink or a nod that you saw lying anywhere in your late lodgings any papers that looked like the papers in question, I would pitch them into the fire, sir." Mr. Weevle nods. Mr. Guppy, much elevated in his own opinion by these observations, accompanies his friend with dignity to the court. Never has the court been so full of gossip. Every morning at eight, the elder Mr. Smallweed is carried into the rag and bottle shop, accompanied by Mrs. Smallweed, Judy, and Bart; and there they remain until nine at night, rummaging and searching, digging and delving among the treasures of the late lamented. What those treasures are, they keep so secret that the court is maddened. It imagines guineas pouring out of tea-pots, and mattresses stuffed with bank-notes. Twice when the dustman is called in to carry off a cartload of old paper and broken bottles, the whole court assembles and pries into the baskets as they come forth. As Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins now tell Mr. Weevle, the court is in one continual ferment. Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, with every eye in the court upon them, knock at the closed door of the late lamented's house. Contrary to the court's expectation, they are admitted and are immediately considered to mean no good. The shutters are closed all over the house, and the ground-floor is dark enough to require candles. Introduced into the back shop by Mr. Smallweed the younger, they can at first see nothing save darkness and shadows; but they gradually discern the elder Mr. Smallweed seated in his chair upon the brink of a well of waste-paper, Judy groping therein, and Mrs. Smallweed nearby snowed up in a heap of paper fragments. They are all blackened with dust and dirt and present a fiendish appearance; while the room is more littered and dirtier, if possible, than of old. It is ghostly with traces of its dead inhabitant and even his chalked writing on the wall. "Aha!" croaks the old gentleman. "How de do! Come to fetch your property, Mr. Weevle? That's well. Ha! Ha! We should have been forced to sell you up, sir, if you had left it here much longer. Glad to see you!" Mr. Weevle, thanking him, looks around. So does Mr. Guppy; who starts at seeing Mr. Tulkinghorn standing in the darkness opposite with his hands behind him. "Gentleman so kind as to act as my solicitor," says Grandfather Smallweed. Mr. Guppy, slightly nudging his friend to take another look around, makes a shuffling bow to Mr. Tulkinghorn, who returns it with an easy, amused nod. "A good deal of property here, sir, I should say," Mr. Guppy observes to Mr. Smallweed. "Rags and rubbish, my dear friend! Rags and rubbish! We are trying to make out an inventory of what's worth anything to sell. But we haven't come to much as yet!" Mr. Weevle's eye has again gone round the room and come back. "Well, sir," says Mr. Weevle. "We won't intrude any longer if you'll allow us to go upstairs." "Anywhere, my dear sir, anywhere!" As they go upstairs, Mr. Guppy lifts his eyebrows inquiringly and looks at Tony. Tony shakes his head. They find the old room very dull and dismal. They have a great disinclination to touch any object, and do not prolong their visit, packing up with all possible speed and never speaking above a whisper. "Look here," says Tony, recoiling. "Here's that horrible cat coming in!" Mr. Guppy retreats behind a chair. "Small told me she went leaping and tearing about that night like a dragon, and got out on the house-top, and roamed about up there for a fortnight, and then came tumbling down the chimney. Did you ever see such a brute? Shoo! Get out, you goblin!" Lady Jane in the doorway, with her tiger snarl, shows no intention of obeying; but when Mr. Tulkinghorn stumbles over her, she spits and runs upstairs. "Mr. Guppy," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "could I have a word with you?" Mr. Guppy is engaged in collecting the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty from the wall. "Sir," he returns, reddening, "I wish to act with courtesy towards every member of the profession, and especially, I am sure, towards a member so distinguished as yourself. Still, Mr. Tulkinghorn, sir, I must ask that if you have any word with me, it is spoken in the presence of my friend." "The matter is not of that much consequence, Mr. Guppy." Mr. Tulkinghorn pauses here to smile a dull and rusty smile. "You are a fortunate young man, sir. You have high friends, free admission to great houses, and access to elegant ladies!" Mr. Guppy says, reddening still more, "Sir, if I attend to my profession and do what is right by Kenge and Carboy, my friends are of no consequence to them nor to anyone else. I am not under any obligation to explain myself further." "Quite so," says Mr. Tulkinghorn with a calm nod. "Very good; I see by these portraits that you take a strong interest in the fashionable great, sir?" He addresses this to the astounded Tony, who admits it. Mr. Tulkinghorn puts his glasses to his eyes. "Who is this? 'Lady Dedlock.' Ha! A very good likeness in its way, but it wants force of character. Good day to you, gentlemen; good day!" When he has walked out, Mr. Guppy, in a great perspiration, hastily takes down the rest of the Galaxy Gallery. "Tony," he says hurriedly, "let us be quick in getting out of this place. I cannot conceal from you, Tony, that between myself and one of the members of a swan-like aristocracy whom I now hold in my hand, there has been some communication. I can say no more due to the oath I have taken, the shattered idol, and circumstances over which I have no control. I charge you as a friend to bury it in oblivion without a word of inquiry!" This charge Mr. Guppy delivers in a state little short of lunacy, while his friend appears dazed down to his whiskers.

Bleak House

Chapter 39: Attorney and Client

On the eastern borders of Chancery Lane, that is to say, more particularly in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, Mr. Snagsby, law-stationer, pursues his lawful calling. In the shade of Cook's Court, at most times a shady place, Mr. Snagsby has dealt in all sorts of blank forms of legal process; in skins and rolls of parchment; in paper--foolscap, brief, draft, brown, white, whitey-brown, and blotting; in stamps; in office-quills, pens, ink, India-rubber, pounce, pins, pencils, sealing-wax, and wafers; in red tape and green ferret; in pocket-books, almanacs, diaries, and law lists; in string boxes, rulers, inkstands--glass and leaden--pen-knives, scissors, bodkins, and other small office-cutlery; in short, in articles too numerous to mention, ever since he was out of his time and went into partnership with Peffer. On that occasion, Cook's Court was in a manner revolutionized by the new inscription in fresh paint, PEFFER AND SNAGSBY, displacing the time-honoured and not easily to be deciphered legend PEFFER only. For smoke, which is the London ivy, had so wreathed itself round Peffer's name and clung to his dwelling-place that the affectionate parasite quite overpowered the parent tree. Peffer is never seen in Cook's Court now. He is not expected there, for he has been recumbent this quarter of a century in the churchyard of St. Andrews, Holborn, with the waggons and hackney-coaches roaring past him all the day and half the night like one great dragon. If he ever steal forth when the dragon is at rest to air himself again in Cook's Court until admonished to return by the crowing of the sanguine cock in the cellar at the little dairy in Cursitor Street, whose ideas of daylight it would be curious to ascertain, since he knows from his personal observation next to nothing about it--if Peffer ever do revisit the pale glimpses of Cook's Court, which no law-stationer in the trade can positively deny, he comes invisibly, and no one is the worse or wiser. In his lifetime, and likewise in the period of Snagsby's "time" of seven long years, there dwelt with Peffer in the same law-stationering premises a niece--a short, shrewd niece, something too violently compressed about the waist, and with a sharp nose like a sharp autumn evening, inclining to be frosty towards the end. The Cook's Courtiers had a rumour flying among them that the mother of this niece did, in her daughter's childhood, moved by too jealous a solicitude that her figure should approach perfection, lace her up every morning with her maternal foot against the bed-post for a stronger hold and purchase; and further, that she exhibited internally pints of vinegar and lemon-juice, which acids, they held, had mounted to the nose and temper of the patient. With whichsoever of the many tongues of Rumour this frothy report originated, it either never reached or never influenced the ears of young Snagsby, who, having wooed and won its fair subject on his arrival at man's estate, entered into two partnerships at once. So now, in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, Mr. Snagsby and the niece are one; and the niece still cherishes her figure, which, however tastes may differ, is unquestionably so far precious that there is mighty little of it. Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are not only one bone and one flesh, but, to the neighbours' thinking, one voice too. That voice, appearing to proceed from Mrs. Snagsby alone, is heard in Cook's Court very often. Mr. Snagsby, otherwise than as he finds expression through these dulcet tones, is rarely heard. He is a mild, bald, timid man with a shining head and a scrubby clump of black hair sticking out at the back. He tends to meekness and obesity. As he stands at his door in Cook's Court in his grey shop-coat and black calico sleeves, looking up at the clouds, or stands behind a desk in his dark shop with a heavy flat ruler, snipping and slicing at sheepskin in company with his two 'prentices, he is emphatically a retiring and unassuming man. From beneath his feet, at such times, as from a shrill ghost unquiet in its grave, there frequently arise complainings and lamentations in the voice already mentioned; and haply, on some occasions when these reach a sharper pitch than usual, Mr. Snagsby mentions to the 'prentices, "I think my little woman is a-giving it to Guster!" This proper name, so used by Mr. Snagsby, has before now sharpened the wit of the Cook's Courtiers to remark that it ought to be the name of Mrs. Snagsby, seeing that she might with great force and expression be termed a Guster, in compliment to her stormy character. It is, however, the possession, and the only possession except fifty shillings per annum and a very small box indifferently filled with clothing, of a lean young woman from a workhouse (by some supposed to have been christened Augusta) who, although she was farmed or contracted for during her growing time by an amiable benefactor of his species resident at Tooting, and cannot fail to have been developed under the most favourable circumstances, "has fits," which the parish can't account for. Guster, really aged three or four and twenty, but looking a round ten years older, goes cheap with this unaccountable drawback of fits, and is so apprehensive of being returned on the hands of her patron saint that except when she is found with her head in the pail, or the sink, or the copper, or the dinner, or anything else that happens to be near her at the time of her seizure, she is always at work. She is a satisfaction to the parents and guardians of the 'prentices, who feel that there is little danger of her inspiring tender emotions in the breast of youth; she is a satisfaction to Mrs. Snagsby, who can always find fault with her; she is a satisfaction to Mr. Snagsby, who thinks it a charity to keep her. The law-stationer's establishment is, in Guster's eyes, a temple of plenty and splendour. She believes the little drawing-room upstairs, always kept, as one may say, with its hair in papers and its pinafore on, to be the most elegant apartment in Christendom. The view it commands of Cook's Court at one end (not to mention a squint into Cursitor Street) and of Coavinses' the sheriff's officer's backyard at the other she regards as a prospect of unequalled beauty. The portraits it displays in oil--and plenty of it too--of Mr. Snagsby looking at Mrs. Snagsby and of Mrs. Snagsby looking at Mr. Snagsby are in her eyes as achievements of Raphael or Titian. Guster has some recompenses for her many privations. Mr. Snagsby refers everything not in the practical mysteries of the business to Mrs. Snagsby. She manages the money, reproaches the tax-gatherers, appoints the times and places of devotion on Sundays, licenses Mr. Snagsby's entertainments, and acknowledges no responsibility as to what she thinks fit to provide for dinner, insomuch that she is the high standard of comparison among the neighbouring wives a long way down Chancery Lane on both sides, and even out in Holborn, who in any domestic passages of arms habitually call upon their husbands to look at the difference between their (the wives') position and Mrs. Snagsby's, and their (the husbands') behaviour and Mr. Snagsby's. Rumour, always flying bat-like about Cook's Court and skimming in and out at everybody's windows, does say that Mrs. Snagsby is jealous and inquisitive and that Mr. Snagsby is sometimes worried out of house and home, and that if he had the spirit of a mouse he wouldn't stand it. It is even observed that the wives who quote him to their self-willed husbands as a shining example in reality look down upon him and that nobody does so with greater superciliousness than one particular lady whose lord is more than suspected of laying his umbrella on her as an instrument of correction. But these vague whisperings may arise from Mr. Snagsby's being in his way rather a meditative and poetical man, loving to walk in Staple Inn in the summer-time and to observe how countrified the sparrows and the leaves are, also to lounge about the Rolls Yard of a Sunday afternoon and to remark (if in good spirits) that there were old times once and that you'd find a stone coffin or two now under that chapel, he'll be bound, if you was to dig for it. He solaces his imagination, too, by thinking of the many Chancellors and Vices, and Masters of the Rolls who are deceased; and he gets such a flavour of the country out of telling the two 'prentices how he HAS heard say that a brook "as clear as crystal" once ran right down the middle of Holborn, when Turnstile really was a turnstile, leading slap away into the meadows--gets such a flavour of the country out of this that he never wants to go there. The day is closing in and the gas is lighted, but is not yet fully effective, for it is not quite dark. Mr. Snagsby standing at his shop-door looking up at the clouds sees a crow who is out late skim westward over the slice of sky belonging to Cook's Court. The crow flies straight across Chancery Lane and Lincoln's Inn Garden into Lincoln's Inn Fields. Here, in a large house, formerly a house of state, lives Mr. Tulkinghorn. It is let off in sets of chambers now, and in those shrunken fragments of its greatness, lawyers lie like maggots in nuts. But its roomy staircases, passages, and antechambers still remain; and even its painted ceilings, where Allegory, in Roman helmet and celestial linen, sprawls among balustrades and pillars, flowers, clouds, and big-legged boys, and makes the head ache--as would seem to be Allegory's object always, more or less. Here, among his many boxes labelled with transcendent names, lives Mr. Tulkinghorn, when not speechlessly at home in country-houses where the great ones of the earth are bored to death. Here he is to-day, quiet at his table. An oyster of the old school whom nobody can open. Like as he is to look at, so is his apartment in the dusk of the present afternoon. Rusty, out of date, withdrawing from attention, able to afford it. Heavy, broad-backed, old-fashioned, mahogany-and-horsehair chairs, not easily lifted; obsolete tables with spindle-legs and dusty baize covers; presentation prints of the holders of great titles in the last generation or the last but one, environ him. A thick and dingy Turkey-carpet muffles the floor where he sits, attended by two candles in old-fashioned silver candlesticks that give a very insufficient light to his large room. The titles on the backs of his books have retired into the binding; everything that can have a lock has got one; no key is visible. Very few loose papers are about. He has some manuscript near him, but is not referring to it. With the round top of an inkstand and two broken bits of sealing-wax he is silently and slowly working out whatever train of indecision is in his mind. Now the inkstand top is in the middle, now the red bit of sealing-wax, now the black bit. That's not it. Mr. Tulkinghorn must gather them all up and begin again. Here, beneath the painted ceiling, with foreshortened Allegory staring down at his intrusion as if it meant to swoop upon him, and he cutting it dead, Mr. Tulkinghorn has at once his house and office. He keeps no staff, only one middle-aged man, usually a little out at elbows, who sits in a high pew in the hall and is rarely overburdened with business. Mr. Tulkinghorn is not in a common way. He wants no clerks. He is a great reservoir of confidences, not to be so tapped. His clients want HIM; he is all in all. Drafts that he requires to be drawn are drawn by special-pleaders in the temple on mysterious instructions; fair copies that he requires to be made are made at the stationers', expense being no consideration. The middle-aged man in the pew knows scarcely more of the affairs of the peerage than any crossing-sweeper in Holborn. The red bit, the black bit, the inkstand top, the other inkstand top, the little sand-box. So! You to the middle, you to the right, you to the left. This train of indecision must surely be worked out now or never. Now! Mr. Tulkinghorn gets up, adjusts his spectacles, puts on his hat, puts the manuscript in his pocket, goes out, tells the middle-aged man out at elbows, "I shall be back presently." Very rarely tells him anything more explicit. Mr. Tulkinghorn goes, as the crow came--not quite so straight, but nearly--to Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. To Snagsby's, Law-Stationer's, Deeds engrossed and copied, Law-Writing executed in all its branches, &c., &c., &c. It is somewhere about five or six o'clock in the afternoon, and a balmy fragrance of warm tea hovers in Cook's Court. It hovers about Snagsby's door. The hours are early there: dinner at half-past one and supper at half-past nine. Mr. Snagsby was about to descend into the subterranean regions to take tea when he looked out of his door just now and saw the crow who was out late. "Master at home?" Guster is minding the shop, for the 'prentices take tea in the kitchen with Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby; consequently, the robe-maker's two daughters, combing their curls at the two glasses in the two second-floor windows of the opposite house, are not driving the two 'prentices to distraction as they fondly suppose, but are merely awakening the unprofitable admiration of Guster, whose hair won't grow, and never would, and it is confidently thought, never will. "Master at home?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. Master is at home, and Guster will fetch him. Guster disappears, glad to get out of the shop, which she regards with mingled dread and veneration as a storehouse of awful implements of the great torture of the law--a place not to be entered after the gas is turned off. Mr. Snagsby appears, greasy, warm, herbaceous, and chewing. Bolts a bit of bread and butter. Says, "Bless my soul, sir! Mr. Tulkinghorn!" "I want half a word with you, Snagsby." "Certainly, sir! Dear me, sir, why didn't you send your young man round for me? Pray walk into the back shop, sir." Snagsby has brightened in a moment. The confined room, strong of parchment-grease, is warehouse, counting-house, and copying-office. Mr. Tulkinghorn sits, facing round, on a stool at the desk. "Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Snagsby." "Yes, sir." Mr. Snagsby turns up the gas and coughs behind his hand, modestly anticipating profit. Mr. Snagsby, as a timid man, is accustomed to cough with a variety of expressions, and so to save words. "You copied some affidavits in that cause for me lately." "Yes, sir, we did." "There was one of them," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, carelessly feeling--tight, unopenable oyster of the old school!--in the wrong coat-pocket, "the handwriting of which is peculiar, and I rather like. As I happened to be passing, and thought I had it about me, I looked in to ask you--but I haven't got it. No matter, any other time will do. Ah! here it is! I looked in to ask you who copied this." "Who copied this, sir?" says Mr. Snagsby, taking it, laying it flat on the desk, and separating all the sheets at once with a twirl and a twist of the left hand peculiar to lawstationers. "We gave this out, sir. We were giving out rather a large quantity of work just at that time. I can tell you in a moment who copied it, sir, by referring to my book." Mr. Snagsby takes his book down from the safe, makes another bolt of the bit of bread and butter which seemed to have stopped short, eyes the affidavit aside, and brings his right forefinger travelling down a page of the book, "Jewby--Packer--Jarndyce." "Jarndyce! Here we are, sir," says Mr. Snagsby. "To be sure! I might have remembered it. This was given out, sir, to a writer who lodges just over on the opposite side of the lane." Mr. Tulkinghorn has seen the entry, found it before the law-stationer, read it while the forefinger was coming down the hill. "WHAT do you call him? Nemo?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Nemo, sir. Here it is. Forty-two folio. Given out on the Wednesday night at eight o'clock, brought in on the Thursday morning at half after nine." "Nemo!" repeats Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Nemo is Latin for no one." "It must be English for some one, sir, I think," Mr. Snagsby submits with his deferential cough. "It is a person's name. Here it is, you see, sir! Forty-two folio. Given out Wednesday night, eight o'clock; brought in Thursday morning, half after nine." The tail of Mr. Snagsby's eye becomes conscious of the head of Mrs. Snagsby looking in at the shop-door to know what he means by deserting his tea. Mr. Snagsby addresses an explanatory cough to Mrs. Snagsby, as who should say, "My dear, a customer!" "Half after nine, sir," repeats Mr. Snagsby. "Our law-writers, who live by job-work, are a queer lot; and this may not be his name, but it's the name he goes by. I remember now, sir, that he gives it in a written advertisement he sticks up down at the Rule Office, and the King's Bench Office, and the Judges' Chambers, and so forth. You know the kind of document, sir--wanting employ?" Mr. Tulkinghorn glances through the little window at the back of Coavinses', the sheriff's officer's, where lights shine in Coavinses' windows. Coavinses' coffee-room is at the back, and the shadows of several gentlemen under a cloud loom cloudily upon the blinds. Mr. Snagsby takes the opportunity of slightly turning his head to glance over his shoulder at his little woman and to make apologetic motions with his mouth to this effect: "Tul-king-horn--rich--in-flu-en-tial!" "Have you given this man work before?" asks Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Oh, dear, yes, sir! Work of yours." "Thinking of more important matters, I forget where you said he lived?" "Across the lane, sir. In fact, he lodges at a--" Mr. Snagsby makes another bolt, as if the bit of bread and butter were insurmountable "--at a rag and bottle shop." "Can you show me the place as I go back?" "With the greatest pleasure, sir!" Mr. Snagsby pulls off his sleeves and his grey coat, pulls on his black coat, takes his hat from its peg. "Oh! Here is my little woman!" he says aloud. "My dear, will you be so kind as to tell one of the lads to look after the shop while I step across the lane with Mr. Tulkinghorn? Mrs. Snagsby, sir--I shan't be two minutes, my love!" Mrs. Snagsby bends to the lawyer, retires behind the counter, peeps at them through the window-blind, goes softly into the back office, refers to the entries in the book still lying open. Is evidently curious. "You will find that the place is rough, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, walking deferentially in the road and leaving the narrow pavement to the lawyer; "and the party is very rough. But they're a wild lot in general, sir. The advantage of this particular man is that he never wants sleep. He'll go at it right on end if you want him to, as long as ever you like." It is quite dark now, and the gas-lamps have acquired their full effect. Jostling against clerks going to post the day's letters, and against counsel and attorneys going home to dinner, and against plaintiffs and defendants and suitors of all sorts, and against the general crowd, in whose way the forensic wisdom of ages has interposed a million of obstacles to the transaction of the commonest business of life; diving through law and equity, and through that kindred mystery, the street mud, which is made of nobody knows what and collects about us nobody knows whence or how--we only knowing in general that when there is too much of it we find it necessary to shovel it away--the lawyer and the law-stationer come to a rag and bottle shop and general emporium of much disregarded merchandise, lying and being in the shadow of the wall of Lincoln's Inn, and kept, as is announced in paint, to all whom it may concern, by one Krook. "This is where he lives, sir," says the law-stationer. "This is where he lives, is it?" says the lawyer unconcernedly. "Thank you." "Are you not going in, sir?" "No, thank you, no; I am going on to the Fields at present. Good evening. Thank you!" Mr. Snagsby lifts his hat and returns to his little woman and his tea. But Mr. Tulkinghorn does not go on to the Fields at present. He goes a short way, turns back, comes again to the shop of Mr. Krook, and enters it straight. It is dim enough, with a blot-headed candle or so in the windows, and an old man and a cat sitting in the back part by a fire. The old man rises and comes forward, with another blot-headed candle in his hand. "Pray is your lodger within?" "Male or female, sir?" says Mr. Krook. "Male. The person who does copying." Mr. Krook has eyed his man narrowly. Knows him by sight. Has an indistinct impression of his aristocratic repute. "Did you wish to see him, sir?" "Yes." "It's what I seldom do myself," says Mr. Krook with a grin. "Shall I call him down? But it's a weak chance if he'd come, sir!" "I'll go up to him, then," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Second floor, sir. Take the candle. Up there!" Mr. Krook, with his cat beside him, stands at the bottom of the staircase, looking after Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Hi-hi!" he says when Mr. Tulkinghorn has nearly disappeared. The lawyer looks down over the hand-rail. The cat expands her wicked mouth and snarls at him. "Order, Lady Jane! Behave yourself to visitors, my lady! You know what they say of my lodger?" whispers Krook, going up a step or two. "What do they say of him?" "They say he has sold himself to the enemy, but you and I know better--he don't buy. I'll tell you what, though; my lodger is so black-humoured and gloomy that I believe he'd as soon make that bargain as any other. Don't put him out, sir. That's my advice!" Mr. Tulkinghorn with a nod goes on his way. He comes to the dark door on the second floor. He knocks, receives no answer, opens it, and accidentally extinguishes his candle in doing so. The air of the room is almost bad enough to have extinguished it if he had not. It is a small room, nearly black with soot, and grease, and dirt. In the rusty skeleton of a grate, pinched at the middle as if poverty had gripped it, a red coke fire burns low. In the corner by the chimney stand a deal table and a broken desk, a wilderness marked with a rain of ink. In another corner a ragged old portmanteau on one of the two chairs serves for cabinet or wardrobe; no larger one is needed, for it collapses like the cheeks of a starved man. The floor is bare, except that one old mat, trodden to shreds of rope-yarn, lies perishing upon the hearth. No curtain veils the darkness of the night, but the discoloured shutters are drawn together, and through the two gaunt holes pierced in them, famine might be staring in--the banshee of the man upon the bed. For, on a low bed opposite the fire, a confusion of dirty patchwork, lean-ribbed ticking, and coarse sacking, the lawyer, hesitating just within the doorway, sees a man. He lies there, dressed in shirt and trousers, with bare feet. He has a yellow look in the spectral darkness of a candle that has guttered down until the whole length of its wick (still burning) has doubled over and left a tower of winding-sheet above it. His hair is ragged, mingling with his whiskers and his beard--the latter, ragged too, and grown, like the scum and mist around him, in neglect. Foul and filthy as the room is, foul and filthy as the air is, it is not easy to perceive what fumes those are which most oppress the senses in it; but through the general sickliness and faintness, and the odour of stale tobacco, there comes into the lawyer's mouth the bitter, vapid taste of opium. "Hallo, my friend!" he cries, and strikes his iron candlestick against the door. He thinks he has awakened his friend. He lies a little turned away, but his eyes are surely open. "Hallo, my friend!" he cries again. "Hallo! Hallo!" As he rattles on the door, the candle which has drooped so long goes out and leaves him in the dark, with the gaunt eyes in the shutters staring down upon the bed.

On the eastern borders of Chancery Lane, in Cook's Court, Mr. Snagsby, law-stationer, pursues his lawful calling. In the shade of Cook's Court, at most times a shady place, Mr. Snagsby has dealt in all sorts of blank legal forms; in rolls of parchment; in paper; in stamps; in quills, pens, ink, India-rubber, pencils, sealing-wax, and wafers; in pocket-books, almanacs, and diaries; in ink-stands, scissors, and other small office-cutlery; in short, in articles too numerous to mention, ever since he went into partnership with Peffer. The inscription in Cook's Court used to read PEFFER AND SNAGSBY, but Peffer has been lying for a quarter of a century in the churchyard. In his lifetime, there dwelt with Peffer a niece - a short, shrewd niece, with a sharp nose. The Cook's Courtiers had a rumour that this niece had been dosed with pints of vinegar, which had mounted to her temper. However, this rumour never reached the ears of young Snagsby, who wooed and won her, and so entered into two partnerships at once. Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are not only one flesh, but, to the neighbours' thinking, one voice too. That voice, through Mrs. Snagsby, is heard in Cook's Court very often. Mr. Snagsby is rarely heard. He is a mild, bald, timid man with a shining head. He tends to meekness and obesity. As he stands behind a desk in his dark shop, snipping parchment with his two apprentices, he is an unassuming man. At such times, as from a shrill ghost unquiet in its grave, there frequently arise complainings in the voice already mentioned; and Mr. Snagsby says, "I think my little woman is a-giving it to Guster!" Guster is the name of a lean young woman from a workhouse (supposed to have been christened Augusta), who "has fits". Guster, aged three or four and twenty, but looking ten years older, is cheap because of this drawback of fits, and is so apprehensive of being returned to the workhouse that she is always at work. The law-stationer's establishment is, in her eyes, a temple of plenty and splendour. She believes the little drawing-room to be the most elegant apartment in Christendom, and its view of Cook's Court and Coavinses' the sheriff's officer's backyard to be a prospect of unequalled beauty. Mr. Snagsby refers everything apart from stationery to Mrs. Snagsby. She manages the money, reproaches the tax-gatherers, licenses Mr. Snagsby's entertainments, and orders what she likes for dinner. Rumour, always flying bat-like about Cook's Court and skimming in and out at everybody's windows, does say that Mrs. Snagsby is jealous and inquisitive and that if Mr. Snagsby had the spirit of a mouse he wouldn't stand it. But these vague whisperings may arise from Mr. Snagsby's being rather a meditative and poetical man. The day is closing in now and the gas is lit. Mr. Snagsby, standing at his shop-door, sees a crow skim westward over the slice of sky belonging to Cook's Court, and straight across Chancery Lane into Lincoln's Inn Fields. Here, in a large house, lives Mr. Tulkinghorn. It is let off in sets of chambers now, and in those shrunken fragments of its greatness, lawyers lie like maggots in nuts. But its roomy staircases, passages, and antechambers remain; and even its painted ceilings, where Allegory, in Roman helmet and celestial linen, sprawls among pillars, flowers, and clouds. Here lives Mr. Tulkinghorn, when not speechless in country-houses. Here he is today, quiet at his table; an oyster of the old school whom nobody can open. His apartment is rusty and out of date. Heavy, old-fashioned, mahogany-and-horsehair chairs; obsolete tables with spindle-legs and dusty baize covers. Two candles that give a very insufficient light to his large room. The titles on the backs of his books have retired into the binding; everything that can have a lock has got one. Very few loose papers are about. He has some manuscript near him, but is not reading. He is fiddling with some sealing-wax, and thinking. Here, beneath the painted ceiling, with Allegory staring down at him, Mr. Tulkinghorn has at once his house and office. He keeps no staff, only one middle-aged man, who sits in a high pew in the hall and is rarely overburdened with business. Mr. Tulkinghorn needs no clerks. He is a great reservoir of confidences; his clients want him; he is all in all. Any copies that he requires are made at the stationers'. Now Mr. Tulkinghorn gets up, puts on his hat, puts the manuscript in his pocket, and goes out, telling the middle-aged man, "I shall be back presently." He goes, as the crow came, to Cook's Court: to Snagsby's, Law-Stationer's. It is five or six o'clock in the afternoon, and a balmy fragrance of warm tea hovers in Cook's Court. Mr. Snagsby has descended into the subterranean regions to take tea. "Master at home?" Guster is minding the shop. Master is at home, and Guster will fetch him. She disappears, glad to get out of the shop, which she regards with mingled dread and veneration. Mr. Snagsby appears, greasy, warm, and chewing. He bolts a bit of bread and butter, and says, "Bless my soul, sir! Mr. Tulkinghorn!" "I want half a word with you, Snagsby." "Certainly, sir! Pray walk into the back shop." The confined room is warehouse, counting-house, and copying-office. Mr. Tulkinghorn sits on a stool at the desk. "Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Snagsby." "Yes, sir." Mr. Snagsby turns up the gas and coughs, modestly anticipating profit. Mr. Snagsby, as a timid man, is accustomed to cough with a variety of expressions, so as to save words. "You copied some affidavits in that cause for me lately." "Yes, sir, we did." "There was one of them," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, carelessly feeling in the wrong coat-pocket, "the handwriting of which is peculiar, and which I rather like. As I happened to be passing, I looked in to ask you who copied this." "Who copied this, sir?" says Mr. Snagsby, laying it flat on the desk. "We gave this out, sir. We were giving out rather a large quantity of work just at that time. I can tell you in a moment who copied it, sir, by referring to my book." Mr. Snagsby takes his book down from the safe, and brings his right forefinger down a page. "Here we are, sir," he says. "To be sure! This was given out, sir, to a writer who lodges just across the lane." Mr. Tulkinghorn has seen the entry and read it while the forefinger was still coming down the page. "What do you call him? Nemo?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Nemo, sir. Given out on the Wednesday night at eight o'clock, brought in on the Thursday morning at half after nine." "Nemo!" repeats Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Nemo is Latin for no one." "It must be English for some one, sir, I think," Mr. Snagsby submits with his deferential cough. "Here it is, you see, sir!" Mr. Snagsby becomes conscious of the head of Mrs. Snagsby looking in at the shop-door to know what he means by deserting his tea. Mr. Snagsby addresses an explanatory cough to her. "Our law-writers, who live by job-work, are a queer lot, sir; and this may not be his name, but it's the name he goes by. He has an advertisement stuck up at the Rule Office, and the Judges' Chambers, and so forth. You know the kind of document, sir - wanting employ?" Mr. Tulkinghorn glances through the little window at Coavinses', the sheriff's officer's, where lights shine in the windows. Coavinses' coffee-room is at the back, and the shadows of several gentlemen loom cloudily upon the blinds. "Have you given this man work before?" asks Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Oh, dear, yes, sir!" "I forget where you said he lived?" "Across the lane, sir. He lodges at a rag and bottle shop." "Can you show me the place as I go back?" "With the greatest pleasure, sir!" Mr. Snagsby pulls on his black coat, and takes his hat from its peg. "Oh! Here is my little woman!" he says. "My dear, will you be so kind as to tell one of the lads to look after the shop while I step across the lane with Mr. Tulkinghorn?" Mrs. Snagsby retires behind the counter, peeps at them through the window-blind, goes softly into the back office, and looks at the entries in the book still lying open. "You will find that the place is rough, sir," says Mr. Snagsby. "But they're a wild lot in general, sir. The advantage of this particular man is that he never wants sleep. He'll work as long as ever you like." It is quite dark now. Jostling against clerks going to post the day's letters, and against counsel and attorneys going home to dinner, and against plaintiffs and defendants and suitors of all sorts, the lawyer and the law-stationer come to a rag and bottle shop in the shadow of the wall of Lincoln's Inn, kept by one Krook. "This is where he lives, sir," says the law-stationer. "Thank you. Good evening!" Mr. Snagsby lifts his hat and returns to his little woman and his tea. Mr. Tulkinghorn enters the shop. It is dim enough, with a candle in the window, and an old man and a cat sitting in the back by a fire. The old man rises and comes forward, with another candle in his hand. "Pray is your lodger within? The person who does copying." Mr. Krook has eyed his man narrowly. Knows him by sight. Has an impression of his aristocratic repute. "Did you wish to see him, sir?" "Yes." "Shall I call him down? But it's a weak chance he'd come, sir!" says Mr. Krook with a grin. "I'll go up to him, then," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Second floor, sir. Take the candle." Mr. Krook, with his cat beside him, stands at the bottom of the staircase. The cat snarls at Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Order, Lady Jane! Behave yourself to visitors, my lady! You know what they say of my lodger?" whispers Krook. "What do they say of him?" "They say he has sold himself to the devil, but you and I know better. I'll tell you what, though; my lodger is so black-humoured and gloomy that I believe he'd as soon make that bargain as any other. Don't put him out, sir. That's my advice!" Mr. Tulkinghorn with a nod goes on his way. He comes to the dark door on the second floor. He knocks, receives no answer; opens it. It is a small room, nearly black with soot and dirt. In the rusty grate, a red fire burns low. In the corner by the chimney stand an old table and a broken desk, marked with a rain of ink. In another corner a ragged old portmanteau serves for a wardrobe, collapsing like the cheeks of a starved man. The floor is bare, except that one old mat, trodden to shreds, lies perishing upon the hearth. No curtain veils the darkness of the night, but the discoloured shutters are drawn together, and through the two gaunt holes pierced in them, famine might be staring in - the banshee of the man upon the bed. For, on a low bed opposite the fire, a confusion of dirty patchwork and coarse sacking, the lawyer sees a man. He lies there, dressed in shirt and trousers, with bare feet. He has a yellow look in the spectral darkness of a drooping, dying candle. His hair is ragged and neglected, as is his beard. Foul and filthy as the room is, foul and filthy as the air is, it is not easy to perceive what fumes those are which most oppress the senses in it; but through the general sickliness and odour of stale tobacco, there comes into the lawyer's mouth the bitter, vapid taste of opium. "Hallo, my friend!" he cries. The man lies a little turned away, but his eyes are surely open. "Hallo, my friend!" cries Tulkinghorn again. "Hallo! Hallo!" And the drooping candle goes out and leaves him in the dark, with the gaunt eyes in the shutters staring down upon the bed.

Bleak House

Chapter 10: The Law-Writer

Impassive, as behoves its high breeding, the Dedlock town house stares at the other houses in the street of dismal grandeur and gives no outward sign of anything going wrong within. Carriages rattle, doors are battered at, the world exchanges calls; ancient charmers with skeleton throats and peachy cheeks that have a rather ghastly bloom upon them seen by daylight, when indeed these fascinating creatures look like Death and the Lady fused together, dazzle the eyes of men. Forth from the frigid mews come easily swinging carriages guided by short-legged coachmen in flaxen wigs, deep sunk into downy hammercloths, and up behind mount luscious Mercuries bearing sticks of state and wearing cocked hats broadwise, a spectacle for the angels. The Dedlock town house changes not externally, and hours pass before its exalted dullness is disturbed within. But Volumnia the fair, being subject to the prevalent complaint of boredom and finding that disorder attacking her spirits with some virulence, ventures at length to repair to the library for change of scene. Her gentle tapping at the door producing no response, she opens it and peeps in; seeing no one there, takes possession. The sprightly Dedlock is reputed, in that grass-grown city of the ancients, Bath, to be stimulated by an urgent curiosity which impels her on all convenient and inconvenient occasions to sidle about with a golden glass at her eye, peering into objects of every description. Certain it is that she avails herself of the present opportunity of hovering over her kinsman's letters and papers like a bird, taking a short peck at this document and a blink with her head on one side at that document, and hopping about from table to table with her glass at her eye in an inquisitive and restless manner. In the course of these researches she stumbles over something, and turning her glass in that direction, sees her kinsman lying on the ground like a felled tree. Volumnia's pet little scream acquires a considerable augmentation of reality from this surprise, and the house is quickly in commotion. Servants tear up and down stairs, bells are violently rung, doctors are sent for, and Lady Dedlock is sought in all directions, but not found. Nobody has seen or heard her since she last rang her bell. Her letter to Sir Leicester is discovered on her table, but it is doubtful yet whether he has not received another missive from another world requiring to be personally answered, and all the living languages, and all the dead, are as one to him. They lay him down upon his bed, and chafe, and rub, and fan, and put ice to his head, and try every means of restoration. Howbeit, the day has ebbed away, and it is night in his room before his stertorous breathing lulls or his fixed eyes show any consciousness of the candle that is occasionally passed before them. But when this change begins, it goes on; and by and by he nods or moves his eyes or even his hand in token that he hears and comprehends. He fell down, this morning, a handsome stately gentleman, somewhat infirm, but of a fine presence, and with a well-filled face. He lies upon his bed, an aged man with sunken cheeks, the decrepit shadow of himself. His voice was rich and mellow and he had so long been thoroughly persuaded of the weight and import to mankind of any word he said that his words really had come to sound as if there were something in them. But now he can only whisper, and what he whispers sounds like what it is--mere jumble and jargon. His favourite and faithful housekeeper stands at his bedside. It is the first act he notices, and he clearly derives pleasure from it. After vainly trying to make himself understood in speech, he makes signs for a pencil. So inexpressively that they cannot at first understand him; it is his old housekeeper who makes out what he wants and brings in a slate. After pausing for some time, he slowly scrawls upon it in a hand that is not his, "Chesney Wold?" No, she tells him; he is in London. He was taken ill in the library this morning. Right thankful she is that she happened to come to London and is able to attend upon him. "It is not an illness of any serious consequence, Sir Leicester. You will be much better to-morrow, Sir Leicester. All the gentlemen say so." This, with the tears coursing down her fair old face. After making a survey of the room and looking with particular attention all round the bed where the doctors stand, he writes, "My Lady." "My Lady went out, Sir Leicester, before you were taken ill, and don't know of your illness yet." He points again, in great agitation, at the two words. They all try to quiet him, but he points again with increased agitation. On their looking at one another, not knowing what to say, he takes the slate once more and writes "My Lady. For God's sake, where?" And makes an imploring moan. It is thought better that his old housekeeper should give him Lady Dedlock's letter, the contents of which no one knows or can surmise. She opens it for him and puts it out for his perusal. Having read it twice by a great effort, he turns it down so that it shall not be seen and lies moaning. He passes into a kind of relapse or into a swoon, and it is an hour before he opens his eyes, reclining on his faithful and attached old servant's arm. The doctors know that he is best with her, and when not actively engaged about him, stand aloof. The slate comes into requisition again, but the word he wants to write he cannot remember. His anxiety, his eagerness, and affliction at this pass are pitiable to behold. It seems as if he must go mad in the necessity he feels for haste and the inability under which he labours of expressing to do what or to fetch whom. He has written the letter B, and there stopped. Of a sudden, in the height of his misery, he puts Mr. before it. The old housekeeper suggests Bucket. Thank heaven! That's his meaning. Mr. Bucket is found to be downstairs, by appointment. Shall he come up? There is no possibility of misconstruing Sir Leicester's burning wish to see him or the desire he signifies to have the room cleared of every one but the housekeeper. It is speedily done, and Mr. Bucket appears. Of all men upon earth, Sir Leicester seems fallen from his high estate to place his sole trust and reliance upon this man. "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I'm sorry to see you like this. I hope you'll cheer up. I'm sure you will, on account of the family credit." Sir Leicester puts her letter in his hands and looks intently in his face while he reads it. A new intelligence comes into Mr. Bucket's eye as he reads on; with one hook of his finger, while that eye is still glancing over the words, he indicates, "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I understand you." Sir Leicester writes upon the slate. "Full forgiveness. Find--" Mr. Bucket stops his hand. "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I'll find her. But my search after her must be begun out of hand. Not a minute must be lost." With the quickness of thought, he follows Sir Leicester Dedlock's look towards a little box upon a table. "Bring it here, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet? Certainly. Open it with one of these here keys? Certainly. The littlest key? TO be sure. Take the notes out? So I will. Count 'em? That's soon done. Twenty and thirty's fifty, and twenty's seventy, and fifty's one twenty, and forty's one sixty. Take 'em for expenses? That I'll do, and render an account of course. Don't spare money? No I won't." The velocity and certainty of Mr. Bucket's interpretation on all these heads is little short of miraculous. Mrs. Rouncewell, who holds the light, is giddy with the swiftness of his eyes and hands as he starts up, furnished for his journey. "You're George's mother, old lady; that's about what you are, I believe?" says Mr. Bucket aside, with his hat already on and buttoning his coat. "Yes, sir, I am his distressed mother." "So I thought, according to what he mentioned to me just now. Well, then, I'll tell you something. You needn't be distressed no more. Your son's all right. Now, don't you begin a-crying, because what you've got to do is to take care of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and you won't do that by crying. As to your son, he's all right, I tell you; and he sends his loving duty, and hoping you're the same. He's discharged honourable; that's about what HE is; with no more imputation on his character than there is on yours, and yours is a tidy one, I'LL bet a pound. You may trust me, for I took your son. He conducted himself in a game way, too, on that occasion; and he's a fine-made man, and you're a fine-made old lady, and you're a mother and son, the pair of you, as might be showed for models in a caravan. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, what you've trusted to me I'll go through with. Don't you be afraid of my turning out of my way, right or left, or taking a sleep, or a wash, or a shave till I have found what I go in search of. Say everything as is kind and forgiving on your part? Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I will. And I wish you better, and these family affairs smoothed over--as, Lord, many other family affairs equally has been, and equally will be, to the end of time." With this peroration, Mr. Bucket, buttoned up, goes quietly out, looking steadily before him as if he were already piercing the night in quest of the fugitive. His first step is to take himself to Lady Dedlock's rooms and look all over them for any trifling indication that may help him. The rooms are in darkness now; and to see Mr. Bucket with a wax-light in his hand, holding it above his head and taking a sharp mental inventory of the many delicate objects so curiously at variance with himself, would be to see a sight--which nobody DOES see, as he is particular to lock himself in. "A spicy boudoir, this," says Mr. Bucket, who feels in a manner furbished up in his French by the blow of the morning. "Must have cost a sight of money. Rum articles to cut away from, these; she must have been hard put to it!" Opening and shutting table-drawers and looking into caskets and jewel-cases, he sees the reflection of himself in various mirrors, and moralizes thereon. "One might suppose I was a-moving in the fashionable circles and getting myself up for almac's," says Mr. Bucket. "I begin to think I must be a swell in the Guards without knowing it." Ever looking about, he has opened a dainty little chest in an inner drawer. His great hand, turning over some gloves which it can scarcely feel, they are so light and soft within it, comes upon a white handkerchief. "Hum! Let's have a look at YOU," says Mr. Bucket, putting down the light. "What should YOU be kept by yourself for? What's YOUR motive? Are you her ladyship's property, or somebody else's? You've got a mark upon you somewheres or another, I suppose?" He finds it as he speaks, "Esther Summerson." "Oh!" says Mr. Bucket, pausing, with his finger at his ear. "Come, I'll take YOU." He completes his observations as quietly and carefully as he has carried them on, leaves everything else precisely as he found it, glides away after some five minutes in all, and passes into the street. With a glance upward at the dimly lighted windows of Sir Leicester's room, he sets off, full-swing, to the nearest coach-stand, picks out the horse for his money, and directs to be driven to the shooting gallery. Mr. Bucket does not claim to be a scientific judge of horses, but he lays out a little money on the principal events in that line, and generally sums up his knowledge of the subject in the remark that when he sees a horse as can go, he knows him. His knowledge is not at fault in the present instance. Clattering over the stones at a dangerous pace, yet thoughtfully bringing his keen eyes to bear on every slinking creature whom he passes in the midnight streets, and even on the lights in upper windows where people are going or gone to bed, and on all the turnings that he rattles by, and alike on the heavy sky, and on the earth where the snow lies thin--for something may present itself to assist him, anywhere--he dashes to his destination at such a speed that when he stops the horse half smothers him in a cloud of steam. "Unbear him half a moment to freshen him up, and I'll be back." He runs up the long wooden entry and finds the trooper smoking his pipe. "I thought I should, George, after what you have gone through, my lad. I haven't a word to spare. Now, honour! All to save a woman. Miss Summerson that was here when Gridley died--that was the name, I know--all right--where does she live?" The trooper has just come from there and gives him the address, near Oxford Street. "You won't repent it, George. Good night!" He is off again, with an impression of having seen Phil sitting by the frosty fire staring at him open-mouthed, and gallops away again, and gets out in a cloud of steam again. Mr. Jarndyce, the only person up in the house, is just going to bed, rises from his book on hearing the rapid ringing at the bell, and comes down to the door in his dressing-gown. "Don't be alarmed, sir." In a moment his visitor is confidential with him in the hall, has shut the door, and stands with his hand upon the lock. "I've had the pleasure of seeing you before. Inspector Bucket. Look at that handkerchief, sir, Miss Esther Summerson's. Found it myself put away in a drawer of Lady Dedlock's, quarter of an hour ago. Not a moment to lose. Matter of life or death. You know Lady Dedlock?" "Yes." "There has been a discovery there to-day. Family affairs have come out. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has had a fit--apoplexy or paralysis--and couldn't be brought to, and precious time has been lost. Lady Dedlock disappeared this afternoon and left a letter for him that looks bad. Run your eye over it. Here it is!" Mr. Jarndyce, having read it, asks him what he thinks. "I don't know. It looks like suicide. Anyways, there's more and more danger, every minute, of its drawing to that. I'd give a hundred pound an hour to have got the start of the present time. Now, Mr. Jarndyce, I am employed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to follow her and find her, to save her and take her his forgiveness. I have money and full power, but I want something else. I want Miss Summerson." Mr. Jarndyce in a troubled voice repeats, "Miss Summerson?" "Now, Mr. Jarndyce"--Mr. Bucket has read his face with the greatest attention all along--"I speak to you as a gentleman of a humane heart, and under such pressing circumstances as don't often happen. If ever delay was dangerous, it's dangerous now; and if ever you couldn't afterwards forgive yourself for causing it, this is the time. Eight or ten hours, worth, as I tell you, a hundred pound apiece at least, have been lost since Lady Dedlock disappeared. I am charged to find her. I am Inspector Bucket. Besides all the rest that's heavy on her, she has upon her, as she believes, suspicion of murder. If I follow her alone, she, being in ignorance of what Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has communicated to me, may be driven to desperation. But if I follow her in company with a young lady, answering to the description of a young lady that she has a tenderness for--I ask no question, and I say no more than that--she will give me credit for being friendly. Let me come up with her and be able to have the hold upon her of putting that young lady for'ard, and I'll save her and prevail with her if she is alive. Let me come up with her alone--a hard matter--and I'll do my best, but I don't answer for what the best may be. Time flies; it's getting on for one o'clock. When one strikes, there's another hour gone, and it's worth a thousand pound now instead of a hundred." This is all true, and the pressing nature of the case cannot be questioned. Mr. Jarndyce begs him to remain there while he speaks to Miss Summerson. Mr. Bucket says he will, but acting on his usual principle, does no such thing, following upstairs instead and keeping his man in sight. So he remains, dodging and lurking about in the gloom of the staircase while they confer. In a very little time Mr. Jarndyce comes down and tells him that Miss Summerson will join him directly and place herself under his protection to accompany him where he pleases. Mr. Bucket, satisfied, expresses high approval and awaits her coming at the door. There he mounts a high tower in his mind and looks out far and wide. Many solitary figures he perceives creeping through the streets; many solitary figures out on heaths, and roads, and lying under haystacks. But the figure that he seeks is not among them. Other solitaries he perceives, in nooks of bridges, looking over; and in shadowed places down by the river's level; and a dark, dark, shapeless object drifting with the tide, more solitary than all, clings with a drowning hold on his attention. Where is she? Living or dead, where is she? If, as he folds the handkerchief and carefully puts it up, it were able with an enchanted power to bring before him the place where she found it and the night-landscape near the cottage where it covered the little child, would he descry her there? On the waste where the brick-kilns are burning with a pale blue flare, where the straw-roofs of the wretched huts in which the bricks are made are being scattered by the wind, where the clay and water are hard frozen and the mill in which the gaunt blind horse goes round all day looks like an instrument of human torture--traversing this deserted, blighted spot there is a lonely figure with the sad world to itself, pelted by the snow and driven by the wind, and cast out, it would seem, from all companionship. It is the figure of a woman, too; but it is miserably dressed, and no such clothes ever came through the hall and out at the great door of the Dedlock mansion.

Impassive, as behoves its high breeding, the Dedlock town house stares at the other houses in the street of dismal grandeur and gives no outward sign of anything wrong within. Hours pass before its exalted dullness is disturbed. But Volumnia the fair, becoming bored, ventures at length to the library for change of scene. Her gentle tapping at the door producing no response, she opens it and peeps in; seeing no one there, enters. She takes the opportunity of hovering over her kinsman's letters and papers like a bird, taking a short peck at this document and a blink at that document with her head on one side, hopping about from table to table in an inquisitive and restless manner. In the course of these researches she stumbles over something, and turning, sees her kinsman lying on the ground like a felled tree. Volumnia's pet little scream acquires a considerable increase of reality from this surprise, and the house is quickly in commotion. Servants tear up and down stairs, bells are violently rung, doctors are sent for, and Lady Dedlock is sought, but not found. Her letter to Sir Leicester is discovered on her table, but it is doubtful yet whether he has not received another missive summoning him to another world, They lay him down upon his bed, fan him, put ice to his head, and try every means of restoration. The day has gone, and it is night before his stertorous breathing lulls or his fixed eyes show any consciousness of the candle that is passed before them. But by and by he nods or moves his eyes or even his hand in token that he hears and comprehends. He fell down, this morning, a handsome stately gentleman. He lies upon his bed, an aged man with sunken cheeks, the decrepit shadow of himself. His voice was rich and mellow and self-important. But now he can only whisper mere jumble and jargon. His faithful housekeeper stands at his bedside. It is the first act he notices, and he clearly derives pleasure from it. After vainly trying to make himself understood in speech, he makes signs for a pencil. At last his old housekeeper makes out what he wants and brings in a slate. He slowly scrawls upon it in a strange hand, "Chesney Wold?" No, she tells him; he is in London. He was taken ill in the library this morning. "It is not an illness of any serious consequence, Sir Leicester. You will be much better tomorrow." This, with the tears coursing down her fair old face. After looking all round the bed where the doctors stand, he writes, "My Lady." "My Lady went out, Sir Leicester, before you were taken ill, and don't know of your illness yet." He points again, in great agitation, at the two words. They try to quiet him, but he points again with increased agitation. On their looking at one another, not knowing what to say, he takes the slate once more and writes "My Lady. For God's sake, where?" And makes an imploring moan. It is thought better that his old housekeeper should give him Lady Dedlock's letter. She opens it for him and holds it out. Having read it twice by a great effort, he turns it down so that it shall not be seen and lies moaning. He passes into a kind of swoon, and it is an hour before he opens his eyes. He signs for the slate again, but the word he wants to write he cannot remember. His anxiety, his eagerness, and affliction are pitiable to behold. It seems as if he must go mad in his need for haste and his inability to express what or who he wants. He has written the letter B, and there stopped. Of a sudden, he puts Mr. before it. The old housekeeper suggests Bucket. Thank heaven! That's his meaning. Mr. Bucket is downstairs. Shall he come up? There is no possibility of misconstruing Sir Leicester's burning wish to see him, or the desire he signifies to have the room cleared of everyone but the housekeeper. It is speedily done, and Mr. Bucket appears. "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I'm sorry to see you like this." Sir Leicester puts the letter in his hands and looks intently in his face while he reads it. A new intelligence comes into Mr. Bucket's eye as he reads on; he indicates that he understands it. Sir Leicester writes upon the slate. "Full forgiveness. Find-" Mr. Bucket stops his hand. "I'll find her. But my search must begin at once. Not a minute must be lost." With the quickness of thought, he follows Sir Leicester Dedlock's look towards a little box upon a table. "Shall I bring it here, Sir Leicester? Certainly. Open it with one of these here keys? Take the notes out? So I will. Count 'em? That's one sixty. Take 'em for expenses? That I'll do. Don't spare money? No, I won't." The speed of Mr. Bucket's interpretation is little short of miraculous. Mrs. Rouncewell, who holds the light, is giddy as he starts up for his journey. "You're George's mother, old lady, I believe?" says Mr. Bucket aside, with his hat already on and buttoning his coat. "Yes, sir, I am his distressed mother." "So I thought. Well, then, I'll tell you something. Your son's all right. Now, don't you begin a-crying, because what you've got to do is to take care of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and you won't do that by crying. As to your son, he sends his loving duty. He's discharged honourable, with no more stain on his character than there is on yours. He's a fine-made man, and you're a fine-made old lady, a true mother and son, the pair of you. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, what you've trusted to me I'll go through with. I shan't rest till I have found what I go in search of. Say everything as is kind and forgiving on your part? Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I will." With this, Mr. Bucket goes quietly out. He first takes himself to Lady Dedlock's rooms and looks all over them for anything that may help him. The rooms are in darkness now; Mr. Bucket locks himself in, and holds a light above his head. "A spicy boudoir, this," says Mr. Bucket. "Must have cost a sight of money!" He has opened a dainty little chest in an inner drawer. His great hand, turning over some gloves, comes upon a white handkerchief. "Hum! Let's have a look at you," says Mr. Bucket, putting down the light. "What should you be kept by yourself for? What's your motive? Are you her ladyship's property, or somebody else's? You've got a mark upon you somewheres or another, I suppose?" He finds it as he speaks: "Esther Summerson." "Oh!" says Mr. Bucket, pausing. "Come, I'll take you." He completes his observations carefully, leaves everything else precisely as he found it, and glides away into the street. He sets off to the nearest coach-stand, picks out a horse, and directs to be driven to the shooting gallery. Mr. Bucket does not claim to be a scientific judge of horses, but he remarks that when he sees a horse as can go, he knows him. His knowledge is not at fault tonight. Clattering over the stones at a dangerous pace, yet thoughtfully watching with keen eyes every slinking creature whom he passes in the midnight streets, where the snow lies thin, he dashes to his destination at such a speed that when he stops the horse half smothers him in a cloud of steam. He runs up the entry and finds the trooper smoking his pipe. "I haven't a word to spare, George. Now, honour! All to save a woman. Miss Summerson that was here when Gridley died - where does she live?" The trooper gives him the address, near Oxford Street. "You won't repent it, George. Good night!" He is off again, and gallops away in another cloud of steam. Mr. Jarndyce, the only person up in the house, is just going to bed when he hears the rapid ringing at the bell, and comes down to the door in his dressing-gown. "Don't be alarmed, sir." In a moment his visitor is in the hall, has shut the door, and stands with his hand upon the lock. "I've had the pleasure of seeing you before. Inspector Bucket. Look at this handkerchief, sir, Miss Esther Summerson's. Found it myself put away in a drawer of Lady Dedlock's, quarter of an hour ago. Not a moment to lose. Matter of life or death. You know Lady Dedlock?" "Yes." "There has been a discovery there today. Family affairs have come out. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has had a fit - apoplexy or paralysis - and precious time has been lost. Lady Dedlock disappeared this afternoon and left a letter for him that looks bad. Run your eye over it. Here it is!" Mr. Jarndyce, having read it, asks him what he thinks. "I don't know. It looks like suicide. Anyways, there's more danger of that, every minute. Now, Mr. Jarndyce, I am employed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to follow her and find her, to save her and take her his forgiveness. I have money, but I want something else. I want Miss Summerson." Mr. Jarndyce in a troubled voice repeats, "Miss Summerson?" "Now, Mr. Jarndyce" - Mr. Bucket has read his face with the greatest attention - "I speak to you as a humane gentleman. If ever delay was dangerous, it's dangerous now. Eight or ten hours have been lost since Lady Dedlock disappeared. I am charged to find her. I am Inspector Bucket. Besides all the rest that's heavy on her, she has upon her, as she believes, suspicion of murder. If I follow her alone, she may be driven to desperation. But if I follow her in company with a young lady that she has a tenderness for - I ask no question, and I say no more than that - she will give me credit for being friendly. Time flies; it's getting on for one o'clock." Mr. Jarndyce begs him to remain there while he speaks to Miss Summerson. Mr. Bucket says he will, but does no such thing, following upstairs instead and keeping his man in sight. He lurks in the gloom of the staircase while they confer. Mr. Jarndyce comes down and tells him that Miss Summerson will join him directly and will accompany him where he pleases. Mr. Bucket, satisfied, expresses high approval and awaits her coming at the door. There he mounts a high tower in his mind and looks out far and wide. Many solitary figures he perceives creeping through the streets; many solitary figures out on heaths, and lying under haystacks. But the figure that he seeks is not among them. Other solitaries he imagines, looking over bridges; and in shadowed places down by the river; and a dark, dark, shapeless object drifting with the tide, more solitary than all, clings with a drowning hold on his attention. Where is she? Living or dead, where is she? On the waste where the brick-kilns are burning with a pale blue flare, where the clay and water are hard frozen and the mill in which the gaunt blind horse goes round all day looks like an instrument of torture - traversing this deserted, blighted spot there is a lonely figure with the sad world to itself, pelted by the snow and driven by the wind. It is the figure of a woman; but it is miserably dressed, and no such clothes ever came through the hall of the great Dedlock mansion.

Bleak House

Chapter 56: Pursuit

As Allan Woodcourt and Jo proceed along the streets where the high church spires and the distances are so near and clear in the morning light that the city itself seems renewed by rest, Allan revolves in his mind how and where he shall bestow his companion. "It surely is a strange fact," he considers, "that in the heart of a civilized world this creature in human form should be more difficult to dispose of than an unowned dog." But it is none the less a fact because of its strangeness, and the difficulty remains. At first he looks behind him often to assure himself that Jo is still really following. But look where he will, he still beholds him close to the opposite houses, making his way with his wary hand from brick to brick and from door to door, and often, as he creeps along, glancing over at him watchfully. Soon satisfied that the last thing in his thoughts is to give him the slip, Allan goes on, considering with a less divided attention what he shall do. A breakfast-stall at a street-corner suggests the first thing to be done. He stops there, looks round, and beckons Jo. Jo crosses and comes halting and shuffling up, slowly scooping the knuckles of his right hand round and round in the hollowed palm of his left, kneading dirt with a natural pestle and mortar. What is a dainty repast to Jo is then set before him, and he begins to gulp the coffee and to gnaw the bread and butter, looking anxiously about him in all directions as he eats and drinks, like a scared animal. But he is so sick and miserable that even hunger has abandoned him. "I thought I was amost a-starvin, sir," says Jo, soon putting down his food, "but I don't know nothink--not even that. I don't care for eating wittles nor yet for drinking on 'em." And Jo stands shivering and looking at the breakfast wonderingly. Allan Woodcourt lays his hand upon his pulse and on his chest. "Draw breath, Jo!" "It draws," says Jo, "as heavy as a cart." He might add, "And rattles like it," but he only mutters, "I'm a-moving on, sir." Allan looks about for an apothecary's shop. There is none at hand, but a tavern does as well or better. He obtains a little measure of wine and gives the lad a portion of it very carefully. He begins to revive almost as soon as it passes his lips. "We may repeat that dose, Jo," observes Allan after watching him with his attentive face. "So! Now we will take five minutes' rest, and then go on again." Leaving the boy sitting on the bench of the breakfast-stall, with his back against an iron railing, Allan Woodcourt paces up and down in the early sunshine, casting an occasional look towards him without appearing to watch him. It requires no discernment to perceive that he is warmed and refreshed. If a face so shaded can brighten, his face brightens somewhat; and by little and little he eats the slice of bread he had so hopelessly laid down. Observant of these signs of improvement, Allan engages him in conversation and elicits to his no small wonder the adventure of the lady in the veil, with all its consequences. Jo slowly munches as he slowly tells it. When he has finished his story and his bread, they go on again. Intending to refer his difficulty in finding a temporary place of refuge for the boy to his old patient, zealous little Miss Flite, Allan leads the way to the court where he and Jo first foregathered. But all is changed at the rag and bottle shop; Miss Flite no longer lodges there; it is shut up; and a hard-featured female, much obscured by dust, whose age is a problem, but who is indeed no other than the interesting Judy, is tart and spare in her replies. These sufficing, however, to inform the visitor that Miss Flite and her birds are domiciled with a Mrs. Blinder, in Bell Yard, he repairs to that neighbouring place, where Miss Flite (who rises early that she may be punctual at the divan of justice held by her excellent friend the Chancellor) comes running downstairs with tears of welcome and with open arms. "My dear physician!" cries Miss Flite. "My meritorious, distinguished, honourable officer!" She uses some odd expressions, but is as cordial and full of heart as sanity itself can be--more so than it often is. Allan, very patient with her, waits until she has no more raptures to express, then points out Jo, trembling in a doorway, and tells her how he comes there. "Where can I lodge him hereabouts for the present? Now, you have a fund of knowledge and good sense and can advise me." Miss Flite, mighty proud of the compliment, sets herself to consider; but it is long before a bright thought occurs to her. Mrs. Blinder is entirely let, and she herself occupies poor Gridley's room. "Gridley!" exclaims Miss Flite, clapping her hands after a twentieth repetition of this remark. "Gridley! To be sure! Of course! My dear physician! General George will help us out." It is hopeless to ask for any information about General George, and would be, though Miss Flite had not already run upstairs to put on her pinched bonnet and her poor little shawl and to arm herself with her reticule of documents. But as she informs her physician in her disjointed manner on coming down in full array that General George, whom she often calls upon, knows her dear Fitz Jarndyce and takes a great interest in all connected with her, Allan is induced to think that they may be in the right way. So he tells Jo, for his encouragement, that this walking about will soon be over now; and they repair to the general's. Fortunately it is not far. From the exterior of George's Shooting Gallery, and the long entry, and the bare perspective beyond it, Allan Woodcourt augurs well. He also descries promise in the figure of Mr. George himself, striding towards them in his morning exercise with his pipe in his mouth, no stock on, and his muscular arms, developed by broadsword and dumbbell, weightily asserting themselves through his light shirt-sleeves. "Your servant, sir," says Mr. George with a military salute. Good-humouredly smiling all over his broad forehead up into his crisp hair, he then defers to Miss Flite, as, with great stateliness, and at some length, she performs the courtly ceremony of presentation. He winds it up with another "Your servant, sir!" and another salute. "Excuse me, sir. A sailor, I believe?" says Mr. George. "I am proud to find I have the air of one," returns Allan; "but I am only a sea-going doctor." "Indeed, sir! I should have thought you was a regular blue-jacket myself." Allan hopes Mr. George will forgive his intrusion the more readily on that account, and particularly that he will not lay aside his pipe, which, in his politeness, he has testified some intention of doing. "You are very good, sir," returns the trooper. "As I know by experience that it's not disagreeable to Miss Flite, and since it's equally agreeable to yourself--" and finishes the sentence by putting it between his lips again. Allan proceeds to tell him all he knows about Jo, unto which the trooper listens with a grave face. "And that's the lad, sir, is it?" he inquires, looking along the entry to where Jo stands staring up at the great letters on the whitewashed front, which have no meaning in his eyes. "That's he," says Allan. "And, Mr. George, I am in this difficulty about him. I am unwilling to place him in a hospital, even if I could procure him immediate admission, because I foresee that he would not stay there many hours if he could be so much as got there. The same objection applies to a workhouse, supposing I had the patience to be evaded and shirked, and handed about from post to pillar in trying to get him into one, which is a system that I don't take kindly to." "No man does, sir," returns Mr. George. "I am convinced that he would not remain in either place, because he is possessed by an extraordinary terror of this person who ordered him to keep out of the way; in his ignorance, he believes this person to be everywhere, and cognizant of everything." "I ask your pardon, sir," says Mr. George. "But you have not mentioned that party's name. Is it a secret, sir?" "The boy makes it one. But his name is Bucket." "Bucket the detective, sir?" "The same man." "The man is known to me, sir," returns the trooper after blowing out a cloud of smoke and squaring his chest, "and the boy is so far correct that he undoubtedly is a--rum customer." Mr. George smokes with a profound meaning after this and surveys Miss Flite in silence. "Now, I wish Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson at least to know that this Jo, who tells so strange a story, has reappeared, and to have it in their power to speak with him if they should desire to do so. Therefore I want to get him, for the present moment, into any poor lodging kept by decent people where he would be admitted. Decent people and Jo, Mr. George," says Allan, following the direction of the trooper's eyes along the entry, "have not been much acquainted, as you see. Hence the difficulty. Do you happen to know any one in this neighbourhood who would receive him for a while on my paying for him beforehand?" As he puts the question, he becomes aware of a dirty-faced little man standing at the trooper's elbow and looking up, with an oddly twisted figure and countenance, into the trooper's face. After a few more puffs at his pipe, the trooper looks down askant at the little man, and the little man winks up at the trooper. "Well, sir," says Mr. George, "I can assure you that I would willingly be knocked on the head at any time if it would be at all agreeable to Miss Summerson, and consequently I esteem it a privilege to do that young lady any service, however small. We are naturally in the vagabond way here, sir, both myself and Phil. You see what the place is. You are welcome to a quiet corner of it for the boy if the same would meet your views. No charge made, except for rations. We are not in a flourishing state of circumstances here, sir. We are liable to be tumbled out neck and crop at a moment's notice. However, sir, such as the place is, and so long as it lasts, here it is at your service." With a comprehensive wave of his pipe, Mr. George places the whole building at his visitor's disposal. "I take it for granted, sir," he adds, "you being one of the medical staff, that there is no present infection about this unfortunate subject?" Allan is quite sure of it. "Because, sir," says Mr. George, shaking his head sorrowfully, "we have had enough of that." His tone is no less sorrowfully echoed by his new acquaintance. "Still I am bound to tell you," observes Allan after repeating his former assurance, "that the boy is deplorably low and reduced and that he may be--I do not say that he is--too far gone to recover." "Do you consider him in present danger, sir?" inquires the trooper. "Yes, I fear so." "Then, sir," returns the trooper in a decisive manner, "it appears to me--being naturally in the vagabond way myself--that the sooner he comes out of the street, the better. You, Phil! Bring him in!" Mr. Squod tacks out, all on one side, to execute the word of command; and the trooper, having smoked his pipe, lays it by. Jo is brought in. He is not one of Mrs. Pardiggle's Tockahoopo Indians; he is not one of Mrs. Jellyby's lambs, being wholly unconnected with Borrioboola-Gha; he is not softened by distance and unfamiliarity; he is not a genuine foreign-grown savage; he is the ordinary home-made article. Dirty, ugly, disagreeable to all the senses, in body a common creature of the common streets, only in soul a heathen. Homely filth begrimes him, homely parasites devour him, homely sores are in him, homely rags are on him; native ignorance, the growth of English soil and climate, sinks his immortal nature lower than the beasts that perish. Stand forth, Jo, in uncompromising colours! From the sole of thy foot to the crown of thy head, there is nothing interesting about thee. He shuffles slowly into Mr. George's gallery and stands huddled together in a bundle, looking all about the floor. He seems to know that they have an inclination to shrink from him, partly for what he is and partly for what he has caused. He, too, shrinks from them. He is not of the same order of things, not of the same place in creation. He is of no order and no place, neither of the beasts nor of humanity. "Look here, Jo!" says Allan. "This is Mr. George." Jo searches the floor for some time longer, then looks up for a moment, and then down again. "He is a kind friend to you, for he is going to give you lodging room here." Jo makes a scoop with one hand, which is supposed to be a bow. After a little more consideration and some backing and changing of the foot on which he rests, he mutters that he is "wery thankful." "You are quite safe here. All you have to do at present is to be obedient and to get strong. And mind you tell us the truth here, whatever you do, Jo." "Wishermaydie if I don't, sir," says Jo, reverting to his favourite declaration. "I never done nothink yit, but wot you knows on, to get myself into no trouble. I never was in no other trouble at all, sir, 'sept not knowin' nothink and starwation." "I believe it, now attend to Mr. George. I see he is going to speak to you." "My intention merely was, sir," observes Mr. George, amazingly broad and upright, "to point out to him where he can lie down and get a thorough good dose of sleep. Now, look here." As the trooper speaks, he conducts them to the other end of the gallery and opens one of the little cabins. "There you are, you see! Here is a mattress, and here you may rest, on good behaviour, as long as Mr., I ask your pardon, sir"--he refers apologetically to the card Allan has given him--"Mr. Woodcourt pleases. Don't you be alarmed if you hear shots; they'll be aimed at the target, and not you. Now, there's another thing I would recommend, sir," says the trooper, turning to his visitor. "Phil, come here!" Phil bears down upon them according to his usual tactics. "Here is a man, sir, who was found, when a baby, in the gutter. Consequently, it is to be expected that he takes a natural interest in this poor creature. You do, don't you, Phil?" "Certainly and surely I do, guv'ner," is Phil's reply. "Now I was thinking, sir," says Mr. George in a martial sort of confidence, as if he were giving his opinion in a council of war at a drum-head, "that if this man was to take him to a bath and was to lay out a few shillings in getting him one or two coarse articles--" "Mr. George, my considerate friend," returns Allan, taking out his purse, "it is the very favour I would have asked." Phil Squod and Jo are sent out immediately on this work of improvement. Miss Flite, quite enraptured by her success, makes the best of her way to court, having great fears that otherwise her friend the Chancellor may be uneasy about her or may give the judgment she has so long expected in her absence, and observing "which you know, my dear physician, and general, after so many years, would be too absurdly unfortunate!" Allan takes the opportunity of going out to procure some restorative medicines, and obtaining them near at hand, soon returns to find the trooper walking up and down the gallery, and to fall into step and walk with him. "I take it, sir," says Mr. George, "that you know Miss Summerson pretty well?" Yes, it appears. "Not related to her, sir?" No, it appears. "Excuse the apparent curiosity," says Mr. George. "It seemed to me probable that you might take more than a common interest in this poor creature because Miss Summerson had taken that unfortunate interest in him. 'Tis MY case, sir, I assure you." "And mine, Mr. George." The trooper looks sideways at Allan's sunburnt cheek and bright dark eye, rapidly measures his height and build, and seems to approve of him. "Since you have been out, sir, I have been thinking that I unquestionably know the rooms in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where Bucket took the lad, according to his account. Though he is not acquainted with the name, I can help you to it. It's Tulkinghorn. That's what it is." Allan looks at him inquiringly, repeating the name. "Tulkinghorn. That's the name, sir. I know the man, and know him to have been in communication with Bucket before, respecting a deceased person who had given him offence. I know the man, sir. To my sorrow." Allan naturally asks what kind of man he is. "What kind of man! Do you mean to look at?" "I think I know that much of him. I mean to deal with. Generally, what kind of man?" "Why, then I'll tell you, sir," returns the trooper, stopping short and folding his arms on his square chest so angrily that his face fires and flushes all over; "he is a confoundedly bad kind of man. He is a slow-torturing kind of man. He is no more like flesh and blood than a rusty old carbine is. He is a kind of man--by George!--that has caused me more restlessness, and more uneasiness, and more dissatisfaction with myself than all other men put together. That's the kind of man Mr. Tulkinghorn is!" "I am sorry," says Allan, "to have touched so sore a place." "Sore?" The trooper plants his legs wider apart, wets the palm of his broad right hand, and lays it on the imaginary moustache. "It's no fault of yours, sir; but you shall judge. He has got a power over me. He is the man I spoke of just now as being able to tumble me out of this place neck and crop. He keeps me on a constant see-saw. He won't hold off, and he won't come on. If I have a payment to make him, or time to ask him for, or anything to go to him about, he don't see me, don't hear me--passes me on to Melchisedech's in Clifford's Inn, Melchisedech's in Clifford's Inn passes me back again to him--he keeps me prowling and dangling about him as if I was made of the same stone as himself. Why, I spend half my life now, pretty well, loitering and dodging about his door. What does he care? Nothing. Just as much as the rusty old carbine I have compared him to. He chafes and goads me till--Bah! Nonsense! I am forgetting myself. Mr. Woodcourt," the trooper resumes his march, "all I say is, he is an old man; but I am glad I shall never have the chance of setting spurs to my horse and riding at him in a fair field. For if I had that chance, in one of the humours he drives me into--he'd go down, sir!" Mr. George has been so excited that he finds it necessary to wipe his forehead on his shirt-sleeve. Even while he whistles his impetuosity away with the national anthem, some involuntary shakings of his head and heavings of his chest still linger behind, not to mention an occasional hasty adjustment with both hands of his open shirt-collar, as if it were scarcely open enough to prevent his being troubled by a choking sensation. In short, Allan Woodcourt has not much doubt about the going down of Mr. Tulkinghorn on the field referred to. Jo and his conductor presently return, and Jo is assisted to his mattress by the careful Phil, to whom, after due administration of medicine by his own hands, Allan confides all needful means and instructions. The morning is by this time getting on apace. He repairs to his lodgings to dress and breakfast, and then, without seeking rest, goes away to Mr. Jarndyce to communicate his discovery. With him Mr. Jarndyce returns alone, confidentially telling him that there are reasons for keeping this matter very quiet indeed and showing a serious interest in it. To Mr. Jarndyce, Jo repeats in substance what he said in the morning, without any material variation. Only that cart of his is heavier to draw, and draws with a hollower sound. "Let me lay here quiet and not be chivied no more," falters Jo, "and be so kind any person as is a-passin nigh where I used fur to sleep, as jist to say to Mr. Sangsby that Jo, wot he known once, is a-moving on right forards with his duty, and I'll be wery thankful. I'd be more thankful than I am aready if it wos any ways possible for an unfortnet to be it." He makes so many of these references to the law-stationer in the course of a day or two that Allan, after conferring with Mr. Jarndyce, good-naturedly resolves to call in Cook's Court, the rather, as the cart seems to be breaking down. To Cook's Court, therefore, he repairs. Mr. Snagsby is behind his counter in his grey coat and sleeves, inspecting an indenture of several skins which has just come in from the engrosser's, an immense desert of law-hand and parchment, with here and there a resting-place of a few large letters to break the awful monotony and save the traveller from despair. Mr Snagsby puts up at one of these inky wells and greets the stranger with his cough of general preparation for business. "You don't remember me, Mr. Snagsby?" The stationer's heart begins to thump heavily, for his old apprehensions have never abated. It is as much as he can do to answer, "No, sir, I can't say I do. I should have considered--not to put too fine a point upon it--that I never saw you before, sir." "Twice before," says Allan Woodcourt. "Once at a poor bedside, and once--" "It's come at last!" thinks the afflicted stationer, as recollection breaks upon him. "It's got to a head now and is going to burst!" But he has sufficient presence of mind to conduct his visitor into the little counting-house and to shut the door. "Are you a married man, sir?" "No, I am not." "Would you make the attempt, though single," says Mr. Snagsby in a melancholy whisper, "to speak as low as you can? For my little woman is a-listening somewheres, or I'll forfeit the business and five hundred pound!" In deep dejection Mr. Snagsby sits down on his stool, with his back against his desk, protesting, "I never had a secret of my own, sir. I can't charge my memory with ever having once attempted to deceive my little woman on my own account since she named the day. I wouldn't have done it, sir. Not to put too fine a point upon it, I couldn't have done it, I dursn't have done it. Whereas, and nevertheless, I find myself wrapped round with secrecy and mystery, till my life is a burden to me." His visitor professes his regret to hear it and asks him does he remember Jo. Mr. Snagsby answers with a suppressed groan, oh, don't he! "You couldn't name an individual human being--except myself--that my little woman is more set and determined against than Jo," says Mr. Snagsby. Allan asks why. "Why?" repeats Mr. Snagsby, in his desperation clutching at the clump of hair at the back of his bald head. "How should I know why? But you are a single person, sir, and may you long be spared to ask a married person such a question!" With this beneficent wish, Mr. Snagsby coughs a cough of dismal resignation and submits himself to hear what the visitor has to communicate. "There again!" says Mr. Snagsby, who, between the earnestness of his feelings and the suppressed tones of his voice is discoloured in the face. "At it again, in a new direction! A certain person charges me, in the solemnest way, not to talk of Jo to any one, even my little woman. Then comes another certain person, in the person of yourself, and charges me, in an equally solemn way, not to mention Jo to that other certain person above all other persons. Why, this is a private asylum! Why, not to put too fine a point upon it, this is Bedlam, sir!" says Mr. Snagsby. But it is better than he expected after all, being no explosion of the mine below him or deepening of the pit into which he has fallen. And being tender-hearted and affected by the account he hears of Jo's condition, he readily engages to "look round" as early in the evening as he can manage it quietly. He looks round very quietly when the evening comes, but it may turn out that Mrs. Snagsby is as quiet a manager as he. Jo is very glad to see his old friend and says, when they are left alone, that he takes it uncommon kind as Mr. Sangsby should come so far out of his way on accounts of sich as him. Mr. Snagsby, touched by the spectacle before him, immediately lays upon the table half a crown, that magic balsam of his for all kinds of wounds. "And how do you find yourself, my poor lad?" inquires the stationer with his cough of sympathy. "I am in luck, Mr. Sangsby, I am," returns Jo, "and don't want for nothink. I'm more cumfbler nor you can't think. Mr. Sangsby! I'm wery sorry that I done it, but I didn't go fur to do it, sir." The stationer softly lays down another half-crown and asks him what it is that he is sorry for having done. "Mr. Sangsby," says Jo, "I went and giv a illness to the lady as wos and yit as warn't the t'other lady, and none of 'em never says nothink to me for having done it, on accounts of their being ser good and my having been s'unfortnet. The lady come herself and see me yesday, and she ses, 'Ah, Jo!' she ses. 'We thought we'd lost you, Jo!' she ses. And she sits down a-smilin so quiet, and don't pass a word nor yit a look upon me for having done it, she don't, and I turns agin the wall, I doos, Mr. Sangsby. And Mr. Jarnders, I see him a-forced to turn away his own self. And Mr. Woodcot, he come fur to giv me somethink fur to ease me, wot he's allus a-doin' on day and night, and wen he come a-bending over me and a-speakin up so bold, I see his tears a-fallin, Mr. Sangsby." The softened stationer deposits another half-crown on the table. Nothing less than a repetition of that infallible remedy will relieve his feelings. "Wot I was a-thinkin on, Mr. Sangsby," proceeds Jo, "wos, as you wos able to write wery large, p'raps?" "Yes, Jo, please God," returns the stationer. "Uncommon precious large, p'raps?" says Jo with eagerness. "Yes, my poor boy." Jo laughs with pleasure. "Wot I wos a-thinking on then, Mr. Sangsby, wos, that when I wos moved on as fur as ever I could go and couldn't be moved no furder, whether you might be so good p'raps as to write out, wery large so that any one could see it anywheres, as that I wos wery truly hearty sorry that I done it and that I never went fur to do it, and that though I didn't know nothink at all, I knowd as Mr. Woodcot once cried over it and wos allus grieved over it, and that I hoped as he'd be able to forgive me in his mind. If the writin could be made to say it wery large, he might." "It shall say it, Jo. Very large." Jo laughs again. "Thankee, Mr. Sangsby. It's wery kind of you, sir, and it makes me more cumfbler nor I was afore." The meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough, slips down his fourth half-crown--he has never been so close to a case requiring so many--and is fain to depart. And Jo and he, upon this little earth, shall meet no more. No more. For the cart so hard to draw is near its journey's end and drags over stony ground. All round the clock it labours up the broken steps, shattered and worn. Not many times can the sun rise and behold it still upon its weary road. Phil Squod, with his smoky gunpowder visage, at once acts as nurse and works as armourer at his little table in a corner, often looking round and saying with a nod of his green-baize cap and an encouraging elevation of his one eyebrow, "Hold up, my boy! Hold up!" There, too, is Mr. Jarndyce many a time, and Allan Woodcourt almost always, both thinking, much, how strangely fate has entangled this rough outcast in the web of very different lives. There, too, the trooper is a frequent visitor, filling the doorway with his athletic figure and, from his superfluity of life and strength, seeming to shed down temporary vigour upon Jo, who never fails to speak more robustly in answer to his cheerful words. Jo is in a sleep or in a stupor to-day, and Allan Woodcourt, newly arrived, stands by him, looking down upon his wasted form. After a while he softly seats himself upon the bedside with his face towards him--just as he sat in the law-writer's room--and touches his chest and heart. The cart had very nearly given up, but labours on a little more. The trooper stands in the doorway, still and silent. Phil has stopped in a low clinking noise, with his little hammer in his hand. Mr. Woodcourt looks round with that grave professional interest and attention on his face, and glancing significantly at the trooper, signs to Phil to carry his table out. When the little hammer is next used, there will be a speck of rust upon it. "Well, Jo! What is the matter? Don't be frightened." "I thought," says Jo, who has started and is looking round, "I thought I was in Tom-all-Alone's agin. Ain't there nobody here but you, Mr. Woodcot?" "Nobody." "And I ain't took back to Tom-all-Alone's. Am I, sir?" "No." Jo closes his eyes, muttering, "I'm wery thankful." After watching him closely a little while, Allan puts his mouth very near his ear and says to him in a low, distinct voice, "Jo! Did you ever know a prayer?" "Never knowd nothink, sir." "Not so much as one short prayer?" "No, sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadbands he wos a-prayin wunst at Mr. Sangsby's and I heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a-speakin to hisself, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn't make out nothink on it. Different times there was other genlmen come down Tom-all-Alone's a-prayin, but they all mostly sed as the t'other 'wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talking to theirselves, or a-passing blame on the t'others, and not a-talkin to us. WE never knowd nothink. I never knowd what it wos all about." It takes him a long time to say this, and few but an experienced and attentive listener could hear, or, hearing, understand him. After a short relapse into sleep or stupor, he makes, of a sudden, a strong effort to get out of bed. "Stay, Jo! What now?" "It's time for me to go to that there berryin ground, sir," he returns with a wild look. "Lie down, and tell me. What burying ground, Jo?" "Where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me indeed, he wos. It's time fur me to go down to that there berryin ground, sir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there and be berried. He used fur to say to me, 'I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,' he ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now and have come there to be laid along with him." "By and by, Jo. By and by." "Ah! P'raps they wouldn't do it if I wos to go myself. But will you promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?" "I will, indeed." "Thankee, sir. Thankee, sir. They'll have to get the key of the gate afore they can take me in, for it's allus locked. And there's a step there, as I used for to clean with my broom. It's turned wery dark, sir. Is there any light a-comin?" "It is coming fast, Jo." Fast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very near its end. "Jo, my poor fellow!" "I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I'm a-gropin--a-gropin--let me catch hold of your hand." "Jo, can you say what I say?" "I'll say anythink as you say, sir, for I knows it's good." "Our Father." "Our Father! Yes, that's wery good, sir." "Which art in heaven." "Art in heaven--is the light a-comin, sir?" "It is close at hand. Hallowed be thy name!" "Hallowed be--thy--" The light is come upon the dark benighted way. Dead! Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right reverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.

As Allan Woodcourt and Jo proceed along the streets in the morning light, Allan revolves in his mind where he shall bestow his companion. "It surely is a strange fact," he considers, "that in the heart of a civilized world this creature in human form should be more difficult to dispose of than an unowned dog." He looks behind him often to assure himself that Jo is still following, and sees him making his way with his wary hand from brick to brick and from door to door. A breakfast-stall at a street-corner suggests the first thing to be done. Allan stops there and beckons Jo, who comes shuffling up, slowly scooping the knuckles of his right hand round and round in the hollowed palm of his left, like a dirty pestle and mortar. When food is set before him, he begins to gulp the coffee and to gnaw the bread and butter, looking anxiously about in all directions, like a scared animal. But he is so sick and miserable that even hunger has abandoned him. "I thought I was amost a-starvin, sir," says Jo, soon putting down his food, "but I don't care for eating." And he stands shivering and looking at the breakfast wonderingly. Allan Woodcourt lays his hand upon his pulse and on his chest. "Draw breath, Jo!" "It draws," says Jo, "as heavy as a cart." He might add, "And rattles like it," but he only mutters, "I'm a-moving on, sir." Allan Woodcourt looks about for an apothecary's shop. There is none at hand, but at a tavern he obtains a little measure of wine and gives the lad some of it. Jo begins to revive almost as soon as it passes his lips. "We may repeat that dose, Jo," observes Allan. "So! Now we will take five minutes' rest, and then go on again." As he sits on the bench in the pale sunshine, Jo's face brightens somewhat; and by little and little he eats the slice of bread he had laid down. Seeing these signs of improvement, Allan talks to him and hears to his wonder the adventure of the lady in the veil. Jo munches as he slowly tells it. When he has finished his story and his bread, they go on again. Hoping to find a temporary place of refuge for the boy with his old patient, zealous little Miss Flite, Allan leads the way to the court where he and Jo first met. But all is changed at the rag and bottle shop; Miss Flite no longer lodges there; it is shut up; and a hard-featured female, no other than Judy, is tart and spare in her replies. These inform the visitor that Miss Flite and her birds are lodging with a Mrs. Blinder, in Bell Yard. Allan goes to that place, where Miss Flite comes running downstairs with tears of welcome and with open arms. "My dear physician!" cries Miss Flite. "My distinguished, honourable officer!" Allan patiently waits until she has no more raptures to express, then points out Jo, trembling in a doorway, and tells her how he comes there. "Where can I lodge him hereabouts for the present? You have a fund of knowledge and good sense and can advise me." Miss Flite, mighty proud of the compliment, considers. Mrs. Blinder is entirely let, and she herself occupies poor Gridley's room. "Gridley!" exclaims Miss Flite, clapping her hands. "Gridley! To be sure! General George will help us out." It is hopeless to ask for any information about General George, as Miss Flite has already run upstairs to put on her pinched bonnet and her poor little shawl and to arm herself with her reticule of documents. But as she informs her physician that General George knows her dear Fitz Jarndyce and takes a great interest in her, Allan thinks that they may be in the right way. So he tells Jo that this walking about will soon be over. Fortunately the general's shooting gallery is not far. From its exterior, Allan Woodcourt augurs well. He also sees promise in the figure of Mr. George himself, striding towards them with his pipe in his mouth, and his muscular arms weightily asserting themselves through his light shirt-sleeves. "Your servant, sir," says Mr. George with a military salute. Good-humouredly smiling, he then defers to Miss Flite, as, with great stateliness, she performs the ceremony of introduction. "Your servant, sir! A sailor, I believe?" says Mr. George. "I am proud to find I have the air of one," returns Allan; "but I am only a sea-going doctor." He proceeds to tell him all he knows about Jo, to which the trooper listens with a grave face. "That's the lad, sir, is it?" he inquires. "That's he," says Allan. "I am unwilling to place him in a hospital, because I foresee that he would not stay there long even if he could be got there. The same objection applies to a workhouse, which is a system that I don't take kindly to." "No man does, sir," returns Mr. George. "I am convinced that he would not remain in either place, because he is possessed by an extraordinary terror of this person who ordered him to keep out of the way; he believes this person to be everywhere." "Is that person's name a secret, sir?" "His name is Bucket." "Bucket the detective, sir?" "The same man." "The man is known to me, sir," returns the trooper, "and he undoubtedly is a - rum customer." "Now, I wish Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson to know that Jo has reappeared, and to be able to speak with him if they should wish. Therefore I want to get him into any poor lodging kept by decent people. Decent people and Jo, Mr. George," says Allan, "have not been much acquainted, as you see. Hence the difficulty. Do you happen to know anyone in this neighbourhood who would receive him for a while on my paying for him beforehand?" As he asks, he becomes aware of a little man standing at the trooper's elbow and looking up, with an oddly twisted figure and countenance, into the trooper's face. After a few more puffs at his pipe, the trooper looks down at the little man, who winks. "Well, sir," says Mr. George, "I can assure you that I would willingly be knocked on the head at any time if it would be at all agreeable to Miss Summerson, and would do that young lady any service, however small. We are naturally in the vagabond way here, sir, myself and Phil. You see what the place is. You are welcome to a quiet corner of it for the boy. No charge made, except for rations. We are not in a flourishing state here; we are liable to be tumbled out at a moment's notice. However, sir, such as the place is, and so long as it lasts, it is at your service. I take it for granted, sir," he adds, "that there is no present infection about this unfortunate subject?" Allan is quite sure of it. "Still I am bound to tell you," he adds, "that the boy is deplorably low and that he may be too far gone to recover." "Do you consider him in present danger, sir?" inquires the trooper. "Yes, I fear so." "Then, sir," returns the trooper decisively, "the sooner he comes out of the street, the better. Phil! Bring him in!" Mr. Squod tacks out on one side to do so; and Jo is brought in. He is not one of Mrs. Jellyby's lambs of Borrioboola-Gha; he is not softened by distance and unfamiliarity; he is the ordinary home-made article. Dirty, ugly, disagreeable to all the senses; homely filth begrimes him, homely parasites devour him, homely rags are on him; native ignorance sinks his immortal nature lower than the beasts. He shuffles slowly into Mr. George's gallery and stands huddled, looking all about the floor. He seems to know that they have an inclination to shrink from him, partly for what he is and partly for what he has caused. He, too, shrinks from them. He is not of the same order of things, not of the same place in creation. He is of no order and no place, neither of the beasts nor of humanity. "Look here, Jo!" says Allan. "This is Mr. George." Jo looks up for a moment, and then down again. "He is a kind friend to you, for he is going to give you lodging room here." Jo makes a scoop with one hand, which is supposed to be a bow. After some backing and changing of the foot on which he rests, he mutters that he is "wery thankful." "You are quite safe here. All you have to do at present is to get strong. And mind you tell us the truth here, Jo." "Wishermaydie if I don't, sir," says Jo. "I never was in no trouble at all, sir, 'sept not knowin' nothink and starwation." "Look here," says Mr. George. He leads them to the other end of the gallery and opens one of the little cabins. "Here is a mattress, and here you may rest. Don't you be alarmed if you hear shots; they'll be aimed at the target, and not you. Now, there's another thing I would recommend, sir," says the trooper, turning to his visitor. "Phil, come here!" Phil bears down upon them in his usual manner. "Here is a man, sir, who was found, when a baby, in the gutter. Consequently, he takes a natural interest in this poor creature, don't you, Phil?" "Certainly, guv'ner," is Phil's reply. "Now I was thinking, sir," says Mr. George, "that if this man was to take him to a bath and was to lay out a few shillings in getting him some clothing-" "Mr. George," returns Allan, taking out his purse, "it is the very favour I would have asked." Phil Squod and Jo are sent out immediately on this work of improvement. Miss Flite, quite enraptured by her success, returns to her court, having great fears that her friend the Chancellor may give the judgment she has so long expected in her absence. Allan goes out to buy some medicines, and returns to find the trooper walking up and down the gallery. Falling into step, he walks with him. "I take it, sir," says Mr. George, "that you know Miss Summerson pretty well?" "Yes." "Excuse the curiosity," says Mr. George. "I thought you might take an interest in this poor creature because Miss Summerson had taken an interest in him. 'Tis my case, sir, I assure you." "And mine, Mr. George." The trooper looks sideways at Allan's sunburnt cheek and bright dark eye, and seems to approve of him. "Since you have been out, sir, I have been thinking that I know the rooms in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where Bucket took the lad, according to his account. It's Tulkinghorn. That's the name, sir. I know the man, sir. To my sorrow." "What kind of man is he?" asks Allan. The trooper folds his arms on his square chest so angrily that his face flushes all over. "He is a confoundedly bad kind of man. A slow-torturing kind of man. He is no more like flesh and blood than a rusty old carbine is. He has caused me more restlessness and uneasiness and dissatisfaction with myself than all other men put together!" "I am sorry," says Allan, "to have touched so sore a place." "Sore?" The trooper plants his legs wider apart. "You shall judge, sir. He has got a power over me. He is the man I spoke of just now as being able to tumble me out of this place. He keeps me on a constant see-saw. If I have a payment to make him, he don't see me - passes me on to Melchisedech's in Clifford's Inn. Melchisedech's passes me back again to him. Why, I spend half my life now loitering and dodging about his door. What does he care? Nothing. He chafes and goads me till - Bah! I am forgetting myself. Mr. Woodcourt," says the trooper; "but I am glad I shall never have the chance of setting spurs to my horse and riding at him in a fair field. For if I had that chance - he'd go down, sir!" Mr. George wipes his forehead on his shirt-sleeve, and whistles his impetuosity away with the national anthem, but some shakings of his head and heavings of his chest still linger. Allan Woodcourt has not much doubt about the going down of Mr. Tulkinghorn on the field referred to. Jo and Phil presently return, and the careful Phil helps Jo to his bed. To him Allan confides all needful instructions. Then he repairs to his lodgings to dress and breakfast, and without seeking rest, goes away to Mr. Jarndyce to communicate his discovery. Mr. Jarndyce returns with him, confidentially telling him that there are reasons for keeping this matter very quiet. To Mr. Jarndyce, Jo repeats what he said in the morning, without any variation. Only that cart of his is heavier to draw, and draws with a hollower sound. "Let me lay here quiet and not be chivied no more," falters Jo, "and be so kind as jist to say to Mr. Sangsby that Jo, wot he known once, is a-moving on right forards with his duty, and I'll be wery thankful." He makes so many of these references to the law-stationer over a day or two that Allan, after conferring with Mr. Jarndyce, good-naturedly resolves to call in Cook's Court. At Cook's Court he finds Mr. Snagsby behind his counter in his grey coat and sleeves, inspecting an immense desert of parchment. Mr. Snagsby greets the stranger with his cough of business. "You don't remember me, Mr. Snagsby?" The stationer's heart begins to thump heavily. It is all he can do to answer, "No, sir, I can't say I do. I don't think that I ever saw you before, sir." "Twice before," says Allan Woodcourt. "Once at a poor bedside, and once-" "It's come at last!" thinks the afflicted stationer, as recollection breaks upon him. But he has sufficient presence of mind to conduct his visitor into the little counting-house and to shut the door. "Would you make the attempt," says Mr. Snagsby in a melancholy whisper, "to speak as low as you can? For my little woman is a-listening somewheres! I never had a secret of my own, sir. I have never once attempted to deceive my little woman since she named the day. I couldn't have done it. Whereas, nevertheless, I find myself wrapped round with secrecy and mystery, till my life is a burden to me." His visitor professes his regret to hear it and asks him does he remember Jo. Mr. Snagsby answers with a suppressed groan, oh, don't he! "You couldn't name a human being - except myself - that my little woman is more set against than Jo," says Mr. Snagsby. Allan asks why. "Why?" repeats Mr. Snagsby, in his desperation clutching at the clump of hair at the back of his bald head. "How should I know why? A certain person charges me, in the solemnest way, not to talk of Jo to anyone, even my little woman. Then comes another certain person, in the person of yourself, and charges me, in an equally solemn way, not to mention Jo to that other certain person. Why, this is Bedlam, sir!" says Mr. Snagsby. But being tender-hearted and affected by the account he hears of Jo's condition, he readily engages to call round early in the evening if he can manage it quietly. He calls round when the evening comes, but it may turn out that Mrs. Snagsby is as quiet a manager as he. Jo is very glad to see his old friend and says it is uncommon kind of Mr. Sangsby to come so far out of his way on accounts of sich as him. Mr. Snagsby, touched, immediately lays upon the table half a crown, that magic balsam of his for all kinds of wounds. "And how do you find yourself, my poor lad?" inquires the stationer. "I am in luck, Mr. Sangsby, I am," returns Jo, "and don't want for nothink. I'm more cumfbler nor you can't think. Mr. Sangsby! I'm wery sorry that I done it, but I didn't go fur to do it, sir." The stationer softly lays down another half-crown and asks him what he is sorry for having done. "Mr. Sangsby," says Jo, "I went and giv a illness to the lady as wos and yit as warn't the t'other lady, and none of 'em never says nothink to me for having done it, on accounts of their being ser good. The lady come herself and see me yesday, and she ses, 'Ah, Jo! We thought we'd lost you, Jo!' she ses. And she sits down a-smilin so quiet, and don't pass a word upon me for having done it, she don't, and I turns agin the wall, I doos, Mr. Sangsby. And Mr. Jarnders, I see him a-forced to turn away hisself. And Mr. Woodcot, he come fur to giv me somethink fur to ease me, wot he's allus a-doin' day and night, and wen he come a-bending over me, I see his tears a-fallin, Mr. Sangsby." The softened stationer deposits another half-crown on the table. "Wot I was a-thinkin on, Mr. Sangsby," proceeds Jo, "wos, as you wos able to write wery large, p'raps?" "Yes, Jo," returns the stationer. Jo laughs with pleasure. "Wot I wos a-thinking then, Mr. Sangsby, wos, that when I wos moved on as fur as ever I could, whether you might be so good p'raps as to write out, wery large so that anyone could see it anywheres, as that I wos wery truly hearty sorry that I done it and that I never went fur to do it, and that though I didn't know nothink at all, I knowd as Mr. Woodcot wos allus grieved over it, and that I hoped as he'd be able to forgive me. If the writin could be made to say it wery large, he might." "It shall say it, Jo. Very large." Jo laughs again. "Thankee, Mr. Sangsby. It's wery kind of you, sir, and it makes me more cumfbler nor I was afore." The meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough, slips down his fourth half-crown - and departs. And Jo and he, upon this little earth, shall meet no more. For the cart so hard to draw is near its journey's end and drags over stony ground. It labours up the broken steps, shattered and worn. Not many times can the sun rise and behold it still upon its weary road. Phil Squod, with his smoky gunpowder visage, both acts as nurse and works as armourer at his little table in a corner, often looking round and saying with a nod of his green-baize cap, "Hold up, my boy! Hold up!" There, too, is Mr. Jarndyce many a time, and Allan Woodcourt almost always, both thinking how strangely fate has entangled this rough outcast in the web of very different lives. The trooper is a frequent visitor, filling the doorway with his athletic figure and seeming to shed down temporary vigour upon Jo, who never fails to speak more robustly in answer to his cheerful words. Jo is in a sleep or in a stupor today, and Allan Woodcourt, newly arrived, stands by him, looking down upon his wasted form. After a while he softly sits upon the bedside and touches his chest and heart. The cart has very nearly given up, but labours on a little more. The trooper stands in the doorway, still and silent. Phil has stopped with his hammer in his hand. Mr. Woodcourt looks round, and glancing significantly at the trooper, signs to Phil to carry his table out. When the hammer is next used, there will be a speck of rust upon it. "Well, Jo! What is the matter? Don't be frightened." "I thought," says Jo, who has started and is looking round, "I thought I was in Tom-all-Alone's agin. Ain't there nobody here but you, Mr. Woodcot?" "Nobody." "And I ain't took back to Tom-all-Alone's. Am I, sir?" "No." Jo closes his eyes, muttering, "I'm wery thankful." After watching him closely a little while, Allan puts his mouth very near his ear and says low to him, "Jo! Did you ever know a prayer?" "Never knowd nothink, sir. Mr. Chadband he wos a-prayin wunst at Mr. Sangsby's, but he sounded as if he wos a-speakin to hisself, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn't make out nothink on it. I never knowd what it wos all about." It takes him a long time to say this. After a short relapse into sleep or stupor, he makes a sudden, strong effort to get out of bed. "Stay, Jo! What now?" "It's time for me to go to that there berryin ground, sir," he returns with a wild look. "Lie down, and tell me. What burying ground, Jo?" "Where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me indeed, he wos. It's time fur me to go down to that there berryin ground, sir, and ask to be put along with him. He used fur to say to me, 'I am as poor as you today, Jo,' he ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now and have come there to be laid along with him." "By and by, Jo. By and by." "Ah! Will you promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?" "I will, indeed." "Thankee, sir. They'll have to get the key of the gate, for it's allus locked. And there's a step there, as I used for to clean with my broom. It's turned wery dark, sir. Is there any light a-comin?" "It is coming fast, Jo." Fast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very near its end. "Jo, my poor fellow!" "I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I'm a-gropin - a-gropin - let me catch hold of your hand." "Jo, can you say what I say?" "I'll say anythink as you say, sir, for I knows it's good." "Our Father." "Our Father! Yes, that's wery good, sir." "Which art in heaven." "Art in heaven - is the light a-comin, sir?" "It is close at hand. Hallowed be thy name!" "Hallowed be - thy-" The light is come. Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right reverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.

Bleak House

Chapter 47: Jo's Will

Although the morning was raw, and although the fog still seemed heavy--I say seemed, for the windows were so encrusted with dirt that they would have made midsummer sunshine dim--I was sufficiently forewarned of the discomfort within doors at that early hour and sufficiently curious about London to think it a good idea on the part of Miss Jellyby when she proposed that we should go out for a walk. "Ma won't be down for ever so long," she said, "and then it's a chance if breakfast's ready for an hour afterwards, they dawdle so. As to Pa, he gets what he can and goes to the office. He never has what you would call a regular breakfast. Priscilla leaves him out the loaf and some milk, when there is any, overnight. Sometimes there isn't any milk, and sometimes the cat drinks it. But I'm afraid you must be tired, Miss Summerson, and perhaps you would rather go to bed." "I am not at all tired, my dear," said I, "and would much prefer to go out." "If you're sure you would," returned Miss Jellyby, "I'll get my things on." Ada said she would go too, and was soon astir. I made a proposal to Peepy, in default of being able to do anything better for him, that he should let me wash him and afterwards lay him down on my bed again. To this he submitted with the best grace possible, staring at me during the whole operation as if he never had been, and never could again be, so astonished in his life--looking very miserable also, certainly, but making no complaint, and going snugly to sleep as soon as it was over. At first I was in two minds about taking such a liberty, but I soon reflected that nobody in the house was likely to notice it. What with the bustle of dispatching Peepy and the bustle of getting myself ready and helping Ada, I was soon quite in a glow. We found Miss Jellyby trying to warm herself at the fire in the writing-room, which Priscilla was then lighting with a smutty parlour candlestick, throwing the candle in to make it burn better. Everything was just as we had left it last night and was evidently intended to remain so. Below-stairs the dinner-cloth had not been taken away, but had been left ready for breakfast. Crumbs, dust, and waste-paper were all over the house. Some pewter pots and a milk-can hung on the area railings; the door stood open; and we met the cook round the corner coming out of a public-house, wiping her mouth. She mentioned, as she passed us, that she had been to see what o'clock it was. But before we met the cook, we met Richard, who was dancing up and down Thavies Inn to warm his feet. He was agreeably surprised to see us stirring so soon and said he would gladly share our walk. So he took care of Ada, and Miss Jellyby and I went first. I may mention that Miss Jellyby had relapsed into her sulky manner and that I really should not have thought she liked me much unless she had told me so. "Where would you wish to go?" she asked. "Anywhere, my dear," I replied. "Anywhere's nowhere," said Miss Jellyby, stopping perversely. "Let us go somewhere at any rate," said I. She then walked me on very fast. "I don't care!" she said. "Now, you are my witness, Miss Summerson, I say I don't care--but if he was to come to our house with his great, shining, lumpy forehead night after night till he was as old as Methuselah, I wouldn't have anything to say to him. Such ASSES as he and Ma make of themselves!" "My dear!" I remonstrated, in allusion to the epithet and the vigorous emphasis Miss Jellyby set upon it. "Your duty as a child--" "Oh! Don't talk of duty as a child, Miss Summerson; where's Ma's duty as a parent? All made over to the public and Africa, I suppose! Then let the public and Africa show duty as a child; it's much more their affair than mine. You are shocked, I dare say! Very well, so am I shocked too; so we are both shocked, and there's an end of it!" She walked me on faster yet. "But for all that, I say again, he may come, and come, and come, and I won't have anything to say to him. I can't bear him. If there's any stuff in the world that I hate and detest, it's the stuff he and Ma talk. I wonder the very paving-stones opposite our house can have the patience to stay there and be a witness of such inconsistencies and contradictions as all that sounding nonsense, and Ma's management!" I could not but understand her to refer to Mr. Quale, the young gentleman who had appeared after dinner yesterday. I was saved the disagreeable necessity of pursuing the subject by Richard and Ada coming up at a round pace, laughing and asking us if we meant to run a race. Thus interrupted, Miss Jellyby became silent and walked moodily on at my side while I admired the long successions and varieties of streets, the quantity of people already going to and fro, the number of vehicles passing and repassing, the busy preparations in the setting forth of shop windows and the sweeping out of shops, and the extraordinary creatures in rags secretly groping among the swept-out rubbish for pins and other refuse. "So, cousin," said the cheerful voice of Richard to Ada behind me. "We are never to get out of Chancery! We have come by another way to our place of meeting yesterday, and--by the Great Seal, here's the old lady again!" Truly, there she was, immediately in front of us, curtsying, and smiling, and saying with her yesterday's air of patronage, "The wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure!" "You are out early, ma'am," said I as she curtsied to me. "Ye-es! I usually walk here early. Before the court sits. It's retired. I collect my thoughts here for the business of the day," said the old lady mincingly. "The business of the day requires a great deal of thought. Chancery justice is so ve-ry difficult to follow." "Who's this, Miss Summerson?" whispered Miss Jellyby, drawing my arm tighter through her own. The little old lady's hearing was remarkably quick. She answered for herself directly. "A suitor, my child. At your service. I have the honour to attend court regularly. With my documents. Have I the pleasure of addressing another of the youthful parties in Jarndyce?" said the old lady, recovering herself, with her head on one side, from a very low curtsy. Richard, anxious to atone for his thoughtlessness of yesterday, good-naturedly explained that Miss Jellyby was not connected with the suit. "Ha!" said the old lady. "She does not expect a judgment? She will still grow old. But not so old. Oh, dear, no! This is the garden of Lincoln's Inn. I call it my garden. It is quite a bower in the summer-time. Where the birds sing melodiously. I pass the greater part of the long vacation here. In contemplation. You find the long vacation exceedingly long, don't you?" We said yes, as she seemed to expect us to say so. "When the leaves are falling from the trees and there are no more flowers in bloom to make up into nosegays for the Lord Chancellor's court," said the old lady, "the vacation is fulfilled and the sixth seal, mentioned in the Revelations, again prevails. Pray come and see my lodging. It will be a good omen for me. Youth, and hope, and beauty are very seldom there. It is a long, long time since I had a visit from either." She had taken my hand, and leading me and Miss Jellyby away, beckoned Richard and Ada to come too. I did not know how to excuse myself and looked to Richard for aid. As he was half amused and half curious and all in doubt how to get rid of the old lady without offence, she continued to lead us away, and he and Ada continued to follow, our strange conductress informing us all the time, with much smiling condescension, that she lived close by. It was quite true, as it soon appeared. She lived so close by that we had not time to have done humouring her for a few moments before she was at home. Slipping us out at a little side gate, the old lady stopped most unexpectedly in a narrow back street, part of some courts and lanes immediately outside the wall of the inn, and said, "This is my lodging. Pray walk up!" She had stopped at a shop over which was written KROOK, RAG AND BOTTLE WAREHOUSE. Also, in long thin letters, KROOK, DEALER IN MARINE STORES. In one part of the window was a picture of a red paper mill at which a cart was unloading a quantity of sacks of old rags. In another was the inscription BONES BOUGHT. In another, KITCHEN-STUFF BOUGHT. In another, OLD IRON BOUGHT. In another, WASTE-PAPER BOUGHT. In another, LADIES' AND GENTLEMEN'S WARDROBES BOUGHT. Everything seemed to be bought and nothing to be sold there. In all parts of the window were quantities of dirty bottles--blacking bottles, medicine bottles, ginger-beer and soda-water bottles, pickle bottles, wine bottles, ink bottles; I am reminded by mentioning the latter that the shop had in several little particulars the air of being in a legal neighbourhood and of being, as it were, a dirty hanger-on and disowned relation of the law. There were a great many ink bottles. There was a little tottering bench of shabby old volumes outside the door, labelled "Law Books, all at 9d." Some of the inscriptions I have enumerated were written in law-hand, like the papers I had seen in Kenge and Carboy's office and the letters I had so long received from the firm. Among them was one, in the same writing, having nothing to do with the business of the shop, but announcing that a respectable man aged forty-five wanted engrossing or copying to execute with neatness and dispatch: Address to Nemo, care of Mr. Krook, within. There were several second-hand bags, blue and red, hanging up. A little way within the shop-door lay heaps of old crackled parchment scrolls and discoloured and dog's-eared law-papers. I could have fancied that all the rusty keys, of which there must have been hundreds huddled together as old iron, had once belonged to doors of rooms or strong chests in lawyers' offices. The litter of rags tumbled partly into and partly out of a one-legged wooden scale, hanging without any counterpoise from a beam, might have been counsellors' bands and gowns torn up. One had only to fancy, as Richard whispered to Ada and me while we all stood looking in, that yonder bones in a corner, piled together and picked very clean, were the bones of clients, to make the picture complete. As it was still foggy and dark, and as the shop was blinded besides by the wall of Lincoln's Inn, intercepting the light within a couple of yards, we should not have seen so much but for a lighted lantern that an old man in spectacles and a hairy cap was carrying about in the shop. Turning towards the door, he now caught sight of us. He was short, cadaverous, and withered, with his head sunk sideways between his shoulders and the breath issuing in visible smoke from his mouth as if he were on fire within. His throat, chin, and eyebrows were so frosted with white hairs and so gnarled with veins and puckered skin that he looked from his breast upward like some old root in a fall of snow. "Hi, hi!" said the old man, coming to the door. "Have you anything to sell?" We naturally drew back and glanced at our conductress, who had been trying to open the house-door with a key she had taken from her pocket, and to whom Richard now said that as we had had the pleasure of seeing where she lived, we would leave her, being pressed for time. But she was not to be so easily left. She became so fantastically and pressingly earnest in her entreaties that we would walk up and see her apartment for an instant, and was so bent, in her harmless way, on leading me in, as part of the good omen she desired, that I (whatever the others might do) saw nothing for it but to comply. I suppose we were all more or less curious; at any rate, when the old man added his persuasions to hers and said, "Aye, aye! Please her! It won't take a minute! Come in, come in! Come in through the shop if t'other door's out of order!" we all went in, stimulated by Richard's laughing encouragement and relying on his protection. "My landlord, Krook," said the little old lady, condescending to him from her lofty station as she presented him to us. "He is called among the neighbours the Lord Chancellor. His shop is called the Court of Chancery. He is a very eccentric person. He is very odd. Oh, I assure you he is very odd!" She shook her head a great many times and tapped her forehead with her finger to express to us that we must have the goodness to excuse him, "For he is a little--you know--M!" said the old lady with great stateliness. The old man overheard, and laughed. "It's true enough," he said, going before us with the lantern, "that they call me the Lord Chancellor and call my shop Chancery. And why do you think they call me the Lord Chancellor and my shop Chancery?" "I don't know, I am sure!" said Richard rather carelessly. "You see," said the old man, stopping and turning round, "they--Hi! Here's lovely hair! I have got three sacks of ladies' hair below, but none so beautiful and fine as this. What colour, and what texture!" "That'll do, my good friend!" said Richard, strongly disapproving of his having drawn one of Ada's tresses through his yellow hand. "You can admire as the rest of us do without taking that liberty." The old man darted at him a sudden look which even called my attention from Ada, who, startled and blushing, was so remarkably beautiful that she seemed to fix the wandering attention of the little old lady herself. But as Ada interposed and laughingly said she could only feel proud of such genuine admiration, Mr. Krook shrunk into his former self as suddenly as he had leaped out of it. "You see, I have so many things here," he resumed, holding up the lantern, "of so many kinds, and all as the neighbours think (but THEY know nothing), wasting away and going to rack and ruin, that that's why they have given me and my place a christening. And I have so many old parchmentses and papers in my stock. And I have a liking for rust and must and cobwebs. And all's fish that comes to my net. And I can't abear to part with anything I once lay hold of (or so my neighbours think, but what do THEY know?) or to alter anything, or to have any sweeping, nor scouring, nor cleaning, nor repairing going on about me. That's the way I've got the ill name of Chancery. I don't mind. I go to see my noble and learned brother pretty well every day, when he sits in the Inn. He don't notice me, but I notice him. There's no great odds betwixt us. We both grub on in a muddle. Hi, Lady Jane!" A large grey cat leaped from some neighbouring shelf on his shoulder and startled us all. "Hi! Show 'em how you scratch. Hi! Tear, my lady!" said her master. The cat leaped down and ripped at a bundle of rags with her tigerish claws, with a sound that it set my teeth on edge to hear. "She'd do as much for any one I was to set her on," said the old man. "I deal in cat-skins among other general matters, and hers was offered to me. It's a very fine skin, as you may see, but I didn't have it stripped off! THAT warn't like Chancery practice though, says you!" He had by this time led us across the shop, and now opened a door in the back part of it, leading to the house-entry. As he stood with his hand upon the lock, the little old lady graciously observed to him before passing out, "That will do, Krook. You mean well, but are tiresome. My young friends are pressed for time. I have none to spare myself, having to attend court very soon. My young friends are the wards in Jarndyce." "Jarndyce!" said the old man with a start. "Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The great suit, Krook," returned his lodger. "Hi!" exclaimed the old man in a tone of thoughtful amazement and with a wider stare than before. "Think of it!" He seemed so rapt all in a moment and looked so curiously at us that Richard said, "Why, you appear to trouble yourself a good deal about the causes before your noble and learned brother, the other Chancellor!" "Yes," said the old man abstractedly. "Sure! YOUR name now will be--" "Richard Carstone." "Carstone," he repeated, slowly checking off that name upon his forefinger; and each of the others he went on to mention upon a separate finger. "Yes. There was the name of Barbary, and the name of Clare, and the name of Dedlock, too, I think." "He knows as much of the cause as the real salaried Chancellor!" said Richard, quite astonished, to Ada and me. "Aye!" said the old man, coming slowly out of his abstraction. "Yes! Tom Jarndyce--you'll excuse me, being related; but he was never known about court by any other name, and was as well known there as--she is now," nodding slightly at his lodger. "Tom Jarndyce was often in here. He got into a restless habit of strolling about when the cause was on, or expected, talking to the little shopkeepers and telling 'em to keep out of Chancery, whatever they did. 'For,' says he, 'it's being ground to bits in a slow mill; it's being roasted at a slow fire; it's being stung to death by single bees; it's being drowned by drops; it's going mad by grains.' He was as near making away with himself, just where the young lady stands, as near could be." We listened with horror. "He come in at the door," said the old man, slowly pointing an imaginary track along the shop, "on the day he did it--the whole neighbourhood had said for months before that he would do it, of a certainty sooner or later--he come in at the door that day, and walked along there, and sat himself on a bench that stood there, and asked me (you'll judge I was a mortal sight younger then) to fetch him a pint of wine. 'For,' says he, 'Krook, I am much depressed; my cause is on again, and I think I'm nearer judgment than I ever was.' I hadn't a mind to leave him alone; and I persuaded him to go to the tavern over the way there, t'other side my lane (I mean Chancery Lane); and I followed and looked in at the window, and saw him, comfortable as I thought, in the arm-chair by the fire, and company with him. I hadn't hardly got back here when I heard a shot go echoing and rattling right away into the inn. I ran out--neighbours ran out--twenty of us cried at once, 'Tom Jarndyce!'" The old man stopped, looked hard at us, looked down into the lantern, blew the light out, and shut the lantern up. "We were right, I needn't tell the present hearers. Hi! To be sure, how the neighbourhood poured into court that afternoon while the cause was on! How my noble and learned brother, and all the rest of 'em, grubbed and muddled away as usual and tried to look as if they hadn't heard a word of the last fact in the case or as if they had--Oh, dear me!--nothing at all to do with it if they had heard of it by any chance!" Ada's colour had entirely left her, and Richard was scarcely less pale. Nor could I wonder, judging even from my emotions, and I was no party in the suit, that to hearts so untried and fresh it was a shock to come into the inheritance of a protracted misery, attended in the minds of many people with such dreadful recollections. I had another uneasiness, in the application of the painful story to the poor half-witted creature who had brought us there; but, to my surprise, she seemed perfectly unconscious of that and only led the way upstairs again, informing us with the toleration of a superior creature for the infirmities of a common mortal that her landlord was "a little M, you know!" She lived at the top of the house, in a pretty large room, from which she had a glimpse of Lincoln's Inn Hall. This seemed to have been her principal inducement, originally, for taking up her residence there. She could look at it, she said, in the night, especially in the moonshine. Her room was clean, but very, very bare. I noticed the scantiest necessaries in the way of furniture; a few old prints from books, of Chancellors and barristers, wafered against the wall; and some half-dozen reticles and work-bags, "containing documents," as she informed us. There were neither coals nor ashes in the grate, and I saw no articles of clothing anywhere, nor any kind of food. Upon a shelf in an open cupboard were a plate or two, a cup or two, and so forth, but all dry and empty. There was a more affecting meaning in her pinched appearance, I thought as I looked round, than I had understood before. "Extremely honoured, I am sure," said our poor hostess with the greatest suavity, "by this visit from the wards in Jarndyce. And very much indebted for the omen. It is a retired situation. Considering. I am limited as to situation. In consequence of the necessity of attending on the Chancellor. I have lived here many years. I pass my days in court, my evenings and my nights here. I find the nights long, for I sleep but little and think much. That is, of course, unavoidable, being in Chancery. I am sorry I cannot offer chocolate. I expect a judgment shortly and shall then place my establishment on a superior footing. At present, I don't mind confessing to the wards in Jarndyce (in strict confidence) that I sometimes find it difficult to keep up a genteel appearance. I have felt the cold here. I have felt something sharper than cold. It matters very little. Pray excuse the introduction of such mean topics." She partly drew aside the curtain of the long, low garret window and called our attention to a number of bird-cages hanging there, some containing several birds. There were larks, linnets, and goldfinches--I should think at least twenty. "I began to keep the little creatures," she said, "with an object that the wards will readily comprehend. With the intention of restoring them to liberty. When my judgment should be given. Ye-es! They die in prison, though. Their lives, poor silly things, are so short in comparison with Chancery proceedings that, one by one, the whole collection has died over and over again. I doubt, do you know, whether one of these, though they are all young, will live to be free! Ve-ry mortifying, is it not?" Although she sometimes asked a question, she never seemed to expect a reply, but rambled on as if she were in the habit of doing so when no one but herself was present. "Indeed," she pursued, "I positively doubt sometimes, I do assure you, whether while matters are still unsettled, and the sixth or Great Seal still prevails, I may not one day be found lying stark and senseless here, as I have found so many birds!" Richard, answering what he saw in Ada's compassionate eyes, took the opportunity of laying some money, softly and unobserved, on the chimney-piece. We all drew nearer to the cages, feigning to examine the birds. "I can't allow them to sing much," said the little old lady, "for (you'll think this curious) I find my mind confused by the idea that they are singing while I am following the arguments in court. And my mind requires to be so very clear, you know! Another time, I'll tell you their names. Not at present. On a day of such good omen, they shall sing as much as they like. In honour of youth," a smile and curtsy, "hope," a smile and curtsy, "and beauty," a smile and curtsy. "There! We'll let in the full light." The birds began to stir and chirp. "I cannot admit the air freely," said the little old lady--the room was close, and would have been the better for it--"because the cat you saw downstairs, called Lady Jane, is greedy for their lives. She crouches on the parapet outside for hours and hours. I have discovered," whispering mysteriously, "that her natural cruelty is sharpened by a jealous fear of their regaining their liberty. In consequence of the judgment I expect being shortly given. She is sly and full of malice. I half believe, sometimes, that she is no cat, but the wolf of the old saying. It is so very difficult to keep her from the door." Some neighbouring bells, reminding the poor soul that it was half-past nine, did more for us in the way of bringing our visit to an end than we could easily have done for ourselves. She hurriedly took up her little bag of documents, which she had laid upon the table on coming in, and asked if we were also going into court. On our answering no, and that we would on no account detain her, she opened the door to attend us downstairs. "With such an omen, it is even more necessary than usual that I should be there before the Chancellor comes in," said she, "for he might mention my case the first thing. I have a presentiment that he WILL mention it the first thing this morning." She stopped to tell us in a whisper as we were going down that the whole house was filled with strange lumber which her landlord had bought piecemeal and had no wish to sell, in consequence of being a little M. This was on the first floor. But she had made a previous stoppage on the second floor and had silently pointed at a dark door there. "The only other lodger," she now whispered in explanation, "a law-writer. The children in the lanes here say he has sold himself to the devil. I don't know what he can have done with the money. Hush!" She appeared to mistrust that the lodger might hear her even there, and repeating "Hush!" went before us on tiptoe as though even the sound of her footsteps might reveal to him what she had said. Passing through the shop on our way out, as we had passed through it on our way in, we found the old man storing a quantity of packets of waste-paper in a kind of well in the floor. He seemed to be working hard, with the perspiration standing on his forehead, and had a piece of chalk by him, with which, as he put each separate package or bundle down, he made a crooked mark on the panelling of the wall. Richard and Ada, and Miss Jellyby, and the little old lady had gone by him, and I was going when he touched me on the arm to stay me, and chalked the letter J upon the wall--in a very curious manner, beginning with the end of the letter and shaping it backward. It was a capital letter, not a printed one, but just such a letter as any clerk in Messrs. Kenge and Carboy's office would have made. "Can you read it?" he asked me with a keen glance. "Surely," said I. "It's very plain." "What is it?" "J." With another glance at me, and a glance at the door, he rubbed it out and turned an "a" in its place (not a capital letter this time), and said, "What's that?" I told him. He then rubbed that out and turned the letter "r," and asked me the same question. He went on quickly until he had formed in the same curious manner, beginning at the ends and bottoms of the letters, the word Jarndyce, without once leaving two letters on the wall together. "What does that spell?" he asked me. When I told him, he laughed. In the same odd way, yet with the same rapidity, he then produced singly, and rubbed out singly, the letters forming the words Bleak House. These, in some astonishment, I also read; and he laughed again. "Hi!" said the old man, laying aside the chalk. "I have a turn for copying from memory, you see, miss, though I can neither read nor write." He looked so disagreeable and his cat looked so wickedly at me, as if I were a blood-relation of the birds upstairs, that I was quite relieved by Richard's appearing at the door and saying, "Miss Summerson, I hope you are not bargaining for the sale of your hair. Don't be tempted. Three sacks below are quite enough for Mr. Krook!" I lost no time in wishing Mr. Krook good morning and joining my friends outside, where we parted with the little old lady, who gave us her blessing with great ceremony and renewed her assurance of yesterday in reference to her intention of settling estates on Ada and me. Before we finally turned out of those lanes, we looked back and saw Mr. Krook standing at his shop-door, in his spectacles, looking after us, with his cat upon his shoulder, and her tail sticking up on one side of his hairy cap like a tall feather. "Quite an adventure for a morning in London!" said Richard with a sigh. "Ah, cousin, cousin, it's a weary word this Chancery!" "It is to me, and has been ever since I can remember," returned Ada. "I am grieved that I should be the enemy--as I suppose I am--of a great number of relations and others, and that they should be my enemies--as I suppose they are--and that we should all be ruining one another without knowing how or why and be in constant doubt and discord all our lives. It seems very strange, as there must be right somewhere, that an honest judge in real earnest has not been able to find out through all these years where it is." "Ah, cousin!" said Richard. "Strange, indeed! All this wasteful, wanton chess-playing IS very strange. To see that composed court yesterday jogging on so serenely and to think of the wretchedness of the pieces on the board gave me the headache and the heartache both together. My head ached with wondering how it happened, if men were neither fools nor rascals; and my heart ached to think they could possibly be either. But at all events, Ada--I may call you Ada?" "Of course you may, cousin Richard." "At all events, Chancery will work none of its bad influences on US. We have happily been brought together, thanks to our good kinsman, and it can't divide us now!" "Never, I hope, cousin Richard!" said Ada gently. Miss Jellyby gave my arm a squeeze and me a very significant look. I smiled in return, and we made the rest of the way back very pleasantly. In half an hour after our arrival, Mrs. Jellyby appeared; and in the course of an hour the various things necessary for breakfast straggled one by one into the dining-room. I do not doubt that Mrs. Jellyby had gone to bed and got up in the usual manner, but she presented no appearance of having changed her dress. She was greatly occupied during breakfast, for the morning's post brought a heavy correspondence relative to Borrioboola-Gha, which would occasion her (she said) to pass a busy day. The children tumbled about, and notched memoranda of their accidents in their legs, which were perfect little calendars of distress; and Peepy was lost for an hour and a half, and brought home from Newgate market by a policeman. The equable manner in which Mrs. Jellyby sustained both his absence and his restoration to the family circle surprised us all. She was by that time perseveringly dictating to Caddy, and Caddy was fast relapsing into the inky condition in which we had found her. At one o'clock an open carriage arrived for us, and a cart for our luggage. Mrs. Jellyby charged us with many remembrances to her good friend Mr. Jarndyce; Caddy left her desk to see us depart, kissed me in the passage, and stood biting her pen and sobbing on the steps; Peepy, I am happy to say, was asleep and spared the pain of separation (I was not without misgivings that he had gone to Newgate market in search of me); and all the other children got up behind the barouche and fell off, and we saw them, with great concern, scattered over the surface of Thavies Inn as we rolled out of its precincts.

Although the morning was raw, and although the fog still seemed heavy beyond the dirt-encrusted windows, I was curious enough about London to agree when Miss Jellyby proposed that we should go out for a walk. "Ma won't be down for ever so long," she said, "and then breakfast won't be ready for an hour afterwards, they dawdle so. Pa gets what he can and goes to the office. He never has what you would call a regular breakfast." Ada said she would go out too. I suggested to Peepy that he should let me wash him and afterwards lay him down on my bed again. To this he submitted, looking astonished and miserable at the washing, certainly, but making no complaint, and going snugly to sleep as soon as it was over. Ada and I found Miss Jellyby trying to warm herself at the fire in the writing-room, where everything was just as we had left it last night. Crumbs, dust, and waste-paper were all over the house. Some pewter pots and a milk-can hung on the area railings; the door stood open; and we met the cook round the corner coming out of a public-house, wiping her mouth. But before we met the cook, we met Richard, who was agreeably surprised to see us and said he would gladly share our walk. So he took care of Ada, and Miss Jellyby and I went first. Miss Jellyby had relapsed into her sulky manner. "Where would you wish to go?" she asked. "Anywhere, my dear," I replied. "Anywhere's nowhere," said Miss Jellyby, stopping. "Let us go somewhere at any rate," said I. She then walked on very fast. "I don't care!" she said. "If he was to come to our house with his great, shining, lumpy forehead night after night till he was as old as Methuselah, I wouldn't have anything to say to him. Such asses as he and Ma make of themselves!" "My dear!" I remonstrated. "Your duty as a child-" "Oh! Don't talk of that, Miss Summerson; where's Ma's duty as a parent? All made over to the public and Africa, I suppose! You are shocked, I dare say! Very well, so am I; we are both shocked, and there's an end of it!" She walked on faster yet. "But for all that, he may come, and come, and come, and I won't have anything to say to him. I can't bear him. I hate the stuff he and Ma talk. It's all such nonsense!" I understood her to refer to Mr. Quale, the young gentleman who had appeared after dinner yesterday. Richard and Ada came up, laughing and asking us if we meant to run a race. Thus interrupted, Miss Jellyby became silent and walked moodily at my side while I admired the streets and the people going to and fro, the number of vehicles passing, the sweeping out of shops, and the extraordinary creatures in rags secretly groping among the swept-out rubbish. "So, cousin," said the cheerful voice of Richard behind me, "we are never to get out of Chancery! We have come to it by another way, and - by the Great Seal, here's the old lady again!" Truly, there she was, curtsying and smiling, and saying, "The wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure!" "You are out early, ma'am," said I. "Yes! I usually walk here early. Before the court sits. I collect my thoughts here for the business of the day," said the old lady mincingly. "The business of the day requires a great deal of thought." "Who's this, Miss Summerson?" whispered Miss Jellyby. The little old lady heard, and answered for herself. "A suitor, my child. At your service. I have the honour to attend court regularly. With my documents. Have I the pleasure of addressing another of the youthful parties in Jarndyce?" said the old lady, with her head on one side. Richard good-naturedly explained that Miss Jellyby was not connected with the suit. "Ha!" said the old lady. "She does not expect a judgment? She will still grow old. But not so old. Oh, dear, no! This is the garden of Lincoln's Inn. I call it my garden. It is quite a bower in the summer-time. Where the birds sing. I pass the greater part of the long vacation here. You find the long vacation exceedingly long, don't you?" We said yes, as she seemed to expect it. "When the leaves are falling from the trees," said the old lady, "the vacation is fulfilled and the sixth seal, mentioned in the Revelations, again prevails. Pray come and see my lodging. It will be a good omen for me. Youth, and hope, and beauty very seldom visit." She had taken my hand, and was leading me and Miss Jellyby away. I did not know how to excuse myself and looked to Richard for aid. As he was half amused and half curious, he and Ada followed us. The old lady lived close by, in a narrow back street. "This is my lodging. Pray walk up!" She had stopped at a shop over which was written KROOK, RAG AND BOTTLE WAREHOUSE. Also, in long thin letters, KROOK, DEALER IN MARINE STORES. In one part of the window was the inscription BONES BOUGHT. In another, KITCHEN-STUFF BOUGHT. In another, OLD IRON BOUGHT. In another, WASTE-PAPER BOUGHT. In another, LADIES' AND GENTLEMEN'S WARDROBES BOUGHT. Everything seemed to be bought and nothing to be sold there. In all parts of the window were quantities of dirty bottles - medicine bottles, ginger-beer and soda-water bottles, pickle bottles, wine bottles, and a great many ink bottles. The shop had the air of being a disowned relation of the law. There was a little tottering bench of shabby old volumes outside the door, labelled "Law Books, 9d." Some of the inscriptions were written in law-hand, like the letters I had received from Kenge and Carboy's office. One notice in the same writing announced that a respectable man aged forty-five wanted copying jobs, to execute with neatness and dispatch: Address to Nemo, care of Mr. Krook, within. A little way inside the shop-door lay heaps of old cracked parchment scrolls, dog-eared law-papers and a litter of rags. One had only to fancy, as Richard whispered to Ada, that yonder bones in a corner, piled together and picked very clean, were the bones of clients, to make the picture complete. We could only see all this by a lantern carried by an old man in the shop, in spectacles and a hairy cap. He was short, cadaverous, and withered, with his head sunk sideways between his shoulders and the breath issuing in visible smoke from his mouth as if he were on fire within. His puckered throat and chin were so frosted with white hairs that he looked like some old root in a fall of snow. "Hi, hi!" said the old man, coming to the door. "Have you anything to sell?" We naturally drew back and glanced at the old lady, who had been trying to open the house-door with a key. She became so pressingly earnest in her entreaties that we would walk up and see her apartment, that I saw nothing for it but to comply. I suppose we were all curious; at any rate, when the old man said, "Aye, aye! Please her! It won't take a minute!" we all went in, stimulated by Richard's laughing encouragement and relying on his protection. "My landlord, Krook," said the little old lady. "He is called among the neighbours the Lord Chancellor. His shop is called the Court of Chancery. He is a very eccentric person. Oh, very odd!" She shook her head and tapped her forehead with her finger. "For he is a little - you know - M!" The old man overheard, and laughed. "It's true enough," he said, going before us with the lantern, "that they call me the Lord Chancellor and call my shop Chancery. And why do you think that is?" "I don't know, I am sure!" said Richard carelessly. "You see," said the old man, stopping and turning round, "they - Hi! Here's lovely hair! I have got three sacks of ladies' hair below, but none so beautiful as this!" "That'll do, my good friend!" said Richard, strongly disapproving of his having drawn one of Ada's tresses through his yellow hand. The old man darted him a sudden startling look. But Ada, blushing, interposed and laughingly said she could only feel proud of such admiration. Mr. Krook shrunk into his former self as suddenly as he had leaped out of it. "You see, I have so many things here," he resumed, "that the neighbours have given me and my place a christening. I have a liking for rust and cobwebs. And all's fish that comes to my net. I can't abear to part with anything I once lay hold of, or to have any sweeping or cleaning. That's how I've got the name of Chancery. I don't mind. I go to see my noble and learned brother pretty well every day, when he sits in the Inn. He don't notice me, but I notice him. Hi, Lady Jane!" A large grey cat leaped from a shelf on to his shoulder and startled us all. "Hi! Show 'em how you scratch, my lady!" said her master. The cat leaped down and ripped at a bundle of rags with her tigerish claws. "She'd do as much for anyone I was to set her on," said the old man. He had by this time led us across the shop, and now opened a door at the back. The little old lady graciously observed, "That will do, Krook. You mean well, but are tiresome. My young friends are pressed for time. They are the wards in Jarndyce." "Jarndyce!" said the old man with a start. "Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The great suit, Krook," returned his lodger. "Hi!" exclaimed the old man in a tone of thoughtful amazement. "Think of it!" He looked so curiously at us that Richard said, "Why, you appear to trouble yourself a good deal about the causes set before your learned brother, the other Chancellor!" "Yes," said the old man abstractedly. "Sure! Your name now will be-" "Richard Carstone." "Carstone," he repeated. "Yes. There was the name of Barbary, and the name of Clare, and the name of Dedlock, too, I think." "He knows as much of the cause as the real Chancellor!" said Richard, quite astonished. "Aye!" said the old man. "Yes! Tom Jarndyce was often in here. He got into a habit of strolling about when the cause was on, talking to the shopkeepers and telling 'em to keep out of Chancery, whatever they did. 'For,' says he, 'it's being roasted at a slow fire; it's being stung to death by single bees; it's being drowned by drops; it's going mad by grains.' He was as near making away with himself as could be." We listened with horror. "He come in at the door," said the old man, "on the day he did it - the whole neighbourhood had said for months that he would do it, sooner or later - he come in that day, and sat himself on a bench there, and asked me (I was a mortal sight younger then) to fetch him a pint of wine. 'For,' says he, 'Krook, I am much depressed; my cause is on again.' I persuaded him to go to the tavern across the way; and I followed and looked in at the window, and saw him, comfortable in the arm-chair by the fire, and company with him. I hadn't hardly got back here when I heard a shot go echoing. I ran out - neighbours ran out - twenty of us cried at once, 'Tom Jarndyce!'" The old man stopped, looked hard at us, and blew the lantern out. "We were right. Hi! To be sure, how the neighbourhood poured into court that afternoon while the cause was on! How my noble and learned brother, and all the rest of 'em, muddled away as usual and tried to look as if they'd heard nothing, or had nothing at all to do with it!" Ada's colour had entirely left her, and Richard was scarcely less pale. I could not wonder. To my surprise, the old lady seemed unaffected and led the way upstairs again, informing us that her landlord was "a little M, you know!" She lived at the top of the house, in a large room, from which she had a glimpse of Lincoln's Inn Hall. Her room was clean, but very, very bare. There were no coals nor ashes in the grate, and no articles of clothing anywhere, nor any kind of food. Upon a shelf were a plate or two, a cup or two, but all dry and empty. I thought, as I looked round, than I understood her pinched appearance better than before. "Extremely honoured, I am sure," said our poor hostess, "by this visit from the wards in Jarndyce. And very much indebted for the omen. I have lived here many years. I pass my days in court, my evenings and my nights here. I find the nights long, for I sleep little and think much. That is, of course, unavoidable, being in Chancery. I am sorry I cannot offer chocolate. I expect a judgment shortly and shall then place my establishment on a superior footing. At present, I don't mind confessing to the wards in Jarndyce (in strict confidence) that I sometimes find it difficult to keep up a genteel appearance. I have felt the cold here. It matters very little." She partly drew aside the curtain of the low garret window and called our attention to a number of bird-cages hanging there, containing at least twenty larks, linnets, and goldfinches. "I began to keep the little creatures," she said, "with the intention of restoring them to liberty. When my judgment should be given. Yes! They die in prison, though. Their lives are so short in comparison with Chancery proceedings that, one by one, the whole collection has died over and over again. Very mortifying, is it not?" She did not seem to expect a reply, but rambled on: "Indeed, I doubt sometimes, I do assure you, whether I may not one day be found lying stark and senseless here, as I have found so many birds!" Ada looked at Richard, who softly laid some money on the chimney-piece, unobserved. "I can't allow the birds to sing much," said the little old lady, "for they confuse my mind. And my mind needs to be so very clear in court, you know! Another time, I'll tell you their names. On a day of such good omen, they shall sing as much as they like. In honour of youth, hope, and beauty," with a smile and curtsy. "There! We'll let in the light." The birds began to stir and chirp. "I cannot admit the air freely," said the little old lady, "because the cat you saw downstairs, called Lady Jane, is greedy for their lives. She crouches on the parapet outside for hours and hours. She is jealous of their regaining their liberty. In consequence of the judgment that will be shortly given. She is sly and full of malice." Some neighbouring bells reminded the poor soul that it was half-past nine. She hurriedly took up her little bag of documents, and asked if we were also going into court. On our answering no, she opened the door to attend us downstairs. "With such an omen, it is even more necessary than usual that I should be there before the Chancellor comes in," said she, "for he might mention my case the first thing. I have a feeling that he will." She stopped on the second floor and silently pointed at a dark door. "The only other lodger," she whispered in explanation, "a law-writer. The children in the lanes here say he has sold himself to the devil. Hush!" She went before us down the stairs on tiptoe. Passing through the shop on our way out, we found the old man storing a quantity of packets of waste-paper in a kind of well in the floor. He had a piece of chalk, with which, as he put each package down, he made a crooked mark on the wall. The others had all gone past, when he touched me on the arm to stop me, and chalked the letter J upon the wall, in a very curious manner, shaping it backward. "Can you read it?" he asked me with a keen glance. "Surely," said I. "It's J." With another glance at me, and a glance at the door, he rubbed it out and wrote an "a" in its place, and said, "What's that?" I told him. He rubbed that out and wrote the letter "r," and asked the same question. He went on this way until he had formed the word Jarndyce, without once leaving two letters on the wall together. "What does that spell?" he asked me. When I told him, he laughed. In the same odd way, he then produced singly, and rubbed out, the letters forming the words Bleak House. These, in some astonishment, I also read; and he laughed again. "Hi!" said he. "I can copy from memory, you see, miss, though I can neither read nor write." He looked so disagreeable that I was quite relieved by Richard's appearing at the door and saying, "Miss Summerson, I hope you are not bargaining for the sale of your hair. Don't be tempted. Three sacks are quite enough for Mr. Krook!" Wishing Mr. Krook good morning, I joined my friends outside, where we parted with the little old lady. Before we left, we looked back and saw Mr. Krook standing at his shop-door, in his spectacles, looking after us, with his cat upon his shoulder. "Quite an adventure!" said Richard with a sigh. "Ah, cousin, it's a weary word, this Chancery!" "It is to me, and has been ever since I can remember," returned Ada. "I am grieved that I and my relations should be enemies - as I suppose we are - and that we should all be ruining one another without knowing how or why. It seems very strange that an honest judge has not been able to find out what the right thing is." "Ah, cousin!" said Richard. "Strange, indeed! All this wasteful, wanton chess-playing is very strange. To see that composed court yesterday and to think of the wretchedness of the pieces on the board gave me the headache and the heartache both together. But at all events, Ada - I may call you Ada?" "Of course you may, cousin Richard." "At all events, Chancery will work none of its bad influences on us. We have been brought together, thanks to our good kinsman, and it can't divide us now!" "Never, I hope, cousin Richard!" said Ada gently. Miss Jellyby gave me a very significant look. I smiled in return, and we made our way back. Half an hour after our arrival, Mrs. Jellyby appeared; and the various things necessary for breakfast straggled one by one into the dining-room. Mrs. Jellyby did not seem to have changed her dress. She was greatly occupied during breakfast, for the morning's post brought a heavy correspondence about Borrioboola-Gha. The children tumbled about; and Peepy was lost for an hour and a half, and brought home from Newgate market by a policeman. The equable manner in which Mrs. Jellyby sustained both his absence and his restoration surprised us all. She was by that time dictating to Caddy, and Caddy was fast relapsing into the inky condition in which we had found her. At one o'clock an open carriage arrived for us. Mrs. Jellyby charged us with many remembrances to her good friend Mr. Jarndyce; Caddy left her desk to see us depart, kissed me, and stood sobbing on the steps. Peepy, I am happy to say, was asleep and spared the pain of separation (I feared that he had gone to Newgate market in search of me); and all the other children got up behind the barouche and fell off. We saw them, with great concern, scattered over the ground as we rolled away.

Bleak House

Chapter 5: A Morning Adventure

Allegory looks pretty cool in Lincoln's Inn Fields, though the evening is hot, for both Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows are wide open, and the room is lofty, gusty, and gloomy. These may not be desirable characteristics when November comes with fog and sleet or January with ice and snow, but they have their merits in the sultry long vacation weather. They enable Allegory, though it has cheeks like peaches, and knees like bunches of blossoms, and rosy swellings for calves to its legs and muscles to its arms, to look tolerably cool to-night. Plenty of dust comes in at Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows, and plenty more has generated among his furniture and papers. It lies thick everywhere. When a breeze from the country that has lost its way takes fright and makes a blind hurry to rush out again, it flings as much dust in the eyes of Allegory as the law--or Mr. Tulkinghorn, one of its trustiest representatives--may scatter, on occasion, in the eyes of the laity. In his lowering magazine of dust, the universal article into which his papers and himself, and all his clients, and all things of earth, animate and inanimate, are resolving, Mr. Tulkinghorn sits at one of the open windows enjoying a bottle of old port. Though a hard-grained man, close, dry, and silent, he can enjoy old wine with the best. He has a priceless bin of port in some artful cellar under the Fields, which is one of his many secrets. When he dines alone in chambers, as he has dined to-day, and has his bit of fish and his steak or chicken brought in from the coffee-house, he descends with a candle to the echoing regions below the deserted mansion, and heralded by a remote reverberation of thundering doors, comes gravely back encircled by an earthy atmosphere and carrying a bottle from which he pours a radiant nectar, two score and ten years old, that blushes in the glass to find itself so famous and fills the whole room with the fragrance of southern grapes. Mr. Tulkinghorn, sitting in the twilight by the open window, enjoys his wine. As if it whispered to him of its fifty years of silence and seclusion, it shuts him up the closer. More impenetrable than ever, he sits, and drinks, and mellows as it were in secrecy, pondering at that twilight hour on all the mysteries he knows, associated with darkening woods in the country, and vast blank shut-up houses in town, and perhaps sparing a thought or two for himself, and his family history, and his money, and his will--all a mystery to every one--and that one bachelor friend of his, a man of the same mould and a lawyer too, who lived the same kind of life until he was seventy-five years old, and then suddenly conceiving (as it is supposed) an impression that it was too monotonous, gave his gold watch to his hair-dresser one summer evening and walked leisurely home to the Temple and hanged himself. But Mr. Tulkinghorn is not alone to-night to ponder at his usual length. Seated at the same table, though with his chair modestly and uncomfortably drawn a little way from it, sits a bald, mild, shining man who coughs respectfully behind his hand when the lawyer bids him fill his glass. "Now, Snagsby," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "to go over this odd story again." "If you please, sir." "You told me when you were so good as to step round here last night--" "For which I must ask you to excuse me if it was a liberty, sir; but I remember that you had taken a sort of an interest in that person, and I thought it possible that you might--just--wish--to--" Mr. Tulkinghorn is not the man to help him to any conclusion or to admit anything as to any possibility concerning himself. So Mr. Snagsby trails off into saying, with an awkward cough, "I must ask you to excuse the liberty, sir, I am sure." "Not at all," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "You told me, Snagsby, that you put on your hat and came round without mentioning your intention to your wife. That was prudent I think, because it's not a matter of such importance that it requires to be mentioned." "Well, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby, "you see, my little woman is--not to put too fine a point upon it--inquisitive. She's inquisitive. Poor little thing, she's liable to spasms, and it's good for her to have her mind employed. In consequence of which she employs it--I should say upon every individual thing she can lay hold of, whether it concerns her or not--especially not. My little woman has a very active mind, sir." Mr. Snagsby drinks and murmurs with an admiring cough behind his hand, "Dear me, very fine wine indeed!" "Therefore you kept your visit to yourself last night?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "And to-night too?" "Yes, sir, and to-night, too. My little woman is at present in--not to put too fine a point on it--in a pious state, or in what she considers such, and attends the Evening Exertions (which is the name they go by) of a reverend party of the name of Chadband. He has a great deal of eloquence at his command, undoubtedly, but I am not quite favourable to his style myself. That's neither here nor there. My little woman being engaged in that way made it easier for me to step round in a quiet manner." Mr. Tulkinghorn assents. "Fill your glass, Snagsby." "Thank you, sir, I am sure," returns the stationer with his cough of deference. "This is wonderfully fine wine, sir!" "It is a rare wine now," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "It is fifty years old." "Is it indeed, sir? But I am not surprised to hear it, I am sure. It might be--any age almost." After rendering this general tribute to the port, Mr. Snagsby in his modesty coughs an apology behind his hand for drinking anything so precious. "Will you run over, once again, what the boy said?" asks Mr. Tulkinghorn, putting his hands into the pockets of his rusty smallclothes and leaning quietly back in his chair. "With pleasure, sir." Then, with fidelity, though with some prolixity, the law-stationer repeats Jo's statement made to the assembled guests at his house. On coming to the end of his narrative, he gives a great start and breaks off with, "Dear me, sir, I wasn't aware there was any other gentleman present!" Mr. Snagsby is dismayed to see, standing with an attentive face between himself and the lawyer at a little distance from the table, a person with a hat and stick in his hand who was not there when he himself came in and has not since entered by the door or by either of the windows. There is a press in the room, but its hinges have not creaked, nor has a step been audible upon the floor. Yet this third person stands there with his attentive face, and his hat and stick in his hands, and his hands behind him, a composed and quiet listener. He is a stoutly built, steady-looking, sharp-eyed man in black, of about the middle-age. Except that he looks at Mr. Snagsby as if he were going to take his portrait, there is nothing remarkable about him at first sight but his ghostly manner of appearing. "Don't mind this gentleman," says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his quiet way. "This is only Mr. Bucket." "Oh, indeed, sir?" returns the stationer, expressing by a cough that he is quite in the dark as to who Mr. Bucket may be. "I wanted him to hear this story," says the lawyer, "because I have half a mind (for a reason) to know more of it, and he is very intelligent in such things. What do you say to this, Bucket?" "It's very plain, sir. Since our people have moved this boy on, and he's not to be found on his old lay, if Mr. Snagsby don't object to go down with me to Tom-all-Alone's and point him out, we can have him here in less than a couple of hours' time. I can do it without Mr. Snagsby, of course, but this is the shortest way." "Mr. Bucket is a detective officer, Snagsby," says the lawyer in explanation. "Is he indeed, sir?" says Mr. Snagsby with a strong tendency in his clump of hair to stand on end. "And if you have no real objection to accompany Mr. Bucket to the place in question," pursues the lawyer, "I shall feel obliged to you if you will do so." In a moment's hesitation on the part of Mr. Snagsby, Bucket dips down to the bottom of his mind. "Don't you be afraid of hurting the boy," he says. "You won't do that. It's all right as far as the boy's concerned. We shall only bring him here to ask him a question or so I want to put to him, and he'll be paid for his trouble and sent away again. It'll be a good job for him. I promise you, as a man, that you shall see the boy sent away all right. Don't you be afraid of hurting him; you an't going to do that." "Very well, Mr. Tulkinghorn!" cries Mr. Snagsby cheerfully. And reassured, "Since that's the case--" "Yes! And lookee here, Mr. Snagsby," resumes Bucket, taking him aside by the arm, tapping him familiarly on the breast, and speaking in a confidential tone. "You're a man of the world, you know, and a man of business, and a man of sense. That's what YOU are." "I am sure I am much obliged to you for your good opinion," returns the stationer with his cough of modesty, "but--" "That's what YOU are, you know," says Bucket. "Now, it an't necessary to say to a man like you, engaged in your business, which is a business of trust and requires a person to be wide awake and have his senses about him and his head screwed on tight (I had an uncle in your business once)--it an't necessary to say to a man like you that it's the best and wisest way to keep little matters like this quiet. Don't you see? Quiet!" "Certainly, certainly," returns the other. "I don't mind telling YOU," says Bucket with an engaging appearance of frankness, "that as far as I can understand it, there seems to be a doubt whether this dead person wasn't entitled to a little property, and whether this female hasn't been up to some games respecting that property, don't you see?" "Oh!" says Mr. Snagsby, but not appearing to see quite distinctly. "Now, what YOU want," pursues Bucket, again tapping Mr. Snagsby on the breast in a comfortable and soothing manner, "is that every person should have their rights according to justice. That's what YOU want." "To be sure," returns Mr. Snagsby with a nod. "On account of which, and at the same time to oblige a--do you call it, in your business, customer or client? I forget how my uncle used to call it." "Why, I generally say customer myself," replies Mr. Snagsby. "You're right!" returns Mr. Bucket, shaking hands with him quite affectionately. "--On account of which, and at the same time to oblige a real good customer, you mean to go down with me, in confidence, to Tom-all-Alone's and to keep the whole thing quiet ever afterwards and never mention it to any one. That's about your intentions, if I understand you?" "You are right, sir. You are right," says Mr. Snagsby. "Then here's your hat," returns his new friend, quite as intimate with it as if he had made it; "and if you're ready, I am." They leave Mr. Tulkinghorn, without a ruffle on the surface of his unfathomable depths, drinking his old wine, and go down into the streets. "You don't happen to know a very good sort of person of the name of Gridley, do you?" says Bucket in friendly converse as they descend the stairs. "No," says Mr. Snagsby, considering, "I don't know anybody of that name. Why?" "Nothing particular," says Bucket; "only having allowed his temper to get a little the better of him and having been threatening some respectable people, he is keeping out of the way of a warrant I have got against him--which it's a pity that a man of sense should do." As they walk along, Mr. Snagsby observes, as a novelty, that however quick their pace may be, his companion still seems in some undefinable manner to lurk and lounge; also, that whenever he is going to turn to the right or left, he pretends to have a fixed purpose in his mind of going straight ahead, and wheels off, sharply, at the very last moment. Now and then, when they pass a police-constable on his beat, Mr. Snagsby notices that both the constable and his guide fall into a deep abstraction as they come towards each other, and appear entirely to overlook each other, and to gaze into space. In a few instances, Mr. Bucket, coming behind some under-sized young man with a shining hat on, and his sleek hair twisted into one flat curl on each side of his head, almost without glancing at him touches him with his stick, upon which the young man, looking round, instantly evaporates. For the most part Mr. Bucket notices things in general, with a face as unchanging as the great mourning ring on his little finger or the brooch, composed of not much diamond and a good deal of setting, which he wears in his shirt. When they come at last to Tom-all-Alone's, Mr. Bucket stops for a moment at the corner and takes a lighted bull's-eye from the constable on duty there, who then accompanies him with his own particular bull's-eye at his waist. Between his two conductors, Mr. Snagsby passes along the middle of a villainous street, undrained, unventilated, deep in black mud and corrupt water--though the roads are dry elsewhere--and reeking with such smells and sights that he, who has lived in London all his life, can scarce believe his senses. Branching from this street and its heaps of ruins are other streets and courts so infamous that Mr. Snagsby sickens in body and mind and feels as if he were going every moment deeper down into the infernal gulf. "Draw off a bit here, Mr. Snagsby," says Bucket as a kind of shabby palanquin is borne towards them, surrounded by a noisy crowd. "Here's the fever coming up the street!" As the unseen wretch goes by, the crowd, leaving that object of attraction, hovers round the three visitors like a dream of horrible faces and fades away up alleys and into ruins and behind walls, and with occasional cries and shrill whistles of warning, thenceforth flits about them until they leave the place. "Are those the fever-houses, Darby?" Mr. Bucket coolly asks as he turns his bull's-eye on a line of stinking ruins. Darby replies that "all them are," and further that in all, for months and months, the people "have been down by dozens" and have been carried out dead and dying "like sheep with the rot." Bucket observing to Mr. Snagsby as they go on again that he looks a little poorly, Mr. Snagsby answers that he feels as if he couldn't breathe the dreadful air. There is inquiry made at various houses for a boy named Jo. As few people are known in Tom-all-Alone's by any Christian sign, there is much reference to Mr. Snagsby whether he means Carrots, or the Colonel, or Gallows, or Young Chisel, or Terrier Tip, or Lanky, or the Brick. Mr. Snagsby describes over and over again. There are conflicting opinions respecting the original of his picture. Some think it must be Carrots, some say the Brick. The Colonel is produced, but is not at all near the thing. Whenever Mr. Snagsby and his conductors are stationary, the crowd flows round, and from its squalid depths obsequious advice heaves up to Mr. Bucket. Whenever they move, and the angry bull's-eyes glare, it fades away and flits about them up the alleys, and in the ruins, and behind the walls, as before. At last there is a lair found out where Toughy, or the Tough Subject, lays him down at night; and it is thought that the Tough Subject may be Jo. Comparison of notes between Mr. Snagsby and the proprietress of the house--a drunken face tied up in a black bundle, and flaring out of a heap of rags on the floor of a dog-hutch which is her private apartment--leads to the establishment of this conclusion. Toughy has gone to the doctor's to get a bottle of stuff for a sick woman but will be here anon. "And who have we got here to-night?" says Mr. Bucket, opening another door and glaring in with his bull's-eye. "Two drunken men, eh? And two women? The men are sound enough," turning back each sleeper's arm from his face to look at him. "Are these your good men, my dears?" "Yes, sir," returns one of the women. "They are our husbands." "Brickmakers, eh?" "Yes, sir." "What are you doing here? You don't belong to London." "No, sir. We belong to Hertfordshire." "Whereabouts in Hertfordshire?" "Saint Albans." "Come up on the tramp?" "We walked up yesterday. There's no work down with us at present, but we have done no good by coming here, and shall do none, I expect." "That's not the way to do much good," says Mr. Bucket, turning his head in the direction of the unconscious figures on the ground. "It an't indeed," replies the woman with a sigh. "Jenny and me knows it full well." The room, though two or three feet higher than the door, is so low that the head of the tallest of the visitors would touch the blackened ceiling if he stood upright. It is offensive to every sense; even the gross candle burns pale and sickly in the polluted air. There are a couple of benches and a higher bench by way of table. The men lie asleep where they stumbled down, but the women sit by the candle. Lying in the arms of the woman who has spoken is a very young child. "Why, what age do you call that little creature?" says Bucket. "It looks as if it was born yesterday." He is not at all rough about it; and as he turns his light gently on the infant, Mr. Snagsby is strangely reminded of another infant, encircled with light, that he has seen in pictures. "He is not three weeks old yet, sir," says the woman. "Is he your child?" "Mine." The other woman, who was bending over it when they came in, stoops down again and kisses it as it lies asleep. "You seem as fond of it as if you were the mother yourself," says Mr. Bucket. "I was the mother of one like it, master, and it died." "Ah, Jenny, Jenny!" says the other woman to her. "Better so. Much better to think of dead than alive, Jenny! Much better!" "Why, you an't such an unnatural woman, I hope," returns Bucket sternly, "as to wish your own child dead?" "God knows you are right, master," she returns. "I am not. I'd stand between it and death with my own life if I could, as true as any pretty lady." "Then don't talk in that wrong manner," says Mr. Bucket, mollified again. "Why do you do it?" "It's brought into my head, master," returns the woman, her eyes filling with tears, "when I look down at the child lying so. If it was never to wake no more, you'd think me mad, I should take on so. I know that very well. I was with Jenny when she lost hers--warn't I, Jenny?--and I know how she grieved. But look around you at this place. Look at them," glancing at the sleepers on the ground. "Look at the boy you're waiting for, who's gone out to do me a good turn. Think of the children that your business lays with often and often, and that YOU see grow up!" "Well, well," says Mr. Bucket, "you train him respectable, and he'll be a comfort to you, and look after you in your old age, you know." "I mean to try hard," she answers, wiping her eyes. "But I have been a-thinking, being over-tired to-night and not well with the ague, of all the many things that'll come in his way. My master will be against it, and he'll be beat, and see me beat, and made to fear his home, and perhaps to stray wild. If I work for him ever so much, and ever so hard, there's no one to help me; and if he should be turned bad 'spite of all I could do, and the time should come when I should sit by him in his sleep, made hard and changed, an't it likely I should think of him as he lies in my lap now and wish he had died as Jenny's child died!" "There, there!" says Jenny. "Liz, you're tired and ill. Let me take him." In doing so, she displaces the mother's dress, but quickly readjusts it over the wounded and bruised bosom where the baby has been lying. "It's my dead child," says Jenny, walking up and down as she nurses, "that makes me love this child so dear, and it's my dead child that makes her love it so dear too, as even to think of its being taken away from her now. While she thinks that, I think what fortune would I give to have my darling back. But we mean the same thing, if we knew how to say it, us two mothers does in our poor hearts!" As Mr. Snagsby blows his nose and coughs his cough of sympathy, a step is heard without. Mr. Bucket throws his light into the doorway and says to Mr. Snagsby, "Now, what do you say to Toughy? Will HE do?" "That's Jo," says Mr. Snagsby. Jo stands amazed in the disk of light, like a ragged figure in a magic-lantern, trembling to think that he has offended against the law in not having moved on far enough. Mr. Snagsby, however, giving him the consolatory assurance, "It's only a job you will be paid for, Jo," he recovers; and on being taken outside by Mr. Bucket for a little private confabulation, tells his tale satisfactorily, though out of breath. "I have squared it with the lad," says Mr. Bucket, returning, "and it's all right. Now, Mr. Snagsby, we're ready for you." First, Jo has to complete his errand of good nature by handing over the physic he has been to get, which he delivers with the laconic verbal direction that "it's to be all took d'rectly." Secondly, Mr. Snagsby has to lay upon the table half a crown, his usual panacea for an immense variety of afflictions. Thirdly, Mr. Bucket has to take Jo by the arm a little above the elbow and walk him on before him, without which observance neither the Tough Subject nor any other Subject could be professionally conducted to Lincoln's Inn Fields. These arrangements completed, they give the women good night and come out once more into black and foul Tom-all-Alone's. By the noisome ways through which they descended into that pit, they gradually emerge from it, the crowd flitting, and whistling, and skulking about them until they come to the verge, where restoration of the bull's-eyes is made to Darby. Here the crowd, like a concourse of imprisoned demons, turns back, yelling, and is seen no more. Through the clearer and fresher streets, never so clear and fresh to Mr. Snagsby's mind as now, they walk and ride until they come to Mr. Tulkinghorn's gate. As they ascend the dim stairs (Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers being on the first floor), Mr. Bucket mentions that he has the key of the outer door in his pocket and that there is no need to ring. For a man so expert in most things of that kind, Bucket takes time to open the door and makes some noise too. It may be that he sounds a note of preparation. Howbeit, they come at last into the hall, where a lamp is burning, and so into Mr. Tulkinghorn's usual room--the room where he drank his old wine to-night. He is not there, but his two old-fashioned candlesticks are, and the room is tolerably light. Mr. Bucket, still having his professional hold of Jo and appearing to Mr. Snagsby to possess an unlimited number of eyes, makes a little way into this room, when Jo starts and stops. "What's the matter?" says Bucket in a whisper. "There she is!" cries Jo. "Who!" "The lady!" A female figure, closely veiled, stands in the middle of the room, where the light falls upon it. It is quite still and silent. The front of the figure is towards them, but it takes no notice of their entrance and remains like a statue. "Now, tell me," says Bucket aloud, "how you know that to be the lady." "I know the wale," replies Jo, staring, "and the bonnet, and the gownd." "Be quite sure of what you say, Tough," returns Bucket, narrowly observant of him. "Look again." "I am a-looking as hard as ever I can look," says Jo with starting eyes, "and that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd." "What about those rings you told me of?" asks Bucket. "A-sparkling all over here," says Jo, rubbing the fingers of his left hand on the knuckles of his right without taking his eyes from the figure. The figure removes the right-hand glove and shows the hand. "Now, what do you say to that?" asks Bucket. Jo shakes his head. "Not rings a bit like them. Not a hand like that." "What are you talking of?" says Bucket, evidently pleased though, and well pleased too. "Hand was a deal whiter, a deal delicater, and a deal smaller," returns Jo. "Why, you'll tell me I'm my own mother next," says Mr. Bucket. "Do you recollect the lady's voice?" "I think I does," says Jo. The figure speaks. "Was it at all like this? I will speak as long as you like if you are not sure. Was it this voice, or at all like this voice?" Jo looks aghast at Mr. Bucket. "Not a bit!" "Then, what," retorts that worthy, pointing to the figure, "did you say it was the lady for?" "Cos," says Jo with a perplexed stare but without being at all shaken in his certainty, "cos that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd. It is her and it an't her. It an't her hand, nor yet her rings, nor yet her woice. But that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd, and they're wore the same way wot she wore 'em, and it's her height wot she wos, and she giv me a sov'ring and hooked it." "Well!" says Mr. Bucket slightly, "we haven't got much good out of YOU. But, however, here's five shillings for you. Take care how you spend it, and don't get yourself into trouble." Bucket stealthily tells the coins from one hand into the other like counters--which is a way he has, his principal use of them being in these games of skill--and then puts them, in a little pile, into the boy's hand and takes him out to the door, leaving Mr. Snagsby, not by any means comfortable under these mysterious circumstances, alone with the veiled figure. But on Mr. Tulkinghorn's coming into the room, the veil is raised and a sufficiently good-looking Frenchwoman is revealed, though her expression is something of the intensest. "Thank you, Mademoiselle Hortense," says Mr. Tulkinghorn with his usual equanimity. "I will give you no further trouble about this little wager." "You will do me the kindness to remember, sir, that I am not at present placed?" says mademoiselle. "Certainly, certainly!" "And to confer upon me the favour of your distinguished recommendation?" "By all means, Mademoiselle Hortense." "A word from Mr. Tulkinghorn is so powerful." "It shall not be wanting, mademoiselle." "Receive the assurance of my devoted gratitude, dear sir." "Good night." Mademoiselle goes out with an air of native gentility; and Mr. Bucket, to whom it is, on an emergency, as natural to be groom of the ceremonies as it is to be anything else, shows her downstairs, not without gallantry. "Well, Bucket?" quoth Mr. Tulkinghorn on his return. "It's all squared, you see, as I squared it myself, sir. There an't a doubt that it was the other one with this one's dress on. The boy was exact respecting colours and everything. Mr. Snagsby, I promised you as a man that he should be sent away all right. Don't say it wasn't done!" "You have kept your word, sir," returns the stationer; "and if I can be of no further use, Mr. Tulkinghorn, I think, as my little woman will be getting anxious--" "Thank you, Snagsby, no further use," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "I am quite indebted to you for the trouble you have taken already." "Not at all, sir. I wish you good night." "You see, Mr. Snagsby," says Mr. Bucket, accompanying him to the door and shaking hands with him over and over again, "what I like in you is that you're a man it's of no use pumping; that's what YOU are. When you know you have done a right thing, you put it away, and it's done with and gone, and there's an end of it. That's what YOU do." "That is certainly what I endeavour to do, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby. "No, you don't do yourself justice. It an't what you endeavour to do," says Mr. Bucket, shaking hands with him and blessing him in the tenderest manner, "it's what you DO. That's what I estimate in a man in your way of business." Mr. Snagsby makes a suitable response and goes homeward so confused by the events of the evening that he is doubtful of his being awake and out--doubtful of the reality of the streets through which he goes--doubtful of the reality of the moon that shines above him. He is presently reassured on these subjects by the unchallengeable reality of Mrs. Snagsby, sitting up with her head in a perfect beehive of curl-papers and night-cap, who has dispatched Guster to the police-station with official intelligence of her husband's being made away with, and who within the last two hours has passed through every stage of swooning with the greatest decorum. But as the little woman feelingly says, many thanks she gets for it!

In Lincoln's Inn Fields, the evening is hot, and Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows are wide open. Plenty of dust comes in at them, and plenty more has generated among his furniture and papers. It lies thick everywhere. In his atmosphere of dust, beneath the figure of Allegory, Mr. Tulkinghorn sits at one of the open windows enjoying a bottle of old port. Though a hard-grained man, close, dry, and silent, he can enjoy old wine with the best. He has a priceless bin of port in some artful cellar under the Fields, which is one of his many secrets. When he dines alone in chambers, as he has dined today, he descends with a candle to the echoing regions below the deserted mansion, and comes back with a bottle from which he pours a radiant nectar, fifty years old, that fills the whole room with the fragrance of southern grapes. Mr. Tulkinghorn, sitting in the twilight, enjoys his wine. As if it whispered to him of its fifty years of silence and seclusion, it shuts him up the closer. He sits, and drinks, and ponders on all the mysteries he knows, associated with darkening woods in the country, and vast blank shut-up houses in town, and perhaps sparing a thought or two for himself, and his family history, and his money, and his will - all a mystery to everyone. But Mr. Tulkinghorn is not alone tonight. Seated at the same table, though with his chair modestly drawn a little way from it, sits a bald, mild man who coughs respectfully behind his hand when the lawyer bids him fill his glass. "Now, Snagsby," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "go over this odd story again." "I remembered, sir, that you had taken an interest in that person, and I thought it possible that you might - just - wish-" Mr. Tulkinghorn does not help him. Mr. Snagsby trails off into saying, with an awkward cough, "Excuse the liberty, sir." "Not at all," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "You told me, Snagsby, that you came round without mentioning your intention to your wife. That was prudent, because it's not a matter of such importance that it needs to be mentioned." "Well, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby, "you see, my little woman is - not to put too fine a point upon it - inquisitive. My little woman has a very active mind, sir." "Therefore you kept your visit to yourself?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Yes, sir. My little woman is at present in a pious state, and attends the Evening Exertions of the Reverend Chadband. My little woman being engaged in that way made it easier for me to step round quietly." "Fill your glass, Snagsby." "Thank you, sir, I am sure," returns the stationer with his cough of deference. "This is wonderfully fine wine, sir!" "It is fifty years old. Will you run over, once again, what the boy said?" Mr. Tulkinghorn leans back in his chair. "With pleasure, sir." The law-stationer repeats Jo's statement made to the guests at his house. On coming to the end of his narrative, he gives a great start and breaks off with, "Dear me, sir, I wasn't aware there was any other gentleman present!" Mr. Snagsby is dismayed to see, standing attentively at a little distance from the table, a person with a hat and stick in his hand who was not there when he came in and who has not entered since. There is a wardrobe in the room, but its hinges have not creaked, nor has a step been audible. Yet this third person stands there with his hat and stick in his hands, a composed and quiet listener. He is a stoutly built, steady-looking, sharp-eyed middle-aged man in black. There is nothing remarkable about him but his ghostly manner of appearing. "Don't mind this gentleman," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "This is only Mr. Bucket." "Oh, indeed, sir?" returns the stationer, expressing by a cough that he is quite in the dark as to who Mr. Bucket may be. "I wanted him to hear this story," says the lawyer, "because he is very intelligent in such things. What do you say to this, Bucket?" "It's very plain, sir. If Mr. Snagsby don't object to go down with me to Tom-all-Alone's and point this boy out, we can have him here in a couple of hours. I can do it without Mr. Snagsby, of course, but this is the shortest way." "Mr. Bucket is a detective officer, Snagsby," says the lawyer in explanation. "Is he indeed, sir?" says Mr. Snagsby with some alarm. "And if you have no objection to accompany Mr. Bucket to the place in question," pursues the lawyer, "I shall feel obliged if you will do so." As Mr. Snagsby hesitates, Bucket reads his mind. "Don't you be afraid of hurting the boy," says Bucket. "You won't do that. We shall only bring him here to ask him a question or so, and he'll be paid for his trouble and sent away again. It'll be a good job for him. I promise you, as a man, that you shall see the boy sent away all right. Don't you be afraid of hurting him." "Very well, Mr. Tulkinghorn!" cries Mr. Snagsby, reassured. "And lookee here, Mr. Snagsby," resumes Bucket, taking him by the arm, and speaking in a confidential tone. "You're a man of the world, and a man of business, and a man of sense." "I am sure I am much obliged to you for your good opinion," returns the stationer with his cough of modesty, "but-" "That's what you are, you know," says Bucket. "Now, it an't necessary to say to a man like you that it's best and wisest to keep little matters like this quiet. Quiet!" "Certainly, certainly," returns the other. "I don't mind telling you," says Bucket with an engaging appearance of frankness, "that as far as I can understand, there seems to be a doubt whether this dead person wasn't entitled to a little property, and whether this female hasn't been up to some games respecting that property, don't you see?" "Oh!" says Mr. Snagsby. "Now, what you want," pursues Bucket, tapping Mr. Snagsby on the breast in a comfortable manner, "is that every person should have their rights according to justice." "To be sure," returns Mr. Snagsby. "On account of which, and at the same time to oblige a good customer, you mean to go down with me, in confidence, to Tom-all-Alone's and to keep the whole thing quiet afterwards and never mention it to anyone. That's your intention, if I understand you?" "You are right, sir," says Mr. Snagsby. "Then here's your hat," returns his new friend; "and if you're ready, I am." They leave Mr. Tulkinghorn drinking his old wine, and go down into the streets. "You don't happen to know a good sort of person of the name of Gridley, do you?" says Bucket in friendly converse as they descend the stairs. "No," says Mr. Snagsby, considering. "Why?" "Nothing particular," says Bucket; "only having allowed his temper to get a little the better of him and having been threatening some respectable people, he is keeping out of the way of a warrant I have got against him." As they walk along, Mr. Snagsby observes that however quick their pace may be, his companion still seems in some undefinable manner to lurk and lounge; also, that whenever he is going to turn right or left, he pretends to have a fixed purpose of going straight ahead, and wheels off sharply at the very last moment. Now and then, when they pass a police-constable on his beat, Mr. Snagsby notices that both the constable and his guide fall into a deep abstraction as they come towards each other, and appear entirely to overlook each other, and to gaze into space. In a few instances, Mr. Bucket, coming behind some under-sized young man with a shining hat on his sleek hair, almost without glancing at him touches him with his stick, upon which the young man, looking round, instantly evaporates. When they come at last to Tom-all-Alone's, Mr. Bucket stops for a moment at the corner and takes a lighted bull's-eye lantern from the constable on duty there, who then accompanies him. Between his two conductors, Mr. Snagsby passes along the middle of a villainous street, undrained, unventilated, deep in black mud, and filthy, reeking with such smells and sights that he, who has lived in London all his life, can scarce believe his senses. Branching from this street and its heaps of ruins are other streets and courts so infamous that Mr. Snagsby sickens in body and mind and feels as if he were going down into the infernal gulf. "Draw off a bit here, Mr. Snagsby," says Bucket as a kind of shabby litter is carried towards them, surrounded by a noisy crowd. "Here's the fever coming up the street!" As the unseen wretch goes by, the crowd hovers round the three visitors like a dream of horrible faces and then fades away up alleys and into ruins and behind walls. "Are those the fever-houses, Darby?" Mr. Bucket coolly asks. Darby replies that for months, the people "have been down by dozens" and have been carried out dead and dying "like sheep with the rot." Mr. Snagsby feels as if he can't breathe. Inquiry is made at various houses for a boy named Jo. Mr. Snagsby is asked whether he means Carrots, or the Colonel, or Gallows, or Young Chisel, or Terrier Tip, or Lanky, or the Brick. Mr. Snagsby describes him over and over again. Some think it must be Carrots, some say the Brick. Whenever the three are stationary, the crowd flows round them. Whenever they move, the crowd flits away up alleys, and into ruins, and behind walls, as before. At last there is a lair found out where Toughy, or the Tough Subject, lays him down at night; it is thought that he may be Jo. The proprietress of the house says Toughy has gone to the doctor's to get a bottle of stuff for a sick woman but will be here soon. "And who have we got here tonight?" says Mr. Bucket, opening another door and glaring in with his lantern. "Two drunken men, eh? And two women? Are these your good men, my dears?" "Yes, sir," returns one of the women. "They are our husbands." "Brickmakers, eh?" "Yes, sir." "What are you doing here? You don't belong to London." "No, sir. We belong to Hertfordshire." "Come up on the tramp?" "We walked up yesterday. There's no work there, but we have done no good by coming here, and shall do none, I expect." "That's not the way to do much good," says Mr. Bucket, turning his head towards the unconscious figures on the ground. "It an't indeed," replies the woman with a sigh. "Jenny and me knows it full well." The room is so low that the head of the tallest visitor would touch the blackened ceiling if he stood upright. The candle burns sickly in the polluted air. There are a couple of benches and a table. The men lie asleep where they stumbled down, but the women sit by the candle. Lying in the arms of the woman who has spoken is a baby. "What age is that little creature?" says Bucket. "It looks as if it was born yesterday." He turns his light gently on the infant. "He is not three weeks old yet, sir," says the woman. "Is he your child?" "Mine." The other woman stoops down and kisses it as it lies asleep. "You seem as fond of it as if you were the mother yourself," says Mr. Bucket. "I was the mother of one like it, master, and it died." "Ah, Jenny, Jenny!" says the other woman to her. "Better so. Much better!" "Why, you an't such an unnatural woman, I hope," returns Bucket sternly, "as to wish your own child dead?" "I am not, master," she returns. "I'd stand between it and death with my own life if I could, as true as any lady." "Then why do you talk in that wrong manner?" says Mr. Bucket. "If it was never to wake no more, you'd think me mad, I should take on so," returns the woman, her eyes filling with tears. "I know that very well. I was with Jenny when she lost hers, and I know how she grieved. But look around you at this place. Look at the boy you're waiting for, who's gone out to do me a good turn. Think of the children that you come across in your business, and that you see grow up!" "Well, well," says Mr. Bucket, "you train him respectable, and he'll be a comfort to you." "I mean to try hard," she answers, wiping her eyes. "But I have been a-thinking, being over-tired and ill with the ague, of all the things that'll come in his way. My master will be against it, and he'll be beat, and see me beat, and made to fear his home, and perhaps to stray wild. If I work for him ever so much, there's no one to help me; and if he should be turned bad in spite of all I could do, and made hard and changed, an't it likely I should think of him as he lies in my lap now and wish he had died!" "There, there!" says Jenny. "Liz, you're tired and ill. Let me take him." In doing so, she moves the mother's dress, but quickly readjusts it over the bruised bosom where the baby has been lying. "It's my dead child," says Jenny, walking up and down as she nurses, "that makes us both love this child so dear. She thinks of its being taken away from her, and I think what fortune would I give to have my darling back. But we mean the same thing in our poor hearts!" As Mr. Snagsby blows his nose and coughs his cough of sympathy, a step is heard outside. Mr. Bucket shines his light into the doorway and says to Mr. Snagsby, "Now, what do you say to Toughy? Will he do?" "That's Jo," says Mr. Snagsby. Jo stands amazed in the disk of light, trembling to think that he has offended against the law in not having moved on far enough. Mr. Snagsby, however, assuring him, "It's only a job you will be paid for, Jo," he recovers; and on being taken outside by Mr. Bucket, tells his tale satisfactorily. "I have squared it with the lad," says Mr. Bucket, returning, "and it's all right. Now, Mr. Snagsby, we're ready to go." First, Jo has to complete his errand of good nature by handing over the medicine he has been to get, which he delivers with the instruction that "it's to be all took d'rectly." Secondly, Mr. Snagsby has to lay upon the table half a crown. Thirdly, Mr. Bucket has to take Jo by the arm above the elbow and walk him on before him, so that he is professionally conducted to Lincoln's Inn Fields. They give the women good night and come out once more into black and foul Tom-all-Alone's. By the noisome ways through which they descended into that pit, they gradually emerge from it, the crowd flitting and skulking about them until it turns back, yelling like a concourse of imprisoned demons, and is seen no more. Through the clearer and fresher streets, never so clear and fresh to Mr. Snagsby's mind as now, they walk and ride to Mr. Tulkinghorn's gate. As they ascend the dim stairs to Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers, Mr. Bucket mentions that he has the key and that there is no need to ring. He takes time to open the door and makes some noise too. It may be that he sounds a note of preparation. They come at last into the hall, where a lamp is burning, and so into Mr. Tulkinghorn's usual room. He is not there, but his two old-fashioned candlesticks are, and the room is reasonably light. Mr. Bucket, still having his professional hold of Jo, goes a little way into this room, when Jo starts and stops. "What's the matter?" says Bucket. "There she is!" cries Jo. "Who!" "The lady!" A female figure, closely veiled, stands in the middle of the room, where the light falls upon it. It is quite still and silent. "Now, tell me," says Bucket, "how you know that to be the lady." "I know the wale," replies Jo, staring, "and the bonnet, and the gownd." "Be quite sure of what you say," returns Bucket, narrowly observing him. "Look again." "I am a-looking as hard as ever I can look," says Jo with starting eyes, "and that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd." "What about those rings you told me of?" asks Bucket. "A-sparkling all over here," says Jo, rubbing the fingers of his left hand on the knuckles of his right. The figure removes the right-hand glove and shows the hand. Jo shakes his head. "Not rings a bit like them. Not a hand like that." "What do you mean?" says Bucket, evidently pleased though. "Hand was a deal whiter, and delicater, and smaller," returns Jo. "Why, you'll tell me I'm my own mother next," says Mr. Bucket. "Do you recollect the lady's voice?" "I think I does," says Jo. The figure speaks. "Was it at all like this? I will speak as long as you like if you are not sure. Was it like this voice?" Jo looks aghast at Mr. Bucket. "Not a bit!" "Then, what," he retorts, pointing to the figure, "did you say it was the lady for?" "Cos," says Jo with a perplexed stare, "cos that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd. It is her and it an't her. It an't her hand, nor yet her rings, nor yet her woice. But that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd, and they're wore the same way wot she wore 'em, and she giv me a sov'ring and hooked it." "Well!" says Mr. Bucket, "we haven't got much good out of you. However, here's five shillings for you. Take care how you spend it, and don't get yourself into trouble." Bucket puts the coins into the boy's hand and takes him out, leaving Mr. Snagsby uncomfortably alone with the veiled figure. But on Mr. Tulkinghorn's coming into the room, the veil is raised and a good-looking Frenchwoman is revealed, though her expression is somewhat intense. "Thank you, Mademoiselle Hortense," says Mr. Tulkinghorn with his usual equanimity. "I will give you no further trouble about this little wager." "You will do me the kindness to remember, sir, that I am not at present employed?" says mademoiselle. "Certainly!" "And to give me the favour of your recommendation?" "By all means, Mademoiselle Hortense." "A word from Mr. Tulkinghorn is so powerful." "It shall not be lacking, mademoiselle." "You have my devoted gratitude, dear sir." "Good night." Mademoiselle goes out; and Mr. Bucket shows her downstairs. "Well, Bucket?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn on his return. "There an't a doubt that it was the other one with this one's dress on. The boy was exact respecting colours and everything. Mr. Snagsby, I promised you that he should be sent away all right!" "You have kept your word, sir," returns the stationer; "and if I can be of no further use, Mr. Tulkinghorn, I think, as my little woman will be getting anxious-" "Thank you, Snagsby," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "I am indebted to you for the trouble you have taken." "Not at all, sir. I wish you good night." "You see, Mr. Snagsby," says Mr. Bucket, accompanying him to the door and shaking hands with him, "what I like in you is that when you know you have done a right thing, you put it away, and there's an end of it. That's what you do." "That is certainly what I try to do, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby. "No, you don't do yourself justice. It an't what you try to do," says Mr. Bucket, still shaking hands, "it's what you do." Mr. Snagsby makes a suitable response and goes homeward so confused by the events of the evening that he is doubtful of his being awake - doubtful of the reality of the streets through which he goes. He is presently reassured by the unchallengeable reality of Mrs. Snagsby, sitting up with her head in a perfect beehive of curl-papers and night-cap. She has dispatched Guster to the police-station to tell them her husband has been made away with, and within the last two hours has passed through every stage of swooning. But as the little woman feelingly says, many thanks she gets for it!

Bleak House

Chapter 22: Mr. Bucket

Inspector Bucket of the Detective has not yet struck his great blow, as just now chronicled, but is yet refreshing himself with sleep preparatory to his field-day, when through the night and along the freezing wintry roads a chaise and pair comes out of Lincolnshire, making its way towards London. Railroads shall soon traverse all this country, and with a rattle and a glare the engine and train shall shoot like a meteor over the wide night-landscape, turning the moon paler; but as yet such things are non-existent in these parts, though not wholly unexpected. Preparations are afoot, measurements are made, ground is staked out. Bridges are begun, and their not yet united piers desolately look at one another over roads and streams like brick and mortar couples with an obstacle to their union; fragments of embankments are thrown up and left as precipices with torrents of rusty carts and barrows tumbling over them; tripods of tall poles appear on hilltops, where there are rumours of tunnels; everything looks chaotic and abandoned in full hopelessness. Along the freezing roads, and through the night, the post-chaise makes its way without a railroad on its mind. Mrs. Rouncewell, so many years housekeeper at Chesney Wold, sits within the chaise; and by her side sits Mrs. Bagnet with her grey cloak and umbrella. The old girl would prefer the bar in front, as being exposed to the weather and a primitive sort of perch more in accordance with her usual course of travelling, but Mrs. Rouncewell is too thoughtful of her comfort to admit of her proposing it. The old lady cannot make enough of the old girl. She sits, in her stately manner, holding her hand, and regardless of its roughness, puts it often to her lips. "You are a mother, my dear soul," says she many times, "and you found out my George's mother!" "Why, George," returns Mrs. Bagnet, "was always free with me, ma'am, and when he said at our house to my Woolwich that of all the things my Woolwich could have to think of when he grew to be a man, the comfortablest would be that he had never brought a sorrowful line into his mother's face or turned a hair of her head grey, then I felt sure, from his way, that something fresh had brought his own mother into his mind. I had often known him say to me, in past times, that he had behaved bad to her." "Never, my dear!" returns Mrs. Rouncewell, bursting into tears. "My blessing on him, never! He was always fond of me, and loving to me, was my George! But he had a bold spirit, and he ran a little wild and went for a soldier. And I know he waited at first, in letting us know about himself, till he should rise to be an officer; and when he didn't rise, I know he considered himself beneath us, and wouldn't be a disgrace to us. For he had a lion heart, had my George, always from a baby!" The old lady's hands stray about her as of yore, while she recalls, all in a tremble, what a likely lad, what a fine lad, what a gay good-humoured clever lad he was; how they all took to him down at Chesney Wold; how Sir Leicester took to him when he was a young gentleman; how the dogs took to him; how even the people who had been angry with him forgave him the moment he was gone, poor boy. And now to see him after all, and in a prison too! And the broad stomacher heaves, and the quaint upright old-fashioned figure bends under its load of affectionate distress. Mrs. Bagnet, with the instinctive skill of a good warm heart, leaves the old housekeeper to her emotions for a little while--not without passing the back of her hand across her own motherly eyes--and presently chirps up in her cheery manner, "So I says to George when I goes to call him in to tea (he pretended to be smoking his pipe outside), 'What ails you this afternoon, George, for gracious sake? I have seen all sorts, and I have seen you pretty often in season and out of season, abroad and at home, and I never see you so melancholy penitent.' 'Why, Mrs. Bagnet,' says George, 'it's because I AM melancholy and penitent both, this afternoon, that you see me so.' 'What have you done, old fellow?' I says. 'Why, Mrs. Bagnet,' says George, shaking his head, 'what I have done has been done this many a long year, and is best not tried to be undone now. If I ever get to heaven it won't be for being a good son to a widowed mother; I say no more.' Now, ma'am, when George says to me that it's best not tried to be undone now, I have my thoughts as I have often had before, and I draw it out of George how he comes to have such things on him that afternoon. Then George tells me that he has seen by chance, at the lawyer's office, a fine old lady that has brought his mother plain before him, and he runs on about that old lady till he quite forgets himself and paints her picture to me as she used to be, years upon years back. So I says to George when he has done, who is this old lady he has seen? And George tells me it's Mrs. Rouncewell, housekeeper for more than half a century to the Dedlock family down at Chesney Wold in Lincolnshire. George has frequently told me before that he's a Lincolnshire man, and I says to my old Lignum that night, 'Lignum, that's his mother for five and for-ty pound!'" All this Mrs. Bagnet now relates for the twentieth time at least within the last four hours. Trilling it out like a kind of bird, with a pretty high note, that it may be audible to the old lady above the hum of the wheels. "Bless you, and thank you," says Mrs. Rouncewell. "Bless you, and thank you, my worthy soul!" "Dear heart!" cries Mrs. Bagnet in the most natural manner. "No thanks to me, I am sure. Thanks to yourself, ma'am, for being so ready to pay 'em! And mind once more, ma'am, what you had best do on finding George to be your own son is to make him--for your sake--have every sort of help to put himself in the right and clear himself of a charge of which he is as innocent as you or me. It won't do to have truth and justice on his side; he must have law and lawyers," exclaims the old girl, apparently persuaded that the latter form a separate establishment and have dissolved partnership with truth and justice for ever and a day. "He shall have," says Mrs. Rouncewell, "all the help that can be got for him in the world, my dear. I will spend all I have, and thankfully, to procure it. Sir Leicester will do his best, the whole family will do their best. I--I know something, my dear; and will make my own appeal, as his mother parted from him all these years, and finding him in a jail at last." The extreme disquietude of the old housekeeper's manner in saying this, her broken words, and her wringing of her hands make a powerful impression on Mrs. Bagnet and would astonish her but that she refers them all to her sorrow for her son's condition. And yet Mrs. Bagnet wonders too why Mrs. Rouncewell should murmur so distractedly, "My Lady, my Lady, my Lady!" over and over again. The frosty night wears away, and the dawn breaks, and the post-chaise comes rolling on through the early mist like the ghost of a chaise departed. It has plenty of spectral company in ghosts of trees and hedges, slowly vanishing and giving place to the realities of day. London reached, the travellers alight, the old housekeeper in great tribulation and confusion, Mrs. Bagnet quite fresh and collected--as she would be if her next point, with no new equipage and outfit, were the Cape of Good Hope, the Island of Ascension, Hong Kong, or any other military station. But when they set out for the prison where the trooper is confined, the old lady has managed to draw about her, with her lavender-coloured dress, much of the staid calmness which is its usual accompaniment. A wonderfully grave, precise, and handsome piece of old china she looks, though her heart beats fast and her stomacher is ruffled more than even the remembrance of this wayward son has ruffled it these many years. Approaching the cell, they find the door opening and a warder in the act of coming out. The old girl promptly makes a sign of entreaty to him to say nothing; assenting with a nod, he suffers them to enter as he shuts the door. So George, who is writing at his table, supposing himself to be alone, does not raise his eyes, but remains absorbed. The old housekeeper looks at him, and those wandering hands of hers are quite enough for Mrs. Bagnet's confirmation, even if she could see the mother and the son together, knowing what she knows, and doubt their relationship. Not a rustle of the housekeeper's dress, not a gesture, not a word betrays her. She stands looking at him as he writes on, all unconscious, and only her fluttering hands give utterance to her emotions. But they are very eloquent, very, very eloquent. Mrs. Bagnet understands them. They speak of gratitude, of joy, of grief, of hope; of inextinguishable affection, cherished with no return since this stalwart man was a stripling; of a better son loved less, and this son loved so fondly and so proudly; and they speak in such touching language that Mrs. Bagnet's eyes brim up with tears and they run glistening down her sun-brown face. "George Rouncewell! Oh, my dear child, turn and look at me!" The trooper starts up, clasps his mother round the neck, and falls down on his knees before her. Whether in a late repentance, whether in the first association that comes back upon him, he puts his hands together as a child does when it says its prayers, and raising them towards her breast, bows down his head, and cries. "My George, my dearest son! Always my favourite, and my favourite still, where have you been these cruel years and years? Grown such a man too, grown such a fine strong man. Grown so like what I knew he must be, if it pleased God he was alive!" She can ask, and he can answer, nothing connected for a time. All that time the old girl, turned away, leans one arm against the whitened wall, leans her honest forehead upon it, wipes her eyes with her serviceable grey cloak, and quite enjoys herself like the best of old girls as she is. "Mother," says the trooper when they are more composed, "forgive me first of all, for I know my need of it." Forgive him! She does it with all her heart and soul. She always has done it. She tells him how she has had it written in her will, these many years, that he was her beloved son George. She has never believed any ill of him, never. If she had died without this happiness--and she is an old woman now and can't look to live very long--she would have blessed him with her last breath, if she had had her senses, as her beloved son George. "Mother, I have been an undutiful trouble to you, and I have my reward; but of late years I have had a kind of glimmering of a purpose in me too. When I left home I didn't care much, mother--I am afraid not a great deal--for leaving; and went away and 'listed, harum-scarum, making believe to think that I cared for nobody, no not I, and that nobody cared for me." The trooper has dried his eyes and put away his handkerchief, but there is an extraordinary contrast between his habitual manner of expressing himself and carrying himself and the softened tone in which he speaks, interrupted occasionally by a half-stifled sob. "So I wrote a line home, mother, as you too well know, to say I had 'listed under another name, and I went abroad. Abroad, at one time I thought I would write home next year, when I might be better off; and when that year was out, I thought I would write home next year, when I might be better off; and when that year was out again, perhaps I didn't think much about it. So on, from year to year, through a service of ten years, till I began to get older, and to ask myself why should I ever write." "I don't find any fault, child--but not to ease my mind, George? Not a word to your loving mother, who was growing older too?" This almost overturns the trooper afresh, but he sets himself up with a great, rough, sounding clearance of his throat. "Heaven forgive me, mother, but I thought there would be small consolation then in hearing anything about me. There were you, respected and esteemed. There was my brother, as I read in chance North Country papers now and then, rising to be prosperous and famous. There was I a dragoon, roving, unsettled, not self-made like him, but self-unmade--all my earlier advantages thrown away, all my little learning unlearnt, nothing picked up but what unfitted me for most things that I could think of. What business had I to make myself known? After letting all that time go by me, what good could come of it? The worst was past with you, mother. I knew by that time (being a man) how you had mourned for me, and wept for me, and prayed for me; and the pain was over, or was softened down, and I was better in your mind as it was." The old lady sorrowfully shakes her head, and taking one of his powerful hands, lays it lovingly upon her shoulder. "No, I don't say that it was so, mother, but that I made it out to be so. I said just now, what good could come of it? Well, my dear mother, some good might have come of it to myself--and there was the meanness of it. You would have sought me out; you would have purchased my discharge; you would have taken me down to Chesney Wold; you would have brought me and my brother and my brother's family together; you would all have considered anxiously how to do something for me and set me up as a respectable civilian. But how could any of you feel sure of me when I couldn't so much as feel sure of myself? How could you help regarding as an incumbrance and a discredit to you an idle dragooning chap who was an incumbrance and a discredit to himself, excepting under discipline? How could I look my brother's children in the face and pretend to set them an example--I, the vagabond boy who had run away from home and been the grief and unhappiness of my mother's life? 'No, George.' Such were my words, mother, when I passed this in review before me: 'You have made your bed. Now, lie upon it.'" Mrs. Rouncewell, drawing up her stately form, shakes her head at the old girl with a swelling pride upon her, as much as to say, "I told you so!" The old girl relieves her feelings and testifies her interest in the conversation by giving the trooper a great poke between the shoulders with her umbrella; this action she afterwards repeats, at intervals, in a species of affectionate lunacy, never failing, after the administration of each of these remonstrances, to resort to the whitened wall and the grey cloak again. "This was the way I brought myself to think, mother, that my best amends was to lie upon that bed I had made, and die upon it. And I should have done it (though I have been to see you more than once down at Chesney Wold, when you little thought of me) but for my old comrade's wife here, who I find has been too many for me. But I thank her for it. I thank you for it, Mrs. Bagnet, with all my heart and might." To which Mrs. Bagnet responds with two pokes. And now the old lady impresses upon her son George, her own dear recovered boy, her joy and pride, the light of her eyes, the happy close of her life, and every fond name she can think of, that he must be governed by the best advice obtainable by money and influence, that he must yield up his case to the greatest lawyers that can be got, that he must act in this serious plight as he shall be advised to act and must not be self-willed, however right, but must promise to think only of his poor old mother's anxiety and suffering until he is released, or he will break her heart. "Mother, 'tis little enough to consent to," returns the trooper, stopping her with a kiss; "tell me what I shall do, and I'll make a late beginning and do it. Mrs. Bagnet, you'll take care of my mother, I know?" A very hard poke from the old girl's umbrella. "If you'll bring her acquainted with Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson, she will find them of her way of thinking, and they will give her the best advice and assistance." "And, George," says the old lady, "we must send with all haste for your brother. He is a sensible sound man as they tell me--out in the world beyond Chesney Wold, my dear, though I don't know much of it myself--and will be of great service." "Mother," returns the trooper, "is it too soon to ask a favour?" "Surely not, my dear." "Then grant me this one great favour. Don't let my brother know." "Not know what, my dear?" "Not know of me. In fact, mother, I can't bear it; I can't make up my mind to it. He has proved himself so different from me and has done so much to raise himself while I've been soldiering that I haven't brass enough in my composition to see him in this place and under this charge. How could a man like him be expected to have any pleasure in such a discovery? It's impossible. No, keep my secret from him, mother; do me a greater kindness than I deserve and keep my secret from my brother, of all men." "But not always, dear George?" "Why, mother, perhaps not for good and all--though I may come to ask that too--but keep it now, I do entreat you. If it's ever broke to him that his rip of a brother has turned up, I could wish," says the trooper, shaking his head very doubtfully, "to break it myself and be governed as to advancing or retreating by the way in which he seems to take it." As he evidently has a rooted feeling on this point, and as the depth of it is recognized in Mrs. Bagnet's face, his mother yields her implicit assent to what he asks. For this he thanks her kindly. "In all other respects, my dear mother, I'll be as tractable and obedient as you can wish; on this one alone, I stand out. So now I am ready even for the lawyers. I have been drawing up," he glances at his writing on the table, "an exact account of what I knew of the deceased and how I came to be involved in this unfortunate affair. It's entered, plain and regular, like an orderly-book; not a word in it but what's wanted for the facts. I did intend to read it, straight on end, whensoever I was called upon to say anything in my defence. I hope I may be let to do it still; but I have no longer a will of my own in this case, and whatever is said or done, I give my promise not to have any." Matters being brought to this so far satisfactory pass, and time being on the wane, Mrs. Bagnet proposes a departure. Again and again the old lady hangs upon her son's neck, and again and again the trooper holds her to his broad chest. "Where are you going to take my mother, Mrs. Bagnet?" "I am going to the town house, my dear, the family house. I have some business there that must be looked to directly," Mrs. Rouncewell answers. "Will you see my mother safe there in a coach, Mrs. Bagnet? But of course I know you will. Why should I ask it!" Why indeed, Mrs. Bagnet expresses with the umbrella. "Take her, my old friend, and take my gratitude along with you. Kisses to Quebec and Malta, love to my godson, a hearty shake of the hand to Lignum, and this for yourself, and I wish it was ten thousand pound in gold, my dear!" So saying, the trooper puts his lips to the old girl's tanned forehead, and the door shuts upon him in his cell. No entreaties on the part of the good old housekeeper will induce Mrs. Bagnet to retain the coach for her own conveyance home. Jumping out cheerfully at the door of the Dedlock mansion and handing Mrs. Rouncewell up the steps, the old girl shakes hands and trudges off, arriving soon afterwards in the bosom of the Bagnet family and falling to washing the greens as if nothing had happened. My Lady is in that room in which she held her last conference with the murdered man, and is sitting where she sat that night, and is looking at the spot where he stood upon the hearth studying her so leisurely, when a tap comes at the door. Who is it? Mrs. Rouncewell. What has brought Mrs. Rouncewell to town so unexpectedly? "Trouble, my Lady. Sad trouble. Oh, my Lady, may I beg a word with you?" What new occurrence is it that makes this tranquil old woman tremble so? Far happier than her Lady, as her Lady has often thought, why does she falter in this manner and look at her with such strange mistrust? "What is the matter? Sit down and take your breath." "Oh, my Lady, my Lady. I have found my son--my youngest, who went away for a soldier so long ago. And he is in prison." "For debt?" "Oh, no, my Lady; I would have paid any debt, and joyful." "For what is he in prison then?" "Charged with a murder, my Lady, of which he is as innocent as--as I am. Accused of the murder of Mr. Tulkinghorn." What does she mean by this look and this imploring gesture? Why does she come so close? What is the letter that she holds? "Lady Dedlock, my dear Lady, my good Lady, my kind Lady! You must have a heart to feel for me, you must have a heart to forgive me. I was in this family before you were born. I am devoted to it. But think of my dear son wrongfully accused." "I do not accuse him." "No, my Lady, no. But others do, and he is in prison and in danger. Oh, Lady Dedlock, if you can say but a word to help to clear him, say it!" What delusion can this be? What power does she suppose is in the person she petitions to avert this unjust suspicion, if it be unjust? Her Lady's handsome eyes regard her with astonishment, almost with fear. "My Lady, I came away last night from Chesney Wold to find my son in my old age, and the step upon the Ghost's Walk was so constant and so solemn that I never heard the like in all these years. Night after night, as it has fallen dark, the sound has echoed through your rooms, but last night it was awfullest. And as it fell dark last night, my Lady, I got this letter." "What letter is it?" "Hush! Hush!" The housekeeper looks round and answers in a frightened whisper, "My Lady, I have not breathed a word of it, I don't believe what's written in it, I know it can't be true, I am sure and certain that it is not true. But my son is in danger, and you must have a heart to pity me. If you know of anything that is not known to others, if you have any suspicion, if you have any clue at all, and any reason for keeping it in your own breast, oh, my dear Lady, think of me, and conquer that reason, and let it be known! This is the most I consider possible. I know you are not a hard lady, but you go your own way always without help, and you are not familiar with your friends; and all who admire you--and all do--as a beautiful and elegant lady, know you to be one far away from themselves who can't be approached close. My Lady, you may have some proud or angry reasons for disdaining to utter something that you know; if so, pray, oh, pray, think of a faithful servant whose whole life has been passed in this family which she dearly loves, and relent, and help to clear my son! My Lady, my good Lady," the old housekeeper pleads with genuine simplicity, "I am so humble in my place and you are by nature so high and distant that you may not think what I feel for my child, but I feel so much that I have come here to make so bold as to beg and pray you not to be scornful of us if you can do us any right or justice at this fearful time!" Lady Dedlock raises her without one word, until she takes the letter from her hand. "Am I to read this?" "When I am gone, my Lady, if you please, and then remembering the most that I consider possible." "I know of nothing I can do. I know of nothing I reserve that can affect your son. I have never accused him." "My Lady, you may pity him the more under a false accusation after reading the letter." The old housekeeper leaves her with the letter in her hand. In truth she is not a hard lady naturally, and the time has been when the sight of the venerable figure suing to her with such strong earnestness would have moved her to great compassion. But so long accustomed to suppress emotion and keep down reality, so long schooled for her own purposes in that destructive school which shuts up the natural feelings of the heart like flies in amber and spreads one uniform and dreary gloss over the good and bad, the feeling and the unfeeling, the sensible and the senseless, she had subdued even her wonder until now. She opens the letter. Spread out upon the paper is a printed account of the discovery of the body as it lay face downward on the floor, shot through the heart; and underneath is written her own name, with the word "murderess" attached. It falls out of her hand. How long it may have lain upon the ground she knows not, but it lies where it fell when a servant stands before her announcing the young man of the name of Guppy. The words have probably been repeated several times, for they are ringing in her head before she begins to understand them. "Let him come in!" He comes in. Holding the letter in her hand, which she has taken from the floor, she tries to collect her thoughts. In the eyes of Mr. Guppy she is the same Lady Dedlock, holding the same prepared, proud, chilling state. "Your ladyship may not be at first disposed to excuse this visit from one who has never been welcome to your ladyship"--which he don't complain of, for he is bound to confess that there never has been any particular reason on the face of things why he should be--"but I hope when I mention my motives to your ladyship you will not find fault with me," says Mr. Guppy. "Do so." "Thank your ladyship. I ought first to explain to your ladyship," Mr. Guppy sits on the edge of a chair and puts his hat on the carpet at his feet, "that Miss Summerson, whose image, as I formerly mentioned to your ladyship, was at one period of my life imprinted on my 'eart until erased by circumstances over which I had no control, communicated to me, after I had the pleasure of waiting on your ladyship last, that she particularly wished me to take no steps whatever in any manner at all relating to her. And Miss Summerson's wishes being to me a law (except as connected with circumstances over which I have no control), I consequently never expected to have the distinguished honour of waiting on your ladyship again." And yet he is here now, Lady Dedlock moodily reminds him. "And yet I am here now," Mr. Guppy admits. "My object being to communicate to your ladyship, under the seal of confidence, why I am here." He cannot do so, she tells him, too plainly or too briefly. "Nor can I," Mr. Guppy returns with a sense of injury upon him, "too particularly request your ladyship to take particular notice that it's no personal affair of mine that brings me here. I have no interested views of my own to serve in coming here. If it was not for my promise to Miss Summerson and my keeping of it sacred--I, in point of fact, shouldn't have darkened these doors again, but should have seen 'em further first." Mr. Guppy considers this a favourable moment for sticking up his hair with both hands. "Your ladyship will remember when I mention it that the last time I was here I run against a party very eminent in our profession and whose loss we all deplore. That party certainly did from that time apply himself to cutting in against me in a way that I will call sharp practice, and did make it, at every turn and point, extremely difficult for me to be sure that I hadn't inadvertently led up to something contrary to Miss Summerson's wishes. Self-praise is no recommendation, but I may say for myself that I am not so bad a man of business neither." Lady Dedlock looks at him in stern inquiry. Mr. Guppy immediately withdraws his eyes from her face and looks anywhere else. "Indeed, it has been made so hard," he goes on, "to have any idea what that party was up to in combination with others that until the loss which we all deplore I was gravelled--an expression which your ladyship, moving in the higher circles, will be so good as to consider tantamount to knocked over. Small likewise--a name by which I refer to another party, a friend of mine that your ladyship is not acquainted with--got to be so close and double-faced that at times it wasn't easy to keep one's hands off his 'ead. However, what with the exertion of my humble abilities, and what with the help of a mutual friend by the name of Mr. Tony Weevle (who is of a high aristocratic turn and has your ladyship's portrait always hanging up in his room), I have now reasons for an apprehension as to which I come to put your ladyship upon your guard. First, will your ladyship allow me to ask you whether you have had any strange visitors this morning? I don't mean fashionable visitors, but such visitors, for instance, as Miss Barbary's old servant, or as a person without the use of his lower extremities, carried upstairs similarly to a guy?" "No!" "Then I assure your ladyship that such visitors have been here and have been received here. Because I saw them at the door, and waited at the corner of the square till they came out, and took half an hour's turn afterwards to avoid them." "What have I to do with that, or what have you? I do not understand you. What do you mean?" "Your ladyship, I come to put you on your guard. There may be no occasion for it. Very well. Then I have only done my best to keep my promise to Miss Summerson. I strongly suspect (from what Small has dropped, and from what we have corkscrewed out of him) that those letters I was to have brought to your ladyship were not destroyed when I supposed they were. That if there was anything to be blown upon, it IS blown upon. That the visitors I have alluded to have been here this morning to make money of it. And that the money is made, or making." Mr. Guppy picks up his hat and rises. "Your ladyship, you know best whether there's anything in what I say or whether there's nothing. Something or nothing, I have acted up to Miss Summerson's wishes in letting things alone and in undoing what I had begun to do, as far as possible; that's sufficient for me. In case I should be taking a liberty in putting your ladyship on your guard when there's no necessity for it, you will endeavour, I should hope, to outlive my presumption, and I shall endeavour to outlive your disapprobation. I now take my farewell of your ladyship, and assure you that there's no danger of your ever being waited on by me again." She scarcely acknowledges these parting words by any look, but when he has been gone a little while, she rings her bell. "Where is Sir Leicester?" Mercury reports that he is at present shut up in the library alone. "Has Sir Leicester had any visitors this morning?" Several, on business. Mercury proceeds to a description of them, which has been anticipated by Mr. Guppy. Enough; he may go. So! All is broken down. Her name is in these many mouths, her husband knows his wrongs, her shame will be published--may be spreading while she thinks about it--and in addition to the thunderbolt so long foreseen by her, so unforeseen by him, she is denounced by an invisible accuser as the murderess of her enemy. Her enemy he was, and she has often, often, often wished him dead. Her enemy he is, even in his grave. This dreadful accusation comes upon her like a new torment at his lifeless hand. And when she recalls how she was secretly at his door that night, and how she may be represented to have sent her favourite girl away so soon before merely to release herself from observation, she shudders as if the hangman's hands were at her neck. She has thrown herself upon the floor and lies with her hair all wildly scattered and her face buried in the cushions of a couch. She rises up, hurries to and fro, flings herself down again, and rocks and moans. The horror that is upon her is unutterable. If she really were the murderess, it could hardly be, for the moment, more intense. For as her murderous perspective, before the doing of the deed, however subtle the precautions for its commission, would have been closed up by a gigantic dilatation of the hateful figure, preventing her from seeing any consequences beyond it; and as those consequences would have rushed in, in an unimagined flood, the moment the figure was laid low--which always happens when a murder is done; so, now she sees that when he used to be on the watch before her, and she used to think, "if some mortal stroke would but fall on this old man and take him from my way!" it was but wishing that all he held against her in his hand might be flung to the winds and chance-sown in many places. So, too, with the wicked relief she has felt in his death. What was his death but the key-stone of a gloomy arch removed, and now the arch begins to fall in a thousand fragments, each crushing and mangling piecemeal! Thus, a terrible impression steals upon and overshadows her that from this pursuer, living or dead--obdurate and imperturbable before her in his well-remembered shape, or not more obdurate and imperturbable in his coffin-bed--there is no escape but in death. Hunted, she flies. The complication of her shame, her dread, remorse, and misery, overwhelms her at its height; and even her strength of self-reliance is overturned and whirled away like a leaf before a mighty wind. She hurriedly addresses these lines to her husband, seals, and leaves them on her table: If I am sought for, or accused of, his murder, believe that I am wholly innocent. Believe no other good of me, for I am innocent of nothing else that you have heard, or will hear, laid to my charge. He prepared me, on that fatal night, for his disclosure of my guilt to you. After he had left me, I went out on pretence of walking in the garden where I sometimes walk, but really to follow him and make one last petition that he would not protract the dreadful suspense on which I have been racked by him, you do not know how long, but would mercifully strike next morning. I found his house dark and silent. I rang twice at his door, but there was no reply, and I came home. I have no home left. I will encumber you no more. May you, in your just resentment, be able to forget the unworthy woman on whom you have wasted a most generous devotion--who avoids you only with a deeper shame than that with which she hurries from herself--and who writes this last adieu. She veils and dresses quickly, leaves all her jewels and her money, listens, goes downstairs at a moment when the hall is empty, opens and shuts the great door, flutters away in the shrill frosty wind.

Inspector Bucket has not yet struck his great blow, as just now chronicled, but is still asleep, when through the night and along the freezing wintry roads a chaise and pair comes out of Lincolnshire, making its way towards London. Railroads shall soon traverse all this country, and with a rattle and glare the train shall shoot like a meteor over the wide night-landscape; but as yet such things are non-existent in these parts. Along the freezing roads, and through the night, the post-chaise makes its way without a railroad on its mind. Mrs. Rouncewell, housekeeper at Chesney Wold, sits within the chaise; and by her side sits Mrs. Bagnet with her grey cloak and umbrella. The old girl would prefer to be up in front, exposed to the weather, but Mrs. Rouncewell is too thoughtful of her comfort to propose it. The old lady cannot make enough of the old girl. She sits, in her stately manner, holding her hand, and puts it often to her lips. "You are a mother, my dear soul," says she, "and you found my George's mother!" "Why," returns Mrs. Bagnet, "when George said to my Woolwich that when he grew to be a man, he hoped he would have never brought a sorrowful line into his mother's face or turned a hair of her head grey, then I felt sure that something fresh had brought his own mother into his mind. He had often told me that he had behaved bad to her." "Never, my dear!" returns Mrs. Rouncewell, bursting into tears. "He was always loving to me, was my George! But he had a bold spirit, and he ran a little wild and went for a soldier. When he didn't rise to be an officer, I know he considered he had disgraced us. For he had a lion heart, had my George, always, from a baby!" The old lady recalls, all in a tremble, what a fine, likely lad he was; how they all took to him down at Chesney Wold; how Sir Leicester took to him; the dogs took to him; even the people who had been angry with him forgave him the moment he was gone, poor boy. And now to see him in a prison! The quaint, upright, old-fashioned figure bends under its load of affectionate distress. Mrs. Bagnet, with the instinctive skill of a good warm heart, leaves the old housekeeper to her emotions for a little while, and presently chirps up in her cheery manner. "So I says to George when I goes to call him in to tea, 'What ails you this afternoon, George? 'Why, Mrs. Bagnet,' says George, 'I am melancholy and penitent this afternoon. If I ever get to heaven it won't be for being a good son to a widowed mother; I say no more.' Now, ma'am, I draw it out of George how he comes to have such things on his mind. Then George tells me that he has seen by chance, at the lawyer's office, a fine old lady that has brought his mother plain before him. So I says to George, who is this old lady? And George tells me it's Mrs. Rouncewell, housekeeper for half a century to the Dedlock family down at Chesney Wold in Lincolnshire. George is a Lincolnshire man, and I says to my old Lignum that night, 'Lignum, that's his mother for five and forty pound!'" "Bless you, and thank you," says Mrs. Rouncewell. "No thanks to me, I am sure!" cries Mrs. Bagnet. "Mind, ma'am, what you had best do is to make George have every sort of help to clear himself of a charge of which he is innocent. It won't do to have truth and justice on his side; he must have lawyers," exclaims the old girl, apparently persuaded that the latter have dissolved partnership with truth and justice for ever. "He shall have all the help that can be got for him, my dear," says Mrs. Rouncewell. "I will thankfully spend all I have to get it. Sir Leicester will do his best, the whole family will do their best. I - I know something, my dear; and will make my own appeal, as his mother." The extreme disquietude of the old housekeeper in saying this, her broken words, and her wringing of her hands make a powerful impression on Mrs. Bagnet, but she assumes they are through sorrow for her son's condition. And yet Mrs. Bagnet wonders why Mrs. Rouncewell should murmur so distractedly, "My Lady, my Lady!" over and over again. The frosty night wears away, and the dawn breaks, and the post-chaise comes rolling on through the early mist. The travellers reach London and alight. When they set out for the prison, the old lady looks staid and calm again, although her heart beats fast. Approaching the cell, they find a warder coming out. He allows them to enter and shuts the door. So George, who is writing at his table, supposing himself to be alone, does not raise his eyes. The old housekeeper looks at him. Only her fluttering hands give utterance to her emotions. But they are very eloquent. Mrs. Bagnet understands them. They speak of gratitude, of joy, of grief, of hope; of a better son loved less, and this son loved so fondly and so proudly; and Mrs. Bagnet's eyes brim up with tears. "George Rouncewell! Oh, my dear child, turn and look at me!" The trooper starts up, clasps his mother round the neck, and falls down on his knees before her. He puts his hands together as a child does when it says its prayers, and raising them towards her breast, bows down his head, and cries. "My George, my dearest son! Always my favourite, where have you been these cruel years? Grown such a fine strong man, too, as I knew you must be, if it pleased God you were alive!" They can say nothing for a time. Mrs. Bagnet wipes her eyes with her serviceable grey cloak, and quite enjoys herself like the best of old girls she is. "Mother," says the trooper when they are more composed, "forgive me." Forgive him! She does it with all her heart and soul. She has always done it. He has always been her beloved son George. "Mother, I have been a trouble to you, and I have my reward. When I left home I didn't care much, mother - I enlisted making believe that I cared for nobody, no not I, and that nobody cared for me." The trooper has dried his eyes, but speaks with an occasional half-stifled sob. "So I wrote a line home, mother, as you know, to say I had enlisted under another name, and I went abroad. I always thought I would write home next year, when I might be better off; and when that year was done, the next year. So on, from year to year, till I began to get older, and to ask myself why I should ever write." "Not to ease my mind, George? Not a word to your loving mother, who was growing older too?" This almost overturns the trooper afresh. He clears his throat. "Heaven forgive me, mother, but I thought there would be small consolation then in hearing anything about me. I read in the papers now and then that my brother was becoming prosperous and famous. There was I, a roving dragoon, all my advantages thrown away, all my little learning unlearnt. What business had I to make myself known? What good could come of it? The worst was past with you, mother. I knew by that time how you had mourned for me, and wept for me, and prayed for me; and the pain was over, or was softened, and I was better in your mind as it was." The old lady sorrowfully shakes her head. "I don't say that it was so, mother, but that I made it out to be so. How could you respect an idle dragooning chap who was a discredit to himself? How could I look my brother's children in the face and pretend to set them an example?" Mrs. Rouncewell glances at the old girl with knowing pride. The old girl relieves her feelings by giving the trooper a great poke between the shoulders with her umbrella. "This was the way I brought myself to think, mother, that I had best lie upon that bed I had made, and die upon it. And I should have done it but for my old comrade's wife here. But I thank her. Thank you, Mrs. Bagnet, with all my heart." To which Mrs. Bagnet responds with two pokes. And now the old lady tells her son George, her own dear recovered boy, her joy and pride, the light of her eyes, that he must yield up his case to the greatest lawyers that can be got, that he must not be self-willed, but must promise to think only of his poor old mother's anxiety and suffering until he is released, or he will break her heart. "Mother," returns the trooper, stopping her with a kiss; "tell me what I shall do, and I'll do it. Mrs. Bagnet, you'll take care of my mother, I know?" A very hard poke from the old girl's umbrella. "If you'll acquaint her with Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson, they will give her the best advice and assistance." "And, George," says the old lady, "we must send for your brother. He is a sensible sound man, as they tell me, out in the world beyond Chesney Wold, my dear, though I don't know much of it myself." "Mother," returns the trooper, "grant me one great favour. Don't let my brother know of me. I can't bear it; he has proved himself so different from me and has done so much to raise himself while I've been soldiering that I can't see him here, under this charge. Keep my secret from him, mother." "But not always, dear George?" "Why, mother, perhaps not for always, but for now, I entreat you. If it's ever broke to him that his rip of a brother has turned up, I don't know how he would react," says the trooper, shaking his head very doubtfully. His mother yields to what he asks, and he thanks her kindly. "In all other respects, my dear mother, I'll be as obedient as you can wish. I am ready even now for the lawyers. I have been drawing up," he glances at his writing on the table, "an exact account of what I knew of the deceased and how I came to be involved in this unfortunate affair. It's plain and regular; not a word in it but the facts. I intended to read it when I was called upon to speak in my defence." Time passing, Mrs. Bagnet proposes a departure. Again and again the old lady hangs upon her son's neck, and again and again the trooper holds her to his broad chest. "I am going to the town house, my dear, the family house," Mrs. Rouncewell says. "Will you see my mother safe there, Mrs. Bagnet? Take my gratitude along with you, and I wish it was ten thousand pound in gold, my dear!" So saying, the trooper puts his lips to the old girl's tanned forehead, and the door shuts upon him in his cell. They take a coach to the Dedlock mansion; where, jumping out cheerfully and handing Mrs. Rouncewell up the steps, the old girl shakes hands and trudges off to the bosom of her own family. My Lady is in the room in which she held her last conference with the murdered man, and is looking at the spot where he stood upon the hearth, when a tap comes at the door. It is Mrs. Rouncewell. What has brought Mrs. Rouncewell to town so unexpectedly? "Trouble, my Lady. Sad trouble. Oh, my Lady, may I beg a word with you?" What makes this tranquil old woman tremble so? Why does she falter in this manner and look at Lady Dedlock with such strange mistrust? "What is the matter? Sit down and take your breath." "Oh, my Lady, my Lady. I have found my son - my youngest, who went away for a soldier so long ago. And he is in prison." "What for?" "Charged with a murder, my Lady, of which he is as innocent as I am. Accused of the murder of Mr. Tulkinghorn." What does she mean by this look and this imploring gesture? Why does she come so close? What is the letter that she holds? "Lady Dedlock, my dear Lady, my kind Lady! You must have a heart to feel for me. I was in this family before you were born. I am devoted to it. But think of my dear son wrongfully accused." "I do not accuse him." "No, my Lady, no. But others do, and he is in prison and in danger. Oh, Lady Dedlock, if you can say but a word to help to clear him, say it!" What delusion can this be? What power does she suppose her Lady has? Her Lady's handsome eyes regard her with astonishment, almost with fear. "My Lady, when I came away last night from Chesney Wold, the step upon the Ghost's Walk was so constant that I never heard the like in all these years. Night after night, as it has fallen dark, the sound has echoed through your rooms, but last night it was awfullest. And as it fell dark last night, my Lady, I got this letter." "What letter?" "Hush! Hush!" The housekeeper looks round and answers in a frightened whisper, "My Lady, I have not breathed a word of it, I don't believe what's written in it, I am certain that it is not true. But my son is in danger, and you must have a heart to pity me. If you know anything that is not known to others, if you have any clue at all, and any reason for keeping it in your own breast, oh, my dear Lady, think of me, and let it be known! Pray, oh, pray, think of your faithful servant, and help to clear my son! My Lady, I pray you not to be scornful of us if you can do us any justice at this fearful time!" Lady Dedlock takes the letter from her hand. "Am I to read this?" "When I am gone, my Lady, if you please." "I know of nothing I keep back that can affect your son. I have never accused him." The old housekeeper leaves her with the letter in her hand. In truth she is not a hard lady naturally. But she is long accustomed to suppress emotion, long schooled to shut up the natural feelings of the heart like flies in amber. She opens the letter. Spread out upon the paper is a printed account of the discovery of the body as it lay face downward on the floor; and underneath is written her own name, with the word "murderess" attached. It falls out of her hand. How long it may have lain upon the ground she knows not, but it lies where it fell when a servant stands before her announcing the young man of the name of Guppy. "Let him come in!" He comes in. Holding the letter, which she has picked up, she tries to collect her thoughts. In Mr. Guppy's eyes she is the same proud, chilling Lady Dedlock. "Your ladyship may not be at first disposed to excuse this visit, but I hope when I mention my motives your ladyship will not find fault with me," says Mr. Guppy. "Do so." "Thank your ladyship. I ought to explain," Mr. Guppy sits on the edge of a chair, "that Miss Summerson, whose image was at one period of my life imprinted on my 'eart until erased by circumstances over which I had no control, told me recently that she particularly wished me to take no steps in any manner relating to her. And Miss Summerson's wishes being to me a law, I consequently never expected to have the honour of waiting on your ladyship again." And yet he is here now, Lady Dedlock moodily reminds him. "And yet I am here now," Mr. Guppy admits. "But it is no personal affair of mine that brings me here. If it was not for my promise to Miss Summerson, I shouldn't have darkened these doors again." Mr. Guppy considers this a favourable moment for sticking up his hair with both hands. "Your ladyship may remember that the last time I was here I run against a party very eminent in our profession whose loss we all deplore. That party certainly did from that time cut in against me in a way that I will call sharp practice. Indeed, it has been so hard to have any idea what that party was up to that I was gravelled. However, with the exertion of my humble abilities, and with the help of a friend by the name of Mr. Tony Weevle, I have now reasons for an apprehension as to which I come to put your ladyship upon your guard. First, may I ask your ladyship whether you have had any strange visitors this morning?" "No!" "Then I assure your ladyship that such visitors have been here, because I saw them at the door, and took time to avoid them." "I do not understand you. What do you mean?" "Your ladyship, I strongly suspect that those letters I was to have brought to your ladyship were not destroyed when I supposed they were. That if there was anything to be blown open, it is blown upon. That the visitors I mentioned have been here this morning to make money of it." Mr. Guppy rises. "Your ladyship, I have followed Miss Summerson's wishes in letting things alone and in undoing what I had begun to do. I now take my farewell of your ladyship, and assure you that there's no danger of your ever being waited on by me again." When he has been gone a little while, she rings her bell. "Where is Sir Leicester?" The footman reports that he is shut up in the library alone. "Has he had any visitors this morning?" Several, on business. So! All is broken down. Her husband knows his wrongs, her shame will be published - may be spreading now - and in addition to the thunderbolt so long foreseen by her, she is denounced by an invisible accuser as the murderess of her enemy. Mr. Tulkinghorn was her enemy, and she has often wished him dead. This dreadful accusation comes upon her like a new torment at his lifeless hand. And when she recalls how she was secretly at his door that night, she shudders as if the hangman's hands were at her neck. She hurries to and fro, flings herself down upon the couch, and rocks and moans. The horror that is upon her is unutterable. If she really were the murderess, it could hardly be more intense. Although she felt a wicked relief in the death of her enemy, what was it but the key-stone of a gloomy arch removed, and now the arch begins to fall in a thousand fragments! Thus, a terrible impression steals upon her that there is no escape except in death. Her shame, her dread, remorse, and misery, overwhelm her; and even her strength of self-reliance is overturned and whirled away like a leaf before a mighty wind. She hurriedly addresses this note to her husband, seals it, and leaves it on her table: "If I am sought for, or accused of, his murder, believe that I am wholly innocent. Believe no other good of me, for I am innocent of nothing else that you have heard. He prepared me, on that fatal night, for his disclosure of my guilt to you. After he had left me, I went out to follow him and make one last petition that he would not protract the dreadful suspense on which I have been racked by him - you do not know how long - but would mercifully strike next morning. "I found his house dark and silent. I rang twice at his door, but there was no reply, and I came home. "I have no home left. I will encumber you no more. May you, in your just resentment, be able to forget the unworthy woman on whom you have wasted a most generous devotion - who feels deep shame - and who writes this last adieu." She dresses quickly, leaves all her jewels and her money, listens, goes downstairs at a moment when the hall is empty, opens and shuts the great door, and flutters away in the shrill frosty wind.

Bleak House

Chapter 55: Flight

Charley and I did not set off alone upon our expedition into Lincolnshire. My guardian had made up his mind not to lose sight of me until I was safe in Mr. Boythorn's house, so he accompanied us, and we were two days upon the road. I found every breath of air, and every scent, and every flower and leaf and blade of grass, and every passing cloud, and everything in nature, more beautiful and wonderful to me than I had ever found it yet. This was my first gain from my illness. How little I had lost, when the wide world was so full of delight for me. My guardian intending to go back immediately, we appointed, on our way down, a day when my dear girl should come. I wrote her a letter, of which he took charge, and he left us within half an hour of our arrival at our destination, on a delightful evening in the early summer-time. If a good fairy had built the house for me with a wave of her wand, and I had been a princess and her favoured god-child, I could not have been more considered in it. So many preparations were made for me and such an endearing remembrance was shown of all my little tastes and likings that I could have sat down, overcome, a dozen times before I had revisited half the rooms. I did better than that, however, by showing them all to Charley instead. Charley's delight calmed mine; and after we had had a walk in the garden, and Charley had exhausted her whole vocabulary of admiring expressions, I was as tranquilly happy as I ought to have been. It was a great comfort to be able to say to myself after tea, "Esther, my dear, I think you are quite sensible enough to sit down now and write a note of thanks to your host." He had left a note of welcome for me, as sunny as his own face, and had confided his bird to my care, which I knew to be his highest mark of confidence. Accordingly I wrote a little note to him in London, telling him how all his favourite plants and trees were looking, and how the most astonishing of birds had chirped the honours of the house to me in the most hospitable manner, and how, after singing on my shoulder, to the inconceivable rapture of my little maid, he was then at roost in the usual corner of his cage, but whether dreaming or no I could not report. My note finished and sent off to the post, I made myself very busy in unpacking and arranging; and I sent Charley to bed in good time and told her I should want her no more that night. For I had not yet looked in the glass and had never asked to have my own restored to me. I knew this to be a weakness which must be overcome, but I had always said to myself that I would begin afresh when I got to where I now was. Therefore I had wanted to be alone, and therefore I said, now alone, in my own room, "Esther, if you are to be happy, if you are to have any right to pray to be true-hearted, you must keep your word, my dear." I was quite resolved to keep it, but I sat down for a little while first to reflect upon all my blessings. And then I said my prayers and thought a little more. My hair had not been cut off, though it had been in danger more than once. It was long and thick. I let it down, and shook it out, and went up to the glass upon the dressing-table. There was a little muslin curtain drawn across it. I drew it back and stood for a moment looking through such a veil of my own hair that I could see nothing else. Then I put my hair aside and looked at the reflection in the mirror, encouraged by seeing how placidly it looked at me. I was very much changed--oh, very, very much. At first my face was so strange to me that I think I should have put my hands before it and started back but for the encouragement I have mentioned. Very soon it became more familiar, and then I knew the extent of the alteration in it better than I had done at first. It was not like what I had expected, but I had expected nothing definite, and I dare say anything definite would have surprised me. I had never been a beauty and had never thought myself one, but I had been very different from this. It was all gone now. Heaven was so good to me that I could let it go with a few not bitter tears and could stand there arranging my hair for the night quite thankfully. One thing troubled me, and I considered it for a long time before I went to sleep. I had kept Mr. Woodcourt's flowers. When they were withered I had dried them and put them in a book that I was fond of. Nobody knew this, not even Ada. I was doubtful whether I had a right to preserve what he had sent to one so different--whether it was generous towards him to do it. I wished to be generous to him, even in the secret depths of my heart, which he would never know, because I could have loved him--could have been devoted to him. At last I came to the conclusion that I might keep them if I treasured them only as a remembrance of what was irrevocably past and gone, never to be looked back on any more, in any other light. I hope this may not seem trivial. I was very much in earnest. I took care to be up early in the morning and to be before the glass when Charley came in on tiptoe. "Dear, dear, miss!" cried Charley, starting. "Is that you?" "Yes, Charley," said I, quietly putting up my hair. "And I am very well indeed, and very happy." I saw it was a weight off Charley's mind, but it was a greater weight off mine. I knew the worst now and was composed to it. I shall not conceal, as I go on, the weaknesses I could not quite conquer, but they always passed from me soon and the happier frame of mind stayed by me faithfully. Wishing to be fully re-established in my strength and my good spirits before Ada came, I now laid down a little series of plans with Charley for being in the fresh air all day long. We were to be out before breakfast, and were to dine early, and were to be out again before and after dinner, and were to talk in the garden after tea, and were to go to rest betimes, and were to climb every hill and explore every road, lane, and field in the neighbourhood. As to restoratives and strengthening delicacies, Mr. Boythorn's good housekeeper was for ever trotting about with something to eat or drink in her hand; I could not even be heard of as resting in the park but she would come trotting after me with a basket, her cheerful face shining with a lecture on the importance of frequent nourishment. Then there was a pony expressly for my riding, a chubby pony with a short neck and a mane all over his eyes who could canter--when he would--so easily and quietly that he was a treasure. In a very few days he would come to me in the paddock when I called him, and eat out of my hand, and follow me about. We arrived at such a capital understanding that when he was jogging with me lazily, and rather obstinately, down some shady lane, if I patted his neck and said, "Stubbs, I am surprised you don't canter when you know how much I like it; and I think you might oblige me, for you are only getting stupid and going to sleep," he would give his head a comical shake or two and set off directly, while Charley would stand still and laugh with such enjoyment that her laughter was like music. I don't know who had given Stubbs his name, but it seemed to belong to him as naturally as his rough coat. Once we put him in a little chaise and drove him triumphantly through the green lanes for five miles; but all at once, as we were extolling him to the skies, he seemed to take it ill that he should have been accompanied so far by the circle of tantalizing little gnats that had been hovering round and round his ears the whole way without appearing to advance an inch, and stopped to think about it. I suppose he came to the decision that it was not to be borne, for he steadily refused to move until I gave the reins to Charley and got out and walked, when he followed me with a sturdy sort of good humour, putting his head under my arm and rubbing his ear against my sleeve. It was in vain for me to say, "Now, Stubbs, I feel quite sure from what I know of you that you will go on if I ride a little while," for the moment I left him, he stood stock still again. Consequently I was obliged to lead the way, as before; and in this order we returned home, to the great delight of the village. Charley and I had reason to call it the most friendly of villages, I am sure, for in a week's time the people were so glad to see us go by, though ever so frequently in the course of a day, that there were faces of greeting in every cottage. I had known many of the grown people before and almost all the children, but now the very steeple began to wear a familiar and affectionate look. Among my new friends was an old old woman who lived in such a little thatched and whitewashed dwelling that when the outside shutter was turned up on its hinges, it shut up the whole house-front. This old lady had a grandson who was a sailor, and I wrote a letter to him for her and drew at the top of it the chimney-corner in which she had brought him up and where his old stool yet occupied its old place. This was considered by the whole village the most wonderful achievement in the world, but when an answer came back all the way from Plymouth, in which he mentioned that he was going to take the picture all the way to America, and from America would write again, I got all the credit that ought to have been given to the post-office and was invested with the merit of the whole system. Thus, what with being so much in the air, playing with so many children, gossiping with so many people, sitting on invitation in so many cottages, going on with Charley's education, and writing long letters to Ada every day, I had scarcely any time to think about that little loss of mine and was almost always cheerful. If I did think of it at odd moments now and then, I had only to be busy and forget it. I felt it more than I had hoped I should once when a child said, "Mother, why is the lady not a pretty lady now like she used to be?" But when I found the child was not less fond of me, and drew its soft hand over my face with a kind of pitying protection in its touch, that soon set me up again. There were many little occurrences which suggested to me, with great consolation, how natural it is to gentle hearts to be considerate and delicate towards any inferiority. One of these particularly touched me. I happened to stroll into the little church when a marriage was just concluded, and the young couple had to sign the register. The bridegroom, to whom the pen was handed first, made a rude cross for his mark; the bride, who came next, did the same. Now, I had known the bride when I was last there, not only as the prettiest girl in the place, but as having quite distinguished herself in the school, and I could not help looking at her with some surprise. She came aside and whispered to me, while tears of honest love and admiration stood in her bright eyes, "He's a dear good fellow, miss; but he can't write yet--he's going to learn of me--and I wouldn't shame him for the world!" Why, what had I to fear, I thought, when there was this nobility in the soul of a labouring man's daughter! The air blew as freshly and revivingly upon me as it had ever blown, and the healthy colour came into my new face as it had come into my old one. Charley was wonderful to see, she was so radiant and so rosy; and we both enjoyed the whole day and slept soundly the whole night. There was a favourite spot of mine in the park-woods of Chesney Wold where a seat had been erected commanding a lovely view. The wood had been cleared and opened to improve this point of sight, and the bright sunny landscape beyond was so beautiful that I rested there at least once every day. A picturesque part of the Hall, called the Ghost's Walk, was seen to advantage from this higher ground; and the startling name, and the old legend in the Dedlock family which I had heard from Mr. Boythorn accounting for it, mingled with the view and gave it something of a mysterious interest in addition to its real charms. There was a bank here, too, which was a famous one for violets; and as it was a daily delight of Charley's to gather wild flowers, she took as much to the spot as I did. It would be idle to inquire now why I never went close to the house or never went inside it. The family were not there, I had heard on my arrival, and were not expected. I was far from being incurious or uninterested about the building; on the contrary, I often sat in this place wondering how the rooms ranged and whether any echo like a footstep really did resound at times, as the story said, upon the lonely Ghost's Walk. The indefinable feeling with which Lady Dedlock had impressed me may have had some influence in keeping me from the house even when she was absent. I am not sure. Her face and figure were associated with it, naturally; but I cannot say that they repelled me from it, though something did. For whatever reason or no reason, I had never once gone near it, down to the day at which my story now arrives. I was resting at my favourite point after a long ramble, and Charley was gathering violets at a little distance from me. I had been looking at the Ghost's Walk lying in a deep shade of masonry afar off and picturing to myself the female shape that was said to haunt it when I became aware of a figure approaching through the wood. The perspective was so long and so darkened by leaves, and the shadows of the branches on the ground made it so much more intricate to the eye, that at first I could not discern what figure it was. By little and little it revealed itself to be a woman's--a lady's--Lady Dedlock's. She was alone and coming to where I sat with a much quicker step, I observed to my surprise, than was usual with her. I was fluttered by her being unexpectedly so near (she was almost within speaking distance before I knew her) and would have risen to continue my walk. But I could not. I was rendered motionless. Not so much by her hurried gesture of entreaty, not so much by her quick advance and outstretched hands, not so much by the great change in her manner and the absence of her haughty self-restraint, as by a something in her face that I had pined for and dreamed of when I was a little child, something I had never seen in any face, something I had never seen in hers before. A dread and faintness fell upon me, and I called to Charley. Lady Dedlock stopped upon the instant and changed back almost to what I had known her. "Miss Summerson, I am afraid I have startled you," she said, now advancing slowly. "You can scarcely be strong yet. You have been very ill, I know. I have been much concerned to hear it." I could no more have removed my eyes from her pale face than I could have stirred from the bench on which I sat. She gave me her hand, and its deadly coldness, so at variance with the enforced composure of her features, deepened the fascination that overpowered me. I cannot say what was in my whirling thoughts. "You are recovering again?" she asked kindly. "I was quite well but a moment ago, Lady Dedlock." "Is this your young attendant?" "Yes." "Will you send her on before and walk towards your house with me?" "Charley," said I, "take your flowers home, and I will follow you directly." Charley, with her best curtsy, blushingly tied on her bonnet and went her way. When she was gone, Lady Dedlock sat down on the seat beside me. I cannot tell in any words what the state of my mind was when I saw in her hand my handkerchief with which I had covered the dead baby. I looked at her, but I could not see her, I could not hear her, I could not draw my breath. The beating of my heart was so violent and wild that I felt as if my life were breaking from me. But when she caught me to her breast, kissed me, wept over me, compassionated me, and called me back to myself; when she fell down on her knees and cried to me, "Oh, my child, my child, I am your wicked and unhappy mother! Oh, try to forgive me!"--when I saw her at my feet on the bare earth in her great agony of mind, I felt, through all my tumult of emotion, a burst of gratitude to the providence of God that I was so changed as that I never could disgrace her by any trace of likeness, as that nobody could ever now look at me and look at her and remotely think of any near tie between us. I raised my mother up, praying and beseeching her not to stoop before me in such affliction and humiliation. I did so in broken, incoherent words, for besides the trouble I was in, it frightened me to see her at MY feet. I told her--or I tried to tell her--that if it were for me, her child, under any circumstances to take upon me to forgive her, I did it, and had done it, many, many years. I told her that my heart overflowed with love for her, that it was natural love which nothing in the past had changed or could change. That it was not for me, then resting for the first time on my mother's bosom, to take her to account for having given me life, but that my duty was to bless her and receive her, though the whole world turned from her, and that I only asked her leave to do it. I held my mother in my embrace, and she held me in hers, and among the still woods in the silence of the summer day there seemed to be nothing but our two troubled minds that was not at peace. "To bless and receive me," groaned my mother, "it is far too late. I must travel my dark road alone, and it will lead me where it will. From day to day, sometimes from hour to hour, I do not see the way before my guilty feet. This is the earthly punishment I have brought upon myself. I bear it, and I hide it." Even in the thinking of her endurance, she drew her habitual air of proud indifference about her like a veil, though she soon cast it off again. "I must keep this secret, if by any means it can be kept, not wholly for myself. I have a husband, wretched and dishonouring creature that I am!" These words she uttered with a suppressed cry of despair, more terrible in its sound than any shriek. Covering her face with her hands, she shrank down in my embrace as if she were unwilling that I should touch her; nor could I, by my utmost persuasions or by any endearments I could use, prevail upon her to rise. She said, no, no, no, she could only speak to me so; she must be proud and disdainful everywhere else; she would be humbled and ashamed there, in the only natural moments of her life. My unhappy mother told me that in my illness she had been nearly frantic. She had but then known that her child was living. She could not have suspected me to be that child before. She had followed me down here to speak to me but once in all her life. We never could associate, never could communicate, never probably from that time forth could interchange another word on earth. She put into my hands a letter she had written for my reading only and said when I had read it and destroyed it--but not so much for her sake, since she asked nothing, as for her husband's and my own--I must evermore consider her as dead. If I could believe that she loved me, in this agony in which I saw her, with a mother's love, she asked me to do that, for then I might think of her with a greater pity, imagining what she suffered. She had put herself beyond all hope and beyond all help. Whether she preserved her secret until death or it came to be discovered and she brought dishonour and disgrace upon the name she had taken, it was her solitary struggle always; and no affection could come near her, and no human creature could render her any aid. "But is the secret safe so far?" I asked. "Is it safe now, dearest mother?" "No," replied my mother. "It has been very near discovery. It was saved by an accident. It may be lost by another accident--to-morrow, any day." "Do you dread a particular person?" "Hush! Do not tremble and cry so much for me. I am not worthy of these tears," said my mother, kissing my hands. "I dread one person very much." "An enemy?" "Not a friend. One who is too passionless to be either. He is Sir Leicester Dedlock's lawyer, mechanically faithful without attachment, and very jealous of the profit, privilege, and reputation of being master of the mysteries of great houses." "Has he any suspicions?" "Many." "Not of you?" I said alarmed. "Yes! He is always vigilant and always near me. I may keep him at a standstill, but I can never shake him off." "Has he so little pity or compunction?" "He has none, and no anger. He is indifferent to everything but his calling. His calling is the acquisition of secrets and the holding possession of such power as they give him, with no sharer or opponent in it." "Could you trust in him?" "I shall never try. The dark road I have trodden for so many years will end where it will. I follow it alone to the end, whatever the end be. It may be near, it may be distant; while the road lasts, nothing turns me." "Dear mother, are you so resolved?" "I AM resolved. I have long outbidden folly with folly, pride with pride, scorn with scorn, insolence with insolence, and have outlived many vanities with many more. I will outlive this danger, and outdie it, if I can. It has closed around me almost as awfully as if these woods of Chesney Wold had closed around the house, but my course through it is the same. I have but one; I can have but one." "Mr. Jarndyce--" I was beginning when my mother hurriedly inquired, "Does HE suspect?" "No," said I. "No, indeed! Be assured that he does not!" And I told her what he had related to me as his knowledge of my story. "But he is so good and sensible," said I, "that perhaps if he knew--" My mother, who until this time had made no change in her position, raised her hand up to my lips and stopped me. "Confide fully in him," she said after a little while. "You have my free consent--a small gift from such a mother to her injured child!--but do not tell me of it. Some pride is left in me even yet." I explained, as nearly as I could then, or can recall now--for my agitation and distress throughout were so great that I scarcely understood myself, though every word that was uttered in the mother's voice, so unfamiliar and so melancholy to me, which in my childhood I had never learned to love and recognize, had never been sung to sleep with, had never heard a blessing from, had never had a hope inspired by, made an enduring impression on my memory--I say I explained, or tried to do it, how I had only hoped that Mr. Jarndyce, who had been the best of fathers to me, might be able to afford some counsel and support to her. But my mother answered no, it was impossible; no one could help her. Through the desert that lay before her, she must go alone. "My child, my child!" she said. "For the last time! These kisses for the last time! These arms upon my neck for the last time! We shall meet no more. To hope to do what I seek to do, I must be what I have been so long. Such is my reward and doom. If you hear of Lady Dedlock, brilliant, prosperous, and flattered, think of your wretched mother, conscience-stricken, underneath that mask! Think that the reality is in her suffering, in her useless remorse, in her murdering within her breast the only love and truth of which it is capable! And then forgive her if you can, and cry to heaven to forgive her, which it never can!" We held one another for a little space yet, but she was so firm that she took my hands away, and put them back against my breast, and with a last kiss as she held them there, released them, and went from me into the wood. I was alone, and calm and quiet below me in the sun and shade lay the old house, with its terraces and turrets, on which there had seemed to me to be such complete repose when I first saw it, but which now looked like the obdurate and unpitying watcher of my mother's misery. Stunned as I was, as weak and helpless at first as I had ever been in my sick chamber, the necessity of guarding against the danger of discovery, or even of the remotest suspicion, did me service. I took such precautions as I could to hide from Charley that I had been crying, and I constrained myself to think of every sacred obligation that there was upon me to be careful and collected. It was not a little while before I could succeed or could even restrain bursts of grief, but after an hour or so I was better and felt that I might return. I went home very slowly and told Charley, whom I found at the gate looking for me, that I had been tempted to extend my walk after Lady Dedlock had left me and that I was over-tired and would lie down. Safe in my own room, I read the letter. I clearly derived from it--and that was much then--that I had not been abandoned by my mother. Her elder and only sister, the godmother of my childhood, discovering signs of life in me when I had been laid aside as dead, had in her stern sense of duty, with no desire or willingness that I should live, reared me in rigid secrecy and had never again beheld my mother's face from within a few hours of my birth. So strangely did I hold my place in this world that until within a short time back I had never, to my own mother's knowledge, breathed--had been buried--had never been endowed with life--had never borne a name. When she had first seen me in the church she had been startled and had thought of what would have been like me if it had ever lived, and had lived on, but that was all then. What more the letter told me needs not to be repeated here. It has its own times and places in my story. My first care was to burn what my mother had written and to consume even its ashes. I hope it may not appear very unnatural or bad in me that I then became heavily sorrowful to think I had ever been reared. That I felt as if I knew it would have been better and happier for many people if indeed I had never breathed. That I had a terror of myself as the danger and the possible disgrace of my own mother and of a proud family name. That I was so confused and shaken as to be possessed by a belief that it was right and had been intended that I should die in my birth, and that it was wrong and not intended that I should be then alive. These are the real feelings that I had. I fell asleep worn out, and when I awoke I cried afresh to think that I was back in the world with my load of trouble for others. I was more than ever frightened of myself, thinking anew of her against whom I was a witness, of the owner of Chesney Wold, of the new and terrible meaning of the old words now moaning in my ear like a surge upon the shore, "Your mother, Esther, was your disgrace, and you are hers. The time will come--and soon enough--when you will understand this better, and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can." With them, those other words returned, "Pray daily that the sins of others be not visited upon your head." I could not disentangle all that was about me, and I felt as if the blame and the shame were all in me, and the visitation had come down. The day waned into a gloomy evening, overcast and sad, and I still contended with the same distress. I went out alone, and after walking a little in the park, watching the dark shades falling on the trees and the fitful flight of the bats, which sometimes almost touched me, was attracted to the house for the first time. Perhaps I might not have gone near it if I had been in a stronger frame of mind. As it was, I took the path that led close by it. I did not dare to linger or to look up, but I passed before the terrace garden with its fragrant odours, and its broad walks, and its well-kept beds and smooth turf; and I saw how beautiful and grave it was, and how the old stone balustrades and parapets, and wide flights of shallow steps, were seamed by time and weather; and how the trained moss and ivy grew about them, and around the old stone pedestal of the sun-dial; and I heard the fountain falling. Then the way went by long lines of dark windows diversified by turreted towers and porches of eccentric shapes, where old stone lions and grotesque monsters bristled outside dens of shadow and snarled at the evening gloom over the escutcheons they held in their grip. Thence the path wound underneath a gateway, and through a court-yard where the principal entrance was (I hurried quickly on), and by the stables where none but deep voices seemed to be, whether in the murmuring of the wind through the strong mass of ivy holding to a high red wall, or in the low complaining of the weathercock, or in the barking of the dogs, or in the slow striking of a clock. So, encountering presently a sweet smell of limes, whose rustling I could hear, I turned with the turning of the path to the south front, and there above me were the balustrades of the Ghost's Walk and one lighted window that might be my mother's. The way was paved here, like the terrace overhead, and my footsteps from being noiseless made an echoing sound upon the flags. Stopping to look at nothing, but seeing all I did see as I went, I was passing quickly on, and in a few moments should have passed the lighted window, when my echoing footsteps brought it suddenly into my mind that there was a dreadful truth in the legend of the Ghost's Walk, that it was I who was to bring calamity upon the stately house and that my warning feet were haunting it even then. Seized with an augmented terror of myself which turned me cold, I ran from myself and everything, retraced the way by which I had come, and never paused until I had gained the lodge-gate, and the park lay sullen and black behind me. Not before I was alone in my own room for the night and had again been dejected and unhappy there did I begin to know how wrong and thankless this state was. But from my darling who was coming on the morrow, I found a joyful letter, full of such loving anticipation that I must have been of marble if it had not moved me; from my guardian, too, I found another letter, asking me to tell Dame Durden, if I should see that little woman anywhere, that they had moped most pitiably without her, that the housekeeping was going to rack and ruin, that nobody else could manage the keys, and that everybody in and about the house declared it was not the same house and was becoming rebellious for her return. Two such letters together made me think how far beyond my deserts I was beloved and how happy I ought to be. That made me think of all my past life; and that brought me, as it ought to have done before, into a better condition. For I saw very well that I could not have been intended to die, or I should never have lived; not to say should never have been reserved for such a happy life. I saw very well how many things had worked together for my welfare, and that if the sins of the fathers were sometimes visited upon the children, the phrase did not mean what I had in the morning feared it meant. I knew I was as innocent of my birth as a queen of hers and that before my Heavenly Father I should not be punished for birth nor a queen rewarded for it. I had had experience, in the shock of that very day, that I could, even thus soon, find comforting reconcilements to the change that had fallen on me. I renewed my resolutions and prayed to be strengthened in them, pouring out my heart for myself and for my unhappy mother and feeling that the darkness of the morning was passing away. It was not upon my sleep; and when the next day's light awoke me, it was gone. My dear girl was to arrive at five o'clock in the afternoon. How to help myself through the intermediate time better than by taking a long walk along the road by which she was to come, I did not know; so Charley and I and Stubbs--Stubbs saddled, for we never drove him after the one great occasion--made a long expedition along that road and back. On our return, we held a great review of the house and garden and saw that everything was in its prettiest condition, and had the bird out ready as an important part of the establishment. There were more than two full hours yet to elapse before she could come, and in that interval, which seemed a long one, I must confess I was nervously anxious about my altered looks. I loved my darling so well that I was more concerned for their effect on her than on any one. I was not in this slight distress because I at all repined--I am quite certain I did not, that day--but, I thought, would she be wholly prepared? When she first saw me, might she not be a little shocked and disappointed? Might it not prove a little worse than she expected? Might she not look for her old Esther and not find her? Might she not have to grow used to me and to begin all over again? I knew the various expressions of my sweet girl's face so well, and it was such an honest face in its loveliness, that I was sure beforehand she could not hide that first look from me. And I considered whether, if it should signify any one of these meanings, which was so very likely, could I quite answer for myself? Well, I thought I could. After last night, I thought I could. But to wait and wait, and expect and expect, and think and think, was such bad preparation that I resolved to go along the road again and meet her. So I said to Charley, "Charley, I will go by myself and walk along the road until she comes." Charley highly approving of anything that pleased me, I went and left her at home. But before I got to the second milestone, I had been in so many palpitations from seeing dust in the distance (though I knew it was not, and could not, be the coach yet) that I resolved to turn back and go home again. And when I had turned, I was in such fear of the coach coming up behind me (though I still knew that it neither would, nor could, do any such thing) that I ran the greater part of the way to avoid being overtaken. Then, I considered, when I had got safe back again, this was a nice thing to have done! Now I was hot and had made the worst of it instead of the best. At last, when I believed there was at least a quarter of an hour more yet, Charley all at once cried out to me as I was trembling in the garden, "Here she comes, miss! Here she is!" I did not mean to do it, but I ran upstairs into my room and hid myself behind the door. There I stood trembling, even when I heard my darling calling as she came upstairs, "Esther, my dear, my love, where are you? Little woman, dear Dame Durden!" She ran in, and was running out again when she saw me. Ah, my angel girl! The old dear look, all love, all fondness, all affection. Nothing else in it--no, nothing, nothing! Oh, how happy I was, down upon the floor, with my sweet beautiful girl down upon the floor too, holding my scarred face to her lovely cheek, bathing it with tears and kisses, rocking me to and fro like a child, calling me by every tender name that she could think of, and pressing me to her faithful heart.

Charley and I did not set off alone upon our expedition into Lincolnshire. My guardian accompanied us, and we were two days upon the road. I found every breath of air, and every scent, and every flower and leaf, and every passing cloud, more beautiful and wonderful to me than I had ever found it yet. This was my first gain from my illness. How little I had lost, when the wide world was so full of delight for me! Since my guardian intended to go back directly, we agreed, on our way down, a day when my dear girl should come. I wrote her a letter, which he took back with him once we had arrived at our destination. If a good fairy had built the house for me with a wave of her wand, I could not have been more considered in it. So many preparations were made for me, and all my little tastes and likings, that I could have sat down, overcome, a dozen times. I did better than that, however, by showing them all to Charley instead. Charley's delight calmed mine; and after we had had a walk in the garden, and Charley had exhausted her whole vocabulary of admiring expressions, I was as tranquilly happy as I ought to have been. Our host had left a note of welcome for me, as sunny as his own face, and had confided his bird to my care, which I knew to be his highest mark of confidence. I wrote a little note of thanks to him in London, telling him how all his favourite plants and trees were looking, and how the most astonishing of birds had chirped the honours of the house to me, and how, after singing on my shoulder, to the inconceivable rapture of my little maid, he was then at roost in the usual corner of his cage. With my note sent off to the post, I made myself very busy in unpacking and arranging; and I told Charley I should want her no more that night. For I had not yet looked in the mirror. I had always said to myself that I would begin afresh when I got here. Therefore I had wanted to be alone. I said now, "Esther, you must keep your word, my dear." I was quite resolved to keep it, but I sat down for a little while first to reflect upon all my blessings. And then I said my prayers and thought a little more. My hair had not been cut off; it was long and thick. I let it down, and shook it out, and went up to the glass upon the dressing-table. There was a little muslin curtain drawn across it. I drew it back and stood for a moment looking through such a veil of my own hair that I could see nothing else. Then I put my hair aside and looked at the reflection in the mirror, encouraged by seeing how placidly it looked at me. I was very much changed - oh, very, very much. At first my face was quite strange to me. Very soon it became more familiar, and then I knew the extent of the alteration. It was not like what I had expected, but I had expected nothing definite. I had never been a beauty and had never thought myself one, but I had been very different from this. It was all gone now. Heaven was so good to me that I could let it go with a few not bitter tears and could stand there arranging my hair for the night quite thankfully. One thing troubled me, and I considered it for a long time before I went to sleep. I had kept Mr. Woodcourt's flowers. When they were withered I had dried them and put them in a book that I was fond of. Nobody knew this, not even Ada. I was doubtful whether I had a right to preserve what he had sent to one so different - whether it was generous towards him to do it. I wished to be generous to him, even in the secret depths of my heart, which he would never know, because I could have loved him - could have been devoted to him. At last I came to the conclusion that I might keep the flowers if I treasured them only as a remembrance of what was irrevocably past and gone, never to be looked back on any more. I hope this may not seem trivial. I was very much in earnest. I took care to be up early in the morning and to be sitting before the glass when Charley came in on tiptoe. "Dear, dear, miss!" cried Charley, starting. "Is that you?" "Yes, Charley," said I, quietly putting up my hair. "And I am very well indeed, and very happy." I saw it was a weight off Charley's mind, but it was a greater weight off mine. I knew the worst now and was composed to it. Wishing to be fully re-established in my strength and good spirits before Ada came, I now laid down plans with Charley for being in the fresh air all day long. We were to be out before breakfast, and were to dine early, and were to be out again before and after dinner, and were to talk in the garden after tea, and were to explore every road, lane, and field in the neighbourhood. As to strengthening delicacies, Mr. Boythorn's good housekeeper was for ever trotting about with something to eat or drink in her hand; if I was resting in the park she would come trotting after me with a basket, her cheerful face shining. Then there was a chubby pony with a mane all over his eyes expressly for my riding, so easy and quiet that he was a treasure. In a very few days he would come to me in the paddock when I called him, and follow me about. His name was Stubbs. Once we put him in a little chaise and drove him triumphantly through the green lanes for five miles; but just as we were extolling him to the skies, he took umbrage at the circle of little gnats around his ears, and stopped. He steadily refused to move until I gave the reins to Charley and got out and walked, when he followed me with sturdy good humour, rubbing his ear against my sleeve. The moment I left him, he stood stock still again. Consequently I was obliged to lead the way; and in this order we returned home, to the great delight of the village. It was the most friendly of villages, I am sure, for in a week's time the people were so glad to see us go by that there were faces of greeting in every cottage. I had known many of the people before, but now the very steeple began to wear a familiar and affectionate look. Among my new friends was an old old woman who lived in a tiny thatched and whitewashed dwelling; she had a grandson who was a sailor, and I wrote a letter to him for her. At the top of it, I drew the chimney-corner in which his old stool yet stood. This was considered by the whole village the most wonderful achievement in the world, but when an answer came back from Plymouth, in which he mentioned that he was going to take the picture all the way to America, I got all the credit that ought to have been given to the post-office. What with being so much outside, playing with so many children, gossiping with so many people, going on with Charley's education, and writing long letters to Ada every day, I had scarcely any time to think about that little loss of mine and was almost always cheerful. If I did think of it at odd moments, I had only to be busy and forget it. I felt it more than I had hoped I should, when a child said, "Mother, why is the lady not pretty like she used to be?" But when I found the child was not less fond of me, that soon set me up again. There were many little occurrences of consideration and delicacy. Once of these particularly touched me. I happened to stroll into the church when a marriage was just concluded, and the young couple had to sign the register. The bridegroom made a rude cross for his mark; the bride did the same. Now, I had known the bride when I was last there, not only as the prettiest girl in the place, but as having distinguished herself in the school, and I could not help looking at her with some surprise. She came aside and whispered to me, with tears of honest love in her bright eyes, "He's a dear good fellow, miss; but he can't write yet - he's going to learn of me - and I wouldn't shame him for the world!" Why, what had I to fear, I thought, when there was this nobility in the soul of a labourer's daughter! The healthy colour came into my new face as it had come into my old one. Charley was radiant and rosy; and we both enjoyed the whole day and slept soundly the whole night. There was a favourite spot of mine in the park-woods of Chesney Wold where a seat commanded a lovely view. The wood had been cleared to improve this point of sight, and the landscape was so beautiful that I rested there at least once every day. A picturesque part of the Hall, called the Ghost's Walk, was seen to advantage from this higher ground; and the startling name, and the old legend about it which I had heard from Mr. Boythorn, gave it a mysterious interest. There was a bank here, too, famous for violets; and as it was Charley's delight to gather wild flowers, she took as much to the spot as I did. The family were not at the house, I had heard, and were not expected. I was curious about the building, and often sat in this place wondering how the rooms ranged and whether any echo like a footstep really did resound at times upon the lonely Ghost's Walk. The indefinable feeling with which Lady Dedlock had impressed me may have had some influence in keeping me from the house. I am not sure. For whatever reason, I had never once gone near it, down to the day at which my story now arrives. I was resting at my favourite point, and Charley was gathering violets a little distance away. I had been looking at the Ghost's Walk afar off when I became aware of a figure approaching through the wood. At first I could not discern what figure it was. By little and little it revealed itself to be a woman's - a lady's - Lady Dedlock's. She was alone and coming to where I sat with a much quicker step than usual, I observed to my surprise. I was fluttered by her being unexpectedly so near (she was almost within speaking distance before I knew her) and would have risen to continue my walk. But I could not. I was rendered motionless. Not so much by her hurried gesture of entreaty, not so much by her quick advance and outstretched hands, not so much by the great change in her manner, as by a something in her face that I had pined for and dreamed of when I was a little child, something I had never seen in any face before. A dread and faintness fell upon me, and I called to Charley. Lady Dedlock instantly stopped and changed back almost to what I had known her. "Miss Summerson, I am afraid I have startled you," she said, now advancing slowly. "You can scarcely be strong yet. You have been very ill, I know. I have been much concerned to hear it." I could not stir. She gave me her hand, which was deadly cold. I cannot say what was in my whirling thoughts. "You are recovering?" she asked kindly. "I was quite well but a moment ago, Lady Dedlock." "Is this your young attendant?" "Yes." "Will you send her on before us and walk towards your house with me?" "Charley," said I, "take your flowers home, and I will follow you directly." Charley, with her best curtsy, went her way. Lady Dedlock sat down on the seat beside me. I cannot tell in any words what the state of my mind was when I saw in her hand my handkerchief, with which I had covered the dead baby. I looked at her, but I could not see her, I could not hear her, I could not draw my breath. The beating of my heart was so violent and wild that I felt as if my life were breaking from me. But when she caught me to her breast, kissed me, wept over me, and called me back to myself; when she fell down on her knees and cried to me, "Oh, my child, my child, I am your wicked and unhappy mother! Oh, try to forgive me!" - when I saw her at my feet in her great agony of mind, I felt, through all my tumult of emotion, a burst of gratitude to God that I was so changed that I never could disgrace her by any likeness. Nobody could now look at us and think of any tie between us. I raised my mother up, praying her not to stoop before me in such affliction. I did so in broken, incoherent words, for besides the trouble I was in, it frightened me to see her at my feet. I tried to tell her that if it were for me, her child, to forgive her, I did it, and had done it, many, many years. I told her that my heart overflowed with love for her, natural love which nothing could change. That my duty was to bless and receive her, though the whole world turned from her, and that I only asked her leave to do it. I held my mother in my embrace, and she held me in hers, and among the still woods in the silence of the summer day there seemed to be nothing but our two troubled minds that was not at peace. "It is too late to bless and receive me," groaned my mother, "I must travel my dark road alone, though I do not see the way before my guilty feet. This is the earthly punishment I have brought upon myself. I bear it, and I hide it. I must keep this secret, if I can, not wholly for myself. I have a husband, wretched and dishonouring creature that I am!" These words she uttered with a suppressed cry of despair. Covering her face with her hands, she shrank down in my embrace as if she were unwilling that I should touch her; and I could not persuade her to rise. She said, no, no, no, she could only speak to me so; she must be proud everywhere else; she would be humbled and ashamed there, in the only natural moments of her life. My unhappy mother told me that in my illness she had been nearly frantic. She had only then known that her child was living; she had never suspected it before. She had followed me down here to speak to me just once in all her life: we could never meet or communicate again. She put into my hands a letter she had written for my reading only and said that when I had read it and destroyed it, I must evermore consider her as dead. If I could believe that she loved me, in this agony in which I saw her, she asked me to do that, for then I might think of her with greater pity. She had put herself beyond all hope and beyond all help. Whether she preserved her secret until death, or whether it came to be discovered and she brought disgrace upon her name, it was her solitary struggle always; and no affection could come near her, and nobody could help her. "But is the secret safe now, dearest mother?" "No," replied my mother. "It has been very near discovery. It was saved by an accident. It may be lost by another accident, any day." "Do you dread a particular person?" "Hush! Do not tremble and cry for me. I am not worthy of these tears," said my mother, kissing my hands. "I dread one person very much. He is Sir Leicester Dedlock's lawyer, faithful without attachment, and jealous of the profit and privilege of great houses." "Has he any suspicions?" "Many." "Not of you?" I said alarmed. "Yes! He is always vigilant and always near me. I may keep him at a standstill, but I can never shake him off." "Has he so little pity or compunction?" "He has none. He is indifferent to everything but the acquisition of secrets and the power they give him." "Could you trust in him?" "I shall never try. The dark road I have trodden for so many years will end where it will. The end may be near, it may be distant; while the road lasts, nothing turns me. I will outlive this danger, and outdie it, if I can. It has closed around me almost as awfully as if these woods of Chesney Wold had closed around the house, but my course through it is the same." "Mr. Jarndyce-" I was beginning when my mother hurriedly inquired, "Does he suspect?" "No, indeed!" said I. And I told her what he had related to me about his knowledge of my story. "But he is so good and sensible," said I, "that perhaps if he knew-" My mother raised her hand to my lips and stopped me. "Confide fully in him," she said. "You have my free consent - but do not tell me of it. Some pride is left in me even yet." Every word that was uttered in my mother's voice, so unfamiliar and so melancholy to me, made an enduring impression on my memory. I explained, or tried to - though my agitation and distress were so great that I scarcely understood myself - how I had only hoped that Mr. Jarndyce might give her counsel and support. But my mother answered no, it was impossible; no one could help her. Through the desert that lay before her, she must go alone. "My child, my child!" she said. "For the last time! These kisses for the last time! These arms upon my neck for the last time! We shall meet no more. I must be what I have been so long. If you hear of Lady Dedlock, brilliant, prosperous, and flattered, think of your wretched mother, conscience-stricken, underneath that mask! Think that the reality is in her suffering, in her useless remorse! Forgive her if you can, and cry to heaven to forgive her, which it never can!" We held one another for a little while yet, but then she took my hands away, and put them back against my breast, and with a last kiss released them, and went from me into the wood. I was alone; calm and quiet below me lay the old house, with its terraces and turrets, on which there had seemed to me to be such complete repose when I first saw it, but which now looked like the unpitying watcher of my mother's misery. Stunned as I was, the necessity of guarding against the danger of discovery, or even of suspicion, did me service. I took what precautions I could to hide from Charley that I had been crying, and endeavoured to be careful and collected. It was a while before I could restrain bursts of grief, but after an hour or so I was better and felt that I might return. I went home very slowly and told Charley, whom I found at the gate looking for me, that I had been tempted to extend my walk after Lady Dedlock had left me and that I was over-tired and would lie down. Safe in my own room, I read the letter. I learnt from it - and that was much then - that I had not been abandoned by my mother. Her elder and only sister, the godmother of my childhood, discovering signs of life in me when I had been laid aside as dead, had in her stern sense of duty reared me in rigid secrecy. Until a short time back I had never, to my mother's knowledge, breathed - had never borne a name. When she had first seen me in the church she had been startled and had thought of what her child would have been like if it had lived, but that was all. What more the letter told me needs not to be repeated here. It has its own times and places in my story. My first care was to burn what my mother had written. I hope it may not appear very unnatural or bad in me that I then became heavily sorrowful to think I had ever been reared. I felt as if it would have been better for many people if I had never breathed. I had a terror of myself as the danger and the possible disgrace of my own mother and of a proud family name. I was so confused and shaken that I believed I should have died at birth, and that it was wrong that I should be alive. These are the real feelings that I had. I fell asleep worn out, and when I awoke I cried afresh to think that I was back in the world with my load of trouble for others. I was frightened of myself, thinking of the new and terrible meaning of the old words now moaning in my ear: "Your mother, Esther, was your disgrace, and you are hers. The time will come when you will understand this better, and will feel it too." With them, those other words returned, "Pray daily that the sins of others be not visited upon your head." I could not disentangle all that was about me, and I felt as if the blame and the shame were all in me. The day waned into a gloomy evening, overcast and sad, and I still contended with the same distress. I went out alone, and walked a little in the park, watching the dark shades falling on the trees and the fitful flight of the bats. I was attracted to the house for the first time, and took the path that led close by it. I did not dare to linger or look up, but I passed before the terrace garden with its fragrant odours, and its broad walks, and its well-kept beds; I saw how beautiful and grave it was, and how the old stone balustrades and parapets, and wide flights of shallow steps, were seamed by time and weather; and how the moss and ivy grew about them, and around the old stone sun-dial; and I heard the fountain falling. Then the way went by long lines of dark windows, turreted towers and porches, where stone lions and monsters bristled outside dens of shadow and snarled at the evening gloom. From there the path wound underneath a gateway, and through a court-yard where the main entrance was (I hurried quickly on), and past the stables. Encountering presently a sweet smell of lime trees, whose rustling I could hear, I turned with the path to the south front, and there above me were the balustrades of the Ghost's Walk and one lighted window that might be my mother's. The way was paved here, and my footsteps from being noiseless made an echoing sound upon the flagstones. I was passing quickly on, and in a few moments should have passed the lighted window, when my echoing footsteps brought it suddenly into my mind that there was a dreadful truth in the legend of the Ghost's Walk, that it was I who was to bring calamity upon the stately house and that was haunting it now. Seized with a greater terror of myself, I ran from myself and everything, retraced the way by which I had come, and never paused until I reached the lodge-gate, and the park lay black behind me. Alone in my own room for the night, I began to know how wrong and thankless my dejected state was. But from my darling, who was coming on the morrow, I found a joyful letter, full of such loving anticipation that I must have been made of marble if it had not moved me. From my guardian, too, I found another letter, asking me to tell Dame Durden, if I should see that little woman anywhere, that they had moped most pitiably without her, that the housekeeping was going to rack and ruin, and that everybody in the house longed for her return. These letters made me think how beloved I was and how happy I ought to be; and brought me into a better condition. For I saw very well that I could not have been intended to die, or I should never have lived. I knew I was as innocent of my birth as a queen of hers, and that before my Heavenly Father I should not be punished for birth nor a queen rewarded for it. I renewed my resolutions and prayed to be strengthened in them, pouring out my heart for myself and for my unhappy mother. The darkness of the morning passed away; and when the next day's light awoke me, it was gone. My dear girl was to arrive at five o'clock in the afternoon. While waiting, I decided to take a walk along the road by which she was to come; so Charley and I and Stubbs made an expedition along that road and back. On our return, we held a great review of the house and garden and saw that everything was in its prettiest condition. There were more than two hours yet before she could come, and in that interval I must confess I was nervously anxious about my altered looks. I loved my darling so well that I was more concerned for their effect on her than on anyone. I thought, would she be wholly prepared? When she first saw me, might she not be shocked? Might she look for her old Esther and not find her? I knew the various expressions of my sweet girl's face so well, and it was such an honest face, that I was sure she could not hide that first look from me. And I considered whether, if it should show any of these meanings, as was likely, could I quite answer for myself? Well, after last night, I thought I could. But to wait and wait, and think and think, was such bad preparation that I resolved to go along the road again and meet her. Charley approved, so I went, leaving her at home. But before I got to the second milestone, I had been in so many palpitations from seeing dust in the distance (though I knew it could not be the coach yet) that I resolved to turn back and go home again. And when I had turned, I was in such fear of the coach coming up behind me that I ran most of the way to avoid being overtaken. At last, when I believed there was at least a quarter of an hour more yet, Charley cried out to me, "Here she comes, miss!" I did not mean to do it, but I ran upstairs into my room and hid behind the door. There I stood trembling, even when I heard my darling calling as she came upstairs, "Esther, my dear, my love, where are you?" She ran in, and saw me. Ah, my angel girl! The old dear look, all love, all fondness, all affection. Nothing else in it - no, nothing, nothing! Oh, how happy I was, down upon the floor with my sweet beautiful girl holding my scarred face to her lovely cheek, bathing it with tears and kisses, rocking me like a child, calling me by every tender name, and pressing me to her faithful heart.

Bleak House

Chapter 36: Chesney Wold

Darkness rests upon Tom-All-Alone's. Dilating and dilating since the sun went down last night, it has gradually swelled until it fills every void in the place. For a time there were some dungeon lights burning, as the lamp of life hums in Tom-all-Alone's, heavily, heavily, in the nauseous air, and winking--as that lamp, too, winks in Tom-all-Alone's--at many horrible things. But they are blotted out. The moon has eyed Tom with a dull cold stare, as admitting some puny emulation of herself in his desert region unfit for life and blasted by volcanic fires; but she has passed on and is gone. The blackest nightmare in the infernal stables grazes on Tom-all-Alone's, and Tom is fast asleep. Much mighty speech-making there has been, both in and out of Parliament, concerning Tom, and much wrathful disputation how Tom shall be got right. Whether he shall be put into the main road by constables, or by beadles, or by bell-ringing, or by force of figures, or by correct principles of taste, or by high church, or by low church, or by no church; whether he shall be set to splitting trusses of polemical straws with the crooked knife of his mind or whether he shall be put to stone-breaking instead. In the midst of which dust and noise there is but one thing perfectly clear, to wit, that Tom only may and can, or shall and will, be reclaimed according to somebody's theory but nobody's practice. And in the hopeful meantime, Tom goes to perdition head foremost in his old determined spirit. But he has his revenge. Even the winds are his messengers, and they serve him in these hours of darkness. There is not a drop of Tom's corrupted blood but propagates infection and contagion somewhere. It shall pollute, this very night, the choice stream (in which chemists on analysis would find the genuine nobility) of a Norman house, and his Grace shall not be able to say nay to the infamous alliance. There is not an atom of Tom's slime, not a cubic inch of any pestilential gas in which he lives, not one obscenity or degradation about him, not an ignorance, not a wickedness, not a brutality of his committing, but shall work its retribution through every order of society up to the proudest of the proud and to the highest of the high. Verily, what with tainting, plundering, and spoiling, Tom has his revenge. It is a moot point whether Tom-all-Alone's be uglier by day or by night, but on the argument that the more that is seen of it the more shocking it must be, and that no part of it left to the imagination is at all likely to be made so bad as the reality, day carries it. The day begins to break now; and in truth it might be better for the national glory even that the sun should sometimes set upon the British dominions than that it should ever rise upon so vile a wonder as Tom. A brown sunburnt gentleman, who appears in some inaptitude for sleep to be wandering abroad rather than counting the hours on a restless pillow, strolls hitherward at this quiet time. Attracted by curiosity, he often pauses and looks about him, up and down the miserable by-ways. Nor is he merely curious, for in his bright dark eye there is compassionate interest; and as he looks here and there, he seems to understand such wretchedness and to have studied it before. On the banks of the stagnant channel of mud which is the main street of Tom-all-Alone's, nothing is to be seen but the crazy houses, shut up and silent. No waking creature save himself appears except in one direction, where he sees the solitary figure of a woman sitting on a door-step. He walks that way. Approaching, he observes that she has journeyed a long distance and is footsore and travel-stained. She sits on the door-step in the manner of one who is waiting, with her elbow on her knee and her head upon her hand. Beside her is a canvas bag, or bundle, she has carried. She is dozing probably, for she gives no heed to his steps as he comes toward her. The broken footway is so narrow that when Allan Woodcourt comes to where the woman sits, he has to turn into the road to pass her. Looking down at her face, his eye meets hers, and he stops. "What is the matter?" "Nothing, sir." "Can't you make them hear? Do you want to be let in?" "I'm waiting till they get up at another house--a lodging-house--not here," the woman patiently returns. "I'm waiting here because there will be sun here presently to warm me." "I am afraid you are tired. I am sorry to see you sitting in the street." "Thank you, sir. It don't matter." A habit in him of speaking to the poor and of avoiding patronage or condescension or childishness (which is the favourite device, many people deeming it quite a subtlety to talk to them like little spelling books) has put him on good terms with the woman easily. "Let me look at your forehead," he says, bending down. "I am a doctor. Don't be afraid. I wouldn't hurt you for the world." He knows that by touching her with his skilful and accustomed hand he can soothe her yet more readily. She makes a slight objection, saying, "It's nothing"; but he has scarcely laid his fingers on the wounded place when she lifts it up to the light. "Aye! A bad bruise, and the skin sadly broken. This must be very sore." "It do ache a little, sir," returns the woman with a started tear upon her cheek. "Let me try to make it more comfortable. My handkerchief won't hurt you." "Oh, dear no, sir, I'm sure of that!" He cleanses the injured place and dries it, and having carefully examined it and gently pressed it with the palm of his hand, takes a small case from his pocket, dresses it, and binds it up. While he is thus employed, he says, after laughing at his establishing a surgery in the street, "And so your husband is a brickmaker?" "How do you know that, sir?" asks the woman, astonished. "Why, I suppose so from the colour of the clay upon your bag and on your dress. And I know brickmakers go about working at piecework in different places. And I am sorry to say I have known them cruel to their wives too." The woman hastily lifts up her eyes as if she would deny that her injury is referable to such a cause. But feeling the hand upon her forehead, and seeing his busy and composed face, she quietly drops them again. "Where is he now?" asks the surgeon. "He got into trouble last night, sir; but he'll look for me at the lodging-house." "He will get into worse trouble if he often misuses his large and heavy hand as he has misused it here. But you forgive him, brutal as he is, and I say no more of him, except that I wish he deserved it. You have no young child?" The woman shakes her head. "One as I calls mine, sir, but it's Liz's." "Your own is dead. I see! Poor little thing!" By this time he has finished and is putting up his case. "I suppose you have some settled home. Is it far from here?" he asks, good-humouredly making light of what he has done as she gets up and curtsys. "It's a good two or three and twenty mile from here, sir. At Saint Albans. You know Saint Albans, sir? I thought you gave a start like, as if you did." "Yes, I know something of it. And now I will ask you a question in return. Have you money for your lodging?" "Yes, sir," she says, "really and truly." And she shows it. He tells her, in acknowledgment of her many subdued thanks, that she is very welcome, gives her good day, and walks away. Tom-all-Alone's is still asleep, and nothing is astir. Yes, something is! As he retraces his way to the point from which he descried the woman at a distance sitting on the step, he sees a ragged figure coming very cautiously along, crouching close to the soiled walls--which the wretchedest figure might as well avoid--and furtively thrusting a hand before it. It is the figure of a youth whose face is hollow and whose eyes have an emaciated glare. He is so intent on getting along unseen that even the apparition of a stranger in whole garments does not tempt him to look back. He shades his face with his ragged elbow as he passes on the other side of the way, and goes shrinking and creeping on with his anxious hand before him and his shapeless clothes hanging in shreds. Clothes made for what purpose, or of what material, it would be impossible to say. They look, in colour and in substance, like a bundle of rank leaves of swampy growth that rotted long ago. Allan Woodcourt pauses to look after him and note all this, with a shadowy belief that he has seen the boy before. He cannot recall how or where, but there is some association in his mind with such a form. He imagines that he must have seen it in some hospital or refuge, still, cannot make out why it comes with any special force on his remembrance. He is gradually emerging from Tom-all-Alone's in the morning light, thinking about it, when he hears running feet behind him, and looking round, sees the boy scouring towards him at great speed, followed by the woman. "Stop him, stop him!" cries the woman, almost breathless. "Stop him, sir!" He darts across the road into the boy's path, but the boy is quicker than he, makes a curve, ducks, dives under his hands, comes up half-a-dozen yards beyond him, and scours away again. Still the woman follows, crying, "Stop him, sir, pray stop him!" Allan, not knowing but that he has just robbed her of her money, follows in chase and runs so hard that he runs the boy down a dozen times, but each time he repeats the curve, the duck, the dive, and scours away again. To strike at him on any of these occasions would be to fell and disable him, but the pursuer cannot resolve to do that, and so the grimly ridiculous pursuit continues. At last the fugitive, hard-pressed, takes to a narrow passage and a court which has no thoroughfare. Here, against a hoarding of decaying timber, he is brought to bay and tumbles down, lying gasping at his pursuer, who stands and gasps at him until the woman comes up. "Oh, you, Jo!" cries the woman. "What? I have found you at last!" "Jo," repeats Allan, looking at him with attention, "Jo! Stay. To be sure! I recollect this lad some time ago being brought before the coroner." "Yes, I see you once afore at the inkwhich," whimpers Jo. "What of that? Can't you never let such an unfortnet as me alone? An't I unfortnet enough for you yet? How unfortnet do you want me fur to be? I've been a-chivied and a-chivied, fust by one on you and nixt by another on you, till I'm worritted to skins and bones. The inkwhich warn't MY fault. I done nothink. He wos wery good to me, he wos; he wos the only one I knowed to speak to, as ever come across my crossing. It ain't wery likely I should want him to be inkwhiched. I only wish I wos, myself. I don't know why I don't go and make a hole in the water, I'm sure I don't." He says it with such a pitiable air, and his grimy tears appear so real, and he lies in the corner up against the hoarding so like a growth of fungus or any unwholesome excrescence produced there in neglect and impurity, that Allan Woodcourt is softened towards him. He says to the woman, "Miserable creature, what has he done?" To which she only replies, shaking her head at the prostrate figure more amazedly than angrily, "Oh, you Jo, you Jo. I have found you at last!" "What has he done?" says Allan. "Has he robbed you?" "No, sir, no. Robbed me? He did nothing but what was kind-hearted by me, and that's the wonder of it." Allan looks from Jo to the woman, and from the woman to Jo, waiting for one of them to unravel the riddle. "But he was along with me, sir," says the woman. "Oh, you Jo! He was along with me, sir, down at Saint Albans, ill, and a young lady, Lord bless her for a good friend to me, took pity on him when I durstn't, and took him home--" Allan shrinks back from him with a sudden horror. "Yes, sir, yes. Took him home, and made him comfortable, and like a thankless monster he ran away in the night and never has been seen or heard of since till I set eyes on him just now. And that young lady that was such a pretty dear caught his illness, lost her beautiful looks, and wouldn't hardly be known for the same young lady now if it wasn't for her angel temper, and her pretty shape, and her sweet voice. Do you know it? You ungrateful wretch, do you know that this is all along of you and of her goodness to you?" demands the woman, beginning to rage at him as she recalls it and breaking into passionate tears. The boy, in rough sort stunned by what he hears, falls to smearing his dirty forehead with his dirty palm, and to staring at the ground, and to shaking from head to foot until the crazy hoarding against which he leans rattles. Allan restrains the woman, merely by a quiet gesture, but effectually. "Richard told me--" He falters. "I mean, I have heard of this--don't mind me for a moment, I will speak presently." He turns away and stands for a while looking out at the covered passage. When he comes back, he has recovered his composure, except that he contends against an avoidance of the boy, which is so very remarkable that it absorbs the woman's attention. "You hear what she says. But get up, get up!" Jo, shaking and chattering, slowly rises and stands, after the manner of his tribe in a difficulty, sideways against the hoarding, resting one of his high shoulders against it and covertly rubbing his right hand over his left and his left foot over his right. "You hear what she says, and I know it's true. Have you been here ever since?" "Wishermaydie if I seen Tom-all-Alone's till this blessed morning," replies Jo hoarsely. "Why have you come here now?" Jo looks all round the confined court, looks at his questioner no higher than the knees, and finally answers, "I don't know how to do nothink, and I can't get nothink to do. I'm wery poor and ill, and I thought I'd come back here when there warn't nobody about, and lay down and hide somewheres as I knows on till arter dark, and then go and beg a trifle of Mr. Snagsby. He wos allus willin fur to give me somethink he wos, though Mrs. Snagsby she was allus a-chivying on me--like everybody everywheres." "Where have you come from?" Jo looks all round the court again, looks at his questioner's knees again, and concludes by laying his profile against the hoarding in a sort of resignation. "Did you hear me ask you where you have come from?" "Tramp then," says Jo. "Now tell me," proceeds Allan, making a strong effort to overcome his repugnance, going very near to him, and leaning over him with an expression of confidence, "tell me how it came about that you left that house when the good young lady had been so unfortunate as to pity you and take you home." Jo suddenly comes out of his resignation and excitedly declares, addressing the woman, that he never known about the young lady, that he never heern about it, that he never went fur to hurt her, that he would sooner have hurt his own self, that he'd sooner have had his unfortnet ed chopped off than ever gone a-nigh her, and that she wos wery good to him, she wos. Conducting himself throughout as if in his poor fashion he really meant it, and winding up with some very miserable sobs. Allan Woodcourt sees that this is not a sham. He constrains himself to touch him. "Come, Jo. Tell me." "No. I dustn't," says Jo, relapsing into the profile state. "I dustn't, or I would." "But I must know," returns the other, "all the same. Come, Jo." After two or three such adjurations, Jo lifts up his head again, looks round the court again, and says in a low voice, "Well, I'll tell you something. I was took away. There!" "Took away? In the night?" "Ah!" Very apprehensive of being overheard, Jo looks about him and even glances up some ten feet at the top of the hoarding and through the cracks in it lest the object of his distrust should be looking over or hidden on the other side. "Who took you away?" "I dustn't name him," says Jo. "I dustn't do it, sir. "But I want, in the young lady's name, to know. You may trust me. No one else shall hear." "Ah, but I don't know," replies Jo, shaking his head fearfully, "as he DON'T hear." "Why, he is not in this place." "Oh, ain't he though?" says Jo. "He's in all manner of places, all at wanst." Allan looks at him in perplexity, but discovers some real meaning and good faith at the bottom of this bewildering reply. He patiently awaits an explicit answer; and Jo, more baffled by his patience than by anything else, at last desperately whispers a name in his ear. "Aye!" says Allan. "Why, what had you been doing?" "Nothink, sir. Never done nothink to get myself into no trouble, 'sept in not moving on and the inkwhich. But I'm a-moving on now. I'm a-moving on to the berryin ground--that's the move as I'm up to." "No, no, we will try to prevent that. But what did he do with you?" "Put me in a horsepittle," replied Jo, whispering, "till I was discharged, then giv me a little money--four half-bulls, wot you may call half-crowns--and ses 'Hook it! Nobody wants you here,' he ses. 'You hook it. You go and tramp,' he ses. 'You move on,' he ses. 'Don't let me ever see you nowheres within forty mile of London, or you'll repent it.' So I shall, if ever he doos see me, and he'll see me if I'm above ground," concludes Jo, nervously repeating all his former precautions and investigations. Allan considers a little, then remarks, turning to the woman but keeping an encouraging eye on Jo, "He is not so ungrateful as you supposed. He had a reason for going away, though it was an insufficient one." "Thankee, sir, thankee!" exclaims Jo. "There now! See how hard you wos upon me. But ony you tell the young lady wot the genlmn ses, and it's all right. For YOU wos wery good to me too, and I knows it." "Now, Jo," says Allan, keeping his eye upon him, "come with me and I will find you a better place than this to lie down and hide in. If I take one side of the way and you the other to avoid observation, you will not run away, I know very well, if you make me a promise." "I won't, not unless I wos to see HIM a-coming, sir." "Very well. I take your word. Half the town is getting up by this time, and the whole town will be broad awake in another hour. Come along. Good day again, my good woman." "Good day again, sir, and I thank you kindly many times again." She has been sitting on her bag, deeply attentive, and now rises and takes it up. Jo, repeating, "Ony you tell the young lady as I never went fur to hurt her and wot the genlmn ses!" nods and shambles and shivers, and smears and blinks, and half laughs and half cries, a farewell to her, and takes his creeping way along after Allan Woodcourt, close to the houses on the opposite side of the street. In this order, the two come up out of Tom-all-Alone's into the broad rays of the sunlight and the purer air.

Darkness rests upon Tom-All-Alone's. Since the sun went down last night, the darkness has gradually swelled until it fills every void in the place. For a time there were some dungeon lights burning. But they are blotted out. The moon has eyed Tom with a dull cold stare; but she has passed on and is gone. The blackest nightmare in the infernal stables grazes on Tom-all-Alone's, and Tom is fast asleep. Much mighty speech-making there has been, both in and out of Parliament, concerning Tom, and how Tom shall be got right. Whether he shall be put into the main road by constables, or by beadles, or by churches; or whether he shall be put to stone-breaking instead. One thing is perfectly clear: that Tom can and will only be reclaimed according to somebody's theory but nobody's practice. And in the meantime, Tom goes to perdition. But he has his revenge. Even the winds are his messengers, sending his infection and contagion everywhere. There is not an atom of Tom's slime, not one obscenity or degradation about him, not an ignorance, not a wickedness, but shall work its retribution through every order of society up to the proudest of the proud and the highest of the high. And thus Tom has his revenge. Now, as day begins to break, a brown sunburnt gentleman, who appears to be wandering abroad because of some inaptitude for sleep, strolls there at this quiet time. He often pauses and looks about him curiously. Nor is he merely curious, for in his bright dark eye there is compassionate interest; he seems to understand such wretchedness and to have studied it before. On the banks of the stagnant channel of mud which is the main street of Tom-all-Alone's, nothing is to be seen but the crazy houses, shut up and silent. No waking creature save himself appears except for a solitary woman sitting on a door-step. He observes that she has journeyed a long distance and is footsore and travel-stained. She sits on the door-step with her elbow on her knee and her head upon her hand. Beside her is a canvas bag, or bundle. She is dozing, for she gives no heed to his steps as he approaches. The broken footway is so narrow that when Allan Woodcourt comes to the woman, he has to turn into the road to pass her. Looking down at her face, his eye meets hers, and he stops. "What is the matter?" "Nothing, sir." "Do you want to be let in?" "I'm waiting till they get up at another house - a lodging-house - not here," the woman patiently returns. "I am afraid you are tired. I am sorry to see you sitting in the street." "Thank you, sir. It don't matter." A habit in him of speaking to the poor and of avoiding condescension has put him on good terms with the woman easily. "Let me look at your forehead," he says, bending down. "I am a doctor. Don't be afraid. I won't hurt you." He knows that by touching her with his skilful hand he can soothe her more readily. She says, "It's nothing"; but he has scarcely laid his fingers on the wounded place when she lifts it up to the light. "Aye! A bad bruise, and the skin broken. This must be very sore." "It do ache a little, sir," returns the woman with a started tear upon her cheek. "Let me try to make it more comfortable." He cleanses the injured place and dries it with his handkerchief, and having carefully examined it, takes a small case from his pocket, dresses it, and binds it up. While he is thus employed, he says, "And so your husband is a brickmaker?" "How do you know that, sir?" asks the woman, astonished. "Why, I suppose so from the colour of the clay upon your bag and your dress. And I know brickmakers go about doing piecework in different places. I am sorry to say I have known them be cruel to their wives too." The woman hastily lifts up her eyes as if she would deny it; but seeing his busy and composed face, she quietly drops them again. "Where is he now?" asks the surgeon. "He got into trouble last night, sir; but he'll look for me at the lodging-house." "He will get into worse trouble if he often misuses his heavy hand as he has misused it here. But you forgive him, brutal as he is, and I say no more of him. You have no young child?" The woman shakes her head. "One as I calls mine, sir, but it's Liz's." "Your own is dead. I see! Poor little thing!" By this time he has finished and is shutting up his case. "I suppose you have some settled home. Is it far from here?" he asks as she gets up and curtsys. "It's a good twenty mile from here, sir. At Saint Albans. You know Saint Albans, sir? I thought you gave a start like, as if you did." "Yes, I know something of it. Have you money for your lodging?" "Yes, sir," she says, "really and truly." And she shows it. He tells her, in acknowledgment of her thanks, that she is very welcome, and walks away. Tom-all-Alone's is still asleep, and nothing is astir. Yes, something is! He sees a ragged figure coming very cautiously along, crouching close to the soiled walls, furtively thrusting a hand before it. It is the figure of a youth whose face is hollow and whose eyes have an emaciated glare. Intent on getting along unseen, he shades his face with his ragged elbow as he passes, and goes creeping on with his anxious hand before him and his shapeless clothes hanging in shreds. Clothes made for what purpose, or of what material, it would be impossible to say. They look like a bundle of rank leaves that rotted long ago. Allan Woodcourt pauses to look after him and note all this, with a shadowy belief that he has seen the boy before, although he cannot recall how or where. He imagines that he must have seen him in some hospital or refuge. He is gradually emerging from Tom-all-Alone's in the morning light, thinking about it, when he hears running feet behind him, and looking round, sees the boy racing towards him at great speed, followed by the woman. "Stop him, stop him!" cries the woman, almost breathless. He darts across the road into the boy's path, but the boy is quicker than he, dives under his hands, comes up half-a-dozen yards beyond him, and darts away again. Still the woman follows, crying, "Stop him, sir, pray stop him!" Allan, thinking that the boy may have just robbed her of her money, follows in chase and runs the boy down a dozen times; but each time he ducks and dives away. The pursuer cannot resolve to strike him, and so the grimly ridiculous pursuit continues. At last the fugitive, hard-pressed, takes to a narrow passage and a court which has no way out. Here, against a hoarding of decaying timber, he is brought tumbling down, lying gasping at his pursuer, who stands and gasps at him until the woman comes up. "Oh, Jo!" cries the woman. "I have found you at last!" "Jo," repeats Allan, looking at him with attention. "Jo! To be sure! I recollect this lad some time ago being brought before the coroner." "Yes, I see you once afore at the inkwhich," whimpers Jo. "What of that? Can't you never let such an unfortnet as me alone? An't I unfortnet enough for you yet? How unfortnet do you want me fur to be? I've been a-chivied and a-chivied till I'm worritted to skins and bones. The inkwhich warn't my fault. I done nothink. He wos wery good to me, he wos; he wos the only one I knowed to speak to, as ever come across my crossing. It ain't wery likely I should want him to be inkwhiched. I only wish I wos, myself." He says it with such a pitiable air, and his grimy tears appear so real, and he lies in the corner so like a growth of fungus that Allan Woodcourt is softened towards him. He says to the woman, "What has he done?" To which she only replies, shaking her head at the prostrate figure, "Oh, you Jo, you Jo. I have found you at last!" "What has he done?" says Allan. "Has he robbed you?" "No, sir, no. He did nothing but what was kind-hearted by me, and that's the wonder of it. He was along with me, sir, down at Saint Albans, ill, and a young lady, Lord bless her, took pity on him when I durstn't, and took him home-" Allan shrinks back with a sudden horror. "Yes, sir, yes. Took him home, and made him comfortable, and like a thankless monster he ran away in the night and never has been seen or heard of since till now. And that young lady that was such a pretty dear caught his illness, lost her beautiful looks, and wouldn't hardly be known for the same young lady now if it wasn't for her angel temper and her sweet voice. You ungrateful wretch, do you know that this is all along of you?" demands the woman. The boy, stunned by what he hears, falls to smearing his dirty forehead with his dirty palm, and to staring at the ground, and to shaking from head to foot. "Richard told me-" Allan falters. "I mean, I have heard of this - don't mind me for a moment." He turns away and stands for a while looking out at the passage. When he comes back, he has recovered his composure, except that he struggles against an avoidance of the boy. "You hear what she says. But get up, get up!" Jo, shaking and chattering, slowly rises and stands against the hoarding, rubbing one foot with the other. "Have you been here ever since?" "Wishermaydie if I seen Tom-all-Alone's till this blessed morning," replies Jo hoarsely. "Why have you come here now?" Jo looks round, and finally answers, "I don't know how to do nothink, and I can't get nothink to do. I'm wery poor and ill, and I thought I'd come back here when there warn't nobody about, and lay down and hide somewheres till arter dark, and then go and beg a trifle of Mr. Sangsby." "Where have you come from?" Jo looks all round the court again. "Tramp then," he says at last. "Now tell me," proceeds Allan, making a strong effort to overcome his repugnance, "tell me how it came about that you left that house when the good young lady had taken you home." Jo excitedly declares that he never known about the young lady, that he never went fur to hurt her, that he would sooner have hurt his own self, and that she wos wery good to him, she wos. He winds up with some miserable sobs. Allan Woodcourt sees that this is not a sham, and makes himself touch him. "Come, Jo. Tell me." "No. I dustn't," says Jo. "But I must know. Come, Jo." Jo looks round the court again, and says in a low voice, "Well, I'll tell you. I was took away. There!" "Took away? In the night?" "Ah!" Jo is very apprehensive of being overheard. "Who took you away?" "I dustn't name him, sir," says Jo. "You may trust me. No one else shall hear." "Ah, but he might hear," replies Jo, shaking his head fearfully. "Why, he is not in this place." "Oh, ain't he though?" says Jo. "He's in all manner of places, all at once." Allan looks at him in perplexity, until Jo at last desperately whispers a name in his ear. "Aye!" says Allan. "Why, what had you been doing?" "Nothink, sir. Never done nothink to get myself into no trouble, 'sept in not moving on and the inkwhich. But I'm a-moving on now. I'm a-moving on to the berryin ground." "No, no, we will try to prevent that. But what did he do with you?" "Put me in a horsepittle," replied Jo, whispering, "till I was discharged, then giv me a little money - four half-crowns - and ses 'Hook it! Nobody wants you here,' he ses. 'You go and tramp,' he ses. 'You move on well out of London, or you'll repent it.' So I shall." Allan considers a little, then turning to the woman says, "He is not so ungrateful as you supposed. He had a reason for going away." "Thankee, sir, thankee!" exclaims Jo. "There now!" "Now, Jo," says Allan, "come with me and I will find you a better place than this to lie down and hide in. You will not run away, I know very well, if you make me a promise." "I won't, not unless I wos to see him a-coming, sir." "Very well. I take your word. The town will be awake in another hour. Come along. Good day again, my good woman." "Good day again, sir, and I thank you kindly." Jo, repeating, "Tell the young lady as I never went fur to hurt her!" nods and shambles and shivers, and smears and blinks, and half laughs and half cries a farewell to her, and takes his creeping way along after Allan Woodcourt. In this way, the two come up out of Tom-all-Alone's into the broad rays of the sunlight and the purer air.

Bleak House

Chapter 46: Stop Him!

I had gone to bed and fallen asleep when my guardian knocked at the door of my room and begged me to get up directly. On my hurrying to speak to him and learn what had happened, he told me, after a word or two of preparation, that there had been a discovery at Sir Leicester Dedlock's. That my mother had fled, that a person was now at our door who was empowered to convey to her the fullest assurances of affectionate protection and forgiveness if he could possibly find her, and that I was sought for to accompany him in the hope that my entreaties might prevail upon her if his failed. Something to this general purpose I made out, but I was thrown into such a tumult of alarm, and hurry and distress, that in spite of every effort I could make to subdue my agitation, I did not seem, to myself, fully to recover my right mind until hours had passed. But I dressed and wrapped up expeditiously without waking Charley or any one and went down to Mr. Bucket, who was the person entrusted with the secret. In taking me to him my guardian told me this, and also explained how it was that he had come to think of me. Mr. Bucket, in a low voice, by the light of my guardian's candle, read to me in the hall a letter that my mother had left upon her table; and I suppose within ten minutes of my having been aroused I was sitting beside him, rolling swiftly through the streets. His manner was very keen, and yet considerate when he explained to me that a great deal might depend on my being able to answer, without confusion, a few questions that he wished to ask me. These were, chiefly, whether I had had much communication with my mother (to whom he only referred as Lady Dedlock), when and where I had spoken with her last, and how she had become possessed of my handkerchief. When I had satisfied him on these points, he asked me particularly to consider--taking time to think--whether within my knowledge there was any one, no matter where, in whom she might be at all likely to confide under circumstances of the last necessity. I could think of no one but my guardian. But by and by I mentioned Mr. Boythorn. He came into my mind as connected with his old chivalrous manner of mentioning my mother's name and with what my guardian had informed me of his engagement to her sister and his unconscious connexion with her unhappy story. My companion had stopped the driver while we held this conversation, that we might the better hear each other. He now told him to go on again and said to me, after considering within himself for a few moments, that he had made up his mind how to proceed. He was quite willing to tell me what his plan was, but I did not feel clear enough to understand it. We had not driven very far from our lodgings when we stopped in a by-street at a public-looking place lighted up with gas. Mr. Bucket took me in and sat me in an arm-chair by a bright fire. It was now past one, as I saw by the clock against the wall. Two police officers, looking in their perfectly neat uniform not at all like people who were up all night, were quietly writing at a desk; and the place seemed very quiet altogether, except for some beating and calling out at distant doors underground, to which nobody paid any attention. A third man in uniform, whom Mr. Bucket called and to whom he whispered his instructions, went out; and then the two others advised together while one wrote from Mr. Bucket's subdued dictation. It was a description of my mother that they were busy with, for Mr. Bucket brought it to me when it was done and read it in a whisper. It was very accurate indeed. The second officer, who had attended to it closely, then copied it out and called in another man in uniform (there were several in an outer room), who took it up and went away with it. All this was done with the greatest dispatch and without the waste of a moment; yet nobody was at all hurried. As soon as the paper was sent out upon its travels, the two officers resumed their former quiet work of writing with neatness and care. Mr. Bucket thoughtfully came and warmed the soles of his boots, first one and then the other, at the fire. "Are you well wrapped up, Miss Summerson?" he asked me as his eyes met mine. "It's a desperate sharp night for a young lady to be out in." I told him I cared for no weather and was warmly clothed. "It may be a long job," he observed; "but so that it ends well, never mind, miss." "I pray to heaven it may end well!" said I. He nodded comfortingly. "You see, whatever you do, don't you go and fret yourself. You keep yourself cool and equal for anything that may happen, and it'll be the better for you, the better for me, the better for Lady Dedlock, and the better for Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet." He was really very kind and gentle, and as he stood before the fire warming his boots and rubbing his face with his forefinger, I felt a confidence in his sagacity which reassured me. It was not yet a quarter to two when I heard horses' feet and wheels outside. "Now, Miss Summerson," said he, "we are off, if you please!" He gave me his arm, and the two officers courteously bowed me out, and we found at the door a phaeton or barouche with a postilion and post horses. Mr. Bucket handed me in and took his own seat on the box. The man in uniform whom he had sent to fetch this equipage then handed him up a dark lantern at his request, and when he had given a few directions to the driver, we rattled away. I was far from sure that I was not in a dream. We rattled with great rapidity through such a labyrinth of streets that I soon lost all idea where we were, except that we had crossed and re-crossed the river, and still seemed to be traversing a low-lying, waterside, dense neighbourhood of narrow thoroughfares chequered by docks and basins, high piles of warehouses, swing-bridges, and masts of ships. At length we stopped at the corner of a little slimy turning, which the wind from the river, rushing up it, did not purify; and I saw my companion, by the light of his lantern, in conference with several men who looked like a mixture of police and sailors. Against the mouldering wall by which they stood, there was a bill, on which I could discern the words, "Found Drowned"; and this and an inscription about drags possessed me with the awful suspicion shadowed forth in our visit to that place. I had no need to remind myself that I was not there by the indulgence of any feeling of mine to increase the difficulties of the search, or to lessen its hopes, or enhance its delays. I remained quiet, but what I suffered in that dreadful spot I never can forget. And still it was like the horror of a dream. A man yet dark and muddy, in long swollen sodden boots and a hat like them, was called out of a boat and whispered with Mr. Bucket, who went away with him down some slippery steps--as if to look at something secret that he had to show. They came back, wiping their hands upon their coats, after turning over something wet; but thank God it was not what I feared! After some further conference, Mr. Bucket (whom everybody seemed to know and defer to) went in with the others at a door and left me in the carriage, while the driver walked up and down by his horses to warm himself. The tide was coming in, as I judged from the sound it made, and I could hear it break at the end of the alley with a little rush towards me. It never did so--and I thought it did so, hundreds of times, in what can have been at the most a quarter of an hour, and probably was less--but the thought shuddered through me that it would cast my mother at the horses' feet. Mr. Bucket came out again, exhorting the others to be vigilant, darkened his lantern, and once more took his seat. "Don't you be alarmed, Miss Summerson, on account of our coming down here," he said, turning to me. "I only want to have everything in train and to know that it is in train by looking after it myself. Get on, my lad!" We appeared to retrace the way we had come. Not that I had taken note of any particular objects in my perturbed state of mind, but judging from the general character of the streets. We called at another office or station for a minute and crossed the river again. During the whole of this time, and during the whole search, my companion, wrapped up on the box, never relaxed in his vigilance a single moment; but when we crossed the bridge he seemed, if possible, to be more on the alert than before. He stood up to look over the parapet, he alighted and went back after a shadowy female figure that flitted past us, and he gazed into the profound black pit of water with a face that made my heart die within me. The river had a fearful look, so overcast and secret, creeping away so fast between the low flat lines of shore--so heavy with indistinct and awful shapes, both of substance and shadow; so death-like and mysterious. I have seen it many times since then, by sunlight and by moonlight, but never free from the impressions of that journey. In my memory the lights upon the bridge are always burning dim, the cutting wind is eddying round the homeless woman whom we pass, the monotonous wheels are whirling on, and the light of the carriage-lamps reflected back looks palely in upon me--a face rising out of the dreaded water. Clattering and clattering through the empty streets, we came at length from the pavement on to dark smooth roads and began to leave the houses behind us. After a while I recognized the familiar way to Saint Albans. At Barnet fresh horses were ready for us, and we changed and went on. It was very cold indeed, and the open country was white with snow, though none was falling then. "An old acquaintance of yours, this road, Miss Summerson," said Mr. Bucket cheerfully. "Yes," I returned. "Have you gathered any intelligence?" "None that can be quite depended on as yet," he answered, "but it's early times as yet." He had gone into every late or early public-house where there was a light (they were not a few at that time, the road being then much frequented by drovers) and had got down to talk to the turnpike-keepers. I had heard him ordering drink, and chinking money, and making himself agreeable and merry everywhere; but whenever he took his seat upon the box again, his face resumed its watchful steady look, and he always said to the driver in the same business tone, "Get on, my lad!" With all these stoppages, it was between five and six o'clock and we were yet a few miles short of Saint Albans when he came out of one of these houses and handed me in a cup of tea. "Drink it, Miss Summerson, it'll do you good. You're beginning to get more yourself now, ain't you?" I thanked him and said I hoped so. "You was what you may call stunned at first," he returned; "and Lord, no wonder! Don't speak loud, my dear. It's all right. She's on ahead." I don't know what joyful exclamation I made or was going to make, but he put up his finger and I stopped myself. "Passed through here on foot this evening about eight or nine. I heard of her first at the archway toll, over at Highgate, but couldn't make quite sure. Traced her all along, on and off. Picked her up at one place, and dropped her at another; but she's before us now, safe. Take hold of this cup and saucer, ostler. Now, if you wasn't brought up to the butter trade, look out and see if you can catch half a crown in your t'other hand. One, two, three, and there you are! Now, my lad, try a gallop!" We were soon in Saint Albans and alighted a little before day, when I was just beginning to arrange and comprehend the occurrences of the night and really to believe that they were not a dream. Leaving the carriage at the posting-house and ordering fresh horses to be ready, my companion gave me his arm, and we went towards home. "As this is your regular abode, Miss Summerson, you see," he observed, "I should like to know whether you've been asked for by any stranger answering the description, or whether Mr. Jarndyce has. I don't much expect it, but it might be." As we ascended the hill, he looked about him with a sharp eye--the day was now breaking--and reminded me that I had come down it one night, as I had reason for remembering, with my little servant and poor Jo, whom he called Toughey. I wondered how he knew that. "When you passed a man upon the road, just yonder, you know," said Mr. Bucket. Yes, I remembered that too, very well. "That was me," said Mr. Bucket. Seeing my surprise, he went on, "I drove down in a gig that afternoon to look after that boy. You might have heard my wheels when you came out to look after him yourself, for I was aware of you and your little maid going up when I was walking the horse down. Making an inquiry or two about him in the town, I soon heard what company he was in and was coming among the brick-fields to look for him when I observed you bringing him home here." "Had he committed any crime?" I asked. "None was charged against him," said Mr. Bucket, coolly lifting off his hat, "but I suppose he wasn't over-particular. No. What I wanted him for was in connexion with keeping this very matter of Lady Dedlock quiet. He had been making his tongue more free than welcome as to a small accidental service he had been paid for by the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn; and it wouldn't do, at any sort of price, to have him playing those games. So having warned him out of London, I made an afternoon of it to warn him to keep out of it now he WAS away, and go farther from it, and maintain a bright look-out that I didn't catch him coming back again." "Poor creature!" said I. "Poor enough," assented Mr. Bucket, "and trouble enough, and well enough away from London, or anywhere else. I was regularly turned on my back when I found him taken up by your establishment, I do assure you." I asked him why. "Why, my dear?" said Mr. Bucket. "Naturally there was no end to his tongue then. He might as well have been born with a yard and a half of it, and a remnant over." Although I remember this conversation now, my head was in confusion at the time, and my power of attention hardly did more than enable me to understand that he entered into these particulars to divert me. With the same kind intention, manifestly, he often spoke to me of indifferent things, while his face was busy with the one object that we had in view. He still pursued this subject as we turned in at the garden-gate. "Ah!" said Mr. Bucket. "Here we are, and a nice retired place it is. Puts a man in mind of the country house in the Woodpecker-tapping, that was known by the smoke which so gracefully curled. They're early with the kitchen fire, and that denotes good servants. But what you've always got to be careful of with servants is who comes to see 'em; you never know what they're up to if you don't know that. And another thing, my dear. Whenever you find a young man behind the kitchen-door, you give that young man in charge on suspicion of being secreted in a dwelling-house with an unlawful purpose." We were now in front of the house; he looked attentively and closely at the gravel for footprints before he raised his eyes to the windows. "Do you generally put that elderly young gentleman in the same room when he's on a visit here, Miss Summerson?" he inquired, glancing at Mr. Skimpole's usual chamber. "You know Mr. Skimpole!" said I. "What do you call him again?" returned Mr. Bucket, bending down his ear. "Skimpole, is it? I've often wondered what his name might be. Skimpole. Not John, I should say, nor yet Jacob?" "Harold," I told him. "Harold. Yes. He's a queer bird is Harold," said Mr. Bucket, eyeing me with great expression. "He is a singular character," said I. "No idea of money," observed Mr. Bucket. "He takes it, though!" I involuntarily returned for answer that I perceived Mr. Bucket knew him. "Why, now I'll tell you, Miss Summerson," he replied. "Your mind will be all the better for not running on one point too continually, and I'll tell you for a change. It was him as pointed out to me where Toughey was. I made up my mind that night to come to the door and ask for Toughey, if that was all; but willing to try a move or so first, if any such was on the board, I just pitched up a morsel of gravel at that window where I saw a shadow. As soon as Harold opens it and I have had a look at him, thinks I, you're the man for me. So I smoothed him down a bit about not wanting to disturb the family after they was gone to bed and about its being a thing to be regretted that charitable young ladies should harbour vagrants; and then, when I pretty well understood his ways, I said I should consider a fypunnote well bestowed if I could relieve the premises of Toughey without causing any noise or trouble. Then says he, lifting up his eyebrows in the gayest way, 'It's no use mentioning a fypunnote to me, my friend, because I'm a mere child in such matters and have no idea of money.' Of course I understood what his taking it so easy meant; and being now quite sure he was the man for me, I wrapped the note round a little stone and threw it up to him. Well! He laughs and beams, and looks as innocent as you like, and says, 'But I don't know the value of these things. What am I to DO with this?' 'Spend it, sir,' says I. 'But I shall be taken in,' he says, 'they won't give me the right change, I shall lose it, it's no use to me.' Lord, you never saw such a face as he carried it with! Of course he told me where to find Toughey, and I found him." I regarded this as very treacherous on the part of Mr. Skimpole towards my guardian and as passing the usual bounds of his childish innocence. "Bounds, my dear?" returned Mr. Bucket. "Bounds? Now, Miss Summerson, I'll give you a piece of advice that your husband will find useful when you are happily married and have got a family about you. Whenever a person says to you that they are as innocent as can be in all concerning money, look well after your own money, for they are dead certain to collar it if they can. Whenever a person proclaims to you 'In worldly matters I'm a child,' you consider that that person is only a-crying off from being held accountable and that you have got that person's number, and it's Number One. Now, I am not a poetical man myself, except in a vocal way when it goes round a company, but I'm a practical one, and that's my experience. So's this rule. Fast and loose in one thing, fast and loose in everything. I never knew it fail. No more will you. Nor no one. With which caution to the unwary, my dear, I take the liberty of pulling this here bell, and so go back to our business." I believe it had not been for a moment out of his mind, any more than it had been out of my mind, or out of his face. The whole household were amazed to see me, without any notice, at that time in the morning, and so accompanied; and their surprise was not diminished by my inquiries. No one, however, had been there. It could not be doubted that this was the truth. "Then, Miss Summerson," said my companion, "we can't be too soon at the cottage where those brickmakers are to be found. Most inquiries there I leave to you, if you'll be so good as to make 'em. The naturalest way is the best way, and the naturalest way is your own way." We set off again immediately. On arriving at the cottage, we found it shut up and apparently deserted, but one of the neighbours who knew me and who came out when I was trying to make some one hear informed me that the two women and their husbands now lived together in another house, made of loose rough bricks, which stood on the margin of the piece of ground where the kilns were and where the long rows of bricks were drying. We lost no time in repairing to this place, which was within a few hundred yards; and as the door stood ajar, I pushed it open. There were only three of them sitting at breakfast, the child lying asleep on a bed in the corner. It was Jenny, the mother of the dead child, who was absent. The other woman rose on seeing me; and the men, though they were, as usual, sulky and silent, each gave me a morose nod of recognition. A look passed between them when Mr. Bucket followed me in, and I was surprised to see that the woman evidently knew him. I had asked leave to enter of course. Liz (the only name by which I knew her) rose to give me her own chair, but I sat down on a stool near the fire, and Mr. Bucket took a corner of the bedstead. Now that I had to speak and was among people with whom I was not familiar, I became conscious of being hurried and giddy. It was very difficult to begin, and I could not help bursting into tears. "Liz," said I, "I have come a long way in the night and through the snow to inquire after a lady--" "Who has been here, you know," Mr. Bucket struck in, addressing the whole group with a composed propitiatory face; "that's the lady the young lady means. The lady that was here last night, you know." "And who told YOU as there was anybody here?" inquired Jenny's husband, who had made a surly stop in his eating to listen and now measured him with his eye. "A person of the name of Michael Jackson, with a blue welveteen waistcoat with a double row of mother of pearl buttons," Mr. Bucket immediately answered. "He had as good mind his own business, whoever he is," growled the man. "He's out of employment, I believe," said Mr. Bucket apologetically for Michael Jackson, "and so gets talking." The woman had not resumed her chair, but stood faltering with her hand upon its broken back, looking at me. I thought she would have spoken to me privately if she had dared. She was still in this attitude of uncertainty when her husband, who was eating with a lump of bread and fat in one hand and his clasp-knife in the other, struck the handle of his knife violently on the table and told her with an oath to mind HER own business at any rate and sit down. "I should like to have seen Jenny very much," said I, "for I am sure she would have told me all she could about this lady, whom I am very anxious indeed--you cannot think how anxious--to overtake. Will Jenny be here soon? Where is she?" The woman had a great desire to answer, but the man, with another oath, openly kicked at her foot with his heavy boot. He left it to Jenny's husband to say what he chose, and after a dogged silence the latter turned his shaggy head towards me. "I'm not partial to gentlefolks coming into my place, as you've heerd me say afore now, I think, miss. I let their places be, and it's curious they can't let my place be. There'd be a pretty shine made if I was to go a-wisitin THEM, I think. Howsoever, I don't so much complain of you as of some others, and I'm agreeable to make you a civil answer, though I give notice that I'm not a-going to be drawed like a badger. Will Jenny be here soon? No she won't. Where is she? She's gone up to Lunnun." "Did she go last night?" I asked. "Did she go last night? Ah! She went last night," he answered with a sulky jerk of his head. "But was she here when the lady came? And what did the lady say to her? And where is the lady gone? I beg and pray you to be so kind as to tell me," said I, "for I am in great distress to know." "If my master would let me speak, and not say a word of harm--" the woman timidly began. "Your master," said her husband, muttering an imprecation with slow emphasis, "will break your neck if you meddle with wot don't concern you." After another silence, the husband of the absent woman, turning to me again, answered me with his usual grumbling unwillingness. "Wos Jenny here when the lady come? Yes, she wos here when the lady come. Wot did the lady say to her? Well, I'll tell you wot the lady said to her. She said, 'You remember me as come one time to talk to you about the young lady as had been a-wisiting of you? You remember me as give you somethink handsome for a handkercher wot she had left?' Ah, she remembered. So we all did. Well, then, wos that young lady up at the house now? No, she warn't up at the house now. Well, then, lookee here. The lady was upon a journey all alone, strange as we might think it, and could she rest herself where you're a setten for a hour or so. Yes she could, and so she did. Then she went--it might be at twenty minutes past eleven, and it might be at twenty minutes past twelve; we ain't got no watches here to know the time by, nor yet clocks. Where did she go? I don't know where she go'd. She went one way, and Jenny went another; one went right to Lunnun, and t'other went right from it. That's all about it. Ask this man. He heerd it all, and see it all. He knows." The other man repeated, "That's all about it." "Was the lady crying?" I inquired. "Devil a bit," returned the first man. "Her shoes was the worse, and her clothes was the worse, but she warn't--not as I see." The woman sat with her arms crossed and her eyes upon the ground. Her husband had turned his seat a little so as to face her and kept his hammer-like hand upon the table as if it were in readiness to execute his threat if she disobeyed him. "I hope you will not object to my asking your wife," said I, "how the lady looked." "Come, then!" he gruffly cried to her. "You hear what she says. Cut it short and tell her." "Bad," replied the woman. "Pale and exhausted. Very bad." "Did she speak much?" "Not much, but her voice was hoarse." She answered, looking all the while at her husband for leave. "Was she faint?" said I. "Did she eat or drink here?" "Go on!" said the husband in answer to her look. "Tell her and cut it short." "She had a little water, miss, and Jenny fetched her some bread and tea. But she hardly touched it." "And when she went from here," I was proceeding, when Jenny's husband impatiently took me up. "When she went from here, she went right away nor'ard by the high road. Ask on the road if you doubt me, and see if it warn't so. Now, there's the end. That's all about it." I glanced at my companion, and finding that he had already risen and was ready to depart, thanked them for what they had told me, and took my leave. The woman looked full at Mr. Bucket as he went out, and he looked full at her. "Now, Miss Summerson," he said to me as we walked quickly away. "They've got her ladyship's watch among 'em. That's a positive fact." "You saw it?" I exclaimed. "Just as good as saw it," he returned. "Else why should he talk about his 'twenty minutes past' and about his having no watch to tell the time by? Twenty minutes! He don't usually cut his time so fine as that. If he comes to half-hours, it's as much as HE does. Now, you see, either her ladyship gave him that watch or he took it. I think she gave it him. Now, what should she give it him for? What should she give it him for?" He repeated this question to himself several times as we hurried on, appearing to balance between a variety of answers that arose in his mind. "If time could be spared," said Mr. Bucket, "which is the only thing that can't be spared in this case, I might get it out of that woman; but it's too doubtful a chance to trust to under present circumstances. They are up to keeping a close eye upon her, and any fool knows that a poor creetur like her, beaten and kicked and scarred and bruised from head to foot, will stand by the husband that ill uses her through thick and thin. There's something kept back. It's a pity but what we had seen the other woman." I regretted it exceedingly, for she was very grateful, and I felt sure would have resisted no entreaty of mine. "It's possible, Miss Summerson," said Mr. Bucket, pondering on it, "that her ladyship sent her up to London with some word for you, and it's possible that her husband got the watch to let her go. It don't come out altogether so plain as to please me, but it's on the cards. Now, I don't take kindly to laying out the money of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, on these roughs, and I don't see my way to the usefulness of it at present. No! So far our road, Miss Summerson, is for'ard--straight ahead--and keeping everything quiet!" We called at home once more that I might send a hasty note to my guardian, and then we hurried back to where we had left the carriage. The horses were brought out as soon as we were seen coming, and we were on the road again in a few minutes. It had set in snowing at daybreak, and it now snowed hard. The air was so thick with the darkness of the day and the density of the fall that we could see but a very little way in any direction. Although it was extremely cold, the snow was but partially frozen, and it churned--with a sound as if it were a beach of small shells--under the hoofs of the horses into mire and water. They sometimes slipped and floundered for a mile together, and we were obliged to come to a standstill to rest them. One horse fell three times in this first stage, and trembled so and was so shaken that the driver had to dismount from his saddle and lead him at last. I could eat nothing and could not sleep, and I grew so nervous under those delays and the slow pace at which we travelled that I had an unreasonable desire upon me to get out and walk. Yielding to my companion's better sense, however, I remained where I was. All this time, kept fresh by a certain enjoyment of the work in which he was engaged, he was up and down at every house we came to, addressing people whom he had never beheld before as old acquaintances, running in to warm himself at every fire he saw, talking and drinking and shaking hands at every bar and tap, friendly with every waggoner, wheelwright, blacksmith, and toll-taker, yet never seeming to lose time, and always mounting to the box again with his watchful, steady face and his business-like "Get on, my lad!" When we were changing horses the next time, he came from the stable-yard, with the wet snow encrusted upon him and dropping off him--plashing and crashing through it to his wet knees as he had been doing frequently since we left Saint Albans--and spoke to me at the carriage side. "Keep up your spirits. It's certainly true that she came on here, Miss Summerson. There's not a doubt of the dress by this time, and the dress has been seen here." "Still on foot?" said I. "Still on foot. I think the gentleman you mentioned must be the point she's aiming at, and yet I don't like his living down in her own part of the country neither." "I know so little," said I. "There may be some one else nearer here, of whom I never heard." "That's true. But whatever you do, don't you fall a-crying, my dear; and don't you worry yourself no more than you can help. Get on, my lad!" The sleet fell all that day unceasingly, a thick mist came on early, and it never rose or lightened for a moment. Such roads I had never seen. I sometimes feared we had missed the way and got into the ploughed grounds or the marshes. If I ever thought of the time I had been out, it presented itself as an indefinite period of great duration, and I seemed, in a strange way, never to have been free from the anxiety under which I then laboured. As we advanced, I began to feel misgivings that my companion lost confidence. He was the same as before with all the roadside people, but he looked graver when he sat by himself on the box. I saw his finger uneasily going across and across his mouth during the whole of one long weary stage. I overheard that he began to ask the drivers of coaches and other vehicles coming towards us what passengers they had seen in other coaches and vehicles that were in advance. Their replies did not encourage him. He always gave me a reassuring beck of his finger and lift of his eyelid as he got upon the box again, but he seemed perplexed now when he said, "Get on, my lad!" At last, when we were changing, he told me that he had lost the track of the dress so long that he began to be surprised. It was nothing, he said, to lose such a track for one while, and to take it up for another while, and so on; but it had disappeared here in an unaccountable manner, and we had not come upon it since. This corroborated the apprehensions I had formed, when he began to look at direction-posts, and to leave the carriage at cross roads for a quarter of an hour at a time while he explored them. But I was not to be down-hearted, he told me, for it was as likely as not that the next stage might set us right again. The next stage, however, ended as that one ended; we had no new clue. There was a spacious inn here, solitary, but a comfortable substantial building, and as we drove in under a large gateway before I knew it, where a landlady and her pretty daughters came to the carriage-door, entreating me to alight and refresh myself while the horses were making ready, I thought it would be uncharitable to refuse. They took me upstairs to a warm room and left me there. It was at the corner of the house, I remember, looking two ways. On one side to a stable-yard open to a by-road, where the ostlers were unharnessing the splashed and tired horses from the muddy carriage, and beyond that to the by-road itself, across which the sign was heavily swinging; on the other side to a wood of dark pine-trees. Their branches were encumbered with snow, and it silently dropped off in wet heaps while I stood at the window. Night was setting in, and its bleakness was enhanced by the contrast of the pictured fire glowing and gleaming in the window-pane. As I looked among the stems of the trees and followed the discoloured marks in the snow where the thaw was sinking into it and undermining it, I thought of the motherly face brightly set off by daughters that had just now welcomed me and of MY mother lying down in such a wood to die. I was frightened when I found them all about me, but I remembered that before I fainted I tried very hard not to do it; and that was some little comfort. They cushioned me up on a large sofa by the fire, and then the comely landlady told me that I must travel no further to-night, but must go to bed. But this put me into such a tremble lest they should detain me there that she soon recalled her words and compromised for a rest of half an hour. A good endearing creature she was. She and her three fair girls, all so busy about me. I was to take hot soup and broiled fowl, while Mr. Bucket dried himself and dined elsewhere; but I could not do it when a snug round table was presently spread by the fireside, though I was very unwilling to disappoint them. However, I could take some toast and some hot negus, and as I really enjoyed that refreshment, it made some recompense. Punctual to the time, at the half-hour's end the carriage came rumbling under the gateway, and they took me down, warmed, refreshed, comforted by kindness, and safe (I assured them) not to faint any more. After I had got in and had taken a grateful leave of them all, the youngest daughter--a blooming girl of nineteen, who was to be the first married, they had told me--got upon the carriage step, reached in, and kissed me. I have never seen her, from that hour, but I think of her to this hour as my friend. The transparent windows with the fire and light, looking so bright and warm from the cold darkness out of doors, were soon gone, and again we were crushing and churning the loose snow. We went on with toil enough, but the dismal roads were not much worse than they had been, and the stage was only nine miles. My companion smoking on the box--I had thought at the last inn of begging him to do so when I saw him standing at a great fire in a comfortable cloud of tobacco--was as vigilant as ever and as quickly down and up again when we came to any human abode or any human creature. He had lighted his little dark lantern, which seemed to be a favourite with him, for we had lamps to the carriage; and every now and then he turned it upon me to see that I was doing well. There was a folding-window to the carriage-head, but I never closed it, for it seemed like shutting out hope. We came to the end of the stage, and still the lost trace was not recovered. I looked at him anxiously when we stopped to change, but I knew by his yet graver face as he stood watching the ostlers that he had heard nothing. Almost in an instant afterwards, as I leaned back in my seat, he looked in, with his lighted lantern in his hand, an excited and quite different man. "What is it?" said I, starting. "Is she here?" "No, no. Don't deceive yourself, my dear. Nobody's here. But I've got it!" The crystallized snow was in his eyelashes, in his hair, lying in ridges on his dress. He had to shake it from his face and get his breath before he spoke to me. "Now, Miss Summerson," said he, beating his finger on the apron, "don't you be disappointed at what I'm a-going to do. You know me. I'm Inspector Bucket, and you can trust me. We've come a long way; never mind. Four horses out there for the next stage up! Quick!" There was a commotion in the yard, and a man came running out of the stables to know if he meant up or down. "Up, I tell you! Up! Ain't it English? Up!" "Up?" said I, astonished. "To London! Are we going back?" "Miss Summerson," he answered, "back. Straight back as a die. You know me. Don't be afraid. I'll follow the other, by G----" "The other?" I repeated. "Who?" "You called her Jenny, didn't you? I'll follow her. Bring those two pair out here for a crown a man. Wake up, some of you!" "You will not desert this lady we are in search of; you will not abandon her on such a night and in such a state of mind as I know her to be in!" said I, in an agony, and grasping his hand. "You are right, my dear, I won't. But I'll follow the other. Look alive here with them horses. Send a man for'ard in the saddle to the next stage, and let him send another for'ard again, and order four on, up, right through. My darling, don't you be afraid!" These orders and the way in which he ran about the yard urging them caused a general excitement that was scarcely less bewildering to me than the sudden change. But in the height of the confusion, a mounted man galloped away to order the relays, and our horses were put to with great speed. "My dear," said Mr. Bucket, jumping to his seat and looking in again, "--you'll excuse me if I'm too familiar--don't you fret and worry yourself no more than you can help. I say nothing else at present; but you know me, my dear; now, don't you?" I endeavoured to say that I knew he was far more capable than I of deciding what we ought to do, but was he sure that this was right? Could I not go forward by myself in search of--I grasped his hand again in my distress and whispered it to him--of my own mother. "My dear," he answered, "I know, I know, and would I put you wrong, do you think? Inspector Bucket. Now you know me, don't you?" What could I say but yes! "Then you keep up as good a heart as you can, and you rely upon me for standing by you, no less than by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Now, are you right there?" "All right, sir!" "Off she goes, then. And get on, my lads!" We were again upon the melancholy road by which we had come, tearing up the miry sleet and thawing snow as if they were torn up by a waterwheel.

I was asleep when my guardian knocked at the door of my room and begged me to get up directly. He told me that there had been a discovery at Sir Leicester Dedlock's. That my mother had fled, that a person was now at our door who was empowered to convey to her assurances of protection and forgiveness if he could possibly find her; and that I was asked to accompany him in the hope that my entreaties might succeed with her if his failed. Something to this general purpose I made out, but I was thrown into such a tumult of alarm and hurry and distress that I did not seem, to myself, fully to recover my right mind until hours had passed. But I dressed and wrapped up without waking Charley and went down to Mr. Bucket. My guardian explained how it was that he had thought of me; and Mr. Bucket, in a low voice, read to me a letter that my mother had left upon her table. Within ten minutes of waking I was sitting beside him, rolling swiftly through the streets. His manner was very keen, and yet considerate when he asked me some questions. These were whether I had had much communication with my mother (to whom he only referred as Lady Dedlock), when and where I had spoken with her last, and how she had become possessed of my handkerchief. Then he asked me to consider whether I knew of anyone, no matter where, in whom she might be at all likely to confide. I could think of no one but my guardian. But by and by Mr. Boythorn came into my mind, and I mentioned his name. My companion considered for a few moments before telling me that he had decided how to proceed. He was quite willing to tell me his plan, but I did not feel clear enough to understand it. We had not driven very far from our lodgings when we stopped in a side-street at a police station. Mr. Bucket took me in and sat me in an armchair by a bright fire. It was now past one, as I saw by the clock. Two police officers were quietly writing at a desk; and the place seemed very quiet altogether, except for some beating and calling out at distant doors, to which nobody paid any attention. A third man in uniform, whom Mr. Bucket spoke with, went out; and then one of the two others wrote out a description of my mother from Mr. Bucket's subdued dictation. Mr. Bucket read it to me, and it was very accurate indeed. The second officer called in another man in uniform, who took it away. All this was done without the waste of a moment; yet nobody was at all hurried. The two officers resumed their former quiet work of writing with neatness and care. Mr. Bucket thoughtfully came and warmed himself at the fire. "Are you well wrapped up, Miss Summerson?" he asked me. "It's a desperate sharp night for a young lady to be out in." I told him I cared for no weather and was warmly clothed. "It may be a long job," he observed; "but if it ends well, never mind, miss." "I pray to heaven it may end well!" said I. He nodded comfortingly. "Don't you fret yourself. You keep yourself cool and equal for anything that may happen." He was really very kind and gentle, and as he stood before the fire I felt a confidence in his wisdom which reassured me. It was not yet a quarter to two when I heard wheels outside. "Now, Miss Summerson," said he, "we are off, if you please!" We found at the door a phaeton with a postilion and post horses. Mr. Bucket handed me in and took his own seat on the box. He took a lantern, gave a few directions to the driver, and we rattled away. I was far from sure that I was not in a dream. We rattled through such a labyrinth of streets that I soon lost all idea of where we were, except that we had crossed and re-crossed the river, and seemed to be in a waterside neighbourhood of narrow streets chequered by docks and bridges and high piles of warehouses. At length we stopped near the river; and I saw my companion conferring with several men who looked like a mixture of police and sailors. Against the mouldering wall by which they stood, there was a bill, on which I could discern the words, "Found Drowned". What I suffered in that dreadful spot I never can forget. And still it was like the horror of a dream. A man dark and muddy, in long sodden boots, was called out of a boat and whispered with Mr. Bucket, who went away with him down some slippery steps - as if to look at something secret that he had to show. They came back, wiping their hands upon their coats, after turning over something wet; but thank God it was not what I feared! After some further conference, Mr. Bucket (whom everybody seemed to know and defer to) went through a door with the others and left me in the carriage, while the driver walked up and down by his horses to warm himself. The tide was coming in; I could hear it break at the end of the alley with a little rush towards me, and the thought shuddered through me that it would cast my mother at the horses' feet. Mr. Bucket came out again, and once more took his seat. "Don't you be alarmed, Miss Summerson, on account of our coming down here," he said. "I only want to have everything in train. Get on, my lad!" We appeared to retrace the way we had come. We called at another police station for a minute and crossed the river again. My companion, wrapped up on the box, never relaxed in his vigilance. When we crossed the bridge he stood up to look over the parapet; he alighted and went back after a shadowy female figure that flitted past us; and he gazed into the profound black pit of water with a face that made my heart die within me. The river had a fearful look, so overcast and secret, creeping away so fast between the low flat lines of shore - so heavy with indistinct and awful shapes, so death-like and mysterious. I have seen it many times since then, but never free from the impressions of that journey. In my memory the lights upon the bridge are always burning dim, the cutting wind is eddying, the monotonous wheels are whirling on, and the light of the carriage-lamps reflected back looks palely in upon me like a face rising out of the dreaded water. Clattering through the empty streets, at length we began to leave the houses behind. After a while I recognized the familiar way to Saint Albans. At Barnet fresh horses were ready for us, and we changed and went on. It was very cold indeed, and the open country was white with snow, though none was falling then. "An old acquaintance of yours, this road, Miss Summerson," said Mr. Bucket cheerfully. "Yes. Have you gathered any news?" "None that can be quite depended on," he answered, "but it's early times as yet." He had gone into every public-house where there was a light, and had talked to the turnpike-keepers. I had heard him chinking money, and making himself agreeable and merry everywhere; but whenever he took his seat upon the box again, his face resumed its watchful steady look. With all these stoppages, it was between five and six o'clock, and we were still a few miles short of Saint Albans, when he came out of one of these public-houses and handed me in a cup of tea. "Drink it, Miss Summerson, it'll do you good. You're beginning to get more yourself now, ain't you?" I thanked him and said I hoped so. "You was what you may call stunned at first," he returned; "and no wonder! Don't speak loud, my dear. It's all right. She's on ahead." I don't know what joyful exclamation I made or was going to make, but he put up his finger and I stopped myself. "Passed through here on foot this evening about eight or nine. I heard of her first at the archway toll, over at Highgate. Traced her all along, on and off. Picked her up at one place, and dropped her at another; but she's before us now, safe. Now, off at a gallop!" We were soon in Saint Albans and alighted a little before day, when I was just beginning to arrange and comprehend the events of the night. Leaving the carriage at the posting-house and ordering fresh horses to be ready, my companion gave me his arm, and we went towards Bleak House. "As this is your regular home, Miss Summerson," he observed, "I should like to know whether you've been asked for by any stranger answering the description. I don't much expect it, but it might be." As we ascended the hill, he looked about him with a sharp eye - the day was now breaking - and reminded me that I had come down it one night with my little servant and poor Jo. "When you passed a man upon the road, just yonder, that was me," said Mr. Bucket. Seeing my surprise, he went on, "I drove down in a gig that afternoon to look for that boy. Making inquiry about him in the town, I soon heard what company he was in and was coming among the brick-fields to look for him, when I observed you bringing him home here." "Had he committed any crime?" I asked. "None was charged against him," said Mr. Bucket. "What I wanted him for was in connexion with keeping this matter of Lady Dedlock quiet. He had been making his tongue more free than welcome; and it wouldn't do to have him playing those games. So having warned him out of London, I made an afternoon of it to warn him to keep out of it." "Poor creature!" said I. "Poor enough," assented Mr. Bucket, "and trouble enough. I was disturbed when I found him taken up by your establishment, I do assure you, for there was no end to his tongue. He might as well have been born with a yard and a half of it." Although I remember this conversation now, my head was in confusion at the time. I understood, however, that he entered into these details to divert me. With the same kind intention, he spoke to me of indifferent things while we turned in at the garden-gate. "Ah!" said Mr. Bucket. "Here we are, and a nice retired place it is. They're early with the kitchen fire, and that denotes good servants. But what you've always got to be careful of with servants is who comes to see 'em; you never know what they're up to if you don't know that." We were now in front of the house; he looked attentively at the gravel for footprints before he raised his eyes to the windows. "Do you generally put that elderly young gentleman in the same room when he's on a visit here, Miss Summerson?" he inquired. "You know Mr. Skimpole!" said I. "What do you call him again?" returned Mr. Bucket, bending down his ear. "Skimpole, is it? I've often wondered what his name might be. Skimpole. Not John, I should say?" "Harold." "Harold. Yes. He's a queer bird is Harold," said Mr. Bucket, eyeing me with great expression. "He is a singular character," said I. "No idea of money," observed Mr. Bucket. "He takes it, though! It was him as pointed out to me where the boy was. I just pitched up a morsel of gravel at that window where I saw a shadow. As soon as Harold opens it and I see him, thinks I, you're the man for me. So I smoothed him down a bit about its being regrettable that charitable young ladies should harbour vagrants; and then I said I should pay a five pound note if I could take away the boy without causing any noise or trouble. Then says he, lifting up his eyebrows in the gayest way, 'I'm a mere child in such matters, my friend, and have no idea of money.' Being now quite sure he was the man for me, I wrapped the note round a little stone and threw it up to him. Well! He laughs and beams, and looks as innocent as you like, and says, 'But I don't know the value of these things. What am I to do with this?' 'Spend it, sir,' says I. He told me where to find the boy." I regarded this as very treacherous of Mr. Skimpole. "Miss Summerson, I'll give you a piece of advice," returned Mr. Bucket. "Whenever a person says to you that they are innocent concerning money, look well after your own money, for they are dead certain to collar it if they can. Whenever a person proclaims to you 'In worldly matters I'm a child,' consider that that person is only a-crying off from being held accountable and that you have got that person's number, and it's Number One. With which caution, my dear, I take the liberty of pulling this here bell, and so go back to our business." The whole household were amazed to see me at that time in the morning; and their surprise was not diminished by my inquiries. No one, however, had been there. "Then, Miss Summerson," said my companion, "we can't be too soon at the cottage where those brickmakers are to be found. Most inquiries there I leave to you, if you'll be so good as to make 'em. The naturalest way is the best way, and your own way." We set off again immediately. On arriving at the cottage, we found it shut up and apparently deserted, but one of the neighbours who knew me came out and informed me that the two women and their husbands now lived together in another house near the ground where the kilns were and where the long rows of bricks were drying. We found this place a few hundred yards away; and as the door stood ajar, I pushed it open. There were only three of them sitting at breakfast, the child lying asleep on a bed in the corner. It was Jenny, the mother of the dead child, who was absent. The other woman rose on seeing me; and the men, though they were sulky and silent, gave me morose nods of recognition. I was surprised to see that the woman evidently knew Mr. Bucket. I sat down on a stool near the fire, and Mr. Bucket took a corner of the bedstead. Now that I had to speak, I became conscious of feeling hurried and giddy. It was very difficult to begin, and I could not help bursting into tears. "Liz," said I, "I have come a long way in the night and through the snow to inquire after a lady-" "Who has been here, you know," Mr. Bucket struck in. "The lady that was here last night, you know." "And who told you as there was anybody here?" inquired Jenny's husband. "A person called Jackson, with a blue welveteen waistcoat with a double row of mother of pearl buttons," Mr. Bucket answered. "He had better mind his own business, whoever he is," growled the man. The woman stood faltering, looking at me. I thought she would have spoken to me privately if she had dared. She was still in this attitude of uncertainty when her husband, who was eating with a lump of bread in one hand and his clasp-knife in the other, struck the knife violently on the table and told her with an oath to mind her own business and sit down. "I should like to have seen Jenny very much," said I, "for I am sure she would have told me all she could about this lady, whom I am very anxious indeed to overtake. Will Jenny be here soon? Where is she?" The woman had a great desire to answer, but the man, with an oath, openly kicked at her foot with his heavy boot. After a dogged silence Jenny's husband turned his shaggy head towards me. "I'm not partial to gentlefolks coming into my place, miss. I let their places be, and it's curious they can't let my place be. However, I'm agreeable to make you a civil answer. Will Jenny be here soon? No she won't. Where is she? She's gone up to Lunnun." "Did she go last night?" I asked. "She went last night," he answered with a sulky jerk of his head. "But was she here when the lady came? And what did the lady say to her? And where is the lady gone? I beg and pray you to be so kind as to tell me," said I, "for I am in great distress to know." "If my master would let me speak, and not say a word of harm-" the woman timidly began. "Your master," said her husband with slow emphasis, "will break your neck if you meddle with wot don't concern you." After another silence, Jenny's husband said, "Yes, Jenny was here when the lady come. The lady said, 'You remember me as come one time to talk to you about the young lady as had been a-wisiting of you? You remember I gave you somethink handsome for a handkercher wot she had left?' Ah, she remembered. Well, then, wos that young lady up at the house now? No, she warn't. Well, then, could the lady rest herself for a hour or so. Yes she could, and so she did. Then she went - it might be at twenty minutes past eleven, and it might be at twenty minutes past twelve; we ain't got no watches here to know the time by. Where did she go? I don't know. She went one way, and Jenny went another; one went right to Lunnun, and t'other went right from it. That's all." The other man repeated, "That's all." "Was the lady crying?" I inquired. "Not as I see." The woman sat with her eyes upon the ground. Her husband had kept his hammer-like hand upon the table as if ready to execute his threat if she disobeyed him. "I hope you will not object to my asking your wife," said I, "how the lady looked." "Come, then!" he gruffly cried to her. "Cut it short and tell her." "Very bad," replied the woman. "Pale and exhausted." "Did she speak much?" "Not much, but her voice was hoarse." She answered, looking all the while at her husband for permission. "Was she faint?" said I. "Did she eat or drink here?" "Go on!" said the husband. "Tell her." "She had a little water, miss, and Jenny fetched her some bread and tea. But she hardly touched it." "And when she went from here," I was proceeding, when Jenny's husband impatiently took me up. "When she went from here, she went right away north by the high road. Ask on the road if you doubt me. Now, there's the end. That's all." I glanced at my companion, and finding that he had already risen to depart, thanked them, and took my leave. The woman looked full at Mr. Bucket as he went out, and he looked full at her. "Now, Miss Summerson," he said to me as we walked quickly away. "They've got her ladyship's watch." "You saw it?" I exclaimed. "As good as saw it," he returned. "Else why should he talk about his 'twenty minutes past' and about his having no watch? Twenty minutes! He don't usually cut his time so fine as that. I think her ladyship gave it him. Now, why?" He repeated this question to himself several times as we hurried on. "If time could be spared," said Mr. Bucket, "which it can't, I might get it out of that woman; but they are keeping a close eye upon her, and a poor creetur like her, though beaten and kicked and bruised from head to foot, will stand by the husband that ill uses her through thick and thin. There's something kept back. It's a pity we didn't see the other woman." I regretted it exceedingly. "It's possible, Miss Summerson," said Mr. Bucket, pondering on it, "that her ladyship sent her to London with some word for you, and it's possible that her husband got the watch to let her go. It's not so plain as to please me, but it's possible. Now, I don't take kindly to laying out the money of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, on these roughs, and I don't see the usefulness of it at present. No! So far our road, Miss Summerson, is straight ahead!" We called home once more so that I might send a hasty note to my guardian, and then we hurried back to the carriage, and were soon on the road again. It had set in snowing at daybreak, and it now snowed hard. We could see only a very little way in any direction. Although it was extremely cold, the snow was but partially frozen, and it churned - with a sound as if it were a beach of small shells - under the hoofs of the horses into mire and water. They sometimes slipped and floundered until we were obliged to stop to rest them. One horse fell three times in this first stage, and trembled so that the driver had to dismount from his saddle and lead him. I could eat nothing and could not sleep, and I grew so nervous at these delays that I had an unreasonable desire to get out and walk. Yielding to my companion's better sense, however, I remained where I was. All this time he was up and down at every house we came to, addressing people whom he had never beheld before as old acquaintances, running in to warm himself at every fire, talking and drinking and shaking hands at every bar and tap, friendly with every waggoner, wheelwright, blacksmith, and toll-taker, always mounting to the box again with his watchful, steady face and his "Get on, my lad!" At the next change of horses he came from the stable-yard, with the wet snow encrusted upon him, and spoke to me at the carriage side. "Keep up your spirits. It's certainly true that she came here, Miss Summerson. There's not a doubt of the dress, and the dress has been seen here." "Still on foot?" said I. "Yes. I think the Mr. Boythorn you mentioned must be the point she's aiming at, and yet I don't like his living in her own part of the country." "I know so little," said I. "There may be some one else nearer here, of whom I never heard." "That's true. But whatever you do, don't you fall a-crying, my dear; and don't you worry no more than you can help. Get on, my lad!" The sleet fell all that day unceasingly and thick mist came on early. Such roads I had never seen. I sometimes feared we had missed the way and got into the ploughed grounds or the marshes. It felt as if we had been out for a very long time, and I seemed, in a strange way, never to have been free from the anxiety under which I then laboured. As we advanced, I began to feel misgivings that my companion lost confidence. He looked graver when he sat by himself on the box. I saw his finger uneasily going across and across his mouth during the whole of one long weary stage. I overheard him asking the drivers of coaches coming towards us what passengers they had passed. Their replies did not encourage him. He always gave me a reassuring lift of his eyelid as he got upon the box again, but he seemed perplexed now when he said, "Get on, my lad!" At last he told me that he had lost the track of the dress so long that he began to be surprised. It had disappeared in an unaccountable manner. But I was not to be down-hearted, he told me, for it was as likely as not that the next stage might set us right again. The next stage, however, ended with no new clue. There was a spacious inn here, a comfortable substantial building, and as we drove in under a large gateway a landlady and her pretty daughters came to the carriage-door, entreating me to alight and refresh myself while the horses were made ready. They took me upstairs to a warm room and left me there. It was at the corner of the house, I remember, looking two ways: on one side to a stable-yard with the road beyond it; on the other side to a wood of dark pine-trees. Their branches were encumbered with snow, and it silently dropped off in wet heaps while I stood at the window. Night was setting in. As I looked among the stems of the trees, I thought of the motherly face that had just now welcomed me with her daughters and of my mother lying down in such a wood to die. I was frightened when I found them all around me, but I remembered that before I fainted I tried very hard not to do it. They cushioned me up on a large sofa by the fire, and the landlady told me that I must travel no further tonight, but must go to bed. But this put me into such a tremble lest they should detain me there that she compromised for a rest of half an hour. A good endearing creature she was; she and her three girls, all busy about me. I was to take hot soup and broiled fowl, while Mr. Bucket dried himself and dined elsewhere; but when it was brought to me I could not eat, though I was very unwilling to disappoint them. However, I could take some toast and hot wine-and-water, which made some recompense. At the half-hour's end the carriage came rumbling under the gateway, and they took me down, warmed, refreshed, and comforted by kindness. After I had got in and had taken a grateful leave of them all, the youngest daughter reached in, and kissed me. I have never seen her since then, but I think of her to this hour as my friend. The fire-lit windows, looking so bright and warm from outside, were soon gone, and again we were crushing and churning the loose snow. The stage was only nine miles; and my companion was as vigilant as ever and as quickly down and up again when we came to any house or person. He had lighted his lantern, and every now and then he turned it upon me to see that I was doing well. We came to the end of the stage, and still the lost trace was not recovered. I looked at him anxiously when we stopped to change, but I knew by his grave face that he had heard nothing. An instant afterwards, as I leaned back in my seat, he looked in, with his lantern in his hand, an excited and quite different man. "What is it?" said I, starting. "Is she here?" "No, no, my dear. Nobody's here. But I've got it!" The crystallized snow was in his eyelashes and his hair. He had to shake it from his face before he spoke. "Now, Miss Summerson," said he, "don't you be disappointed at what I'm a-going to do. You know me. I'm Inspector Bucket, and you can trust me. Four horses out there for the next stage up! Quick!" A man came running out of the stables to know if he meant up or down. "Up, I tell you! Up!" "Up?" said I, astonished. "To London! Are we going back?" "Miss Summerson," he answered, "straight back as a die. Don't be afraid. I'll follow the other, by G__!" "The other?" "You called her Jenny, didn't you? I'll follow her!" "You will not desert the lady we are in search of; you will not abandon her on such a night and in such a state of mind!" said I, in an agony, and grasping his hand. "You are right, my dear, I won't. But I'll follow the other. Look alive with them horses. My darling, don't you be afraid!" I was bewildered by the sudden change. But our horses were put to with great speed. "My dear," said Mr. Bucket, looking in again, "don't you fret and worry yourself. I say nothing else at present; but you know me, my dear, don't you?" I tried to say that he was far more capable than I of deciding what we ought to do, but was he sure that this was right? Could I not go forward by myself in search of - I grasped his hand again in my distress and whispered - of my own mother? "My dear," he answered, "would I put you wrong, do you think? You keep up as good a heart as you can, and rely upon me for standing by you. Off she goes. Get on, my lads!" We were again upon the melancholy road by which we had come, tearing up the miry sleet and thawing snow like a waterwheel.

Bleak House

Chapter 57: Esther's Narrative

Sir Leicester Dedlock has got the better, for the time being, of the family gout and is once more, in a literal no less than in a figurative point of view, upon his legs. He is at his place in Lincolnshire; but the waters are out again on the low-lying grounds, and the cold and damp steal into Chesney Wold, though well defended, and eke into Sir Leicester's bones. The blazing fires of faggot and coal--Dedlock timber and antediluvian forest--that blaze upon the broad wide hearths and wink in the twilight on the frowning woods, sullen to see how trees are sacrificed, do not exclude the enemy. The hot-water pipes that trail themselves all over the house, the cushioned doors and windows, and the screens and curtains fail to supply the fires' deficiencies and to satisfy Sir Leicester's need. Hence the fashionable intelligence proclaims one morning to the listening earth that Lady Dedlock is expected shortly to return to town for a few weeks. It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations. Indeed great men have often more than their fair share of poor relations, inasmuch as very red blood of the superior quality, like inferior blood unlawfully shed, WILL cry aloud and WILL be heard. Sir Leicester's cousins, in the remotest degree, are so many murders in the respect that they "will out." Among whom there are cousins who are so poor that one might almost dare to think it would have been the happier for them never to have been plated links upon the Dedlock chain of gold, but to have been made of common iron at first and done base service. Service, however (with a few limited reservations, genteel but not profitable), they may not do, being of the Dedlock dignity. So they visit their richer cousins, and get into debt when they can, and live but shabbily when they can't, and find--the women no husbands, and the men no wives--and ride in borrowed carriages, and sit at feasts that are never of their own making, and so go through high life. The rich family sum has been divided by so many figures, and they are the something over that nobody knows what to do with. Everybody on Sir Leicester Dedlock's side of the question and of his way of thinking would appear to be his cousin more or less. From my Lord Boodle, through the Duke of Foodle, down to Noodle, Sir Leicester, like a glorious spider, stretches his threads of relationship. But while he is stately in the cousinship of the Everybodys, he is a kind and generous man, according to his dignified way, in the cousinship of the Nobodys; and at the present time, in despite of the damp, he stays out the visit of several such cousins at Chesney Wold with the constancy of a martyr. Of these, foremost in the front rank stands Volumnia Dedlock, a young lady (of sixty) who is doubly highly related, having the honour to be a poor relation, by the mother's side, to another great family. Miss Volumnia, displaying in early life a pretty talent for cutting ornaments out of coloured paper, and also for singing to the guitar in the Spanish tongue, and propounding French conundrums in country houses, passed the twenty years of her existence between twenty and forty in a sufficiently agreeable manner. Lapsing then out of date and being considered to bore mankind by her vocal performances in the Spanish language, she retired to Bath, where she lives slenderly on an annual present from Sir Leicester and whence she makes occasional resurrections in the country houses of her cousins. She has an extensive acquaintance at Bath among appalling old gentlemen with thin legs and nankeen trousers, and is of high standing in that dreary city. But she is a little dreaded elsewhere in consequence of an indiscreet profusion in the article of rouge and persistency in an obsolete pearl necklace like a rosary of little bird's-eggs. In any country in a wholesome state, Volumnia would be a clear case for the pension list. Efforts have been made to get her on it, and when William Buffy came in, it was fully expected that her name would be put down for a couple of hundred a year. But William Buffy somehow discovered, contrary to all expectation, that these were not the times when it could be done, and this was the first clear indication Sir Leicester Dedlock had conveyed to him that the country was going to pieces. There is likewise the Honourable Bob Stables, who can make warm mashes with the skill of a veterinary surgeon and is a better shot than most gamekeepers. He has been for some time particularly desirous to serve his country in a post of good emoluments, unaccompanied by any trouble or responsibility. In a well-regulated body politic this natural desire on the part of a spirited young gentleman so highly connected would be speedily recognized, but somehow William Buffy found when he came in that these were not times in which he could manage that little matter either, and this was the second indication Sir Leicester Dedlock had conveyed to him that the country was going to pieces. The rest of the cousins are ladies and gentlemen of various ages and capacities, the major part amiable and sensible and likely to have done well enough in life if they could have overcome their cousinship; as it is, they are almost all a little worsted by it, and lounge in purposeless and listless paths, and seem to be quite as much at a loss how to dispose of themselves as anybody else can be how to dispose of them. In this society, and where not, my Lady Dedlock reigns supreme. Beautiful, elegant, accomplished, and powerful in her little world (for the world of fashion does not stretch ALL the way from pole to pole), her influence in Sir Leicester's house, however haughty and indifferent her manner, is greatly to improve it and refine it. The cousins, even those older cousins who were paralysed when Sir Leicester married her, do her feudal homage; and the Honourable Bob Stables daily repeats to some chosen person between breakfast and lunch his favourite original remark, that she is the best-groomed woman in the whole stud. Such the guests in the long drawing-room at Chesney Wold this dismal night when the step on the Ghost's Walk (inaudible here, however) might be the step of a deceased cousin shut out in the cold. It is near bed-time. Bedroom fires blaze brightly all over the house, raising ghosts of grim furniture on wall and ceiling. Bedroom candlesticks bristle on the distant table by the door, and cousins yawn on ottomans. Cousins at the piano, cousins at the soda-water tray, cousins rising from the card-table, cousins gathered round the fire. Standing on one side of his own peculiar fire (for there are two), Sir Leicester. On the opposite side of the broad hearth, my Lady at her table. Volumnia, as one of the more privileged cousins, in a luxurious chair between them. Sir Leicester glancing, with magnificent displeasure, at the rouge and the pearl necklace. "I occasionally meet on my staircase here," drawls Volumnia, whose thoughts perhaps are already hopping up it to bed, after a long evening of very desultory talk, "one of the prettiest girls, I think, that I ever saw in my life." "A PROTEGEE of my Lady's," observes Sir Leicester. "I thought so. I felt sure that some uncommon eye must have picked that girl out. She really is a marvel. A dolly sort of beauty perhaps," says Miss Volumnia, reserving her own sort, "but in its way, perfect; such bloom I never saw!" Sir Leicester, with his magnificent glance of displeasure at the rouge, appears to say so too. "Indeed," remarks my Lady languidly, "if there is any uncommon eye in the case, it is Mrs. Rouncewell's, and not mine. Rosa is her discovery." "Your maid, I suppose?" "No. My anything; pet--secretary--messenger--I don't know what." "You like to have her about you, as you would like to have a flower, or a bird, or a picture, or a poodle--no, not a poodle, though--or anything else that was equally pretty?" says Volumnia, sympathizing. "Yes, how charming now! And how well that delightful old soul Mrs. Rouncewell is looking. She must be an immense age, and yet she is as active and handsome! She is the dearest friend I have, positively!" Sir Leicester feels it to be right and fitting that the housekeeper of Chesney Wold should be a remarkable person. Apart from that, he has a real regard for Mrs. Rouncewell and likes to hear her praised. So he says, "You are right, Volumnia," which Volumnia is extremely glad to hear. "She has no daughter of her own, has she?" "Mrs. Rouncewell? No, Volumnia. She has a son. Indeed, she had two." My Lady, whose chronic malady of boredom has been sadly aggravated by Volumnia this evening, glances wearily towards the candlesticks and heaves a noiseless sigh. "And it is a remarkable example of the confusion into which the present age has fallen; of the obliteration of landmarks, the opening of floodgates, and the uprooting of distinctions," says Sir Leicester with stately gloom, "that I have been informed by Mr. Tulkinghorn that Mrs. Rouncewell's son has been invited to go into Parliament." Miss Volumnia utters a little sharp scream. "Yes, indeed," repeats Sir Leicester. "Into Parliament." "I never heard of such a thing! Good gracious, what is the man?" exclaims Volumnia. "He is called, I believe--an--ironmaster." Sir Leicester says it slowly and with gravity and doubt, as not being sure but that he is called a lead-mistress or that the right word may be some other word expressive of some other relationship to some other metal. Volumnia utters another little scream. "He has declined the proposal, if my information from Mr. Tulkinghorn be correct, as I have no doubt it is. Mr. Tulkinghorn being always correct and exact; still that does not," says Sir Leicester, "that does not lessen the anomaly, which is fraught with strange considerations--startling considerations, as it appears to me." Miss Volumnia rising with a look candlestick-wards, Sir Leicester politely performs the grand tour of the drawing-room, brings one, and lights it at my Lady's shaded lamp. "I must beg you, my Lady," he says while doing so, "to remain a few moments, for this individual of whom I speak arrived this evening shortly before dinner and requested in a very becoming note"--Sir Leicester, with his habitual regard to truth, dwells upon it--"I am bound to say, in a very becoming and well-expressed note, the favour of a short interview with yourself and MYself on the subject of this young girl. As it appeared that he wished to depart to-night, I replied that we would see him before retiring." Miss Volumnia with a third little scream takes flight, wishing her hosts--O Lud!--well rid of the--what is it?--ironmaster! The other cousins soon disperse, to the last cousin there. Sir Leicester rings the bell, "Make my compliments to Mr. Rouncewell, in the housekeeper's apartments, and say I can receive him now." My Lady, who has heard all this with slight attention outwardly, looks towards Mr. Rouncewell as he comes in. He is a little over fifty perhaps, of a good figure, like his mother, and has a clear voice, a broad forehead from which his dark hair has retired, and a shrewd though open face. He is a responsible-looking gentleman dressed in black, portly enough, but strong and active. Has a perfectly natural and easy air and is not in the least embarrassed by the great presence into which he comes. "Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, as I have already apologized for intruding on you, I cannot do better than be very brief. I thank you, Sir Leicester." The head of the Dedlocks has motioned towards a sofa between himself and my Lady. Mr. Rouncewell quietly takes his seat there. "In these busy times, when so many great undertakings are in progress, people like myself have so many workmen in so many places that we are always on the flight." Sir Leicester is content enough that the ironmaster should feel that there is no hurry there; there, in that ancient house, rooted in that quiet park, where the ivy and the moss have had time to mature, and the gnarled and warted elms and the umbrageous oaks stand deep in the fern and leaves of a hundred years; and where the sun-dial on the terrace has dumbly recorded for centuries that time which was as much the property of every Dedlock--while he lasted--as the house and lands. Sir Leicester sits down in an easy-chair, opposing his repose and that of Chesney Wold to the restless flights of ironmasters. "Lady Dedlock has been so kind," proceeds Mr. Rouncewell with a respectful glance and a bow that way, "as to place near her a young beauty of the name of Rosa. Now, my son has fallen in love with Rosa and has asked my consent to his proposing marriage to her and to their becoming engaged if she will take him--which I suppose she will. I have never seen Rosa until to-day, but I have some confidence in my son's good sense--even in love. I find her what he represents her, to the best of my judgment; and my mother speaks of her with great commendation." "She in all respects deserves it," says my Lady. "I am happy, Lady Dedlock, that you say so, and I need not comment on the value to me of your kind opinion of her." "That," observes Sir Leicester with unspeakable grandeur, for he thinks the ironmaster a little too glib, "must be quite unnecessary." "Quite unnecessary, Sir Leicester. Now, my son is a very young man, and Rosa is a very young woman. As I made my way, so my son must make his; and his being married at present is out of the question. But supposing I gave my consent to his engaging himself to this pretty girl, if this pretty girl will engage herself to him, I think it a piece of candour to say at once--I am sure, Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, you will understand and excuse me--I should make it a condition that she did not remain at Chesney Wold. Therefore, before communicating further with my son, I take the liberty of saying that if her removal would be in any way inconvenient or objectionable, I will hold the matter over with him for any reasonable time and leave it precisely where it is." Not remain at Chesney Wold! Make it a condition! All Sir Leicester's old misgivings relative to Wat Tyler and the people in the iron districts who do nothing but turn out by torchlight come in a shower upon his head, the fine grey hair of which, as well as of his whiskers, actually stirs with indignation. "Am I to understand, sir," says Sir Leicester, "and is my Lady to understand"--he brings her in thus specially, first as a point of gallantry, and next as a point of prudence, having great reliance on her sense--"am I to understand, Mr. Rouncewell, and is my Lady to understand, sir, that you consider this young woman too good for Chesney Wold or likely to be injured by remaining here?" "Certainly not, Sir Leicester," "I am glad to hear it." Sir Leicester very lofty indeed. "Pray, Mr. Rouncewell," says my Lady, warning Sir Leicester off with the slightest gesture of her pretty hand, as if he were a fly, "explain to me what you mean." "Willingly, Lady Dedlock. There is nothing I could desire more." Addressing her composed face, whose intelligence, however, is too quick and active to be concealed by any studied impassiveness, however habitual, to the strong Saxon face of the visitor, a picture of resolution and perseverance, my Lady listens with attention, occasionally slightly bending her head. "I am the son of your housekeeper, Lady Dedlock, and passed my childhood about this house. My mother has lived here half a century and will die here I have no doubt. She is one of those examples--perhaps as good a one as there is--of love, and attachment, and fidelity in such a nation, which England may well be proud of, but of which no order can appropriate the whole pride or the whole merit, because such an instance bespeaks high worth on two sides--on the great side assuredly, on the small one no less assuredly." Sir Leicester snorts a little to hear the law laid down in this way, but in his honour and his love of truth, he freely, though silently, admits the justice of the ironmaster's proposition. "Pardon me for saying what is so obvious, but I wouldn't have it hastily supposed," with the least turn of his eyes towards Sir Leicester, "that I am ashamed of my mother's position here, or wanting in all just respect for Chesney Wold and the family. I certainly may have desired--I certainly have desired, Lady Dedlock--that my mother should retire after so many years and end her days with me. But as I have found that to sever this strong bond would be to break her heart, I have long abandoned that idea." Sir Leicester very magnificent again at the notion of Mrs. Rouncewell being spirited off from her natural home to end her days with an ironmaster. "I have been," proceeds the visitor in a modest, clear way, "an apprentice and a workman. I have lived on workman's wages, years and years, and beyond a certain point have had to educate myself. My wife was a foreman's daughter, and plainly brought up. We have three daughters besides this son of whom I have spoken, and being fortunately able to give them greater advantages than we have had ourselves, we have educated them well, very well. It has been one of our great cares and pleasures to make them worthy of any station." A little boastfulness in his fatherly tone here, as if he added in his heart, "even of the Chesney Wold station." Not a little more magnificence, therefore, on the part of Sir Leicester. "All this is so frequent, Lady Dedlock, where I live, and among the class to which I belong, that what would be generally called unequal marriages are not of such rare occurrence with us as elsewhere. A son will sometimes make it known to his father that he has fallen in love, say, with a young woman in the factory. The father, who once worked in a factory himself, will be a little disappointed at first very possibly. It may be that he had other views for his son. However, the chances are that having ascertained the young woman to be of unblemished character, he will say to his son, 'I must be quite sure you are in earnest here. This is a serious matter for both of you. Therefore I shall have this girl educated for two years,' or it may be, 'I shall place this girl at the same school with your sisters for such a time, during which you will give me your word and honour to see her only so often. If at the expiration of that time, when she has so far profited by her advantages as that you may be upon a fair equality, you are both in the same mind, I will do my part to make you happy.' I know of several cases such as I describe, my Lady, and I think they indicate to me my own course now." Sir Leicester's magnificence explodes. Calmly, but terribly. "Mr. Rouncewell," says Sir Leicester with his right hand in the breast of his blue coat, the attitude of state in which he is painted in the gallery, "do you draw a parallel between Chesney Wold and a--" Here he resists a disposition to choke, "a factory?" "I need not reply, Sir Leicester, that the two places are very different; but for the purposes of this case, I think a parallel may be justly drawn between them." Sir Leicester directs his majestic glance down one side of the long drawing-room and up the other before he can believe that he is awake. "Are you aware, sir, that this young woman whom my Lady--my Lady--has placed near her person was brought up at the village school outside the gates?" "Sir Leicester, I am quite aware of it. A very good school it is, and handsomely supported by this family." "Then, Mr. Rouncewell," returns Sir Leicester, "the application of what you have said is, to me, incomprehensible." "Will it be more comprehensible, Sir Leicester, if I say," the ironmaster is reddening a little, "that I do not regard the village school as teaching everything desirable to be known by my son's wife?" From the village school of Chesney Wold, intact as it is this minute, to the whole framework of society; from the whole framework of society, to the aforesaid framework receiving tremendous cracks in consequence of people (iron-masters, lead-mistresses, and what not) not minding their catechism, and getting out of the station unto which they are called--necessarily and for ever, according to Sir Leicester's rapid logic, the first station in which they happen to find themselves; and from that, to their educating other people out of THEIR stations, and so obliterating the landmarks, and opening the floodgates, and all the rest of it; this is the swift progress of the Dedlock mind. "My Lady, I beg your pardon. Permit me, for one moment!" She has given a faint indication of intending to speak. "Mr. Rouncewell, our views of duty, and our views of station, and our views of education, and our views of--in short, ALL our views--are so diametrically opposed, that to prolong this discussion must be repellent to your feelings and repellent to my own. This young woman is honoured with my Lady's notice and favour. If she wishes to withdraw herself from that notice and favour or if she chooses to place herself under the influence of any one who may in his peculiar opinions--you will allow me to say, in his peculiar opinions, though I readily admit that he is not accountable for them to me--who may, in his peculiar opinions, withdraw her from that notice and favour, she is at any time at liberty to do so. We are obliged to you for the plainness with which you have spoken. It will have no effect of itself, one way or other, on the young woman's position here. Beyond this, we can make no terms; and here we beg--if you will be so good--to leave the subject." The visitor pauses a moment to give my Lady an opportunity, but she says nothing. He then rises and replies, "Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, allow me to thank you for your attention and only to observe that I shall very seriously recommend my son to conquer his present inclinations. Good night!" "Mr. Rouncewell," says Sir Leicester with all the nature of a gentleman shining in him, "it is late, and the roads are dark. I hope your time is not so precious but that you will allow my Lady and myself to offer you the hospitality of Chesney Wold, for to-night at least." "I hope so," adds my Lady. "I am much obliged to you, but I have to travel all night in order to reach a distant part of the country punctually at an appointed time in the morning." Therewith the ironmaster takes his departure, Sir Leicester ringing the bell and my Lady rising as he leaves the room. When my Lady goes to her boudoir, she sits down thoughtfully by the fire, and inattentive to the Ghost's Walk, looks at Rosa, writing in an inner room. Presently my Lady calls her. "Come to me, child. Tell me the truth. Are you in love?" "Oh! My Lady!" My Lady, looking at the downcast and blushing face, says smiling, "Who is it? Is it Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson?" "Yes, if you please, my Lady. But I don't know that I am in love with him--yet." "Yet, you silly little thing! Do you know that he loves YOU, yet?" "I think he likes me a little, my Lady." And Rosa bursts into tears. Is this Lady Dedlock standing beside the village beauty, smoothing her dark hair with that motherly touch, and watching her with eyes so full of musing interest? Aye, indeed it is! "Listen to me, child. You are young and true, and I believe you are attached to me." "Indeed I am, my Lady. Indeed there is nothing in the world I wouldn't do to show how much." "And I don't think you would wish to leave me just yet, Rosa, even for a lover?" "No, my Lady! Oh, no!" Rosa looks up for the first time, quite frightened at the thought. "Confide in me, my child. Don't fear me. I wish you to be happy, and will make you so--if I can make anybody happy on this earth." Rosa, with fresh tears, kneels at her feet and kisses her hand. My Lady takes the hand with which she has caught it, and standing with her eyes fixed on the fire, puts it about and about between her own two hands, and gradually lets it fall. Seeing her so absorbed, Rosa softly withdraws; but still my Lady's eyes are on the fire. In search of what? Of any hand that is no more, of any hand that never was, of any touch that might have magically changed her life? Or does she listen to the Ghost's Walk and think what step does it most resemble? A man's? A woman's? The pattering of a little child's feet, ever coming on--on--on? Some melancholy influence is upon her, or why should so proud a lady close the doors and sit alone upon the hearth so desolate? Volumnia is away next day, and all the cousins are scattered before dinner. Not a cousin of the batch but is amazed to hear from Sir Leicester at breakfast-time of the obliteration of landmarks, and opening of floodgates, and cracking of the framework of society, manifested through Mrs. Rouncewell's son. Not a cousin of the batch but is really indignant, and connects it with the feebleness of William Buffy when in office, and really does feel deprived of a stake in the country--or the pension list--or something--by fraud and wrong. As to Volumnia, she is handed down the great staircase by Sir Leicester, as eloquent upon the theme as if there were a general rising in the north of England to obtain her rouge-pot and pearl necklace. And thus, with a clatter of maids and valets--for it is one appurtenance of their cousinship that however difficult they may find it to keep themselves, they MUST keep maids and valets--the cousins disperse to the four winds of heaven; and the one wintry wind that blows to-day shakes a shower from the trees near the deserted house, as if all the cousins had been changed into leaves.

Sir Leicester Dedlock has got the better, for the time being, of the family gout and is once more upon his legs. He is at his place in Lincolnshire; but the waters lie again on the low grounds, and the cold and damp steal into Chesney Wold, and into Sir Leicester's bones. The blazing fires do not exclude the enemy. The hot-water pipes that trail themselves all over the house, the cushioned doors and windows, and the screens and curtains fail to satisfy Sir Leicester's need. Hence Lady Dedlock is expected shortly to return to town for a few weeks. It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations; often more than their fair share. Amongst Sir Leicester's cousins are those who are so poor that one might almost think it would have been happier for them never to have been links upon the Dedlock chain of gold, but to have been made of common iron from the start and been of service. Service, however, they may not do, being of the Dedlock dignity. So they visit their richer cousins, and get into debt when they can, and live shabbily when they can't, and ride in borrowed carriages, and sit at other people's feasts. Sir Leicester, like a glorious spider, stretches his threads of relationship to countless cousins. But he is a kind and generous man, according to his dignified way, in the cousinship of the Nobodys; and at present, in spite of the damp, he tolerates the visit of several such cousins at Chesney Wold with the constancy of a martyr. Of these, foremost is Volumnia Dedlock, a young lady (of sixty) who is doubly highly related, having the honour to be a poor relation, by the mother's side, to another great family. Miss Volumnia, displaying in early life a pretty talent for cutting ornaments out of coloured paper, and also for singing to the guitar in the Spanish tongue, and propounding French riddles in country houses, passed the years between twenty and forty in an agreeable manner. Lapsing then out of date, she retired to Bath, where she lives slenderly on an annual present from Sir Leicester and makes occasional resurrections in the country houses of her cousins. She has an extensive acquaintance at Bath among appalling old gentlemen with thin legs and nankeen trousers, and is of high standing in that dreary city. But she is a little dreaded elsewhere because of an indiscreet use of rouge and persistency in an old pearl necklace like a rosary of little bird's-eggs. There is likewise the Honourable Bob Stables, who can make warm mashes for horses with the skill of a veterinary surgeon and is a better shot than most gamekeepers. He has wished for some time to serve his country in a post of good salary, unaccompanied by any trouble or responsibility. Somehow this has never been forthcoming. The rest of the cousins are ladies and gentlemen of various ages and capacities, mostly amiable and sensible and likely to have done well enough in life if they could have overcome their cousinship. As it is, they lounge in purposeless and listless paths, quite at a loss as to how to dispose of themselves. In this society my Lady Dedlock reigns supreme. Beautiful, elegant and accomplished, her influence in Sir Leicester's house, however haughty and indifferent her manner, is greatly to improve it and refine it. The cousins do her feudal homage; and the Honourable Bob Stables daily repeats that she is the best-groomed woman in the whole stud. Such are the guests in the long drawing-room at Chesney Wold this dismal night. It is near bed-time. Bedroom fires blaze brightly all over the house, bedroom candlesticks bristle on the distant table by the door, and cousins yawn on ottomans. Cousins at the piano, cousins at the soda-water tray, cousins rising from the card-table, cousins gathered round the fire. Volumnia, as one of the more privileged cousins, sits in a luxurious chair between Sir Leicester and my Lady, Sir Leicester glancing, with magnificent displeasure, at the rouge and the pearl necklace. "I occasionally meet on the staircase here," drawls Volumnia, "one of the prettiest girls, I think, that I ever saw in my life." "A protge of my Lady's," observes Sir Leicester. "I thought so. I felt sure that some uncommon eye must have picked that girl out. She really is a marvel. Such bloom I never saw!" "Indeed," remarks my Lady languidly, "if there is any uncommon eye in the case, it is Mrs. Rouncewell's. Rosa is her discovery." "Your maid, I suppose?" "No. My pet - secretary - messenger - I don't know what." "You like to have her about you, as you would like to have a flower, or a bird, or anything else that was equally pretty?" says Volumnia, sympathizing. "Yes, how charming! And how well that delightful old soul Mrs. Rouncewell is looking. She must be an immense age, and yet she is so active and handsome! She is the dearest friend I have!" Sir Leicester feels it fitting that the housekeeper of Chesney Wold should be a remarkable person. And he has a real regard for Mrs. Rouncewell and likes to hear her praised. So he says, "You are right, Volumnia," which Volumnia is extremely glad to hear. "She has no daughter of her own, has she?" "Mrs. Rouncewell? No, Volumnia. She has a son. Indeed, she had two." My Lady glances wearily towards the candlesticks and heaves a noiseless sigh. "And it is a remarkable example of the confusion into which the present age has fallen," says Sir Leicester with stately gloom, "that I have been informed by Mr. Tulkinghorn that Mrs. Rouncewell's son has been invited to go into Parliament." Miss Volumnia utters a little sharp scream. "I never heard of such a thing! Good gracious, what is the man?" she exclaims. "He is called, I believe - an - ironmaster." Sir Leicester says it with gravity and doubt. Volumnia utters another little scream. "He has declined the proposal, if my information from Mr. Tulkinghorn is correct, as I have no doubt it is. Still," says Sir Leicester, "that does not lessen the strangeness of it." Miss Volumnia rising with a look at the candles, Sir Leicester politely brings one, and lights it at my Lady's lamp. "I must beg you, my Lady," he says, "to remain a few moments, for this very man arrived this evening and requested in, I am bound to say, a very becoming note, the favour of a short interview with us both on the subject of this young girl. I replied that we would see him before retiring." Miss Volumnia with a third little scream takes flight. The other cousins soon disperse, and Sir Leicester rings the bell. "My compliments to Mr. Rouncewell, and say I can receive him now." My Lady, who has heard all this with little apparent attention, looks towards Mr. Rouncewell as he comes in. He is a little over fifty, of a good figure, like his mother, and has a clear voice, a broad forehead, and a shrewd though open face. He is a responsible-looking gentleman dressed in black, portly, but strong and active. He has a perfectly natural air and is not in the least embarrassed by the great presence into which he comes. "Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, I apologize for intruding on you. I will be very brief." The head of the Dedlocks motions him to take a seat. "In these busy times, people like myself have so many workmen in so many places that we are always on the move." Sir Leicester is content enough that the ironmaster should feel that there is no hurry there, in that ancient house, rooted in that quiet park, where the elms and the shady oaks stand deep in the fern and leaves of a hundred years. Sir Leicester sits down in an easy-chair, contrasting his repose to the restless flights of ironmasters. "Lady Dedlock has been so kind," proceeds Mr. Rouncewell with a respectful bow, "as to place near her a young beauty of the name of Rosa. Now, my son has fallen in love with Rosa and has asked my consent to his proposing marriage to her. I have never seen Rosa until today, but I have some confidence in my son's good sense. I find her what he represents her, to the best of my judgment; and my mother speaks of her with great commendation." "She in all respects deserves it," says my Lady. "I am happy, Lady Dedlock, that you say so. Now, my son is a very young man, and Rosa is a very young woman. As I made my way, so my son must make his; and his being married at present is out of the question. But supposing I gave my consent to his engaging himself to this pretty girl, I think I should say at once - I am sure you will understand and excuse me - I should make it a condition that she did not remain at Chesney Wold. Therefore, before speaking further with my son, I take the liberty of saying that if her removal would be in any way inconvenient or objectionable, I will leave the matter precisely where it is." Not remain at Chesney Wold! Make it a condition! All Sir Leicester's old misgivings about the people in the iron districts who do nothing but turn out to riot by torchlight come in a shower upon his indignant head. "Am I to understand, sir," he says, "that you consider this young woman too good for Chesney Wold or likely to be injured by remaining here?" "Certainly not, Sir Leicester," "I am glad to hear it." Sir Leicester very lofty indeed. "Pray, Mr. Rouncewell," says my Lady, warning Sir Leicester off with the slightest gesture of her pretty hand, as if he were a fly, "explain to me what you mean." "Willingly, Lady Dedlock." My Lady listens attentively, with composed face, but with a quick intelligence. "I am the son of your housekeeper, Lady Dedlock, and passed my childhood about this house. My mother has lived here half a century and will die here, I have no doubt. She is one of those examples of love, attachment, and fidelity, which England may well be proud of, although such an instance bespeaks high worth on two sides - on the great side assuredly, on the small one no less assuredly." Sir Leicester snorts a little, but silently admits the justice of this statement. "I wouldn't have it supposed that I am ashamed of my mother's position here, or lacking in respect for Chesney Wold. I certainly may have desired, Lady Dedlock, that my mother should retire and end her days with me. But as I have found that this would break her heart, I have long abandoned that idea." Sir Leicester very magnificent again at the notion of Mrs. Rouncewell being spirited off from her natural home to end her days with an ironmaster. "I have been," proceeds the visitor in a modest, clear way, "an apprentice and a workman. I have lived on workman's wages for years, and beyond a certain point have had to educate myself. My wife was a foreman's daughter, and plainly brought up. We have three daughters besides our son, and fortunately have been able to educate them well. It has been one of our great cares and pleasures to make them worthy of any station." A little boastfulness in his fatherly tone here; and more magnificence, therefore, on the part of Sir Leicester. "All this is so frequent, Lady Dedlock, where I live, that what would be generally called unequal marriages are not so rare as elsewhere. A son will sometimes tell his father that he has fallen in love, say, with a young woman in the factory. The father, who once worked in a factory himself, may be a little disappointed at first. However, if he finds the young woman to be of unblemished character, he may have the girl educated for two years, or he may place her at the same school with his daughters, until they are of a fair equality. I know of several such cases, my Lady, and I think they indicate to me my own course now." Sir Leicester's magnificence explodes. Calmly, but terribly. "Mr. Rouncewell," says Sir Leicester in a stately attitude, "do you draw a parallel between Chesney Wold and a - a factory?" "Of course the two places are very different; but for the purposes of this case, I think a parallel may be justly drawn between them." "Are you aware, sir, that this young woman whom my Lady has placed near her person was brought up at the village school outside the gates?" "Sir Leicester, I am quite aware of it. A very good school it is, and handsomely supported by this family." "Then, Mr. Rouncewell," returns Sir Leicester, "what you have said is incomprehensible." "Will it be more comprehensible, Sir Leicester, if I say," the ironmaster is reddening a little, "that I do not regard the village school as teaching everything desirable to be known by my son's wife?" From the village school of Chesney Wold to the whole framework of society; to that framework cracking due to people like iron-masters getting out of the station unto which they are called - which is, according to Sir Leicester's rapid logic, the first station in which they happen to find themselves; and from that, to their educating other people out of their stations, and so opening the floodgates, and all the rest of it; this is the swift progress of the Dedlock mind. "Mr. Rouncewell, our views of duty, and of station, and of education - in short, all our views - are so opposed, that to prolong this discussion must be repellent to both of us. This young woman is honoured with my Lady's notice and favour. If she wishes to withdraw herself from that favour, or to allow anyone with peculiar opinions to withdraw her from that favour, she is free to do so. We are obliged to you for the plainness with which you have spoken. We beg - if you will be so good - to leave the subject." The visitor pauses to give my Lady an opportunity to speak, but she says nothing. He then rises and replies, "Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, thank you for your attention. I shall very seriously recommend my son to conquer his present inclinations. Good night!" "Mr. Rouncewell," says Sir Leicester, "it is late, and the roads are dark. I hope you will allow my Lady and myself to offer you the hospitality of Chesney Wold, for tonight at least." "I hope so," adds my Lady. "I am much obliged to you, but I have to travel all night in order to reach a distant part of the country for an appointment in the morning." The ironmaster takes his departure. My Lady goes to her boudoir, sits down thoughtfully by the fire, and looks at Rosa, writing in an inner room. Presently my Lady calls her. "Come to me, child. Tell me the truth. Are you in love?" "Oh! My Lady!" My Lady, looking at the downcast and blushing face, says smiling, "Who is it? Is it Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson?" "Yes, if you please, my Lady. But I don't know that I am in love with him - yet." "Yet, you silly little thing! Do you know that he loves you, yet?" "I think he likes me a little, my Lady." And Rosa bursts into tears. Is this Lady Dedlock standing beside the village beauty, smoothing her dark hair with that motherly touch, and watching her with eyes so full of interest? Aye, indeed it is! "Listen to me, child. You are young and true, and I believe you are attached to me." "Indeed I am, my Lady." "And I don't think you would wish to leave me just yet, Rosa, even for a lover?" "Oh, no, my Lady!" Rosa looks quite frightened at the thought. "Confide in me, my child. I wish you to be happy, and will make you so - if I can make anybody happy on this earth." Rosa, with fresh tears, kneels at her feet and kisses her hand. My Lady holds her hand between her own, and then gradually lets it fall, absorbed with her eyes on the fire. In search of what? Of any hand that is no more, of any touch that might have magically changed her life? Does she listen to the Ghost's Walk and think what step it most resembles? A man's? A woman's? The pattering of a little child's feet? Some melancholy influence is upon her, or why should so proud a lady close the doors and sit alone upon the hearth so desolate? Volumnia is away next day, and all the cousins are scattered before dinner. They are amazed to hear from Sir Leicester at breakfast-time of the opening of floodgates, and cracking of the framework of society, as manifested through Mrs. Rouncewell's son. The cousins are really indignant; and as to Volumnia, she is as eloquent upon the theme as if there were a general rising in the north of England to obtain her rouge-pot and pearl necklace. And thus, with a clatter of maids and valets, the cousins disperse to the four winds; and the one wintry wind that blows today shakes a shower from the trees near the deserted house, as if all the cousins had been changed into leaves.

Bleak House

Chapter 28: The Ironmaster

In a rather ill-favoured and ill-savoured neighbourhood, though one of its rising grounds bears the name of Mount Pleasant, the Elfin Smallweed, christened Bartholomew and known on the domestic hearth as Bart, passes that limited portion of his time on which the office and its contingencies have no claim. He dwells in a little narrow street, always solitary, shady, and sad, closely bricked in on all sides like a tomb, but where there yet lingers the stump of an old forest tree whose flavour is about as fresh and natural as the Smallweed smack of youth. There has been only one child in the Smallweed family for several generations. Little old men and women there have been, but no child, until Mr. Smallweed's grandmother, now living, became weak in her intellect and fell (for the first time) into a childish state. With such infantine graces as a total want of observation, memory, understanding, and interest, and an eternal disposition to fall asleep over the fire and into it, Mr. Smallweed's grandmother has undoubtedly brightened the family. Mr. Smallweed's grandfather is likewise of the party. He is in a helpless condition as to his lower, and nearly so as to his upper, limbs, but his mind is unimpaired. It holds, as well as it ever held, the first four rules of arithmetic and a certain small collection of the hardest facts. In respect of ideality, reverence, wonder, and other such phrenological attributes, it is no worse off than it used to be. Everything that Mr. Smallweed's grandfather ever put away in his mind was a grub at first, and is a grub at last. In all his life he has never bred a single butterfly. The father of this pleasant grandfather, of the neighbourhood of Mount Pleasant, was a horny-skinned, two-legged, money-getting species of spider who spun webs to catch unwary flies and retired into holes until they were entrapped. The name of this old pagan's god was Compound Interest. He lived for it, married it, died of it. Meeting with a heavy loss in an honest little enterprise in which all the loss was intended to have been on the other side, he broke something--something necessary to his existence, therefore it couldn't have been his heart--and made an end of his career. As his character was not good, and he had been bred at a charity school in a complete course, according to question and answer, of those ancient people the Amorites and Hittites, he was frequently quoted as an example of the failure of education. His spirit shone through his son, to whom he had always preached of "going out" early in life and whom he made a clerk in a sharp scrivener's office at twelve years old. There the young gentleman improved his mind, which was of a lean and anxious character, and developing the family gifts, gradually elevated himself into the discounting profession. Going out early in life and marrying late, as his father had done before him, he too begat a lean and anxious-minded son, who in his turn, going out early in life and marrying late, became the father of Bartholomew and Judith Smallweed, twins. During the whole time consumed in the slow growth of this family tree, the house of Smallweed, always early to go out and late to marry, has strengthened itself in its practical character, has discarded all amusements, discountenanced all story-books, fairy-tales, fictions, and fables, and banished all levities whatsoever. Hence the gratifying fact that it has had no child born to it and that the complete little men and women whom it has produced have been observed to bear a likeness to old monkeys with something depressing on their minds. At the present time, in the dark little parlour certain feet below the level of the street--a grim, hard, uncouth parlour, only ornamented with the coarsest of baize table-covers, and the hardest of sheet-iron tea-trays, and offering in its decorative character no bad allegorical representation of Grandfather Smallweed's mind--seated in two black horsehair porter's chairs, one on each side of the fire-place, the superannuated Mr. and Mrs. Smallweed while away the rosy hours. On the stove are a couple of trivets for the pots and kettles which it is Grandfather Smallweed's usual occupation to watch, and projecting from the chimney-piece between them is a sort of brass gallows for roasting, which he also superintends when it is in action. Under the venerable Mr. Smallweed's seat and guarded by his spindle legs is a drawer in his chair, reported to contain property to a fabulous amount. Beside him is a spare cushion with which he is always provided in order that he may have something to throw at the venerable partner of his respected age whenever she makes an allusion to money--a subject on which he is particularly sensitive. "And where's Bart?" Grandfather Smallweed inquires of Judy, Bart's twin sister. "He an't come in yet," says Judy. "It's his tea-time, isn't it?" "No." "How much do you mean to say it wants then?" "Ten minutes." "Hey?" "Ten minutes." (Loud on the part of Judy.) "Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Ten minutes." Grandmother Smallweed, who has been mumbling and shaking her head at the trivets, hearing figures mentioned, connects them with money and screeches like a horrible old parrot without any plumage, "Ten ten-pound notes!" Grandfather Smallweed immediately throws the cushion at her. "Drat you, be quiet!" says the good old man. The effect of this act of jaculation is twofold. It not only doubles up Mrs. Smallweed's head against the side of her porter's chair and causes her to present, when extricated by her granddaughter, a highly unbecoming state of cap, but the necessary exertion recoils on Mr. Smallweed himself, whom it throws back into HIS porter's chair like a broken puppet. The excellent old gentleman being at these times a mere clothes-bag with a black skull-cap on the top of it, does not present a very animated appearance until he has undergone the two operations at the hands of his granddaughter of being shaken up like a great bottle and poked and punched like a great bolster. Some indication of a neck being developed in him by these means, he and the sharer of his life's evening again fronting one another in their two porter's chairs, like a couple of sentinels long forgotten on their post by the Black Serjeant, Death. Judy the twin is worthy company for these associates. She is so indubitably sister to Mr. Smallweed the younger that the two kneaded into one would hardly make a young person of average proportions, while she so happily exemplifies the before-mentioned family likeness to the monkey tribe that attired in a spangled robe and cap she might walk about the table-land on the top of a barrel-organ without exciting much remark as an unusual specimen. Under existing circumstances, however, she is dressed in a plain, spare gown of brown stuff. Judy never owned a doll, never heard of Cinderella, never played at any game. She once or twice fell into children's company when she was about ten years old, but the children couldn't get on with Judy, and Judy couldn't get on with them. She seemed like an animal of another species, and there was instinctive repugnance on both sides. It is very doubtful whether Judy knows how to laugh. She has so rarely seen the thing done that the probabilities are strong the other way. Of anything like a youthful laugh, she certainly can have no conception. If she were to try one, she would find her teeth in her way, modelling that action of her face, as she has unconsciously modelled all its other expressions, on her pattern of sordid age. Such is Judy. And her twin brother couldn't wind up a top for his life. He knows no more of Jack the Giant Killer or of Sinbad the Sailor than he knows of the people in the stars. He could as soon play at leap-frog or at cricket as change into a cricket or a frog himself. But he is so much the better off than his sister that on his narrow world of fact an opening has dawned into such broader regions as lie within the ken of Mr. Guppy. Hence his admiration and his emulation of that shining enchanter. Judy, with a gong-like clash and clatter, sets one of the sheet-iron tea-trays on the table and arranges cups and saucers. The bread she puts on in an iron basket, and the butter (and not much of it) in a small pewter plate. Grandfather Smallweed looks hard after the tea as it is served out and asks Judy where the girl is. "Charley, do you mean?" says Judy. "Hey?" from Grandfather Smallweed. "Charley, do you mean?" This touches a spring in Grandmother Smallweed, who, chuckling as usual at the trivets, cries, "Over the water! Charley over the water, Charley over the water, over the water to Charley, Charley over the water, over the water to Charley!" and becomes quite energetic about it. Grandfather looks at the cushion but has not sufficiently recovered his late exertion. "Ha!" he says when there is silence. "If that's her name. She eats a deal. It would be better to allow her for her keep." Judy, with her brother's wink, shakes her head and purses up her mouth into no without saying it. "No?" returns the old man. "Why not?" "She'd want sixpence a day, and we can do it for less," says Judy. "Sure?" Judy answers with a nod of deepest meaning and calls, as she scrapes the butter on the loaf with every precaution against waste and cuts it into slices, "You, Charley, where are you?" Timidly obedient to the summons, a little girl in a rough apron and a large bonnet, with her hands covered with soap and water and a scrubbing brush in one of them, appears, and curtsys. "What work are you about now?" says Judy, making an ancient snap at her like a very sharp old beldame. "I'm a-cleaning the upstairs back room, miss," replies Charley. "Mind you do it thoroughly, and don't loiter. Shirking won't do for me. Make haste! Go along!" cries Judy with a stamp upon the ground. "You girls are more trouble than you're worth, by half." On this severe matron, as she returns to her task of scraping the butter and cutting the bread, falls the shadow of her brother, looking in at the window. For whom, knife and loaf in hand, she opens the street-door. "Aye, aye, Bart!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Here you are, hey?" "Here I am," says Bart. "Been along with your friend again, Bart?" Small nods. "Dining at his expense, Bart?" Small nods again. "That's right. Live at his expense as much as you can, and take warning by his foolish example. That's the use of such a friend. The only use you can put him to," says the venerable sage. His grandson, without receiving this good counsel as dutifully as he might, honours it with all such acceptance as may lie in a slight wink and a nod and takes a chair at the tea-table. The four old faces then hover over teacups like a company of ghastly cherubim, Mrs. Smallweed perpetually twitching her head and chattering at the trivets and Mr. Smallweed requiring to be repeatedly shaken up like a large black draught. "Yes, yes," says the good old gentleman, reverting to his lesson of wisdom. "That's such advice as your father would have given you, Bart. You never saw your father. More's the pity. He was my true son." Whether it is intended to be conveyed that he was particularly pleasant to look at, on that account, does not appear. "He was my true son," repeats the old gentleman, folding his bread and butter on his knee, "a good accountant, and died fifteen years ago." Mrs. Smallweed, following her usual instinct, breaks out with "Fifteen hundred pound. Fifteen hundred pound in a black box, fifteen hundred pound locked up, fifteen hundred pound put away and hid!" Her worthy husband, setting aside his bread and butter, immediately discharges the cushion at her, crushes her against the side of her chair, and falls back in his own, overpowered. His appearance, after visiting Mrs. Smallweed with one of these admonitions, is particularly impressive and not wholly prepossessing, firstly because the exertion generally twists his black skull-cap over one eye and gives him an air of goblin rakishness, secondly because he mutters violent imprecations against Mrs. Smallweed, and thirdly because the contrast between those powerful expressions and his powerless figure is suggestive of a baleful old malignant who would be very wicked if he could. All this, however, is so common in the Smallweed family circle that it produces no impression. The old gentleman is merely shaken and has his internal feathers beaten up, the cushion is restored to its usual place beside him, and the old lady, perhaps with her cap adjusted and perhaps not, is planted in her chair again, ready to be bowled down like a ninepin. Some time elapses in the present instance before the old gentleman is sufficiently cool to resume his discourse, and even then he mixes it up with several edifying expletives addressed to the unconscious partner of his bosom, who holds communication with nothing on earth but the trivets. As thus: "If your father, Bart, had lived longer, he might have been worth a deal of money--you brimstone chatterer!--but just as he was beginning to build up the house that he had been making the foundations for, through many a year--you jade of a magpie, jackdaw, and poll-parrot, what do you mean!--he took ill and died of a low fever, always being a sparing and a spare man, full of business care--I should like to throw a cat at you instead of a cushion, and I will too if you make such a confounded fool of yourself!--and your mother, who was a prudent woman as dry as a chip, just dwindled away like touchwood after you and Judy were born--you are an old pig. You are a brimstone pig. You're a head of swine!" Judy, not interested in what she has often heard, begins to collect in a basin various tributary streams of tea, from the bottoms of cups and saucers and from the bottom of the tea-pot for the little charwoman's evening meal. In like manner she gets together, in the iron bread-basket, as many outside fragments and worn-down heels of loaves as the rigid economy of the house has left in existence. "But your father and me were partners, Bart," says the old gentleman, "and when I am gone, you and Judy will have all there is. It's rare for you both that you went out early in life--Judy to the flower business, and you to the law. You won't want to spend it. You'll get your living without it, and put more to it. When I am gone, Judy will go back to the flower business and you'll still stick to the law." One might infer from Judy's appearance that her business rather lay with the thorns than the flowers, but she has in her time been apprenticed to the art and mystery of artificial flower-making. A close observer might perhaps detect both in her eye and her brother's, when their venerable grandsire anticipates his being gone, some little impatience to know when he may be going, and some resentful opinion that it is time he went. "Now, if everybody has done," says Judy, completing her preparations, "I'll have that girl in to her tea. She would never leave off if she took it by herself in the kitchen." Charley is accordingly introduced, and under a heavy fire of eyes, sits down to her basin and a Druidical ruin of bread and butter. In the active superintendence of this young person, Judy Smallweed appears to attain a perfectly geological age and to date from the remotest periods. Her systematic manner of flying at her and pouncing on her, with or without pretence, whether or no, is wonderful, evincing an accomplishment in the art of girl-driving seldom reached by the oldest practitioners. "Now, don't stare about you all the afternoon," cries Judy, shaking her head and stamping her foot as she happens to catch the glance which has been previously sounding the basin of tea, "but take your victuals and get back to your work." "Yes, miss," says Charley. "Don't say yes," returns Miss Smallweed, "for I know what you girls are. Do it without saying it, and then I may begin to believe you." Charley swallows a great gulp of tea in token of submission and so disperses the Druidical ruins that Miss Smallweed charges her not to gormandize, which "in you girls," she observes, is disgusting. Charley might find some more difficulty in meeting her views on the general subject of girls but for a knock at the door. "See who it is, and don't chew when you open it!" cries Judy. The object of her attentions withdrawing for the purpose, Miss Smallweed takes that opportunity of jumbling the remainder of the bread and butter together and launching two or three dirty tea-cups into the ebb-tide of the basin of tea as a hint that she considers the eating and drinking terminated. "Now! Who is it, and what's wanted?" says the snappish Judy. It is one Mr. George, it appears. Without other announcement or ceremony, Mr. George walks in. "Whew!" says Mr. George. "You are hot here. Always a fire, eh? Well! Perhaps you do right to get used to one." Mr. George makes the latter remark to himself as he nods to Grandfather Smallweed. "Ho! It's you!" cries the old gentleman. "How de do? How de do?" "Middling," replies Mr. George, taking a chair. "Your granddaughter I have had the honour of seeing before; my service to you, miss." "This is my grandson," says Grandfather Smallweed. "You ha'n't seen him before. He is in the law and not much at home." "My service to him, too! He is like his sister. He is very like his sister. He is devilish like his sister," says Mr. George, laying a great and not altogether complimentary stress on his last adjective. "And how does the world use you, Mr. George?" Grandfather Smallweed inquires, slowly rubbing his legs. "Pretty much as usual. Like a football." He is a swarthy brown man of fifty, well made, and good looking, with crisp dark hair, bright eyes, and a broad chest. His sinewy and powerful hands, as sunburnt as his face, have evidently been used to a pretty rough life. What is curious about him is that he sits forward on his chair as if he were, from long habit, allowing space for some dress or accoutrements that he has altogether laid aside. His step too is measured and heavy and would go well with a weighty clash and jingle of spurs. He is close-shaved now, but his mouth is set as if his upper lip had been for years familiar with a great moustache; and his manner of occasionally laying the open palm of his broad brown hand upon it is to the same effect. Altogether one might guess Mr. George to have been a trooper once upon a time. A special contrast Mr. George makes to the Smallweed family. Trooper was never yet billeted upon a household more unlike him. It is a broadsword to an oyster-knife. His developed figure and their stunted forms, his large manner filling any amount of room and their little narrow pinched ways, his sounding voice and their sharp spare tones, are in the strongest and the strangest opposition. As he sits in the middle of the grim parlour, leaning a little forward, with his hands upon his thighs and his elbows squared, he looks as though, if he remained there long, he would absorb into himself the whole family and the whole four-roomed house, extra little back-kitchen and all. "Do you rub your legs to rub life into 'em?" he asks of Grandfather Smallweed after looking round the room. "Why, it's partly a habit, Mr. George, and--yes--it partly helps the circulation," he replies. "The cir-cu-la-tion!" repeats Mr. George, folding his arms upon his chest and seeming to become two sizes larger. "Not much of that, I should think." "Truly I'm old, Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed. "But I can carry my years. I'm older than HER," nodding at his wife, "and see what she is? You're a brimstone chatterer!" with a sudden revival of his late hostility. "Unlucky old soul!" says Mr. George, turning his head in that direction. "Don't scold the old lady. Look at her here, with her poor cap half off her head and her poor hair all in a muddle. Hold up, ma'am. That's better. There we are! Think of your mother, Mr. Smallweed," says Mr. George, coming back to his seat from assisting her, "if your wife an't enough." "I suppose you were an excellent son, Mr. George?" the old man hints with a leer. The colour of Mr. George's face rather deepens as he replies, "Why no. I wasn't." "I am astonished at it." "So am I. I ought to have been a good son, and I think I meant to have been one. But I wasn't. I was a thundering bad son, that's the long and the short of it, and never was a credit to anybody." "Surprising!" cries the old man. "However," Mr. George resumes, "the less said about it, the better now. Come! You know the agreement. Always a pipe out of the two months' interest! (Bosh! It's all correct. You needn't be afraid to order the pipe. Here's the new bill, and here's the two months' interest-money, and a devil-and-all of a scrape it is to get it together in my business.)" Mr. George sits, with his arms folded, consuming the family and the parlour while Grandfather Smallweed is assisted by Judy to two black leathern cases out of a locked bureau, in one of which he secures the document he has just received, and from the other takes another similar document which he hands to Mr. George, who twists it up for a pipelight. As the old man inspects, through his glasses, every up-stroke and down-stroke of both documents before he releases them from their leathern prison, and as he counts the money three times over and requires Judy to say every word she utters at least twice, and is as tremulously slow of speech and action as it is possible to be, this business is a long time in progress. When it is quite concluded, and not before, he disengages his ravenous eyes and fingers from it and answers Mr. George's last remark by saying, "Afraid to order the pipe? We are not so mercenary as that, sir. Judy, see directly to the pipe and the glass of cold brandy-and-water for Mr. George." The sportive twins, who have been looking straight before them all this time except when they have been engrossed by the black leathern cases, retire together, generally disdainful of the visitor, but leaving him to the old man as two young cubs might leave a traveller to the parental bear. "And there you sit, I suppose, all the day long, eh?" says Mr. George with folded arms. "Just so, just so," the old man nods. "And don't you occupy yourself at all?" "I watch the fire--and the boiling and the roasting--" "When there is any," says Mr. George with great expression. "Just so. When there is any." "Don't you read or get read to?" The old man shakes his head with sharp sly triumph. "No, no. We have never been readers in our family. It don't pay. Stuff. Idleness. Folly. No, no!" "There's not much to choose between your two states," says the visitor in a key too low for the old man's dull hearing as he looks from him to the old woman and back again. "I say!" in a louder voice. "I hear you." "You'll sell me up at last, I suppose, when I am a day in arrear." "My dear friend!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, stretching out both hands to embrace him. "Never! Never, my dear friend! But my friend in the city that I got to lend you the money--HE might!" "Oh! You can't answer for him?" says Mr. George, finishing the inquiry in his lower key with the words "You lying old rascal!" "My dear friend, he is not to be depended on. I wouldn't trust him. He will have his bond, my dear friend." "Devil doubt him," says Mr. George. Charley appearing with a tray, on which are the pipe, a small paper of tobacco, and the brandy-and-water, he asks her, "How do you come here! You haven't got the family face." "I goes out to work, sir," returns Charley. The trooper (if trooper he be or have been) takes her bonnet off, with a light touch for so strong a hand, and pats her on the head. "You give the house almost a wholesome look. It wants a bit of youth as much as it wants fresh air." Then he dismisses her, lights his pipe, and drinks to Mr. Smallweed's friend in the city--the one solitary flight of that esteemed old gentleman's imagination. "So you think he might be hard upon me, eh?" "I think he might--I am afraid he would. I have known him do it," says Grandfather Smallweed incautiously, "twenty times." Incautiously, because his stricken better-half, who has been dozing over the fire for some time, is instantly aroused and jabbers "Twenty thousand pounds, twenty twenty-pound notes in a money-box, twenty guineas, twenty million twenty per cent, twenty--" and is then cut short by the flying cushion, which the visitor, to whom this singular experiment appears to be a novelty, snatches from her face as it crushes her in the usual manner. "You're a brimstone idiot. You're a scorpion--a brimstone scorpion! You're a sweltering toad. You're a chattering clattering broomstick witch that ought to be burnt!" gasps the old man, prostrate in his chair. "My dear friend, will you shake me up a little?" Mr. George, who has been looking first at one of them and then at the other, as if he were demented, takes his venerable acquaintance by the throat on receiving this request, and dragging him upright in his chair as easily as if he were a doll, appears in two minds whether or no to shake all future power of cushioning out of him and shake him into his grave. Resisting the temptation, but agitating him violently enough to make his head roll like a harlequin's, he puts him smartly down in his chair again and adjusts his skull-cap with such a rub that the old man winks with both eyes for a minute afterwards. "O Lord!" gasps Mr. Smallweed. "That'll do. Thank you, my dear friend, that'll do. Oh, dear me, I'm out of breath. O Lord!" And Mr. Smallweed says it not without evident apprehensions of his dear friend, who still stands over him looming larger than ever. The alarming presence, however, gradually subsides into its chair and falls to smoking in long puffs, consoling itself with the philosophical reflection, "The name of your friend in the city begins with a D, comrade, and you're about right respecting the bond." "Did you speak, Mr. George?" inquires the old man. The trooper shakes his head, and leaning forward with his right elbow on his right knee and his pipe supported in that hand, while his other hand, resting on his left leg, squares his left elbow in a martial manner, continues to smoke. Meanwhile he looks at Mr. Smallweed with grave attention and now and then fans the cloud of smoke away in order that he may see him the more clearly. "I take it," he says, making just as much and as little change in his position as will enable him to reach the glass to his lips with a round, full action, "that I am the only man alive (or dead either) that gets the value of a pipe out of YOU?" "Well," returns the old man, "it's true that I don't see company, Mr. George, and that I don't treat. I can't afford to it. But as you, in your pleasant way, made your pipe a condition--" "Why, it's not for the value of it; that's no great thing. It was a fancy to get it out of you. To have something in for my money." "Ha! You're prudent, prudent, sir!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, rubbing his legs. "Very. I always was." Puff. "It's a sure sign of my prudence that I ever found the way here." Puff. "Also, that I am what I am." Puff. "I am well known to be prudent," says Mr. George, composedly smoking. "I rose in life that way." "Don't be down-hearted, sir. You may rise yet." Mr. George laughs and drinks. "Ha'n't you no relations, now," asks Grandfather Smallweed with a twinkle in his eyes, "who would pay off this little principal or who would lend you a good name or two that I could persuade my friend in the city to make you a further advance upon? Two good names would be sufficient for my friend in the city. Ha'n't you no such relations, Mr. George?" Mr. George, still composedly smoking, replies, "If I had, I shouldn't trouble them. I have been trouble enough to my belongings in my day. It MAY be a very good sort of penitence in a vagabond, who has wasted the best time of his life, to go back then to decent people that he never was a credit to and live upon them, but it's not my sort. The best kind of amends then for having gone away is to keep away, in my opinion." "But natural affection, Mr. George," hints Grandfather Smallweed. "For two good names, hey?" says Mr. George, shaking his head and still composedly smoking. "No. That's not my sort either." Grandfather Smallweed has been gradually sliding down in his chair since his last adjustment and is now a bundle of clothes with a voice in it calling for Judy. That houri, appearing, shakes him up in the usual manner and is charged by the old gentleman to remain near him. For he seems chary of putting his visitor to the trouble of repeating his late attentions. "Ha!" he observes when he is in trim again. "If you could have traced out the captain, Mr. George, it would have been the making of you. If when you first came here, in consequence of our advertisement in the newspapers--when I say 'our,' I'm alluding to the advertisements of my friend in the city, and one or two others who embark their capital in the same way, and are so friendly towards me as sometimes to give me a lift with my little pittance--if at that time you could have helped us, Mr. George, it would have been the making of you." "I was willing enough to be 'made,' as you call it," says Mr. George, smoking not quite so placidly as before, for since the entrance of Judy he has been in some measure disturbed by a fascination, not of the admiring kind, which obliges him to look at her as she stands by her grandfather's chair, "but on the whole, I am glad I wasn't now." "Why, Mr. George? In the name of--of brimstone, why?" says Grandfather Smallweed with a plain appearance of exasperation. (Brimstone apparently suggested by his eye lighting on Mrs. Smallweed in her slumber.) "For two reasons, comrade." "And what two reasons, Mr. George? In the name of the--" "Of our friend in the city?" suggests Mr. George, composedly drinking. "Aye, if you like. What two reasons?" "In the first place," returns Mr. George, but still looking at Judy as if she being so old and so like her grandfather it is indifferent which of the two he addresses, "you gentlemen took me in. You advertised that Mr. Hawdon (Captain Hawdon, if you hold to the saying 'Once a captain, always a captain') was to hear of something to his advantage." "Well?" returns the old man shrilly and sharply. "Well!" says Mr. George, smoking on. "It wouldn't have been much to his advantage to have been clapped into prison by the whole bill and judgment trade of London." "How do you know that? Some of his rich relations might have paid his debts or compounded for 'em. Besides, he had taken US in. He owed us immense sums all round. I would sooner have strangled him than had no return. If I sit here thinking of him," snarls the old man, holding up his impotent ten fingers, "I want to strangle him now." And in a sudden access of fury, he throws the cushion at the unoffending Mrs. Smallweed, but it passes harmlessly on one side of her chair. "I don't need to be told," returns the trooper, taking his pipe from his lips for a moment and carrying his eyes back from following the progress of the cushion to the pipe-bowl which is burning low, "that he carried on heavily and went to ruin. I have been at his right hand many a day when he was charging upon ruin full-gallop. I was with him when he was sick and well, rich and poor. I laid this hand upon him after he had run through everything and broken down everything beneath him--when he held a pistol to his head." "I wish he had let it off," says the benevolent old man, "and blown his head into as many pieces as he owed pounds!" "That would have been a smash indeed," returns the trooper coolly; "any way, he had been young, hopeful, and handsome in the days gone by, and I am glad I never found him, when he was neither, to lead to a result so much to his advantage. That's reason number one." "I hope number two's as good?" snarls the old man. "Why, no. It's more of a selfish reason. If I had found him, I must have gone to the other world to look. He was there." "How do you know he was there?" "He wasn't here." "How do you know he wasn't here?" "Don't lose your temper as well as your money," says Mr. George, calmly knocking the ashes out of his pipe. "He was drowned long before. I am convinced of it. He went over a ship's side. Whether intentionally or accidentally, I don't know. Perhaps your friend in the city does. Do you know what that tune is, Mr. Smallweed?" he adds after breaking off to whistle one, accompanied on the table with the empty pipe. "Tune!" replied the old man. "No. We never have tunes here." "That's the Dead March in Saul. They bury soldiers to it, so it's the natural end of the subject. Now, if your pretty granddaughter--excuse me, miss--will condescend to take care of this pipe for two months, we shall save the cost of one next time. Good evening, Mr. Smallweed!" "My dear friend!" the old man gives him both his hands. "So you think your friend in the city will be hard upon me if I fall in a payment?" says the trooper, looking down upon him like a giant. "My dear friend, I am afraid he will," returns the old man, looking up at him like a pygmy. Mr. George laughs, and with a glance at Mr. Smallweed and a parting salutation to the scornful Judy, strides out of the parlour, clashing imaginary sabres and other metallic appurtenances as he goes. "You're a damned rogue," says the old gentleman, making a hideous grimace at the door as he shuts it. "But I'll lime you, you dog, I'll lime you!" After this amiable remark, his spirit soars into those enchanting regions of reflection which its education and pursuits have opened to it, and again he and Mrs. Smallweed while away the rosy hours, two unrelieved sentinels forgotten as aforesaid by the Black Serjeant. While the twain are faithful to their post, Mr. George strides through the streets with a massive kind of swagger and a grave-enough face. It is eight o'clock now, and the day is fast drawing in. He stops hard by Waterloo Bridge and reads a playbill, decides to go to Astley's Theatre. Being there, is much delighted with the horses and the feats of strength; looks at the weapons with a critical eye; disapproves of the combats as giving evidences of unskilful swordsmanship; but is touched home by the sentiments. In the last scene, when the Emperor of Tartary gets up into a cart and condescends to bless the united lovers by hovering over them with the Union Jack, his eyelashes are moistened with emotion. The theatre over, Mr. George comes across the water again and makes his way to that curious region lying about the Haymarket and Leicester Square which is a centre of attraction to indifferent foreign hotels and indifferent foreigners, racket-courts, fighting-men, swordsmen, footguards, old china, gaming-houses, exhibitions, and a large medley of shabbiness and shrinking out of sight. Penetrating to the heart of this region, he arrives by a court and a long whitewashed passage at a great brick building composed of bare walls, floors, roof-rafters, and skylights, on the front of which, if it can be said to have any front, is painted GEORGE'S SHOOTING GALLERY, &c. Into George's Shooting Gallery, &c., he goes; and in it there are gaslights (partly turned off now), and two whitened targets for rifle-shooting, and archery accommodation, and fencing appliances, and all necessaries for the British art of boxing. None of these sports or exercises being pursued in George's Shooting Gallery to-night, which is so devoid of company that a little grotesque man with a large head has it all to himself and lies asleep upon the floor. The little man is dressed something like a gunsmith, in a green-baize apron and cap; and his face and hands are dirty with gunpowder and begrimed with the loading of guns. As he lies in the light before a glaring white target, the black upon him shines again. Not far off is the strong, rough, primitive table with a vice upon it at which he has been working. He is a little man with a face all crushed together, who appears, from a certain blue and speckled appearance that one of his cheeks presents, to have been blown up, in the way of business, at some odd time or times. "Phil!" says the trooper in a quiet voice. "All right!" cries Phil, scrambling to his feet. "Anything been doing?" "Flat as ever so much swipes," says Phil. "Five dozen rifle and a dozen pistol. As to aim!" Phil gives a howl at the recollection. "Shut up shop, Phil!" As Phil moves about to execute this order, it appears that he is lame, though able to move very quickly. On the speckled side of his face he has no eyebrow, and on the other side he has a bushy black one, which want of uniformity gives him a very singular and rather sinister appearance. Everything seems to have happened to his hands that could possibly take place consistently with the retention of all the fingers, for they are notched, and seamed, and crumpled all over. He appears to be very strong and lifts heavy benches about as if he had no idea what weight was. He has a curious way of limping round the gallery with his shoulder against the wall and tacking off at objects he wants to lay hold of instead of going straight to them, which has left a smear all round the four walls, conventionally called "Phil's mark." This custodian of George's Gallery in George's absence concludes his proceedings, when he has locked the great doors and turned out all the lights but one, which he leaves to glimmer, by dragging out from a wooden cabin in a corner two mattresses and bedding. These being drawn to opposite ends of the gallery, the trooper makes his own bed and Phil makes his. "Phil!" says the master, walking towards him without his coat and waistcoat, and looking more soldierly than ever in his braces. "You were found in a doorway, weren't you?" "Gutter," says Phil. "Watchman tumbled over me." "Then vagabondizing came natural to YOU from the beginning." "As nat'ral as possible," says Phil. "Good night!" "Good night, guv'ner." Phil cannot even go straight to bed, but finds it necessary to shoulder round two sides of the gallery and then tack off at his mattress. The trooper, after taking a turn or two in the rifle-distance and looking up at the moon now shining through the skylights, strides to his own mattress by a shorter route and goes to bed too.

In a rather ill-favoured neighbourhood, the Elfin Smallweed, christened Bartholomew and known at home as Bart, passes that limited portion of his time on which the office has no claim. He dwells in a little narrow street, solitary, shady, and sad, closely bricked in on all sides like a tomb, but where there lingers the stump of an old tree whose flavour is about as fresh and natural as the Smallweed smack of youth. There has been only one child in the Smallweed family for several generations. Little old men and women there have been, but no child, until Mr. Smallweed's grandmother became weak in her intellect and fell (for the first time) into a childish state. Mr. Smallweed's grandfather is in a helpless condition as to his lower limbs, but his mind is unimpaired. It holds, as well as it ever held, the rules of arithmetic and a small collection of the hardest facts. The father of this pleasant grandfather was a horny-skinned, two-legged, money-getting species of spider who spun webs to catch unwary flies. The name of this old pagan's god was Compound Interest. He lived for it, married it, died of it. Meeting with a heavy loss in an honest little enterprise in which all the loss was intended to have been on the other side, he broke something - it couldn't have been his heart - and made an end of his career. His spirit shone through his son, whom he made a clerk in a sharp scrivener's office at twelve years old. There the young gentleman improved his mind, which was of a lean and anxious character, and gradually elevated himself into the discounting profession. Going out early in life and marrying late, as his father had done before him, he too begat a lean and anxious-minded son, who in his turn became the father of Bartholomew and Judith Smallweed, twins. During this whole time, the house of Smallweed has discarded all amusements, fairy-tales, fictions, and fables, and banished all levities whatsoever. Hence the gratifying fact that it has had no child born to it and that the complete little men and women whom it has produced bear a likeness to old monkeys with something depressing on their minds. At the present time, in the grim, dark little parlour some feet below the level of the street, seated in two black horsehair porter's chairs, one on each side of the fire-place, the oldest Mr. and Mrs. Smallweed while away the hours. On the stove are a couple of trivets for the pots and kettles which it is Grandfather Smallweed's usual occupation to watch. Under his seat and guarded by his spindle legs is a drawer in his chair, reported to contain property to a fabulous amount. Beside him is a spare cushion, provided in order that he may have something to throw at his venerable partner whenever she mentions money - a subject on which he is particularly sensitive. "Where's Bart?" Grandfather Smallweed inquires of Judy, Bart's twin sister. "He an't come in yet," says Judy. "It's his tea-time, isn't it?" "Not for ten minutes." "Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Ten minutes." Grandmother Smallweed, who has been mumbling and shaking her head, hearing figures mentioned, screeches like a horrible old parrot without any plumage, "Ten ten-pound notes!" Grandfather Smallweed immediately throws the cushion at her. "Drat you, be quiet!" says the good old man. This exertion recoils on Mr. Smallweed himself, throwing him back into his chair like a broken puppet. His granddaughter shakes him up again, poking and punching him like a great bolster. Judy the twin is worthy company for these associates. She is so indubitably sister to Mr. Smallweed the younger; she so happily exemplifies the family likeness to the monkey tribe, that attired in a spangled robe and cap she might walk on top of a barrel-organ without exciting much remark. At present, however, she is dressed in a plain brown gown. Judy never owned a doll, never heard of Cinderella, never played at any game. She once or twice fell into children's company when she was about ten years old, but the children couldn't get on with Judy, and Judy couldn't get on with them. She seemed like an animal of another species, and there was instinctive repugnance on both sides. It is very doubtful whether Judy knows how to laugh. And her twin brother likewise has learnt no games or fairy-stories. But he is better off than his sister, in that on his narrow world an opening has dawned into the broader regions inhabited by Mr. Guppy. Hence his admiration of that shining enchanter. Judy, with a clash and clatter, sets an iron tea-tray on the table and arranges cups and saucers. She puts the bread in an iron basket, and the meagre butter in a small pewter plate. Grandfather Smallweed looks hard at the tea and asks Judy where the girl is. "Charley, do you mean?" says Judy. "Ha!" says Grandfather. "She eats a deal. It would be better to just pay her for her keep." Judy shakes her head and purses up her mouth. "She'd want sixpence a day, and we can do it for less," says she. "Sure?" Judy answers with a nod and calls, as she scrapes the butter on the loaf, "Charley, where are you?" Timidly obedient, a little girl in a rough apron appears, with her hands covered with soap and water and a scrubbing brush in one of them. "What work are you about now?" says Judy, like a sharp old woman. "I'm a-cleaning the upstairs back room, miss," replies Charley. "Mind you do it thoroughly, and don't loiter. Make haste! Go along!" cries Judy with a stamp. As she returns to her task, her brother arrives home. "Aye, aye, Bart!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Been along with your friend again, Bart?" Small nods. "Dining at his expense, Bart?" Small nods again. "That's right. Live at his expense as much as you can. That's the only use of such a friend," says the venerable sage. His grandson receives this good advice with a wink and a nod and takes a chair at the tea-table. The four old faces hover over teacups like a company of ghastly cherubim, Mrs. Smallweed perpetually twitching her head and chattering and Mr. Smallweed requiring to be repeatedly shaken up. "Yes, yes," says the good old gentleman. "That's fatherly advice, Bart. You never saw your father. More's the pity. He was my true son, and died fifteen years ago." Mrs. Smallweed breaks out with "Fifteen hundred pound in a black box, put away and hid!" Her worthy husband immediately throws the cushion at her, crushing her against the side of her chair, and falls back in his own, overpowered. He mutters baleful and violent imprecations against Mrs. Smallweed. All this, however, is common in the Smallweed family circle. The old gentleman is merely shaken and has his internal feathers beaten up, the cushion is restored to its place beside him, and the old lady is planted in her chair again. Some time elapses before the old gentleman is cool enough to resume his discourse, and even then he mixes it up with several expletives addressed to the partner of his bosom. "If your father, Bart, had lived longer, he might have been worth a deal of money - you brimstone chatterer! - but just as he was beginning to build up his funds, he took ill and died of a fever - I should like to throw a cat at you instead of a cushion, you confounded fool! - and your mother, who was a prudent woman, just dwindled away after you and Judy were born - you old pig!" Judy, not interested in what she has often heard, begins to collect leftovers of tea in a basin, and of bread-and-butter in the iron bread-basket, for the little charwoman's evening meal. "But your father and me were partners, Bart," says the old gentleman, "and when I am gone, you and Judy will have all there is. You won't want to spend it. You'll get your living without it, and put more to it. When I am gone, Judy will go back to the flower business and you'll stick to the law." One might infer from Judy's appearance that her business rather lay with the thorns than the flowers, but she has in her time been apprenticed to the art of artificial flower-making. A close observer might perhaps detect both in her eye and her brother's some impatience to know when their grandfather may be going, and some resentful opinion that it is time he went. "Now, if everybody has done," says Judy. "I'll have that girl in to her tea. She would never leave off if she took it by herself in the kitchen." Charley is accordingly introduced, and under a heavy fire of eyes, sits down to her basin and her ruins of bread and butter. "Now, don't stare about you all afternoon," cries Judy, stamping her foot, "but take your victuals and get back to your work." "Yes, miss," says Charley. "Don't say yes," returns Miss Smallweed, "for I know what you girls are. Do it without saying it, and then I may begin to believe you." Charley swallows a great gulp of tea in token of submission, just as there is a knock at the door. "See who it is, and don't chew when you open it!" cries Judy. It is one Mr. George, it appears. Without ceremony, Mr. George walks in. "Whew!" says Mr. George. "You are hot here. Always a fire, eh? Well! Perhaps you do right to get used to one." "Ho! It's you!" cries the old gentleman. "How de do?" "Middling," replies Mr. George, taking a chair. "Your granddaughter I have had the honour of seeing before; my service to you, miss." "This is my grandson," says old Smallweed. "You ha'n't seen him before. He is in the law." "My service to him, too! He is devilish like his sister," says Mr. George. "And how does the world use you, Mr. George?" Grandfather Smallweed inquires, rubbing his legs. "Pretty much as usual. Like a football." He is a swarthy, brown man of fifty, well made, and good looking, with curly dark hair, bright eyes, and a broad chest. His powerful, sunburnt hands have evidently been used to a pretty rough life. He sits forward on his chair. His step is measured and heavy and would go well with a weighty clash and jingle of spurs. Altogether one might guess Mr. George to have been a trooper once upon a time. He makes a contrast to the Smallweed family. A soldier was never yet billeted upon a household more unlike him. His broad figure and their stunted forms, his large manner and their narrow pinched ways, his resounding voice and their sharp thin tones, are in the strangest opposition. "Do you rub your legs to rub life into 'em?" he asks of Grandfather Smallweed. "Why, it's partly a habit, Mr. George, and it partly helps the circulation. I can carry my years. I'm older than her," says Grandfather Smallweed, nodding at his wife, "the brimstone chatterer!" "Unlucky old soul!" says Mr. George. "Don't scold the old lady. Look at her, with her poor cap half off. Hold up, ma'am. That's better. There we are!" "I suppose you were an excellent son, Mr. George?" the old man hints with a leer. The colour of Mr. George's face rather deepens as he replies, "Why, no. I wasn't." "I am astonished at it." "So am I. I ought to have been a good son, and I think I meant to have been one. But I wasn't. I was a thundering bad son, and never was a credit to anybody." "Surprising!" cries the old man. "However," Mr. George resumes, "the less said about it, the better. Come! You know the agreement. Always a pipe out of the two months' interest! Here's the bill, and here's the two months' interest-money, and a devil of a scrape it is to get it together in my business." Mr. George sits, with his arms folded, while Grandfather Smallweed is assisted by Judy to two black leather cases out of a locked bureau, in one of which he secures the document he has just received, and from the other takes another similar document which he hands to Mr. George. As the old man inspects every letter of both documents, and as he counts the money three times over, this business takes a long time. When it is done, he says, "Judy, see to the pipe and the glass of brandy-and-water for Mr. George." The twins retire together, disdainful of the visitor, but leaving him to the old man as two young cubs might leave a traveller to the parental bear. "And there you sit, I suppose, all day long, eh?" says Mr. George. "Just so," the old man nods. "Don't you read or get read to?" The old man shakes his head with sharp sly triumph. "No, no. We have never been readers in our family. It don't pay. Idleness. Folly. No, no!" "You'll sell me up at last, I suppose, when I am a day in arrears." "My dear friend!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, stretching out both hands, "Never! Never! But my friend in the city that I got to lend you the money - he might!" "Oh! You can't answer for him?" says Mr. George, adding in an undertone, "You lying old rascal!" "My dear friend, he is not to be depended on. He will have his bond." "Devil doubt him," says Mr. George. Charley appears with a tray, on which are the clay pipe, a small paper of tobacco, and the brandy-and-water. He asks her, "How do you come here? You haven't got the family face." "I goes out to work, sir," returns Charley. The trooper takes her bonnet off, with a light touch for so strong a hand, and pats her on the head. "You give the house almost a wholesome look." Then he dismisses her, lights his pipe, and drinks to Mr. Smallweed's friend in the city - the one solitary flight of that old gentleman's imagination. "So you think he might be hard upon me, eh?" "I am afraid he would. I have known him do it," says Grandfather Smallweed incautiously, "twenty times." Incautiously, because his stricken better-half, who has been dozing over the fire, is instantly aroused and jabbers "Twenty thousand pounds, twenty twenty-pound notes in a money-box, twenty guineas-" and is cut short by the flying cushion, which the visitor snatches from her face. "You're a brimstone idiot. You're a brimstone scorpion! You're a sweltering toad. You're a chattering broomstick witch that ought to be burnt!" gasps the old man, prostrate in his chair. "My dear friend, will you shake me up a little?" Mr. George, who has been looking at them as if he were demented, takes his venerable acquaintance by the throat on receiving this request, and dragging him upright in his chair as easily as if he were a doll, appears in two minds whether to shake him into his grave. Resisting the temptation, but agitating him enough to make his head roll like a puppet's, he puts him smartly down in his chair again. "O Lord!" gasps Mr. Smallweed. "Thank you, my dear friend, that'll do." He says this with evident apprehensions of his dear friend, who still stands over him looming larger than ever. The alarming presence, however, subsides into its chair and falls to smoking. Meanwhile he looks at Mr. Smallweed with grave attention. "I take it," he says, "that I am the only man alive that gets the value of a pipe out of you?" "Well," returns the old man, "it's true that I don't see company, Mr. George, and that I don't treat. I can't afford it. But as you, in your pleasant way, made your pipe a condition-" "Why, it's not for the value of it. It was a fancy to get it out of you. To have something for my money." "Ha! You're prudent, prudent, sir!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, rubbing his legs. "Very. I always was." Puff. "It's a sign of my prudence that I ever found the way here." Puff. "Also, that I am what I am." Puff. "I am well known to be prudent," says Mr. George, composedly smoking. "I rose in life that way." "Don't be down-hearted, sir. You may rise yet." Mr. George laughs and drinks. "Ha'n't you no relations, now," asks Grandfather Smallweed with a twinkle in his eyes, "who would pay off this little loan, or a good name or two that I could persuade my friend in the city to make you a further advance upon? Two good names would be sufficient for my friend in the city. Ha'n't you no such relations, Mr. George?" Mr. George replies, "If I had, I shouldn't trouble them. I have been trouble enough in my day. A vagabond might go back to decent people that he never was a credit to and make amends by living upon them, but the best kind of amends is to keep away, in my opinion." Grandfather Smallweed has been gradually sliding down in his chair since his last adjustment and is now a bundle of clothes with a voice in it calling for Judy. Appearing, she shakes him up in the usual manner and is charged by the old gentleman to remain near him. For he seems wary of asking his visitor to repeat his attentions. "Ha!" he observes. "If you could have found the captain, Mr. George, it would have been the making of you. If when you first came here, in consequence of our advertisement in the newspapers - if you could have helped us, Mr. George, it would have been the making of you." "I was willing enough to be 'made,' as you call it," says Mr. George, smoking not quite so placidly as before, "but on the whole, I am glad I wasn't now." "Why, Mr. George? In the name of brimstone, why?" says Grandfather Smallweed with exasperation. "For two reasons, comrade. In the first place," returns Mr. George, "you took me in. You advertised that Captain Hawdon was to hear of something to his advantage." "Well?" returns the old man sharply. "Well!" says Mr. George, smoking on. "It wouldn't have been much to his advantage to have been clapped into prison." "Some of his rich relations might have paid his debts. Besides, he had taken us in. He owed us immense sums all round. When I think of him," snarls the old man, "I want to strangle him." And in a sudden fury, he throws the cushion at Mrs. Smallweed, but it passes harmlessly on one side of her chair. "I don't need to be told," returns the trooper, "that he carried on heavily and went to ruin. I have been at his right hand many a day when he was charging upon ruin full-gallop. I was with him when he was sick and well, rich and poor. I laid this hand upon him after he had run through everything and broken down - when he held a pistol to his head." "I wish he had let it off," says the benevolent old man, "and blown his head into as many pieces as he owed pounds!" "That would have been a smash indeed," returns the trooper coolly. "Anyway, he had been young, hopeful, and handsome in the days gone by, and I am glad I never found him, to lead to his being imprisoned. That's reason number one." "I hope number two's as good?" snarls the old man. "Why, no. It's a more selfish reason. If I had found him, I must have gone to the other world to look. He was there." "How do you know?" "He wasn't here." "How do you know he wasn't here?" "Don't lose your temper as well as your money," says Mr. George, calmly knocking the ashes out of his pipe. "He was drowned long ago. I am convinced of it. He went over a ship's side. Whether intentionally or accidentally, I don't know. Perhaps your friend in the city does. Do you know what tune this is, Mr. Smallweed?" he adds after breaking off to whistle one. "Tune!" replied the old man. "No. We never have tunes here." "That's the Dead March in Saul. They bury soldiers to it, so it's the natural end of the subject. Now, if your pretty granddaughter will take care of this pipe for two months, we shall save the cost of one next time. Good evening, Mr. Smallweed!" "My dear friend!" The old man gives him both his hands. "So you think your friend in the city will be hard upon me if I fail in a payment?" says the trooper, looking down upon him like a giant. "My dear friend, I am afraid he will." Mr. George laughs, and with a parting salutation to the scornful Judy, strides out of the parlour. "You're a damned rogue," says the old gentleman, making a hideous grimace at the door. "But I'll lime you, you dog, I'll lime you!" Mr. George strides through the streets with a massive swagger and a grave face. It is eight o'clock of the evening now. He stops by Waterloo Bridge and reads a playbill, and decides to go to Astley's Theatre. There, he is much delighted with the horses and the feats of strength; looks at the weapons with a critical eye; disapproves of the combats as showing unskilful swordsmanship; but is touched by the sentiments. The theatre over, Mr. George crosses the river again and makes his way to that curious region lying about the Haymarket and Leicester Square which is a centre of attraction to indifferent foreign hotels, racket-courts, swordsmen, gaming-houses, exhibitions, and a large medley of shabbiness. At the heart of this region, he arrives at a great brick building with bare walls, floors, and roof-rafters, on the front of which is painted GEORGE'S SHOOTING GALLERY, &c. Into George's Shooting Gallery, &c., he goes. Inside there are gaslights and two targets for rifle-shooting, and equipment for archery, fencing and boxing. None of these sports is being pursued tonight in the gallery, which is so devoid of company that a little grotesque man with a large head has it all to himself and lies asleep upon the floor. The little man is dressed something like a gunsmith, in a green-baize apron and cap; and his face and hands are dirty with gunpowder. Not far off is the strong table with a vice upon it at which he has been working. His face is speckled on one side and crushed together: he appears to have been blown up at some odd time or times. "Phil!" says the trooper quietly. "All right!" cries Phil, scrambling to his feet. "Anything been doing?" "Flat," says Phil. "Five dozen rifle and a dozen pistol." "Shut up shop, Phil!" As Phil does so, it appears that he is lame, though able to move very quickly. On the speckled side of his face he has no eyebrow, and on the other side he has a bushy black one, which gives him a rather sinister appearance. Everything seems to have happened to his hands that could possibly take place without losing his fingers, for they are notched, seamed, and crumpled all over. He appears to be very strong and lifts heavy benches about as if he had no idea what weight was. He has a curious way of limping round the gallery with his shoulder against the wall, which has left a smear all round the four walls. This custodian of George's Gallery, when he has locked the great doors and turned out all the lights but one, drags out from a wooden cabin in a corner two mattresses and bedding. Once these have been drawn to opposite ends of the gallery, the trooper makes his own bed and Phil makes his. "Phil!" says the master. "You were found in a doorway, weren't you?" "Gutter," says Phil. "Then vagabondizing came natural to you from the beginning." "As nat'ral as possible," says Phil. "Good night!" "Good night, guv'ner." Phil cannot go straight to bed, but finds it necessary to shoulder round two sides of the gallery and then veer off at his mattress. The trooper strides to his own mattress by a shorter route and goes to bed too.

Bleak House

Chapter 21: The Smallweed Family

Mr. Tulkinghorn arrives in his turret-room a little breathed by the journey up, though leisurely performed. There is an expression on his face as if he had discharged his mind of some grave matter and were, in his close way, satisfied. To say of a man so severely and strictly self-repressed that he is triumphant would be to do him as great an injustice as to suppose him troubled with love or sentiment or any romantic weakness. He is sedately satisfied. Perhaps there is a rather increased sense of power upon him as he loosely grasps one of his veinous wrists with his other hand and holding it behind his back walks noiselessly up and down. There is a capacious writing-table in the room on which is a pretty large accumulation of papers. The green lamp is lighted, his reading-glasses lie upon the desk, the easy-chair is wheeled up to it, and it would seem as though he had intended to bestow an hour or so upon these claims on his attention before going to bed. But he happens not to be in a business mind. After a glance at the documents awaiting his notice--with his head bent low over the table, the old man's sight for print or writing being defective at night--he opens the French window and steps out upon the leads. There he again walks slowly up and down in the same attitude, subsiding, if a man so cool may have any need to subside, from the story he has related downstairs. The time was once when men as knowing as Mr. Tulkinghorn would walk on turret-tops in the starlight and look up into the sky to read their fortunes there. Hosts of stars are visible to-night, though their brilliancy is eclipsed by the splendour of the moon. If he be seeking his own star as he methodically turns and turns upon the leads, it should be but a pale one to be so rustily represented below. If he be tracing out his destiny, that may be written in other characters nearer to his hand. As he paces the leads with his eyes most probably as high above his thoughts as they are high above the earth, he is suddenly stopped in passing the window by two eyes that meet his own. The ceiling of his room is rather low; and the upper part of the door, which is opposite the window, is of glass. There is an inner baize door, too, but the night being warm he did not close it when he came upstairs. These eyes that meet his own are looking in through the glass from the corridor outside. He knows them well. The blood has not flushed into his face so suddenly and redly for many a long year as when he recognizes Lady Dedlock. He steps into the room, and she comes in too, closing both the doors behind her. There is a wild disturbance--is it fear or anger?--in her eyes. In her carriage and all else she looks as she looked downstairs two hours ago. Is it fear or is it anger now? He cannot be sure. Both might be as pale, both as intent. "Lady Dedlock?" She does not speak at first, nor even when she has slowly dropped into the easy-chair by the table. They look at each other, like two pictures. "Why have you told my story to so many persons?" "Lady Dedlock, it was necessary for me to inform you that I knew it." "How long have you known it?" "I have suspected it a long while--fully known it a little while." "Months?" "Days." He stands before her with one hand on a chair-back and the other in his old-fashioned waistcoat and shirt-frill, exactly as he has stood before her at any time since her marriage. The same formal politeness, the same composed deference that might as well be defiance; the whole man the same dark, cold object, at the same distance, which nothing has ever diminished. "Is this true concerning the poor girl?" He slightly inclines and advances his head as not quite understanding the question. "You know what you related. Is it true? Do her friends know my story also? Is it the town-talk yet? Is it chalked upon the walls and cried in the streets?" So! Anger, and fear, and shame. All three contending. What power this woman has to keep these raging passions down! Mr. Tulkinghorn's thoughts take such form as he looks at her, with his ragged grey eyebrows a hair's breadth more contracted than usual under her gaze. "No, Lady Dedlock. That was a hypothetical case, arising out of Sir Leicester's unconsciously carrying the matter with so high a hand. But it would be a real case if they knew--what we know." "Then they do not know it yet?" "No." "Can I save the poor girl from injury before they know it?" "Really, Lady Dedlock," Mr. Tulkinghorn replies, "I cannot give a satisfactory opinion on that point." And he thinks, with the interest of attentive curiosity, as he watches the struggle in her breast, "The power and force of this woman are astonishing!" "Sir," she says, for the moment obliged to set her lips with all the energy she has, that she may speak distinctly, "I will make it plainer. I do not dispute your hypothetical case. I anticipated it, and felt its truth as strongly as you can do, when I saw Mr. Rouncewell here. I knew very well that if he could have had the power of seeing me as I was, he would consider the poor girl tarnished by having for a moment been, although most innocently, the subject of my great and distinguished patronage. But I have an interest in her, or I should rather say--no longer belonging to this place--I had, and if you can find so much consideration for the woman under your foot as to remember that, she will be very sensible of your mercy." Mr. Tulkinghorn, profoundly attentive, throws this off with a shrug of self-depreciation and contracts his eyebrows a little more. "You have prepared me for my exposure, and I thank you for that too. Is there anything that you require of me? Is there any claim that I can release or any charge or trouble that I can spare my husband in obtaining HIS release by certifying to the exactness of your discovery? I will write anything, here and now, that you will dictate. I am ready to do it." And she would do it, thinks the lawyer, watchful of the firm hand with which she takes the pen! "I will not trouble you, Lady Dedlock. Pray spare yourself." "I have long expected this, as you know. I neither wish to spare myself nor to be spared. You can do nothing worse to me than you have done. Do what remains now." "Lady Dedlock, there is nothing to be done. I will take leave to say a few words when you have finished." Their need for watching one another should be over now, but they do it all this time, and the stars watch them both through the opened window. Away in the moonlight lie the woodland fields at rest, and the wide house is as quiet as the narrow one. The narrow one! Where are the digger and the spade, this peaceful night, destined to add the last great secret to the many secrets of the Tulkinghorn existence? Is the man born yet, is the spade wrought yet? Curious questions to consider, more curious perhaps not to consider, under the watching stars upon a summer night. "Of repentance or remorse or any feeling of mine," Lady Dedlock presently proceeds, "I say not a word. If I were not dumb, you would be deaf. Let that go by. It is not for your ears." He makes a feint of offering a protest, but she sweeps it away with her disdainful hand. "Of other and very different things I come to speak to you. My jewels are all in their proper places of keeping. They will be found there. So, my dresses. So, all the valuables I have. Some ready money I had with me, please to say, but no large amount. I did not wear my own dress, in order that I might avoid observation. I went to be henceforward lost. Make this known. I leave no other charge with you." "Excuse me, Lady Dedlock," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, quite unmoved. "I am not sure that I understand you. You want--" "To be lost to all here. I leave Chesney Wold to-night. I go this hour." Mr. Tulkinghorn shakes his head. She rises, but he, without moving hand from chair-back or from old-fashioned waistcoat and shirt-frill, shakes his head. "What? Not go as I have said?" "No, Lady Dedlock," he very calmly replies. "Do you know the relief that my disappearance will be? Have you forgotten the stain and blot upon this place, and where it is, and who it is?" "No, Lady Dedlock, not by any means." Without deigning to rejoin, she moves to the inner door and has it in her hand when he says to her, without himself stirring hand or foot or raising his voice, "Lady Dedlock, have the goodness to stop and hear me, or before you reach the staircase I shall ring the alarm-bell and rouse the house. And then I must speak out before every guest and servant, every man and woman, in it." He has conquered her. She falters, trembles, and puts her hand confusedly to her head. Slight tokens these in any one else, but when so practised an eye as Mr. Tulkinghorn's sees indecision for a moment in such a subject, he thoroughly knows its value. He promptly says again, "Have the goodness to hear me, Lady Dedlock," and motions to the chair from which she has risen. She hesitates, but he motions again, and she sits down. "The relations between us are of an unfortunate description, Lady Dedlock; but as they are not of my making, I will not apologize for them. The position I hold in reference to Sir Leicester is so well known to you that I can hardly imagine but that I must long have appeared in your eyes the natural person to make this discovery." "Sir," she returns without looking up from the ground on which her eyes are now fixed, "I had better have gone. It would have been far better not to have detained me. I have no more to say." "Excuse me, Lady Dedlock, if I add a little more to hear." "I wish to hear it at the window, then. I can't breathe where I am." His jealous glance as she walks that way betrays an instant's misgiving that she may have it in her thoughts to leap over, and dashing against ledge and cornice, strike her life out upon the terrace below. But a moment's observation of her figure as she stands in the window without any support, looking out at the stars--not up--gloomily out at those stars which are low in the heavens, reassures him. By facing round as she has moved, he stands a little behind her. "Lady Dedlock, I have not yet been able to come to a decision satisfactory to myself on the course before me. I am not clear what to do or how to act next. I must request you, in the meantime, to keep your secret as you have kept it so long and not to wonder that I keep it too." He pauses, but she makes no reply. "Pardon me, Lady Dedlock. This is an important subject. You are honouring me with your attention?" "I am." "Thank you. I might have known it from what I have seen of your strength of character. I ought not to have asked the question, but I have the habit of making sure of my ground, step by step, as I go on. The sole consideration in this unhappy case is Sir Leicester." "Then why," she asks in a low voice and without removing her gloomy look from those distant stars, "do you detain me in his house?" "Because he IS the consideration. Lady Dedlock, I have no occasion to tell you that Sir Leicester is a very proud man, that his reliance upon you is implicit, that the fall of that moon out of the sky would not amaze him more than your fall from your high position as his wife." She breathes quickly and heavily, but she stands as unflinchingly as ever he has seen her in the midst of her grandest company. "I declare to you, Lady Dedlock, that with anything short of this case that I have, I would as soon have hoped to root up by means of my own strength and my own hands the oldest tree on this estate as to shake your hold upon Sir Leicester and Sir Leicester's trust and confidence in you. And even now, with this case, I hesitate. Not that he could doubt (that, even with him, is impossible), but that nothing can prepare him for the blow." "Not my flight?" she returned. "Think of it again." "Your flight, Lady Dedlock, would spread the whole truth, and a hundred times the whole truth, far and wide. It would be impossible to save the family credit for a day. It is not to be thought of." There is a quiet decision in his reply which admits of no remonstrance. "When I speak of Sir Leicester being the sole consideration, he and the family credit are one. Sir Leicester and the baronetcy, Sir Leicester and Chesney Wold, Sir Leicester and his ancestors and his patrimony"--Mr. Tulkinghorn very dry here--"are, I need not say to you, Lady Dedlock, inseparable." "Go on!" "Therefore," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, pursuing his case in his jog-trot style, "I have much to consider. This is to be hushed up if it can be. How can it be, if Sir Leicester is driven out of his wits or laid upon a death-bed? If I inflicted this shock upon him to-morrow morning, how could the immediate change in him be accounted for? What could have caused it? What could have divided you? Lady Dedlock, the wall-chalking and the street-crying would come on directly, and you are to remember that it would not affect you merely (whom I cannot at all consider in this business) but your husband, Lady Dedlock, your husband." He gets plainer as he gets on, but not an atom more emphatic or animated. "There is another point of view," he continues, "in which the case presents itself. Sir Leicester is devoted to you almost to infatuation. He might not be able to overcome that infatuation, even knowing what we know. I am putting an extreme case, but it might be so. If so, it were better that he knew nothing. Better for common sense, better for him, better for me. I must take all this into account, and it combines to render a decision very difficult." She stands looking out at the same stars without a word. They are beginning to pale, and she looks as if their coldness froze her. "My experience teaches me," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, who has by this time got his hands in his pockets and is going on in his business consideration of the matter like a machine. "My experience teaches me, Lady Dedlock, that most of the people I know would do far better to leave marriage alone. It is at the bottom of three fourths of their troubles. So I thought when Sir Leicester married, and so I always have thought since. No more about that. I must now be guided by circumstances. In the meanwhile I must beg you to keep your own counsel, and I will keep mine." "I am to drag my present life on, holding its pains at your pleasure, day by day?" she asks, still looking at the distant sky. "Yes, I am afraid so, Lady Dedlock." "It is necessary, you think, that I should be so tied to the stake?" "I am sure that what I recommend is necessary." "I am to remain on this gaudy platform on which my miserable deception has been so long acted, and it is to fall beneath me when you give the signal?" she said slowly. "Not without notice, Lady Dedlock. I shall take no step without forewarning you." She asks all her questions as if she were repeating them from memory or calling them over in her sleep. "We are to meet as usual?" "Precisely as usual, if you please." "And I am to hide my guilt, as I have done so many years?" "As you have done so many years. I should not have made that reference myself, Lady Dedlock, but I may now remind you that your secret can be no heavier to you than it was, and is no worse and no better than it was. I know it certainly, but I believe we have never wholly trusted each other." She stands absorbed in the same frozen way for some little time before asking, "Is there anything more to be said to-night?" "Why," Mr. Tulkinghorn returns methodically as he softly rubs his hands, "I should like to be assured of your acquiescence in my arrangements, Lady Dedlock." "You may be assured of it." "Good. And I would wish in conclusion to remind you, as a business precaution, in case it should be necessary to recall the fact in any communication with Sir Leicester, that throughout our interview I have expressly stated my sole consideration to be Sir Leicester's feelings and honour and the family reputation. I should have been happy to have made Lady Dedlock a prominent consideration, too, if the case had admitted of it; but unfortunately it does not." "I can attest your fidelity, sir." Both before and after saying it she remains absorbed, but at length moves, and turns, unshaken in her natural and acquired presence, towards the door. Mr. Tulkinghorn opens both the doors exactly as he would have done yesterday, or as he would have done ten years ago, and makes his old-fashioned bow as she passes out. It is not an ordinary look that he receives from the handsome face as it goes into the darkness, and it is not an ordinary movement, though a very slight one, that acknowledges his courtesy. But as he reflects when he is left alone, the woman has been putting no common constraint upon herself. He would know it all the better if he saw the woman pacing her own rooms with her hair wildly thrown from her flung-back face, her hands clasped behind her head, her figure twisted as if by pain. He would think so all the more if he saw the woman thus hurrying up and down for hours, without fatigue, without intermission, followed by the faithful step upon the Ghost's Walk. But he shuts out the now chilled air, draws the window-curtain, goes to bed, and falls asleep. And truly when the stars go out and the wan day peeps into the turret-chamber, finding him at his oldest, he looks as if the digger and the spade were both commissioned and would soon be digging. The same wan day peeps in at Sir Leicester pardoning the repentant country in a majestically condescending dream; and at the cousins entering on various public employments, principally receipt of salary; and at the chaste Volumnia, bestowing a dower of fifty thousand pounds upon a hideous old general with a mouth of false teeth like a pianoforte too full of keys, long the admiration of Bath and the terror of every other community. Also into rooms high in the roof, and into offices in court-yards, and over stables, where humbler ambition dreams of bliss, in keepers' lodges, and in holy matrimony with Will or Sally. Up comes the bright sun, drawing everything up with it--the Wills and Sallys, the latent vapour in the earth, the drooping leaves and flowers, the birds and beasts and creeping things, the gardeners to sweep the dewy turf and unfold emerald velvet where the roller passes, the smoke of the great kitchen fire wreathing itself straight and high into the lightsome air. Lastly, up comes the flag over Mr. Tulkinghorn's unconscious head cheerfully proclaiming that Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock are in their happy home and that there is hospitality at the place in Lincolnshire.

Mr. Tulkinghorn arrives in his turret-room a little breathless, and with a satisfied expression. To say of a man so strictly self-repressed that he is triumphant would be to do him an injustice. He is sedately satisfied. Perhaps there is an increased sense of power upon him as he clasps his hands behind his back and walks noiselessly up and down. There is a large writing-table in the room holding a pile of papers. The lamp is lighted, his reading-glasses lie upon the desk, and it would seem as though he had intended to give an hour or so to these documents before going to bed. But after a glance at them, he opens the French window and steps out upon the turret-top. There he again walks slowly up and down in the same attitude, subsiding from the story he has related downstairs. Hosts of stars are visible tonight, though their brilliancy is eclipsed by the splendour of the moon. As he paces the roof-leads, he is suddenly stopped in passing his window by two eyes that meet his own across his room. He knows them well. The blood has not flushed into his face so suddenly and redly for many a long year, as when he recognizes Lady Dedlock. He steps back into the room, and she comes in too, closing the door behind her. There is a wild disturbance - is it fear or anger? - in her eyes. In all else she looks as she looked downstairs two hours ago. "Lady Dedlock?" She does not speak at first, not even when she has slowly dropped into the easy-chair. They look at each other. "Why have you told my story to so many persons?" "Lady Dedlock, it was necessary for me to inform you that I knew it." "How long have you known it?" "I have suspected it a long while - fully known it a little while." "Months?" "Days." He stands before her with his usual formal politeness. "Is this true concerning the poor girl?" He slightly tilts his head, not quite understanding the question. "You know what you related. Is it true? Do her friends know my story also? Is it the town-talk yet? Is it cried in the streets?" So! Anger, and fear, and shame. What power this woman has to keep these raging passions down! Mr. Tulkinghorn's thoughts take such form as he looks at her, with his brows a hair's breadth more contracted than usual. "No, Lady Dedlock. That was a hypothetical case. But it would be a real case if they knew - what we know." "Then they do not know it yet?" "No." "Can I save the poor girl from injury before they know it?" "Really, Lady Dedlock," Mr. Tulkinghorn replies, "I cannot give a satisfactory opinion on that point." And he thinks, with attentive curiosity, as he watches the struggle in her breast, "The power and force of this woman are astonishing!" "Sir," she says, "I will make it plainer. I do not dispute your hypothetical case. I anticipated it, when I saw Mr. Rouncewell here. I knew very well that if he could have had the power of seeing me as I was, he would consider the poor girl tarnished by having been the subject of my patronage. But I have an interest in her, or I should rather say - no longer belonging to this place - I had, and if you can find so much consideration for me as to remember that, I will be very sensible of your mercy." Mr. Tulkinghorn, profoundly attentive, shrugs and contracts his eyebrows a little more. "You have prepared me for my exposure, and I thank you for that too. Is there anything that you require of me? Is there any trouble that I can spare my husband in obtaining his release by certifying to the exactness of your discovery? I will write anything, here and now, that you will dictate. I am ready to do it." And she would do it, thinks the lawyer! "I will not trouble you, Lady Dedlock. Pray spare yourself." "I have long expected this, as you know. I neither wish to spare myself nor to be spared. You can do nothing worse to me than you have done. Do what remains now." "Lady Dedlock, there is nothing to be done. I will take leave to say a few words when you have finished." They watch each other all this time, and the stars watch them both through the opened window. Away in the moonlight lie the woodland fields at rest, and the wide house is as quiet as the narrow grave. The grave! Where are the digger and the spade, this peaceful night, destined to add the last great secret to the many secrets of the Tulkinghorn existence? "Of repentance or remorse or any feeling of mine," Lady Dedlock proceeds, "I say not a word. It is not for your ears. Of other and very different things I come to speak to you. My jewels are all in their proper places of keeping. They will be found there. So, my dresses and my valuables. Some ready money I had with me, please to say, but no large amount. I did not wear my own dress, in order that I might avoid observation. I went to be lost from now on. Make this known. I leave no other charge with you." "Excuse me, Lady Dedlock," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, unmoved. "I am not sure that I understand you. You want-" "To be lost to all here. I leave Chesney Wold tonight. I go this hour." Mr. Tulkinghorn shakes his head. "No, Lady Dedlock," he very calmly replies. "Do you know the relief that my disappearance will be? Have you forgotten the stain upon this place?" "No, Lady Dedlock, not by any means." Without deigning to reply, she moves to the door when he says to her, without raising his voice, "Lady Dedlock, have the goodness to stop and hear me, or I shall ring the alarm-bell and rouse the house. And then I must speak out before every guest and servant, every man and woman, in it." He has conquered her. She falters, trembles, and puts her hand confusedly to her head. Mr. Tulkinghorn motions to the chair. She hesitates, but he motions again, and she sits down. "Lady Dedlock, because of my position, I must long have appeared in your eyes the natural person to make this discovery." "Sir," she returns without looking up, "I had better have gone. I have no more to say." "Excuse me, Lady Dedlock, but there is a little more to hear." "I wish to hear it at the window, then. I can't breathe where I am." As she walks that way he has an instant's misgiving that she may intend to leap over and strike her life out upon the terrace below. But a moment's observation of her figure as she stands in the window looking out at the stars reassures him. He stands a little behind her. "Lady Dedlock, I have not yet been able to come to a decision about the course before me. I am not clear what to do or how to act next. I must request you, in the meantime, to keep your secret as you have kept it so long and not to wonder that I keep it too." He pauses. "You are honouring me with your attention?" "I am." "Thank you. The sole consideration in this unhappy case is Sir Leicester." "Then why," she asks in a low voice, "do you detain me in his house?" "Because he is the consideration. Lady Dedlock, I need not tell you that Sir Leicester is a very proud man, that his reliance upon you is implicit, that the fall of that moon out of the sky would not amaze him more than your fall from your high position as his wife." She breathes quickly, but stands as unflinchingly as ever. "I declare to you, Lady Dedlock, that with anything short of this case, I would as soon have rooted up the oldest tree on this estate as have shaken Sir Leicester's trust and confidence in you. And even now, with this case, I hesitate; because nothing can prepare him for the blow." "Not my flight?" she returned. "Your flight, Lady Dedlock, would spread the whole truth far and wide. It would be impossible to save the family credit for a day. It is not to be thought of." "Go on!" "Therefore," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "I have much to consider. This is to be hushed up if it can be. How can it be, if Sir Leicester is driven out of his wits? If I inflicted this shock upon him tomorrow morning, how could the change in him be accounted for? What could have caused it? What could have divided you? Lady Dedlock, the street-talk would start directly, and it would not affect you merely (whom I cannot at all consider in this business) but your husband." He gets plainer as he goes on, but not an atom more animated. "There is another point of view," he continues. "Sir Leicester is devoted to you almost to infatuation. He might not be able to overcome that infatuation, even knowing what we know. If so, it were better that he knew nothing. Better for common sense, better for him, better for me. I must take all this into account, and it makes a decision very difficult." She stands looking out at the same stars without a word, as if their coldness froze her. "My experience teaches me," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, going on in his business consideration of the matter like a machine, "that most people would do far better to leave marriage alone. It is at the bottom of three fourths of their troubles. So I thought when Sir Leicester married, and so I always have thought since. No more about that. I must now be guided by circumstances. In the meanwhile I must ask you to keep your own counsel, and I will keep mine." "I am to drag my present life on, at your pleasure, day by day?" she asks, still looking at the distant sky. "Yes, I am afraid so, Lady Dedlock." "I am to remain on this gaudy platform on which my miserable deception has been so long acted, and it is to fall beneath me when you give the signal?" she said slowly. "Not without warning, Lady Dedlock." "We are to meet as usual?" "Precisely as usual, if you please." "And I am to hide my guilt, as I have done so many years?" "As you have done so many years. Your secret can be no heavier to you than it was, and is no worse and no better than it was." She stands absorbed in the same frozen way for some little time before asking, "Is there anything more to be said tonight?" "Why," Mr. Tulkinghorn returns methodically as he softly rubs his hands, "I should like to be assured of your acquiescence in my arrangements, Lady Dedlock." "You have it." "Good. And I would wish in conclusion to remind you, as a business precaution, that I have expressly stated my sole consideration to be Sir Leicester's feelings and honour and the family reputation. I should have been happy to have made Lady Dedlock a consideration, too, if the case had admitted of it; but unfortunately it does not." "I can attest your fidelity, sir." She turns towards the door. Mr. Tulkinghorn makes his old-fashioned bow as she passes out. It is not an ordinary look that he receives from the handsome face as it goes into the darkness, and it is not an ordinary movement, though a very slight one, that acknowledges his courtesy. But as he reflects when he is left alone, the woman has been putting no common constraint upon herself. He would know it all the better if he saw the woman pacing her own rooms with her hair wildly thrown back, her hands clasped behind her head, her figure twisted as if by pain. He would think so all the more if he saw the woman thus hurrying up and down for hours, without pause, followed by the faithful step upon the Ghost's Walk. But he shuts out the chilly air, draws the curtain, goes to bed, and falls asleep. At last the stars go out; the wan day peeps in at Sir Leicester pardoning the repentant country in a majestically condescending dream; and at the cousins, and at the chaste Volumnia, dreaming of a hideous old general in Bath. Also into rooms high in the roof, and into offices in court-yards, and over stables, where humbler ambition dreams of bliss. Up comes the bright sun, drawing everything up with it - the drooping leaves and flowers, the birds and beasts, the gardeners to sweep the dewy turf, the smoke of the great kitchen fire wreathing itself high into the air. Lastly, up comes the flag over Mr. Tulkinghorn's unconscious head cheerfully proclaiming that Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock are in their happy home in Lincolnshire.

Bleak House

Chapter 41: In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Room

The days when I frequented that miserable corner which my dear girl brightened can never fade in my remembrance. I never see it, and I never wish to see it now; I have been there only once since, but in my memory there is a mournful glory shining on the place which will shine for ever. Not a day passed without my going there, of course. At first I found Mr. Skimpole there, on two or three occasions, idly playing the piano and talking in his usual vivacious strain. Now, besides my very much mistrusting the probability of his being there without making Richard poorer, I felt as if there were something in his careless gaiety too inconsistent with what I knew of the depths of Ada's life. I clearly perceived, too, that Ada shared my feelings. I therefore resolved, after much thinking of it, to make a private visit to Mr. Skimpole and try delicately to explain myself. My dear girl was the great consideration that made me bold. I set off one morning, accompanied by Charley, for Somers Town. As I approached the house, I was strongly inclined to turn back, for I felt what a desperate attempt it was to make an impression on Mr. Skimpole and how extremely likely it was that he would signally defeat me. However, I thought that being there, I would go through with it. I knocked with a trembling hand at Mr. Skimpole's door--literally with a hand, for the knocker was gone--and after a long parley gained admission from an Irishwoman, who was in the area when I knocked, breaking up the lid of a water-butt with a poker to light the fire with. Mr. Skimpole, lying on the sofa in his room, playing the flute a little, was enchanted to see me. Now, who should receive me, he asked. Who would I prefer for mistress of the ceremonies? Would I have his Comedy daughter, his Beauty daughter, or his Sentiment daughter? Or would I have all the daughters at once in a perfect nosegay? I replied, half defeated already, that I wished to speak to himself only if he would give me leave. "My dear Miss Summerson, most joyfully! Of course," he said, bringing his chair nearer mine and breaking into his fascinating smile, "of course it's not business. Then it's pleasure!" I said it certainly was not business that I came upon, but it was not quite a pleasant matter. "Then, my dear Miss Summerson," said he with the frankest gaiety, "don't allude to it. Why should you allude to anything that is NOT a pleasant matter? I never do. And you are a much pleasanter creature, in every point of view, than I. You are perfectly pleasant; I am imperfectly pleasant; then, if I never allude to an unpleasant matter, how much less should you! So that's disposed of, and we will talk of something else." Although I was embarrassed, I took courage to intimate that I still wished to pursue the subject. "I should think it a mistake," said Mr. Skimpole with his airy laugh, "if I thought Miss Summerson capable of making one. But I don't!" "Mr. Skimpole," said I, raising my eyes to his, "I have so often heard you say that you are unacquainted with the common affairs of life--" "Meaning our three banking-house friends, L, S, and who's the junior partner? D?" said Mr. Skimpole, brightly. "Not an idea of them!" "--That perhaps," I went on, "you will excuse my boldness on that account. I think you ought most seriously to know that Richard is poorer than he was." "Dear me!" said Mr. Skimpole. "So am I, they tell me." "And in very embarrassed circumstances." "Parallel case, exactly!" said Mr. Skimpole with a delighted countenance. "This at present naturally causes Ada much secret anxiety, and as I think she is less anxious when no claims are made upon her by visitors, and as Richard has one uneasiness always heavy on his mind, it has occurred to me to take the liberty of saying that--if you would--not--" I was coming to the point with great difficulty when he took me by both hands and with a radiant face and in the liveliest way anticipated it. "Not go there? Certainly not, my dear Miss Summerson, most assuredly not. Why SHOULD I go there? When I go anywhere, I go for pleasure. I don't go anywhere for pain, because I was made for pleasure. Pain comes to ME when it wants me. Now, I have had very little pleasure at our dear Richard's lately, and your practical sagacity demonstrates why. Our young friends, losing the youthful poetry which was once so captivating in them, begin to think, 'This is a man who wants pounds.' So I am; I always want pounds; not for myself, but because tradespeople always want them of me. Next, our young friends begin to think, becoming mercenary, 'This is the man who HAD pounds, who borrowed them,' which I did. I always borrow pounds. So our young friends, reduced to prose (which is much to be regretted), degenerate in their power of imparting pleasure to me. Why should I go to see them, therefore? Absurd!" Through the beaming smile with which he regarded me as he reasoned thus, there now broke forth a look of disinterested benevolence quite astonishing. "Besides," he said, pursuing his argument in his tone of light-hearted conviction, "if I don't go anywhere for pain--which would be a perversion of the intention of my being, and a monstrous thing to do--why should I go anywhere to be the cause of pain? If I went to see our young friends in their present ill-regulated state of mind, I should give them pain. The associations with me would be disagreeable. They might say, 'This is the man who had pounds and who can't pay pounds,' which I can't, of course; nothing could be more out of the question! Then kindness requires that I shouldn't go near them--and I won't." He finished by genially kissing my hand and thanking me. Nothing but Miss Summerson's fine tact, he said, would have found this out for him. I was much disconcerted, but I reflected that if the main point were gained, it mattered little how strangely he perverted everything leading to it. I had determined to mention something else, however, and I thought I was not to be put off in that. "Mr. Skimpole," said I, "I must take the liberty of saying before I conclude my visit that I was much surprised to learn, on the best authority, some little time ago, that you knew with whom that poor boy left Bleak House and that you accepted a present on that occasion. I have not mentioned it to my guardian, for I fear it would hurt him unnecessarily; but I may say to you that I was much surprised." "No? Really surprised, my dear Miss Summerson?" he returned inquiringly, raising his pleasant eyebrows. "Greatly surprised." He thought about it for a little while with a highly agreeable and whimsical expression of face, then quite gave it up and said in his most engaging manner, "You know what a child I am. Why surprised?" I was reluctant to enter minutely into that question, but as he begged I would, for he was really curious to know, I gave him to understand in the gentlest words I could use that his conduct seemed to involve a disregard of several moral obligations. He was much amused and interested when he heard this and said, "No, really?" with ingenuous simplicity. "You know I don't intend to be responsible. I never could do it. Responsibility is a thing that has always been above me--or below me," said Mr. Skimpole. "I don't even know which; but as I understand the way in which my dear Miss Summerson (always remarkable for her practical good sense and clearness) puts this case, I should imagine it was chiefly a question of money, do you know?" I incautiously gave a qualified assent to this. "Ah! Then you see," said Mr. Skimpole, shaking his head, "I am hopeless of understanding it." I suggested, as I rose to go, that it was not right to betray my guardian's confidence for a bribe. "My dear Miss Summerson," he returned with a candid hilarity that was all his own, "I can't be bribed." "Not by Mr. Bucket?" said I. "No," said he. "Not by anybody. I don't attach any value to money. I don't care about it, I don't know about it, I don't want it, I don't keep it--it goes away from me directly. How can I be bribed?" I showed that I was of a different opinion, though I had not the capacity for arguing the question. "On the contrary," said Mr. Skimpole, "I am exactly the man to be placed in a superior position in such a case as that. I am above the rest of mankind in such a case as that. I can act with philosophy in such a case as that. I am not warped by prejudices, as an Italian baby is by bandages. I am as free as the air. I feel myself as far above suspicion as Caesar's wife." Anything to equal the lightness of his manner and the playful impartiality with which he seemed to convince himself, as he tossed the matter about like a ball of feathers, was surely never seen in anybody else! "Observe the case, my dear Miss Summerson. Here is a boy received into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. The boy being in bed, a man arrives--like the house that Jack built. Here is the man who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Here is a bank-note produced by the man who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Here is the Skimpole who accepts the bank-note produced by the man who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Those are the facts. Very well. Should the Skimpole have refused the note? WHY should the Skimpole have refused the note? Skimpole protests to Bucket, 'What's this for? I don't understand it, it is of no use to me, take it away.' Bucket still entreats Skimpole to accept it. Are there reasons why Skimpole, not being warped by prejudices, should accept it? Yes. Skimpole perceives them. What are they? Skimpole reasons with himself, this is a tamed lynx, an active police-officer, an intelligent man, a person of a peculiarly directed energy and great subtlety both of conception and execution, who discovers our friends and enemies for us when they run away, recovers our property for us when we are robbed, avenges us comfortably when we are murdered. This active police-officer and intelligent man has acquired, in the exercise of his art, a strong faith in money; he finds it very useful to him, and he makes it very useful to society. Shall I shake that faith in Bucket because I want it myself; shall I deliberately blunt one of Bucket's weapons; shall I positively paralyse Bucket in his next detective operation? And again. If it is blameable in Skimpole to take the note, it is blameable in Bucket to offer the note--much more blameable in Bucket, because he is the knowing man. Now, Skimpole wishes to think well of Bucket; Skimpole deems it essential, in its little place, to the general cohesion of things, that he SHOULD think well of Bucket. The state expressly asks him to trust to Bucket. And he does. And that's all he does!" I had nothing to offer in reply to this exposition and therefore took my leave. Mr. Skimpole, however, who was in excellent spirits, would not hear of my returning home attended only by "Little Coavinses," and accompanied me himself. He entertained me on the way with a variety of delightful conversation and assured me, at parting, that he should never forget the fine tact with which I had found that out for him about our young friends. As it so happened that I never saw Mr. Skimpole again, I may at once finish what I know of his history. A coolness arose between him and my guardian, based principally on the foregoing grounds and on his having heartlessly disregarded my guardian's entreaties (as we afterwards learned from Ada) in reference to Richard. His being heavily in my guardian's debt had nothing to do with their separation. He died some five years afterwards and left a diary behind him, with letters and other materials towards his life, which was published and which showed him to have been the victim of a combination on the part of mankind against an amiable child. It was considered very pleasant reading, but I never read more of it myself than the sentence on which I chanced to light on opening the book. It was this: "Jarndyce, in common with most other men I have known, is the incarnation of selfishness." And now I come to a part of my story touching myself very nearly indeed, and for which I was quite unprepared when the circumstance occurred. Whatever little lingerings may have now and then revived in my mind associated with my poor old face had only revived as belonging to a part of my life that was gone--gone like my infancy or my childhood. I have suppressed none of my many weaknesses on that subject, but have written them as faithfully as my memory has recalled them. And I hope to do, and mean to do, the same down to the last words of these pages, which I see now not so very far before me. The months were gliding away, and my dear girl, sustained by the hopes she had confided in me, was the same beautiful star in the miserable corner. Richard, more worn and haggard, haunted the court day after day, listlessly sat there the whole day long when he knew there was no remote chance of the suit being mentioned, and became one of the stock sights of the place. I wonder whether any of the gentlemen remembered him as he was when he first went there. So completely was he absorbed in his fixed idea that he used to avow in his cheerful moments that he should never have breathed the fresh air now "but for Woodcourt." It was only Mr. Woodcourt who could occasionally divert his attention for a few hours at a time and rouse him, even when he sunk into a lethargy of mind and body that alarmed us greatly, and the returns of which became more frequent as the months went on. My dear girl was right in saying that he only pursued his errors the more desperately for her sake. I have no doubt that his desire to retrieve what he had lost was rendered the more intense by his grief for his young wife, and became like the madness of a gamester. I was there, as I have mentioned, at all hours. When I was there at night, I generally went home with Charley in a coach; sometimes my guardian would meet me in the neighbourhood, and we would walk home together. One evening he had arranged to meet me at eight o'clock. I could not leave, as I usually did, quite punctually at the time, for I was working for my dear girl and had a few stitches more to do to finish what I was about; but it was within a few minutes of the hour when I bundled up my little work-basket, gave my darling my last kiss for the night, and hurried downstairs. Mr. Woodcourt went with me, as it was dusk. When we came to the usual place of meeting--it was close by, and Mr. Woodcourt had often accompanied me before--my guardian was not there. We waited half an hour, walking up and down, but there were no signs of him. We agreed that he was either prevented from coming or that he had come and gone away, and Mr. Woodcourt proposed to walk home with me. It was the first walk we had ever taken together, except that very short one to the usual place of meeting. We spoke of Richard and Ada the whole way. I did not thank him in words for what he had done--my appreciation of it had risen above all words then--but I hoped he might not be without some understanding of what I felt so strongly. Arriving at home and going upstairs, we found that my guardian was out and that Mrs. Woodcourt was out too. We were in the very same room into which I had brought my blushing girl when her youthful lover, now her so altered husband, was the choice of her young heart, the very same room from which my guardian and I had watched them going away through the sunlight in the fresh bloom of their hope and promise. We were standing by the opened window looking down into the street when Mr. Woodcourt spoke to me. I learned in a moment that he loved me. I learned in a moment that my scarred face was all unchanged to him. I learned in a moment that what I had thought was pity and compassion was devoted, generous, faithful love. Oh, too late to know it now, too late, too late. That was the first ungrateful thought I had. Too late. "When I returned," he told me, "when I came back, no richer than when I went away, and found you newly risen from a sick bed, yet so inspired by sweet consideration for others and so free from a selfish thought--" "Oh, Mr. Woodcourt, forbear, forbear!" I entreated him. "I do not deserve your high praise. I had many selfish thoughts at that time, many!" "Heaven knows, beloved of my life," said he, "that my praise is not a lover's praise, but the truth. You do not know what all around you see in Esther Summerson, how many hearts she touches and awakens, what sacred admiration and what love she wins." "Oh, Mr. Woodcourt," cried I, "it is a great thing to win love, it is a great thing to win love! I am proud of it, and honoured by it; and the hearing of it causes me to shed these tears of mingled joy and sorrow--joy that I have won it, sorrow that I have not deserved it better; but I am not free to think of yours." I said it with a stronger heart, for when he praised me thus and when I heard his voice thrill with his belief that what he said was true, I aspired to be more worthy of it. It was not too late for that. Although I closed this unforeseen page in my life to-night, I could be worthier of it all through my life. And it was a comfort to me, and an impulse to me, and I felt a dignity rise up within me that was derived from him when I thought so. He broke the silence. "I should poorly show the trust that I have in the dear one who will evermore be as dear to me as now"--and the deep earnestness with which he said it at once strengthened me and made me weep--"if, after her assurance that she is not free to think of my love, I urged it. Dear Esther, let me only tell you that the fond idea of you which I took abroad was exalted to the heavens when I came home. I have always hoped, in the first hour when I seemed to stand in any ray of good fortune, to tell you this. I have always feared that I should tell it you in vain. My hopes and fears are both fulfilled to-night. I distress you. I have said enough." Something seemed to pass into my place that was like the angel he thought me, and I felt so sorrowful for the loss he had sustained! I wished to help him in his trouble, as I had wished to do when he showed that first commiseration for me. "Dear Mr. Woodcourt," said I, "before we part to-night, something is left for me to say. I never could say it as I wish--I never shall--but--" I had to think again of being more deserving of his love and his affliction before I could go on. "--I am deeply sensible of your generosity, and I shall treasure its remembrance to my dying hour. I know full well how changed I am, I know you are not unacquainted with my history, and I know what a noble love that is which is so faithful. What you have said to me could have affected me so much from no other lips, for there are none that could give it such a value to me. It shall not be lost. It shall make me better." He covered his eyes with his hand and turned away his head. How could I ever be worthy of those tears? "If, in the unchanged intercourse we shall have together--in tending Richard and Ada, and I hope in many happier scenes of life--you ever find anything in me which you can honestly think is better than it used to be, believe that it will have sprung up from to-night and that I shall owe it to you. And never believe, dear dear Mr. Woodcourt, never believe that I forget this night or that while my heart beats it can be insensible to the pride and joy of having been beloved by you." He took my hand and kissed it. He was like himself again, and I felt still more encouraged. "I am induced by what you said just now," said I, "to hope that you have succeeded in your endeavour." "I have," he answered. "With such help from Mr. Jarndyce as you who know him so well can imagine him to have rendered me, I have succeeded." "Heaven bless him for it," said I, giving him my hand; "and heaven bless you in all you do!" "I shall do it better for the wish," he answered; "it will make me enter on these new duties as on another sacred trust from you." "Ah! Richard!" I exclaimed involuntarily, "What will he do when you are gone!" "I am not required to go yet; I would not desert him, dear Miss Summerson, even if I were." One other thing I felt it needful to touch upon before he left me. I knew that I should not be worthier of the love I could not take if I reserved it. "Mr. Woodcourt," said I, "you will be glad to know from my lips before I say good night that in the future, which is clear and bright before me, I am most happy, most fortunate, have nothing to regret or desire." It was indeed a glad hearing to him, he replied. "From my childhood I have been," said I, "the object of the untiring goodness of the best of human beings, to whom I am so bound by every tie of attachment, gratitude, and love, that nothing I could do in the compass of a life could express the feelings of a single day." "I share those feelings," he returned. "You speak of Mr. Jarndyce." "You know his virtues well," said I, "but few can know the greatness of his character as I know it. All its highest and best qualities have been revealed to me in nothing more brightly than in the shaping out of that future in which I am so happy. And if your highest homage and respect had not been his already--which I know they are--they would have been his, I think, on this assurance and in the feeling it would have awakened in you towards him for my sake." He fervently replied that indeed indeed they would have been. I gave him my hand again. "Good night," I said, "Good-bye." "The first until we meet to-morrow, the second as a farewell to this theme between us for ever." "Yes." "Good night; good-bye." He left me, and I stood at the dark window watching the street. His love, in all its constancy and generosity, had come so suddenly upon me that he had not left me a minute when my fortitude gave way again and the street was blotted out by my rushing tears. But they were not tears of regret and sorrow. No. He had called me the beloved of his life and had said I would be evermore as dear to him as I was then, and I felt as if my heart would not hold the triumph of having heard those words. My first wild thought had died away. It was not too late to hear them, for it was not too late to be animated by them to be good, true, grateful, and contented. How easy my path, how much easier than his!

The days when I visited that miserable corner which my dear girl brightened can never fade in my remembrance. I never wish to see it now; I have been there only once since, but in my memory there is a mournful glory shining on the place which will shine for ever. Not a day passed without my going there. At first I found Mr. Skimpole there, on two or three occasions, idly playing the piano and talking in his usual vivacious strain. Now, besides my fear of his making Richard poorer, I felt as if his careless gaiety was inconsistent with what I knew of the depths of Ada's life. I clearly perceived that Ada shared my feelings. I therefore resolved to make a private visit to Mr. Skimpole and try delicately to explain myself. I set off one morning, accompanied by Charley. As I approached the Skimpole house, I was strongly inclined to turn back, for I felt what a desperate attempt it was to make an impression on Mr. Skimpole and how extremely likely it was that he would defeat me. However, I thought that being there, I would go through with it. I knocked with a trembling hand at Mr. Skimpole's door - literally with a hand, for the knocker was gone - and after a while gained admission from an Irishwoman who was in the yard. Mr. Skimpole, lying on the sofa in his room, playing the flute, was enchanted to see me. Who would I prefer for mistress of the ceremonies? he asked. Would I have his Comedy daughter, his Beauty daughter, or his Sentiment daughter? Or all three at once in a perfect nosegay? I replied, half defeated already, that I wished to speak to himself only. "My dear Miss Summerson, most joyfully! Of course it's not business. Then it's pleasure!" I said it certainly was not business that I came upon, but it was not quite a pleasant matter. "Then, my dear Miss Summerson," said he with the frankest gaiety, "don't allude to it. Why should you allude to anything that is not a pleasant matter? I never do. So let us talk of something else." Although I was embarrassed, I took courage to say that I still wished to pursue the subject. "Mr. Skimpole," said I, "I think you ought most seriously to know that Richard is poorer than he was." "Dear me!" said Mr. Skimpole. "So am I, they tell me." "And in very embarrassed circumstances." "Parallel case, exactly!" said Mr. Skimpole with a delighted face. "This naturally causes Ada much anxiety, and as I think she is less anxious when no claims are made upon her by visitors, it has occurred to me to take the liberty of saying that - if you would - not-" I was coming to the point with great difficulty when he took me by both hands with a radiant face and anticipated it. "Not go there? Certainly not, my dear Miss Summerson, most assuredly not. When I go anywhere, I go for pleasure. I don't go anywhere for pain. Now, I have had very little pleasure at our dear Richard's lately, and your wisdom shows why. Our young friends, losing the youthful poetry which was once so captivating in them, begin to think, 'This is a man who wants pounds.' So I am; I always want pounds, because tradespeople always want them from me. Next, our young friends begin to think, becoming mercenary, 'This is the man who borrowed pounds,' which I did. So our young friends, reduced to prose (which is much to be regretted), degenerate in their power of imparting pleasure to me. Why should I go to see them, therefore? Absurd!" This he said with a smile of disinterested benevolence quite astonishing. "Besides," he went on in his light-hearted tone, "if I don't go anywhere for pain, why should I go anywhere to be the cause of pain? If I went to see our young friends in their present ill-regulated state of mind, I should give them pain. They might say, 'This is the man who had pounds and who can't pay pounds,' which I can't, of course! Then kindness requires that I shouldn't go near them - and I won't." He finished by genially kissing my hand and thanking me. I was much disconcerted, but I reflected that if the main point were gained, it mattered little how. I had determined to mention something else, however. "Mr. Skimpole," said I, "I must take the liberty of saying before I go that I was much surprised to learn recently that you knew with whom that poor boy left Bleak House, and that you accepted money on that occasion. I have not mentioned it to my guardian, for I fear it would hurt him; but I may say to you that I was much surprised." "No? Really, my dear Miss Summerson?" He thought about it with a whimsical expression, then said in his most engaging manner, "You know what a child I am. Why surprised?" I gave him to understand in the gentlest words I could use that he seemed to have disregarded several moral obligations. He was much amused and interested when he heard this and said, "No, really?" with ingenuous simplicity. "You know that responsibility is a thing that has always been above me - or below me," said Mr. Skimpole. "I don't even know which; but as I understand the way in which my dear Miss Summerson puts this case, I should imagine it was chiefly a question of money?" I incautiously assented to this. "Ah! Then you see," said Mr. Skimpole, shaking his head, "I am hopeless of understanding it." I suggested, as I rose to go, that it was not right to betray my guardian's confidence for a bribe. "My dear Miss Summerson, I can't be bribed. I don't attach any value to money. I don't know about it, I don't want it. How can I be bribed?" I showed that I was of a different opinion, though I was not able to argue. "On the contrary," said Mr. Skimpole, "I am above the rest of mankind in such a case as that. I am as free as the air. Observe the case, my dear Miss Summerson. Here is a boy received into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. A man arrives - like the house that Jack built. Here is the man who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Here is a bank-note produced by the man who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Here is the Skimpole who accepts the bank-note produced by the man who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Should the Skimpole have refused the note? Skimpole protests to Bucket, 'What's this for? I don't understand it, take it away.' Bucket still entreats Skimpole to accept it. Skimpole reasons with himself, this is a police-officer, an intelligent man, useful to society. If it is blameable in Skimpole to take the note, it is blameable in Bucket to offer the note - much more blameable, because he is the knowing man. Now, Skimpole wishes to think well of Bucket. And he does. And that's all he does!" I had nothing to offer in reply and therefore took my leave. As it so happened that I never saw Mr. Skimpole again, I may at once finish what I know of his history. A coolness arose between him and my guardian, based principally on his having heartlessly disregarded my guardian's entreaties (as we afterwards learned from Ada) in reference to Richard. He died some five years afterwards and left a diary behind him, which was published and which showed him to have been the victim of a part of mankind combining against an amiable child. It was considered very pleasant reading, but I never read more of it myself than the sentence on which I chanced to light on opening the book. It was this: "Jarndyce, in common with most other men I have known, is the incarnation of selfishness." And now I come to a part of my story touching myself, and for which I was quite unprepared. Whatever little lingerings may have now and then revived in my mind associated with my poor old face had only revived as a part of my life that was gone, like my childhood. The months were gliding away, and my dear girl was the same beautiful star in the miserable corner. Richard, more worn and haggard, haunted the court day after day, listlessly sitting there even when he knew there was no remote chance of the suit being mentioned. So completely was he absorbed in his fixed idea that he used to avow in his cheerful moments that he should never have breathed the fresh air now "but for Woodcourt." It was only Mr. Woodcourt who could occasionally divert his attention for a few hours at a time and rouse him, even when he sunk into a lethargy that alarmed us greatly, and that returned more frequently as the months went on. My dear girl was right in saying that he pursued his errors the more desperately for her sake. I have no doubt that his desire to retrieve what he had lost was made the more intense by his grief for his young wife, and became like the madness of a gamester. I was at their lodgings, as I have mentioned, at all hours. When I was there at night, I generally went home with Charley in a coach; sometimes my guardian would meet me, and we would walk home together. One evening he had arranged to meet me at eight o'clock. I could not leave quite punctually, for I was working for my dear girl and had a few stitches to finish; but within a few minutes of the hour I bundled up my little work-basket, gave my darling my last kiss for the night, and hurried downstairs. Mr. Woodcourt went with me, as it was dusk. When we came to the usual place of meeting, my guardian was not there. We waited half an hour, walking up and down, but there were no signs of him. We agreed that he was either prevented from coming or that he had come and gone away, and Mr. Woodcourt proposed to walk home with me. It was the first walk we had ever taken together. We spoke of Richard and Ada the whole way. I did not thank him in words for what he had done, but I hoped he might understand what I felt so strongly. Arriving at home and going upstairs, we found that my guardian was out and that Mrs. Woodcourt was out too. We were standing by the open window looking down into the street when Mr. Woodcourt spoke to me. I learned in a moment that he loved me. I learned in a moment that my scarred face was all unchanged to him. I learned in a moment that what I had thought was pity and compassion was devoted, generous, faithful love. Oh, too late to know it now, too late, too late. That was the first ungrateful thought I had. Too late. "When I returned," he told me, "when I came back, no richer than when I went away, and found you newly risen from a sick bed, yet so inspired by sweet consideration for others and so free from a selfish thought-" "Oh, Mr. Woodcourt, stop, stop!" I entreated him. "I had many selfish thoughts at that time, many!" "Heaven knows, beloved of my life," said he, "that my praise is not a lover's praise, but the truth. You do not know how many hearts Esther touches and awakens, what sacred admiration and what love she wins." "Oh, Mr. Woodcourt," cried I, "it is a great thing to win love! I am proud of it, and honoured by it; and the hearing of it causes me to shed these tears of mingled joy and sorrow - joy that I have won it, sorrow that I have not deserved it better; but I am not free to think of yours." I said it with a stronger heart, for when I heard his praise I aspired to be more worthy of it. It was not too late for that. Although I closed this unforeseen page in my life tonight, I felt I could be worthier of it all through my life. And it was a comfort to me, and an impulse to me, and I felt a dignity rise up within me that was gained from him. He broke the silence. "Dear Esther, if you are not free to think of my love, I will not urge it. Let me only tell you that the fond idea of you which I took abroad was exalted to the heavens when I came home. I have always hoped to tell you this. I have always feared that I should tell it you in vain. My hopes and fears are both fulfilled tonight. I distress you. I have said enough." Something seemed to pass into my place that was like the angel he thought me, and I felt so sorrowful for the loss he had sustained! I wished to help him in his trouble. "Dear Mr. Woodcourt," said I, "before we part tonight, something is left for me to say. I never could say it as I wish - but - but I shall treasure the memory of your generosity to my dying hour. I know full well how changed I am. I know what a noble love that is which is so faithful. What you have said to me could have affected me so much from no other lips, for there are none that could give it such a value to me. It shall not be lost. It shall make me better." He covered his eyes with his hand and turned away his head. How could I ever be worthy of those tears? "If I am ever better than I used to be," I said, "believe that it will have sprung up from tonight and that I owe it to you. And never believe, dear dear Mr. Woodcourt, never believe that I forget this night or that while my heart beats it can be insensible to the pride and joy of having been beloved by you." He took my hand and kissed it. He was like himself again, and I felt still more encouraged. "I am induced by what you said just now," said I, "to hope that you have succeeded in your endeavour." "I have," he answered. "With help from Mr. Jarndyce, I have succeeded." "Heaven bless him for it," said I, giving him my hand; "and heaven bless you in all you do!" "I shall do it better for the wish," he answered; "it will make me enter on these new duties as on another sacred trust from you." "Ah! Richard!" I exclaimed involuntarily, "What will he do when you are gone!" "I am not required to go yet; I would not desert him, dear Miss Summerson, even if I were." One other thing I needed to touch upon before he left me. "Mr. Woodcourt," said I, "you will be glad to know before I say good night that in the future, which is clear and bright before me, I am most happy, most fortunate, have nothing to regret or desire." It was indeed a gladness to him, he replied. "From my childhood I have been," said I, "the object of the untiring goodness of the best of human beings, to whom I am bound by every tie of attachment, gratitude, and love." "I share those feelings," he returned. "You speak of Mr. Jarndyce." "You know his virtues well," said I, "but few can know the greatness of his character as I know it. All its highest and best qualities have been revealed to me in the shaping out of that future in which I am so happy. And if your highest homage and respect had not been his already, they would have been his, I think, on this assurance, for my sake." He fervently replied that indeed they would have been. I gave him my hand again. "Good night," I said, "Good-bye." "The first until we meet tomorrow, the second as a farewell to this theme between us for ever." "Yes." "Good night; good-bye." He left me, and I stood at the dark window watching the street. His love, in all its constancy and generosity, had come so suddenly upon me that he had not left me a minute before my fortitude gave way and the street was blotted out by my rushing tears. But they were not tears of regret and sorrow. No. He had called me the beloved of his life and had said I would evermore be dear to him, and I felt as if my heart would not hold the triumph of having heard those words. My first wild thought had died away. It was not too late to hear them, for it was not too late to be animated by them to be good, true, grateful, and contented. How easy my path, how much easier than his!

Bleak House

Chapter 61: A Discovery

My guardian called me into his room next morning, and then I told him what had been left untold on the previous night. There was nothing to be done, he said, but to keep the secret and to avoid another such encounter as that of yesterday. He understood my feeling and entirely shared it. He charged himself even with restraining Mr. Skimpole from improving his opportunity. One person whom he need not name to me, it was not now possible for him to advise or help. He wished it were, but no such thing could be. If her mistrust of the lawyer whom she had mentioned were well-founded, which he scarcely doubted, he dreaded discovery. He knew something of him, both by sight and by reputation, and it was certain that he was a dangerous man. Whatever happened, he repeatedly impressed upon me with anxious affection and kindness, I was as innocent of as himself and as unable to influence. "Nor do I understand," said he, "that any doubts tend towards you, my dear. Much suspicion may exist without that connexion." "With the lawyer," I returned. "But two other persons have come into my mind since I have been anxious. Then I told him all about Mr. Guppy, who I feared might have had his vague surmises when I little understood his meaning, but in whose silence after our last interview I expressed perfect confidence. "Well," said my guardian. "Then we may dismiss him for the present. Who is the other?" I called to his recollection the French maid and the eager offer of herself she had made to me. "Ha!" he returned thoughtfully. "That is a more alarming person than the clerk. But after all, my dear, it was but seeking for a new service. She had seen you and Ada a little while before, and it was natural that you should come into her head. She merely proposed herself for your maid, you know. She did nothing more." "Her manner was strange," said I. "Yes, and her manner was strange when she took her shoes off and showed that cool relish for a walk that might have ended in her death-bed," said my guardian. "It would be useless self-distress and torment to reckon up such chances and possibilities. There are very few harmless circumstances that would not seem full of perilous meaning, so considered. Be hopeful, little woman. You can be nothing better than yourself; be that, through this knowledge, as you were before you had it. It is the best you can do for everybody's sake. I, sharing the secret with you--" "And lightening it, guardian, so much," said I. "--will be attentive to what passes in that family, so far as I can observe it from my distance. And if the time should come when I can stretch out a hand to render the least service to one whom it is better not to name even here, I will not fail to do it for her dear daughter's sake." I thanked him with my whole heart. What could I ever do but thank him! I was going out at the door when he asked me to stay a moment. Quickly turning round, I saw that same expression on his face again; and all at once, I don't know how, it flashed upon me as a new and far-off possibility that I understood it. "My dear Esther," said my guardian, "I have long had something in my thoughts that I have wished to say to you." "Indeed?" "I have had some difficulty in approaching it, and I still have. I should wish it to be so deliberately said, and so deliberately considered. Would you object to my writing it?" "Dear guardian, how could I object to your writing anything for ME to read?" "Then see, my love," said he with his cheery smile, "am I at this moment quite as plain and easy--do I seem as open, as honest and old-fashioned--as I am at any time?" I answered in all earnestness, "Quite." With the strictest truth, for his momentary hesitation was gone (it had not lasted a minute), and his fine, sensible, cordial, sterling manner was restored. "Do I look as if I suppressed anything, meant anything but what I said, had any reservation at all, no matter what?" said he with his bright clear eyes on mine. I answered, most assuredly he did not. "Can you fully trust me, and thoroughly rely on what I profess, Esther?" "Most thoroughly," said I with my whole heart. "My dear girl," returned my guardian, "give me your hand." He took it in his, holding me lightly with his arm, and looking down into my face with the same genuine freshness and faithfulness of manner--the old protecting manner which had made that house my home in a moment--said, "You have wrought changes in me, little woman, since the winter day in the stage-coach. First and last you have done me a world of good since that time." "Ah, guardian, what have you done for me since that time!" "But," said he, "that is not to be remembered now." "It never can be forgotten." "Yes, Esther," said he with a gentle seriousness, "it is to be forgotten now, to be forgotten for a while. You are only to remember now that nothing can change me as you know me. Can you feel quite assured of that, my dear?" "I can, and I do," I said. "That's much," he answered. "That's everything. But I must not take that at a word. I will not write this something in my thoughts until you have quite resolved within yourself that nothing can change me as you know me. If you doubt that in the least degree, I will never write it. If you are sure of that, on good consideration, send Charley to me this night week--'for the letter.' But if you are not quite certain, never send. Mind, I trust to your truth, in this thing as in everything. If you are not quite certain on that one point, never send!" "Guardian," said I, "I am already certain, I can no more be changed in that conviction than you can be changed towards me. I shall send Charley for the letter." He shook my hand and said no more. Nor was any more said in reference to this conversation, either by him or me, through the whole week. When the appointed night came, I said to Charley as soon as I was alone, "Go and knock at Mr. Jarndyce's door, Charley, and say you have come from me--'for the letter.'" Charley went up the stairs, and down the stairs, and along the passages--the zig-zag way about the old-fashioned house seemed very long in my listening ears that night--and so came back, along the passages, and down the stairs, and up the stairs, and brought the letter. "Lay it on the table, Charley," said I. So Charley laid it on the table and went to bed, and I sat looking at it without taking it up, thinking of many things. I began with my overshadowed childhood, and passed through those timid days to the heavy time when my aunt lay dead, with her resolute face so cold and set, and when I was more solitary with Mrs. Rachael than if I had had no one in the world to speak to or to look at. I passed to the altered days when I was so blest as to find friends in all around me, and to be beloved. I came to the time when I first saw my dear girl and was received into that sisterly affection which was the grace and beauty of my life. I recalled the first bright gleam of welcome which had shone out of those very windows upon our expectant faces on that cold bright night, and which had never paled. I lived my happy life there over again, I went through my illness and recovery, I thought of myself so altered and of those around me so unchanged; and all this happiness shone like a light from one central figure, represented before me by the letter on the table. I opened it and read it. It was so impressive in its love for me, and in the unselfish caution it gave me, and the consideration it showed for me in every word, that my eyes were too often blinded to read much at a time. But I read it through three times before I laid it down. I had thought beforehand that I knew its purport, and I did. It asked me, would I be the mistress of Bleak House. It was not a love letter, though it expressed so much love, but was written just as he would at any time have spoken to me. I saw his face, and heard his voice, and felt the influence of his kind protecting manner in every line. It addressed me as if our places were reversed, as if all the good deeds had been mine and all the feelings they had awakened his. It dwelt on my being young, and he past the prime of life; on his having attained a ripe age, while I was a child; on his writing to me with a silvered head, and knowing all this so well as to set it in full before me for mature deliberation. It told me that I would gain nothing by such a marriage and lose nothing by rejecting it, for no new relation could enhance the tenderness in which he held me, and whatever my decision was, he was certain it would be right. But he had considered this step anew since our late confidence and had decided on taking it, if it only served to show me through one poor instance that the whole world would readily unite to falsify the stern prediction of my childhood. I was the last to know what happiness I could bestow upon him, but of that he said no more, for I was always to remember that I owed him nothing and that he was my debtor, and for very much. He had often thought of our future, and foreseeing that the time must come, and fearing that it might come soon, when Ada (now very nearly of age) would leave us, and when our present mode of life must be broken up, had become accustomed to reflect on this proposal. Thus he made it. If I felt that I could ever give him the best right he could have to be my protector, and if I felt that I could happily and justly become the dear companion of his remaining life, superior to all lighter chances and changes than death, even then he could not have me bind myself irrevocably while this letter was yet so new to me, but even then I must have ample time for reconsideration. In that case, or in the opposite case, let him be unchanged in his old relation, in his old manner, in the old name by which I called him. And as to his bright Dame Durden and little housekeeper, she would ever be the same, he knew. This was the substance of the letter, written throughout with a justice and a dignity as if he were indeed my responsible guardian impartially representing the proposal of a friend against whom in his integrity he stated the full case. But he did not hint to me that when I had been better looking he had had this same proceeding in his thoughts and had refrained from it. That when my old face was gone from me, and I had no attractions, he could love me just as well as in my fairer days. That the discovery of my birth gave him no shock. That his generosity rose above my disfigurement and my inheritance of shame. That the more I stood in need of such fidelity, the more firmly I might trust in him to the last. But I knew it, I knew it well now. It came upon me as the close of the benignant history I had been pursuing, and I felt that I had but one thing to do. To devote my life to his happiness was to thank him poorly, and what had I wished for the other night but some new means of thanking him? Still I cried very much, not only in the fullness of my heart after reading the letter, not only in the strangeness of the prospect--for it was strange though I had expected the contents--but as if something for which there was no name or distinct idea were indefinitely lost to me. I was very happy, very thankful, very hopeful; but I cried very much. By and by I went to my old glass. My eyes were red and swollen, and I said, "Oh, Esther, Esther, can that be you!" I am afraid the face in the glass was going to cry again at this reproach, but I held up my finger at it, and it stopped. "That is more like the composed look you comforted me with, my dear, when you showed me such a change!" said I, beginning to let down my hair. "When you are mistress of Bleak House, you are to be as cheerful as a bird. In fact, you are always to be cheerful; so let us begin for once and for all." I went on with my hair now, quite comfortably. I sobbed a little still, but that was because I had been crying, not because I was crying then. "And so Esther, my dear, you are happy for life. Happy with your best friends, happy in your old home, happy in the power of doing a great deal of good, and happy in the undeserved love of the best of men." I thought, all at once, if my guardian had married some one else, how should I have felt, and what should I have done! That would have been a change indeed. It presented my life in such a new and blank form that I rang my housekeeping keys and gave them a kiss before I laid them down in their basket again. Then I went on to think, as I dressed my hair before the glass, how often had I considered within myself that the deep traces of my illness and the circumstances of my birth were only new reasons why I should be busy, busy, busy--useful, amiable, serviceable, in all honest, unpretending ways. This was a good time, to be sure, to sit down morbidly and cry! As to its seeming at all strange to me at first (if that were any excuse for crying, which it was not) that I was one day to be the mistress of Bleak House, why should it seem strange? Other people had thought of such things, if I had not. "Don't you remember, my plain dear," I asked myself, looking at the glass, "what Mrs. Woodcourt said before those scars were there about your marrying--" Perhaps the name brought them to my remembrance. The dried remains of the flowers. It would be better not to keep them now. They had only been preserved in memory of something wholly past and gone, but it would be better not to keep them now. They were in a book, and it happened to be in the next room--our sitting-room, dividing Ada's chamber from mine. I took a candle and went softly in to fetch it from its shelf. After I had it in my hand, I saw my beautiful darling, through the open door, lying asleep, and I stole in to kiss her. It was weak in me, I know, and I could have no reason for crying; but I dropped a tear upon her dear face, and another, and another. Weaker than that, I took the withered flowers out and put them for a moment to her lips. I thought about her love for Richard, though, indeed, the flowers had nothing to do with that. Then I took them into my own room and burned them at the candle, and they were dust in an instant. On entering the breakfast-room next morning, I found my guardian just as usual, quite as frank, as open, and free. There being not the least constraint in his manner, there was none (or I think there was none) in mine. I was with him several times in the course of the morning, in and out, when there was no one there, and I thought it not unlikely that he might speak to me about the letter, but he did not say a word. So, on the next morning, and the next, and for at least a week, over which time Mr. Skimpole prolonged his stay. I expected, every day, that my guardian might speak to me about the letter, but he never did. I thought then, growing uneasy, that I ought to write an answer. I tried over and over again in my own room at night, but I could not write an answer that at all began like a good answer, so I thought each night I would wait one more day. And I waited seven more days, and he never said a word. At last, Mr. Skimpole having departed, we three were one afternoon going out for a ride; and I, being dressed before Ada and going down, came upon my guardian, with his back towards me, standing at the drawing-room window looking out. He turned on my coming in and said, smiling, "Aye, it's you, little woman, is it?" and looked out again. I had made up my mind to speak to him now. In short, I had come down on purpose. "Guardian," I said, rather hesitating and trembling, "when would you like to have the answer to the letter Charley came for?" "When it's ready, my dear," he replied. "I think it is ready," said I. "Is Charley to bring it?" he asked pleasantly. "No. I have brought it myself, guardian," I returned. I put my two arms round his neck and kissed him, and he said was this the mistress of Bleak House, and I said yes; and it made no difference presently, and we all went out together, and I said nothing to my precious pet about it.

My guardian called me into his room next morning, and then I told him what had been left untold on the previous night. There was nothing to be done, he said, but to keep the secret and to avoid another such encounter as that of yesterday. He understood my feeling and entirely shared it. He knew something of Mr. Tulkinghorn, both by sight and reputation, and it was certain that he was a dangerous man. Whatever happened, he repeatedly impressed upon me with anxious affection and kindness, I was innocent. "Nor do I understand," said he, "that any doubts tend towards you, my dear." "Not with the lawyer," I returned. "But I am anxious about two other people." Then I told him about Mr. Guppy, who I feared might have guessed, but in whose silence after our last interview I expressed perfect confidence. "Well," said my guardian. "Then we may dismiss him for the present. Who is the other?" I called to his recollection the French maid and the eager offer of service she had made to me. "Ha!" he returned thoughtfully. "That is a more alarming person than the clerk. But after all, my dear, she merely proposed herself for your maid, you know. She did nothing more." "Her manner was strange," said I. "Yes, and her manner was strange when she took her shoes off and walked through the grass," said my guardian. "It would be useless self-distress to reckon up such chances and possibilities. Be hopeful, little woman. You can be nothing better than yourself; be that, as you were before you had this knowledge. It is the best you can do for everybody's sake. I, sharing the secret with you-" "And lightening it, guardian, so much," said I. "-will be attentive to what passes in that family, so far as I can. And if the time should come when I can stretch out a hand to render the least service to one whom it is better not to name even here, I will not fail to do it for her dear daughter's sake." I thanked him with my whole heart. What could I ever do but thank him! I was going out at the door when he asked me to stay a moment. Quickly turning round, I saw that same expression on his face again; and all at once, I don't know how, I understood it. "My dear Esther," said my guardian, "I have long had something in my thoughts that I have wished to say to you." "Indeed?" "I have had some difficulty in approaching it. Would you object to my writing it?" "Dear guardian, how could I object to your writing anything for me to read?" "Then see, my love," said he with his cheery smile, "do I seem at this moment as open, honest and old-fashioned as usual?" I answered in all earnestness, "Quite." With truth, for his momentary hesitation was gone. "Can you fully trust me, and thoroughly rely on me, Esther?" "Most thoroughly," said I with my whole heart. "My dear girl," returned my guardian, "give me your hand." He took it in his, holding me lightly with his arm, and looking down into my face with the protecting manner which had made that house my home - said, "You have wrought changes in me, little woman, since the winter day in the stage-coach. You have done me a world of good since that time." "Ah, guardian, what have you done for me since that time!" "But," said he, "that is not to be remembered now." "It never can be forgotten." "Yes, Esther," said he with a gentle seriousness, "it is to be forgotten now, for a while. You are only to remember now that nothing can change me as you know me. Can you feel quite assured of that, my dear?" "I can," I said. "That's much," he answered. "All the same, I will not write this something in my thoughts until you have quite resolved within yourself that nothing can change me as you know me. If you doubt that in the least degree, I will never write it. If you are sure of that, send Charley to me in one week - 'for the letter.' But if you are not quite certain, never send for it." "Guardian," said I, "I am already certain. I shall send Charley for the letter." He shook my hand and said no more. Nor was any more said about this conversation all week. When the appointed night came, I said to Charley, "Go and knock at Mr. Jarndyce's door, Charley, and say you have come from me for the letter." Charley went up the stairs and along the passages. The zig-zag way about the old house seemed very long in my listening ears that night. She came back with the letter and laid it on the table and went to bed, and I sat looking at it without taking it up, thinking of many things. I began with my overshadowed childhood, and passed through those timid days to the heavy time when my aunt lay dead, with her resolute face so cold and set. I passed to the altered days when I was so blest as to find friends around me, and to be beloved. I came to the time when I first saw my dear girl and was received into that sisterly affection which was the grace and beauty of my life. I recalled the first bright gleam of welcome which had shone out of those very windows upon our expectant faces on that cold bright night, and which had never paled. I went through my illness and recovery, I thought of myself so altered and of those around me so unchanged; and all this happiness shone like a light from one central figure, represented before me by the letter on the table. I opened it and read it. It was so impressive in its love for me, and in the unselfish consideration it showed for me in every word, that my eyes were too often blinded to read much at a time. But I read it through three times before I laid it down. I had thought beforehand that I knew its purport, and I did. It asked me, would I be the mistress of Bleak House. It was not a love letter, though it expressed so much love, but was written just as he would at any time have spoken to me. I saw his face, and heard his voice, and felt his kind manner in every line. It addressed me as if our places were reversed, as if all the good deeds had been mine and all the feelings they had awakened his. It dwelt on my being young, and he past the prime of life; on his writing to me with a silvered head. It told me that I would gain nothing by such a marriage and lose nothing by rejecting it, for no new relation could enhance the tenderness in which he held me, and whatever my decision was, he was certain it would be right. But he had considered this step anew since our late confidence and had decided on taking it. I was always to remember that I owed him nothing and that he was my debtor. He had often thought of our future, and foreseeing that the time must come, perhaps very soon, when Ada (now nearly of age) would leave us, and when our present mode of life must be broken up, had reflected on this proposal. If I felt that I could happily become the dear companion of his remaining life, even then he could not have me bind myself irrevocably while this letter was yet so new to me, but I must have ample time for reconsideration. Meanwhile, let him be unchanged in his old relation, in his old manner, in the old name by which I called him. And as to his bright Dame Durden and little housekeeper, she would ever be the same, he knew. This was the substance of the letter. But he did not hint that when I had been better looking he had had this same step in his thoughts and had refrained from it. That when my old face was gone from me, and I had no attractions, he could love me just as well as in my fairer days. That the discovery of my birth gave him no shock. That his generosity rose above my disfigurement and my inheritance of shame. But I knew it, I knew it well now. It came upon me as the close of the history I had been remembering, and I felt that I had but one thing to do. To devote my life to his happiness was to thank him poorly, and what had I wished for the other night but some new means of thanking him? Still I cried very much, not only in the fullness of my heart after reading the letter, not only in the strangeness of the prospect - but as if something for which there was no name or distinct idea were indefinitely lost to me. I was very happy, very thankful, very hopeful; but I cried very much. By and by I went to my old glass. My eyes were red and swollen, and I said, "Oh, Esther, can that be you!" I am afraid the face in the glass was going to cry again at this reproach, but I held up my finger at it, and it stopped. "That is more like it!" said I, beginning to let down my hair. "When you are mistress of Bleak House, you are to be as cheerful as a bird. In fact, you are always to be cheerful; so let us begin for once and for all." When I went on with my hair I sobbed a little still, but that was because I had been crying, not because I was crying then. "And so Esther, my dear, you are happy for life. Happy with your best friends, happy in your old home, happy in the power of doing a great deal of good, and happy in the undeserved love of the best of men." I thought, all at once, if my guardian had married some one else, how should I have felt, and what should I have done! That would have been a change indeed. It presented my life in such a new and blank form that I gave my housekeeping keys a kiss before I laid them down in their basket again. Then I went on to think how often had I considered within myself that the deep traces of my illness and the circumstances of my birth were only new reasons why I should be busy and useful. This was a good time, to be sure, to sit down morbidly and cry! As to its seeming at all strange to me at first, why should it seem strange? Other people had thought of such things, if I had not. "Don't you remember, my plain dear," I asked myself, "what Mrs. Woodcourt said, before those scars were there, about your marrying-" Perhaps the name brought them to my remembrance. The dried remains of the flowers. They had only been preserved in memory of something wholly past and gone, but it would be better not to keep them now. They were in a book, which was in the next room - our sitting-room, dividing Ada's chamber from mine. I took a candle and went softly in to fetch it from its shelf. I saw my beautiful darling, through the open door, lying asleep, and I stole in to kiss her. It was weak in me, I know; but I dropped a tear upon her dear face, and another. Weaker than that, I took the withered flowers out and put them for a moment to her lips. I thought about her love for Richard, though, indeed, the flowers had nothing to do with that. Then I took them into my own room and burned them at the candle, and they were dust in an instant. On entering the breakfast-room next morning, I found my guardian just as usual, quite as frank, open and free. There being not the least constraint in his manner, there was none (I think) in mine. About the letter, he said not a word. So, on the next morning, and the next, and for at least a week, over which time Mr. Skimpole prolonged his stay. I expected, every day, that my guardian might speak to me about the letter, but he never did. I thought then, growing uneasy, that I ought to write an answer. I tried over and over again in my own room at night, but I could not write an answer that began like a good answer, so I thought each night I would wait one more day. And I waited seven more days, and he never said a word. At last, Mr. Skimpole having departed, we three were one afternoon going out for a ride; and I, being ready before Ada, came upon my guardian, standing at the drawing-room window looking out. He turned and said, smiling, "Aye, it's you, little woman, is it?" I had made up my mind to speak to him now. In short, I had come down on purpose. "Guardian," I said, rather hesitating and trembling, "when would you like to have the answer to the letter Charley came for?" "When it's ready, my dear," he replied. "I think it is ready," said I. "Is Charley to bring it?" he asked pleasantly. "No. I have brought it myself, guardian," I returned. I put my two arms round his neck and kissed him, and he said was this the mistress of Bleak House, and I said yes; and it made no difference presently, and we all went out together, and I said nothing to my precious pet about it.

Bleak House

Chapter 44: The Letter and the Answer

It was not so easy as it had appeared at first to arrange for Richard's making a trial of Mr. Kenge's office. Richard himself was the chief impediment. As soon as he had it in his power to leave Mr. Badger at any moment, he began to doubt whether he wanted to leave him at all. He didn't know, he said, really. It wasn't a bad profession; he couldn't assert that he disliked it; perhaps he liked it as well as he liked any other--suppose he gave it one more chance! Upon that, he shut himself up for a few weeks with some books and some bones and seemed to acquire a considerable fund of information with great rapidity. His fervour, after lasting about a month, began to cool, and when it was quite cooled, began to grow warm again. His vacillations between law and medicine lasted so long that midsummer arrived before he finally separated from Mr. Badger and entered on an experimental course of Messrs. Kenge and Carboy. For all his waywardness, he took great credit to himself as being determined to be in earnest "this time." And he was so good-natured throughout, and in such high spirits, and so fond of Ada, that it was very difficult indeed to be otherwise than pleased with him. "As to Mr. Jarndyce," who, I may mention, found the wind much given, during this period, to stick in the east; "As to Mr. Jarndyce," Richard would say to me, "he is the finest fellow in the world, Esther! I must be particularly careful, if it were only for his satisfaction, to take myself well to task and have a regular wind-up of this business now." The idea of his taking himself well to task, with that laughing face and heedless manner and with a fancy that everything could catch and nothing could hold, was ludicrously anomalous. However, he told us between-whiles that he was doing it to such an extent that he wondered his hair didn't turn grey. His regular wind-up of the business was (as I have said) that he went to Mr. Kenge's about midsummer to try how he liked it. All this time he was, in money affairs, what I have described him in a former illustration--generous, profuse, wildly careless, but fully persuaded that he was rather calculating and prudent. I happened to say to Ada, in his presence, half jestingly, half seriously, about the time of his going to Mr. Kenge's, that he needed to have Fortunatus' purse, he made so light of money, which he answered in this way, "My jewel of a dear cousin, you hear this old woman! Why does she say that? Because I gave eight pounds odd (or whatever it was) for a certain neat waistcoat and buttons a few days ago. Now, if I had stayed at Badger's I should have been obliged to spend twelve pounds at a blow for some heart-breaking lecture-fees. So I make four pounds--in a lump--by the transaction!" It was a question much discussed between him and my guardian what arrangements should be made for his living in London while he experimented on the law, for we had long since gone back to Bleak House, and it was too far off to admit of his coming there oftener than once a week. My guardian told me that if Richard were to settle down at Mr. Kenge's he would take some apartments or chambers where we too could occasionally stay for a few days at a time; "but, little woman," he added, rubbing his head very significantly, "he hasn't settled down there yet!" The discussions ended in our hiring for him, by the month, a neat little furnished lodging in a quiet old house near Queen Square. He immediately began to spend all the money he had in buying the oddest little ornaments and luxuries for this lodging; and so often as Ada and I dissuaded him from making any purchase that he had in contemplation which was particularly unnecessary and expensive, he took credit for what it would have cost and made out that to spend anything less on something else was to save the difference. While these affairs were in abeyance, our visit to Mr. Boythorn's was postponed. At length, Richard having taken possession of his lodging, there was nothing to prevent our departure. He could have gone with us at that time of the year very well, but he was in the full novelty of his new position and was making most energetic attempts to unravel the mysteries of the fatal suit. Consequently we went without him, and my darling was delighted to praise him for being so busy. We made a pleasant journey down into Lincolnshire by the coach and had an entertaining companion in Mr. Skimpole. His furniture had been all cleared off, it appeared, by the person who took possession of it on his blue-eyed daughter's birthday, but he seemed quite relieved to think that it was gone. Chairs and table, he said, were wearisome objects; they were monotonous ideas, they had no variety of expression, they looked you out of countenance, and you looked them out of countenance. How pleasant, then, to be bound to no particular chairs and tables, but to sport like a butterfly among all the furniture on hire, and to flit from rosewood to mahogany, and from mahogany to walnut, and from this shape to that, as the humour took one! "The oddity of the thing is," said Mr. Skimpole with a quickened sense of the ludicrous, "that my chairs and tables were not paid for, and yet my landlord walks off with them as composedly as possible. Now, that seems droll! There is something grotesque in it. The chair and table merchant never engaged to pay my landlord my rent. Why should my landlord quarrel with HIM? If I have a pimple on my nose which is disagreeable to my landlord's peculiar ideas of beauty, my landlord has no business to scratch my chair and table merchant's nose, which has no pimple on it. His reasoning seems defective!" "Well," said my guardian good-humouredly, "it's pretty clear that whoever became security for those chairs and tables will have to pay for them." "Exactly!" returned Mr. Skimpole. "That's the crowning point of unreason in the business! I said to my landlord, 'My good man, you are not aware that my excellent friend Jarndyce will have to pay for those things that you are sweeping off in that indelicate manner. Have you no consideration for HIS property?' He hadn't the least." "And refused all proposals," said my guardian. "Refused all proposals," returned Mr. Skimpole. "I made him business proposals. I had him into my room. I said, 'You are a man of business, I believe?' He replied, 'I am,' 'Very well,' said I, 'now let us be business-like. Here is an inkstand, here are pens and paper, here are wafers. What do you want? I have occupied your house for a considerable period, I believe to our mutual satisfaction until this unpleasant misunderstanding arose; let us be at once friendly and business-like. What do you want?' In reply to this, he made use of the figurative expression--which has something Eastern about it--that he had never seen the colour of my money. 'My amiable friend,' said I, 'I never have any money. I never know anything about money.' 'Well, sir,' said he, 'what do you offer if I give you time?' 'My good fellow,' said I, 'I have no idea of time; but you say you are a man of business, and whatever you can suggest to be done in a business-like way with pen, and ink, and paper--and wafers--I am ready to do. Don't pay yourself at another man's expense (which is foolish), but be business-like!' However, he wouldn't be, and there was an end of it." If these were some of the inconveniences of Mr. Skimpole's childhood, it assuredly possessed its advantages too. On the journey he had a very good appetite for such refreshment as came in our way (including a basket of choice hothouse peaches), but never thought of paying for anything. So when the coachman came round for his fee, he pleasantly asked him what he considered a very good fee indeed, now--a liberal one--and on his replying half a crown for a single passenger, said it was little enough too, all things considered, and left Mr. Jarndyce to give it him. It was delightful weather. The green corn waved so beautifully, the larks sang so joyfully, the hedges were so full of wild flowers, the trees were so thickly out in leaf, the bean-fields, with a light wind blowing over them, filled the air with such a delicious fragrance! Late in the afternoon we came to the market-town where we were to alight from the coach--a dull little town with a church-spire, and a marketplace, and a market-cross, and one intensely sunny street, and a pond with an old horse cooling his legs in it, and a very few men sleepily lying and standing about in narrow little bits of shade. After the rustling of the leaves and the waving of the corn all along the road, it looked as still, as hot, as motionless a little town as England could produce. At the inn we found Mr. Boythorn on horseback, waiting with an open carriage to take us to his house, which was a few miles off. He was overjoyed to see us and dismounted with great alacrity. "By heaven!" said he after giving us a courteous greeting. "This a most infamous coach. It is the most flagrant example of an abominable public vehicle that ever encumbered the face of the earth. It is twenty-five minutes after its time this afternoon. The coachman ought to be put to death!" "IS he after his time?" said Mr. Skimpole, to whom he happened to address himself. "You know my infirmity." "Twenty-five minutes! Twenty-six minutes!" replied Mr. Boythorn, referring to his watch. "With two ladies in the coach, this scoundrel has deliberately delayed his arrival six and twenty minutes. Deliberately! It is impossible that it can be accidental! But his father--and his uncle--were the most profligate coachmen that ever sat upon a box." While he said this in tones of the greatest indignation, he handed us into the little phaeton with the utmost gentleness and was all smiles and pleasure. "I am sorry, ladies," he said, standing bare-headed at the carriage-door when all was ready, "that I am obliged to conduct you nearly two miles out of the way. But our direct road lies through Sir Leicester Dedlock's park, and in that fellow's property I have sworn never to set foot of mine, or horse's foot of mine, pending the present relations between us, while I breathe the breath of life!" And here, catching my guardian's eye, he broke into one of his tremendous laughs, which seemed to shake even the motionless little market-town. "Are the Dedlocks down here, Lawrence?" said my guardian as we drove along and Mr. Boythorn trotted on the green turf by the roadside. "Sir Arrogant Numskull is here," replied Mr. Boythorn. "Ha ha ha! Sir Arrogant is here, and I am glad to say, has been laid by the heels here. My Lady," in naming whom he always made a courtly gesture as if particularly to exclude her from any part in the quarrel, "is expected, I believe, daily. I am not in the least surprised that she postpones her appearance as long as possible. Whatever can have induced that transcendent woman to marry that effigy and figure-head of a baronet is one of the most impenetrable mysteries that ever baffled human inquiry. Ha ha ha ha!" "I suppose," said my guardian, laughing, "WE may set foot in the park while we are here? The prohibition does not extend to us, does it?" "I can lay no prohibition on my guests," he said, bending his head to Ada and me with the smiling politeness which sat so gracefully upon him, "except in the matter of their departure. I am only sorry that I cannot have the happiness of being their escort about Chesney Wold, which is a very fine place! But by the light of this summer day, Jarndyce, if you call upon the owner while you stay with me, you are likely to have but a cool reception. He carries himself like an eight-day clock at all times, like one of a race of eight-day clocks in gorgeous cases that never go and never went--Ha ha ha!--but he will have some extra stiffness, I can promise you, for the friends of his friend and neighbour Boythorn!" "I shall not put him to the proof," said my guardian. "He is as indifferent to the honour of knowing me, I dare say, as I am to the honour of knowing him. The air of the grounds and perhaps such a view of the house as any other sightseer might get are quite enough for me." "Well!" said Mr. Boythorn. "I am glad of it on the whole. It's in better keeping. I am looked upon about here as a second Ajax defying the lightning. Ha ha ha ha! When I go into our 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 while they were preparing to sing, before the sermon. She took no heed of me, and the beating at my heart was gone. Neither did it revive for more than a few moments when she once or twice afterwards glanced at Ada or at me through her glass. The service being concluded, Sir Leicester gave his arm with much taste and gallantry to Lady Dedlock--though he was obliged to walk by the help of a thick stick--and escorted her out of church to the pony carriage in which they had come. The servants then dispersed, and so did the congregation, whom Sir Leicester had contemplated all along (Mr. Skimpole said to Mr. Boythorn's infinite delight) as if he were a considerable landed proprietor in heaven. "He believes he is!" said Mr. Boythorn. "He firmly believes it. So did his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather!" "Do you know," pursued Mr. Skimpole very unexpectedly to Mr. Boythorn, "it's agreeable to me to see a man of that sort." "IS it!" said Mr. Boythorn. "Say that he wants to patronize me," pursued Mr. Skimpole. "Very well! I don't object." "I do," said Mr. Boythorn with great vigour. "Do you really?" returned Mr. Skimpole in his easy light vein. "But that's taking trouble, surely. And why should you take trouble? Here am I, content to receive things childishly as they fall out, and I never take trouble! I come down here, for instance, and I find a mighty potentate exacting homage. Very well! I say 'Mighty potentate, here IS my homage! It's easier to give it than to withhold it. Here it is. If you have anything of an agreeable nature to show me, I shall be happy to see it; if you have anything of an agreeable nature to give me, I shall be happy to accept it.' Mighty potentate replies in effect, 'This is a sensible fellow. I find him accord with my digestion and my bilious system. He doesn't impose upon me the necessity of rolling myself up like a hedgehog with my points outward. I expand, I open, I turn my silver lining outward like Milton's cloud, and it's more agreeable to both of us.' That's my view of such things, speaking as a child!" "But suppose you went down somewhere else to-morrow," said Mr. Boythorn, "where there was the opposite of that fellow--or of this fellow. How then?" "How then?" said Mr. Skimpole with an appearance of the utmost simplicity and candour. "Just the same then! I should say, 'My esteemed Boythorn'--to make you the personification of our imaginary friend--'my esteemed Boythorn, you object to the mighty potentate? Very good. So do I. I take it that my business in the social system is to be agreeable; I take it that everybody's business in the social system is to be agreeable. It's a system of harmony, in short. Therefore if you object, I object. Now, excellent Boythorn, let us go to dinner!'" "But excellent Boythorn might say," returned our host, swelling and growing very red, "I'll be--" "I understand," said Mr. Skimpole. "Very likely he would." "--if I WILL go to dinner!" cried Mr. Boythorn in a violent burst and stopping to strike his stick upon the ground. "And he would probably add, 'Is there such a thing as principle, Mr. Harold Skimpole?'" "To which Harold Skimpole would reply, you know," he returned in his gayest manner and with his most ingenuous smile, "'Upon my life I have not the least idea! I don't know what it is you call by that name, or where it is, or who possesses it. If you possess it and find it comfortable, I am quite delighted and congratulate you heartily. But I know nothing about it, I assure you; for I am a mere child, and I lay no claim to it, and I don't want it!' So, you see, excellent Boythorn and I would go to dinner after all!" This was one of many little dialogues between them which I always expected to end, and which I dare say would have ended under other circumstances, in some violent explosion on the part of our host. But he had so high a sense of his hospitable and responsible position as our entertainer, and my guardian laughed so sincerely at and with Mr. Skimpole, as a child who blew bubbles and broke them all day long, that matters never went beyond this point. Mr. Skimpole, who always seemed quite unconscious of having been on delicate ground, then betook himself to beginning some sketch in the park which he never finished, or to playing fragments of airs on the piano, or to singing scraps of songs, or to lying down on his back under a tree and looking at the sky--which he couldn't help thinking, he said, was what he was meant for; it suited him so exactly. "Enterprise and effort," he would say to us (on his back), "are delightful to me. I believe I am truly cosmopolitan. I have the deepest sympathy with them. I lie in a shady place like this and think of adventurous spirits going to the North Pole or penetrating to the heart of the Torrid Zone with admiration. Mercenary creatures ask, 'What is the use of a man's going to the North Pole? What good does it do?' I can't say; but, for anything I CAN say, he may go for the purpose--though he don't know it--of employing my thoughts as I lie here. Take an extreme case. Take the case of the slaves on American plantations. I dare say they are worked hard, I dare say they don't altogether like it. I dare say theirs is an unpleasant experience on the whole; but they people the landscape for me, they give it a poetry for me, and perhaps that is one of the pleasanter objects of their existence. I am very sensible of it, if it be, and I shouldn't wonder if it were!" I always wondered on these occasions whether he ever thought of Mrs. Skimpole and the children, and in what point of view they presented themselves to his cosmopolitan mind. So far as I could understand, they rarely presented themselves at all. The week had gone round to the Saturday following that beating of my heart in the church; and every day had been so bright and blue that to ramble in the woods, and to see the light striking down among the transparent leaves and sparkling in the beautiful interlacings of the shadows of the trees, while the birds poured out their songs and the air was drowsy with the hum of insects, had been most delightful. We had one favourite spot, deep in moss and last year's leaves, where there were some felled trees from which the bark was all stripped off. Seated among these, we looked through a green vista supported by thousands of natural columns, the whitened stems of trees, upon a distant prospect made so radiant by its contrast with the shade in which we sat and made so precious by the arched perspective through which we saw it that it was like a glimpse of the better land. Upon the Saturday we sat here, Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and I, until we heard thunder muttering in the distance and felt the large raindrops rattle through the leaves. The weather had been all the week extremely sultry, but the storm broke so suddenly--upon us, at least, in that sheltered spot--that before we reached the outskirts of the wood the thunder and lightning were frequent and the rain came plunging through the leaves as if every drop were a great leaden bead. As it was not a time for standing among trees, we ran out of the wood, and up and down the moss-grown steps which crossed the plantation-fence like two broad-staved ladders placed back to back, and made for a keeper's lodge which was close at hand. We had often noticed the dark beauty of this lodge standing in a deep twilight of trees, and how the ivy clustered over it, and how there was a steep hollow near, where we had once seen the keeper's dog dive down into the fern as if it were water. The lodge was so dark within, now the sky was overcast, that we only clearly saw the man who came to the door when we took shelter there and put two chairs for Ada and me. The lattice-windows were all thrown open, and we sat just within the doorway watching the storm. It was grand to see how the wind awoke, and bent the trees, and drove the rain before it like a cloud of smoke; and to hear the solemn thunder and to see the lightning; and while thinking with awe of the tremendous powers by which our little lives are encompassed, to consider how beneficent they are and how upon the smallest flower and leaf there was already a freshness poured from all this seeming rage which seemed to make creation new again. "Is it not dangerous to sit in so exposed a place?" "Oh, no, Esther dear!" said Ada quietly. Ada said it to me, but I had not spoken. The beating of my heart came back again. I had never heard the voice, as I had never seen the face, but it affected me in the same strange way. Again, in a moment, there arose before my mind innumerable pictures of myself. Lady Dedlock had taken shelter in the lodge before our arrival there and had come out of the gloom within. She stood behind my chair with her hand upon it. I saw her with her hand close to my shoulder when I turned my head. "I have frightened you?" she said. No. It was not fright. Why should I be frightened! "I believe," said Lady Dedlock to my guardian, "I have the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Jarndyce." "Your remembrance does me more honour than I had supposed it would, Lady Dedlock," he returned. "I recognized you in church on Sunday. I am sorry that any local disputes of Sir Leicester's--they are not of his seeking, however, I believe--should render it a matter of some absurd difficulty to show you any attention here." "I am aware of the circumstances," returned my guardian with a smile, "and am sufficiently obliged." She had given him her hand in an indifferent way that seemed habitual to her and spoke in a correspondingly indifferent manner, though in a very pleasant voice. She was as graceful as she was beautiful, perfectly self-possessed, and had the air, I thought, of being able to attract and interest any one if she had thought it worth her while. The keeper had brought her a chair on which she sat in the middle of the porch between us. "Is the young gentleman disposed of whom you wrote to Sir Leicester about and whose wishes Sir Leicester was sorry not to have it in his power to advance in any way?" she said over her shoulder to my guardian. "I hope so," said he. She seemed to respect him and even to wish to conciliate him. There was something very winning in her haughty manner, and it became more familiar--I was going to say more easy, but that could hardly be--as she spoke to him over her shoulder. "I presume this is your other ward, Miss Clare?" He presented Ada, in form. "You will lose the disinterested part of your Don Quixote character," said Lady Dedlock to Mr. Jarndyce over her shoulder again, "if you only redress the wrongs of beauty like this. But present me," and she turned full upon me, "to this young lady too!" "Miss Summerson really is my ward," said Mr. Jarndyce. "I am responsible to no Lord Chancellor in her case." "Has Miss Summerson lost both her parents?" said my Lady. "Yes." "She is very fortunate in her guardian." Lady Dedlock looked at me, and I looked at her and said I was indeed. All at once she turned from me with a hasty air, almost expressive of displeasure or dislike, and spoke to him over her shoulder again. "Ages have passed since we were in the habit of meeting, Mr. Jarndyce." "A long time. At least I thought it was a long time, until I saw you last Sunday," he returned. "What! Even you are a courtier, or think it necessary to become one to me!" she said with some disdain. "I have achieved that reputation, I suppose." "You have achieved so much, Lady Dedlock," said my guardian, "that you pay some little penalty, I dare say. But none to me." "So much!" she repeated, slightly laughing. "Yes!" With her air of superiority, and power, and fascination, and I know not what, she seemed to regard Ada and me as little more than children. So, as she slightly laughed and afterwards sat looking at the rain, she was as self-possessed and as free to occupy herself with her own thoughts as if she had been alone. "I think you knew my sister when we were abroad together better than you know me?" she said, looking at him again. "Yes, we happened to meet oftener," he returned. "We went our several ways," said Lady Dedlock, "and had little in common even before we agreed to differ. It is to be regretted, I suppose, but it could not be helped." Lady Dedlock again sat looking at the rain. The storm soon began to pass upon its way. The shower greatly abated, the lightning ceased, the thunder rolled among the distant hills, and the sun began to glisten on the wet leaves and the falling rain. As we sat there, silently, we saw a little pony phaeton coming towards us at a merry pace. "The messenger is coming back, my Lady," said the keeper, "with the carriage." As it drove up, we saw that there were two people inside. There alighted from it, with some cloaks and wrappers, first the Frenchwoman whom I had seen in church, and secondly the pretty girl, the Frenchwoman with a defiant confidence, the pretty girl confused and hesitating. "What now?" said Lady Dedlock. "Two!" "I am your maid, my Lady, at the present," said the Frenchwoman. "The message was for the attendant." "I was afraid you might mean me, my Lady," said the pretty girl. "I did mean you, child," replied her mistress calmly. "Put that shawl on me." She slightly stooped her shoulders to receive it, and the pretty girl lightly dropped it in its place. The Frenchwoman stood unnoticed, looking on with her lips very tightly set. "I am sorry," said Lady Dedlock to Mr. Jarndyce, "that we are not likely to renew our former acquaintance. You will allow me to send the carriage back for your two wards. It shall be here directly." But as he would on no account accept this offer, she took a graceful leave of Ada--none of me--and put her hand upon his proffered arm, and got into the carriage, which was a little, low, park carriage with a hood. "Come in, child," she said to the pretty girl; "I shall want you. Go on!" The carriage rolled away, and the Frenchwoman, with the wrappers she had brought hanging over her arm, remained standing where she had alighted. I suppose there is nothing pride can so little bear with as pride itself, and that she was punished for her imperious manner. Her retaliation was the most singular I could have imagined. She remained perfectly still until the carriage had turned into the drive, and then, without the least discomposure of countenance, slipped off her shoes, left them on the ground, and walked deliberately in the same direction through the wettest of the wet grass. "Is that young woman mad?" said my guardian. "Oh, no, sir!" said the keeper, who, with his wife, was looking after her. "Hortense is not one of that sort. She has as good a head-piece as the best. But she's mortal high and passionate--powerful high and passionate; and what with having notice to leave, and having others put above her, she don't take kindly to it." "But why should she walk shoeless through all that water?" said my guardian. "Why, indeed, sir, unless it is to cool her down!" said the man. "Or unless she fancies it's blood," said the woman. "She'd as soon walk through that as anything else, I think, when her own's up!" We passed not far from the house a few minutes afterwards. Peaceful as it had looked when we first saw it, it looked even more so now, with a diamond spray glittering all about it, a light wind blowing, the birds no longer hushed but singing strongly, everything refreshed by the late rain, and the little carriage shining at the doorway like a fairy carriage made of silver. Still, very steadfastly and quietly walking towards it, a peaceful figure too in the landscape, went Mademoiselle Hortense, shoeless, through the wet grass.

It was not so easy as it had appeared to arrange for Richard's making a trial at Mr. Kenge's office. Richard himself was the chief impediment. As soon as he had it in his power to leave Mr. Badger, he began to doubt whether he wanted to. He didn't know, he said, really. It wasn't a bad profession; perhaps he liked it as well as any other - suppose he gave it one more chance! Upon that, he shut himself up for a few weeks with some books and bones and seemed to acquire a great deal of information very quickly. After about a month his fervour began to cool, and when it was quite cooled, began to grow warm again. His vacillations between law and medicine lasted so long that midsummer arrived before he finally left Mr. Badger for Messrs. Kenge and Carboy. He took great credit for being determined to be in earnest "this time." And he was so good-natured, and so fond of Ada, that it was very difficult to be displeased with him. "As to Mr. Jarndyce," (who found the wind sticking much in the east during this time,) "he is the finest fellow in the world," Richard would say to me. "I must be careful to take myself well to task." The idea of his taking himself well to task, with that laughing face and heedless manner and with a fancy that everything could catch and nothing could hold, was ludicrous. However, he told us sometimes that he was taking himself to task so well that he wondered his hair didn't turn grey. It was a question much discussed where he should live in London while he studied the law, for we had now gone back to Bleak House, which was too far off to allow his coming oftener than once a week. My guardian told me that if Richard were to settle down at Mr. Kenge's he would take some apartments where we too could occasionally stay for a few days at a time; "but, little woman," he added, "he hasn't settled down there yet!" The discussions ended in our hiring for him, by the month, a neat little furnished lodging in a quiet old house near Queen Square. He immediately began to spend all his money in buying little ornaments and luxuries for this lodging; and so often as Ada and I dissuaded him from making any unnecessary purchase, he took credit for what it would have cost and spent it on something else. Meanwhile our visit to Mr. Boythorn's was postponed. At length Richard moved into his lodging, and was soon making energetic attempts to unravel the mysteries of the fatal lawsuit. Consequently we went on our visit without him, and my darling was delighted to praise him for being so busy. We made a pleasant journey into Lincolnshire by the coach and had an entertaining companion in Mr. Skimpole. His furniture had been all removed, it appeared, by the person who took possession of it on his blue-eyed daughter's birthday, but he seemed quite relieved that it was gone. Chairs and tables, he said, were wearisome and monotonous objects. How pleasant, then, to be bound to no particular chairs and tables, but to sport like a butterfly among all the furniture on hire, and to flit from rosewood to mahogany, as the humour took one! "The oddity of the thing is," said Mr. Skimpole, "that my chairs and tables were not paid for, and yet my landlord walks off with them as composedly as possible. Now, that seems droll! The chair merchant never engaged to pay my landlord my rent!" "Well," said my guardian good-humouredly, "it's pretty clear that whoever became security for those chairs and tables will have to pay for them." "Exactly!" returned Mr. Skimpole. "That's what I said to my landlord. 'My good man, are you not aware that my excellent friend Jarndyce will have to pay for those things that you are sweeping off? Have you no consideration for his property?' He hadn't the least." "And refused all proposals," said my guardian. "I made him business proposals. I said, 'Let us be business-like. Here is an inkstand, here are pens and paper. I have occupied your house to our mutual satisfaction until now; let us be friendly and business-like.' He replied that he had never seen the colour of my money. 'My amiable friend,' said I, 'I never have any money. I never know anything about money.' 'Well, sir,' said he, 'what do you offer if I give you time?' 'My good fellow,' said I, 'I have no idea of time; but you say you are a man of business, and whatever you can suggest to be done in a business-like way, I am ready to do. Be business-like!' However, he wouldn't be, and there was an end of it." On the journey Mr. Skimpole had a very good, child-like appetite for such refreshment as came in our way (including some choice hothouse peaches), but never thought of paying for anything. When the coachman came round for his fee, he pleasantly asked him what he considered a liberal one - and on his replying half a crown for a single passenger, said it was little enough too, and left Mr. Jarndyce to give it him. It was delightful weather. The green corn waved so beautifully, the larks sang so joyfully, the hedges were so full of wild flowers, the trees were so thickly out in leaf, the bean-fields filled the air with such a delicious fragrance! Late in the afternoon we came to the market-town where we alighted from the coach - a dull little town with a church-spire, a market-cross, one intensely sunny street, and a pond with an old horse cooling his legs in it. At the inn we found Mr. Boythorn, on horseback, waiting with an open carriage to take us to his house a few miles off. He was overjoyed to see us. "By heaven!" said he. "This is a most infamous coach. It is the most abominable public vehicle that ever encumbered the face of the earth. It is twenty-six minutes late! With two ladies in the coach, this scoundrel of a coachman has deliberately delayed his arrival six and twenty minutes! He ought to be put to death!" While he said this, he handed us into the little phaeton with the utmost gentleness. "I am sorry, ladies," he said, "that I am obliged to conduct you nearly two miles out of the way. But our direct road lies through Sir Leicester Dedlock's park, and in that fellow's property I have sworn never to set foot, while I breathe!" And he broke into one of his tremendous laughs, which seemed to shake even the motionless little market-town. "Are the Dedlocks down here, Lawrence?" said my guardian as we drove along and Mr. Boythorn trotted alongside. "Sir Arrogant Numskull is here," replied Mr. Boythorn. "Ha ha ha! I am glad to say, he has been laid by the heels here. My Lady," - he made a courtly gesture as if to exclude her from any part in the quarrel - "is expected daily. Whatever can have induced that transcendent woman to marry him is an impenetrable mystery. Ha ha ha ha!" "I suppose," said my guardian, laughing, "We may set foot in the park while we are here? The prohibition does not extend to us, does it?" "I can lay no prohibition on my guests," said Boythorn with smiling politeness. "I am only sorry that I cannot be their escort about Chesney Wold, which is a very fine place! But, Jarndyce, if you call upon the owner while you stay with me, you are likely to have a cool reception. He carries himself as stiffly as a grandfather clock at all times - Ha ha ha! - but he will have some extra stiffness, I can promise you, for the friends of his neighbour Boythorn!" "I shall not test it by seeing him," said my guardian. "A sight of the grounds and perhaps a view of the house are quite enough for me." "Well!" said Mr. Boythorn. "I am glad of it. I am looked upon around here as a second Ajax defying the lightning. Ha ha ha ha! When I go into our little church on a Sunday, most of the congregation expect to see me drop, scorched and withered, on the pavement under the Dedlock displeasure. Ha ha ha ha! By heaven, he is the most self-satisfied and utterly brainless ass!" On our coming to the ridge of a hill, our friend pointed out Chesney Wold. It was a picturesque old house in a fine park richly wooded, with the spire of the little church nearby. Oh, the solemn woods over which the light and shadow travelled swiftly, as if heavenly wings were sweeping through the summer air; the smooth green slopes, the glittering water, the garden full of the richest colours, how beautiful they looked! The house, with gable and chimney, and tower and turret, and broad terrace-walk, with a great flush of roses twining among its balustrades, seemed scarcely real in the serene and peaceful hush. That struck me above all. On everything, house, garden, terrace, woods, there seemed to be such undisturbed repose. We came into the little village and passed a small inn with the sign of the Dedlock Arms swinging over it. Mr. Boythorn exchanged greetings with a young gentleman sitting on a bench outside the inn, with fishing-tackle lying beside him. "That's the housekeeper's grandson, Mr. Rouncewell," said he, "and he is in love with a pretty girl up at the house. Lady Dedlock has taken a fancy to her and is going to keep her about her own fair person - an honour which my young friend does not at all appreciate. However, he has to make the best of it, and comes here pretty often - to fish. Ha ha ha ha!" Mr. Boythorn dismounted at his own door and stood ready to welcome us. He lived in a pretty house, formerly the parsonage, with a lawn in front, a bright flower-garden at the side, and a well-stocked orchard and kitchen-garden in the rear. Everything 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 onto the earth, the strawberries and raspberries grew in profusion, and the peaches basked by the hundred on the wall. Tumbled about among the glass frames were such heaps of marrows and cucumbers that every foot of ground appeared a vegetable treasury, while the smell of herbs sweetened the air. The house, though a little disorderly in comparison with the garden, was a real old house with seats in the chimney of the 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 day and night, whose duty in case of aggression was to ring a large bell, and unchain a great bull-dog from his kennel to deal destruction on the enemy. Mr. Boythorn had himself painted boards with the following solemn warnings: "Beware of the bull-dog. He is most ferocious. Lawrence Boythorn." "The blunderbuss is loaded. Lawrence Boythorn." "Man-traps and spring-guns are set here day and night. Lawrence Boythorn." "Take notice. Any person trespassing on this property will be punished with the utmost severity and rigour of the law. Lawrence Boythorn." Mr. Boythorn laughed as he showed us all these. "Let Sir Leicester Dedlock consent to decide this question by single combat," he said, "and I will meet him with any weapon known to mankind!" We arrived at his house on a Saturday. On the Sunday morning we all walked to the little church in the park. Entering the park near the disputed ground, we followed a pleasant footpath winding among trees until it brought us to the church-porch. The congregation was extremely small and quite rustic, apart from a large muster of servants from the house. There were some stately footmen, and a perfect picture of an old coachman. There was a very pretty show of young women, and above them, the handsome old face and fine portly figure of the housekeeper towered pre-eminent. The pretty girl of whom Mr. Boythorn had told us was close by her, blushingly conscious of the eyes of the young fisherman, whom I discovered not far off. One handsome face, though not an agreeable one, seemed maliciously watchful of this pretty girl, and indeed of everyone there. It was a Frenchwoman's. As the bell was still ringing, I had leisure to glance over the church, and to think what an ancient, solemn little church it was. The windows, heavily shaded by trees, admitted a subdued light that darkened the old monuments around me, and made the sunshine in the little porch seem very bright. A stir in that direction, and the reverential awe in the rustic faces, warned me that the great people were arriving 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, caused 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 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, even to the days when I had stood on tiptoe to dress myself at my little glass after dressing my doll. Yet I had never seen this lady's face before in all my life - I was quite sure of it. It was easy to know that the ceremonious, gouty old gentleman, the only other person in the great pew, was Sir Leicester Dedlock, and that the lady was Lady Dedlock. But why her face should be like a broken glass to me, in which I saw confused scraps of old remembrances, and why I should be so fluttered and troubled by having casually met her eyes, I could not think. I tried to overcome this weakness by attending to the words I heard. 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? Maybe it did, a little; but the expression was quite different, without the stern decision of my godmother's face. The loftiness and haughtiness of Lady Dedlock's face was unlike anyone I knew. And yet 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 had never seen until that hour. Trembling in this unaccountable agitation, 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. Very slowly, I at last overcame my strange emotion. After a long time, I looked towards Lady Dedlock again, before the sermon. She took no heed of me, and the beating at my heart was gone. Neither did it revive for more than a few moments when she once or twice afterwards glanced at Ada or at me. After the service, Sir Leicester gave his arm with much gallantry to Lady Dedlock - though he could only walk with a stick - and escorted her out to their carriage. The servants then dispersed, and so did the congregation, whom Sir Leicester had contemplated (Mr. Skimpole, said to Mr. Boythorn's delight) as if he were a landed proprietor in heaven. "He believes he is!" said Mr. Boythorn. "He firmly believes it!" "Do you know," pursued Mr. Skimpole unexpectedly, "it's agreeable to me to see a man of that sort." "Is it!" said Mr. Boythorn. "Say that he wants to patronize me," pursued Mr. Skimpole. "Very well! I don't object." "I do," said Mr. Boythorn with great vigour. "Do you really?" returned Mr. Skimpole in his easy light vein. "But that's taking trouble, surely. And why should you take trouble? Here am I, content to receive things childishly as they fall out, and I never take trouble! I come down here, for instance, and I find a mighty potentate exacting homage. Very well! I say 'Mighty potentate, here is my homage! It's easier to give it than to withhold it. Here it is.' That's my view of such things, speaking as a child!" "But suppose you went somewhere else tomorrow," said Mr. Boythorn, "where there was the opposite of that fellow. How then?" "How then?" said Mr. Skimpole. "Just the same then! I should say, 'My esteemed Boythorn' - to make you the personification of our imaginary friend - 'do you object to the mighty potentate? Very good. So do I. Everybody's business in the social system is to be agreeable. It's a system of harmony, in short. Therefore if you object, I object. Now, excellent Boythorn, let us go to dinner!'" "But excellent Boythorn might say," returned our host, swelling and growing very red, "I'll be-" "I understand," said Mr. Skimpole. "Very likely he would." "-if I will go to dinner!" cried Mr. Boythorn in a violent burst, striking his stick upon the ground. "And he would probably add, 'Is there such a thing as principle, Mr. Harold Skimpole?'" "To which Harold Skimpole would reply, you know," he returned in his gayest manner, " 'Upon my life I have not the least idea! I don't know what it is you call by that name. If you possess it and find it comfortable, I am quite delighted and congratulate you heartily. But I know nothing about it, I assure you; for I am a mere child, and I lay no claim to it!' So, you see, excellent Boythorn and I would go to dinner after all!" This was one of many little dialogues between them which I always expected to end in some violent explosion on the part of our host. But he had so high a sense of his hospitable duty, and my guardian laughed so sincerely at and with Mr. Skimpole, that matters never went beyond this point. Mr. Skimpole, who always seemed quite unconscious of having been on delicate ground, would then begin some sketch in the park which he never finished, or play fragments on the piano, or lie down on his back under a tree looking at the sky, an occupation which he said suited him exactly. "Enterprise and effort," he would say to us (on his back), "are delightful to me. I have the deepest sympathy with them. I lie in a shady place like this and think of adventurous spirits going to the North Pole or the tropics with admiration. Take an extreme case. Take the case of the slaves on American plantations. I dare say they are worked hard, I dare say they don't altogether like it; but they people the landscape for me, they give it a poetry for me, and perhaps that is one of the pleasanter objects of their existence. I shouldn't wonder if it were!" I always wondered on these occasions whether he ever thought of Mrs. Skimpole and the children. So far as I could understand, they were rarely present in his mind at all. A week passed; and every day had been so bright and blue that to ramble in the woods, and to see the light striking down among the leaves and sparkling in the beautiful interlacings of the shadows of the trees, while the birds poured out their songs, had been most delightful. We had one favourite spot, deep in moss and last year's leaves, where there were some felled trees. Seated among these, we looked through a green vista supported by thousands of natural columns. On Saturday we sat here, Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and I, until we heard thunder muttering in the distance and felt large raindrops rattle through the leaves. The storm broke so suddenly that before we reached the outskirts of the wood the thunder and lightning were frequent, and the rain came plunging through the leaves like great leaden beads. We ran out of the wood, and made for a keeper's lodge which was close at hand. We had often noticed the dark beauty of this lodge standing in a deep twilight of trees, with ivy clustered over it. A man came to the door and set out two chairs for Ada and me. The lodge was dark within; but the lattice-windows were all thrown open, and we sat just inside the doorway watching the storm. It was grand to see how the wind awoke, and bent the trees, and drove the rain before it like a cloud of smoke; and to hear the solemn thunder and to see the lightning; while thinking with awe of the tremendous powers by which our little lives are encompassed, yet which already brought a freshness from all this rage which seemed to make creation new again. "Is it not dangerous to sit in so exposed a place?" "Oh, no, Esther dear!" said Ada quietly. Ada said it to me, but I had not spoken. The beating of my heart came back again. I had never heard the voice, as I had never seen the face, but it affected me in the same strange way. Again, in a moment, there arose before my mind innumerable pictures of myself. Lady Dedlock had taken shelter in the lodge before our arrival and had come out of the gloom within. She stood behind my chair with her hand upon it, close to my shoulder. "I have frightened you?" she said. No. It was not fright. Why should I be frightened? "I believe," said Lady Dedlock to my guardian, "I have the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Jarndyce. I recognized you in church on Sunday. I am sorry that any local disputes of Sir Leicester's should make it difficult to show you attention here." "I am aware of the circumstances," returned my guardian with a smile, "and I am obliged to you." She had given him her hand in an indifferent way that seemed habitual to her and spoke in a correspondingly indifferent manner, though in a very pleasant voice. She was as graceful as she was beautiful, perfectly self-possessed, and had the air, I thought, of being able to attract and interest anyone if she thought it worth her while. The keeper brought her a chair, on which she sat between us. "Is the young gentleman settled, of whom you wrote to Sir Leicester?" she said to my guardian. "I hope so," said he. She seemed to respect him. There was something very winning in her haughty manner, as she spoke to him over her shoulder. "I presume this is your other ward in Chancery, Miss Clare?" He presented Ada. "But present me," and Lady Dedlock turned full upon me, "to this young lady too!" "Miss Summerson really is my ward," said Mr. Jarndyce. "I am responsible to no Lord Chancellor in her case." "Has Miss Summerson lost both her parents?" said my Lady. "Yes." "She is very fortunate in her guardian." Lady Dedlock looked at me, and I looked at her and said I was indeed. All at once she turned from me with a hasty air, almost expressive of displeasure or dislike, and spoke to him over her shoulder again. "Ages have passed since we were in the habit of meeting, Mr. Jarndyce." "A long time. At least I thought it was a long time, until I saw you last Sunday," he returned. "What! Even you are a courtier, or think it necessary to become one to me!" she said with some disdain. "I have achieved that reputation, I suppose." "You have achieved so much, Lady Dedlock," said my guardian, "that you pay some little penalty, I dare say. But none to me." "So much!" she repeated, slightly laughing. "Yes!" With her air of superiority, and power, and fascination, she seemed to regard Ada and me as little more than children. She laughed and sat looking at the rain, self-possessed and occupied with her thoughts. "I think you knew my sister when we were abroad together better than you know me?" she said, looking at him again. "Yes, we happened to meet oftener," he returned. "We went our several ways," said Lady Dedlock, "and had little in common even before we agreed to differ. It is to be regretted, I suppose, but it could not be helped." She again sat looking at the rain. The storm soon began to pass. The shower abated, the lightning ceased; the thunder rolled among the distant hills, and the sun began to glisten on the wet leaves. As we sat there silently, we saw a little pony phaeton coming towards us at a merry pace. "The messenger is coming back, my Lady," said the keeper, "with the carriage." As it drove up, we saw that there were two people inside. There alighted from it, with some cloaks and wrappers, first the Frenchwoman whom I had seen in church, and secondly the pretty girl. The Frenchwoman stepped out with a defiant confidence, the pretty girl confused and hesitating. "What now?" said Lady Dedlock. "Two!" "I am your maid, my Lady, at the present," said the Frenchwoman. "The message was for the maid." "I was afraid you might mean me, my Lady," said the pretty girl. "I did mean you, child," replied her mistress calmly. "Put that shawl on me." She slightly stooped her shoulders to receive it, and the pretty girl lightly dropped it in place. The Frenchwoman stood looking on with her lips very tightly set. "I am sorry," said Lady Dedlock to Mr. Jarndyce, "that we are not likely to renew our former acquaintance. You will allow me to send the carriage back for your two wards." But as he declined this offer, she took a graceful leave of Ada - none of me - put her hand upon his proffered arm, and got into the carriage. "Come in, child," she said to the pretty girl; "Go on!" The carriage rolled away, and the Frenchwoman, with the wrappers she had brought hanging over her arm, remained standing there. I suppose there is nothing pride can so little bear as another's pride, and that she was punished for her imperious manner. Her retaliation was singular. She remained perfectly still until the carriage had turned into the drive, and then, without the least discomposure, slipped off her shoes, left them on the ground, and walked deliberately in the same direction through wet grass. "Is that young woman mad?" said my guardian. "Oh, no, sir!" said the keeper. "But Hortense is mortal high and passionate; and what with having notice to leave, and having others put above her, she don't take kindly to it." "But why should she walk shoeless through all that water?" said my guardian. "Why, indeed, sir, unless it is to cool her down!" said the man. "Or unless she fancies it's blood," said the woman. "She'd as soon walk through that as anything else, I think, when her own blood's up!" We passed not far from the house a few minutes afterwards. Peaceful as it had looked when we first saw it, it looked even more so now, with a diamond spray glittering all about it, everything refreshed by the late rain, and the little carriage shining at the doorway like a fairy carriage made of silver. Very steadfastly and quietly walking towards it, went Mademoiselle Hortense, shoeless, through the wet grass.

Bleak House

Chapter 18: Lady Dedlock

My Lady Dedlock is restless, very restless. The astonished fashionable intelligence hardly knows where to have her. To-day she is at Chesney Wold; yesterday she was at her house in town; to-morrow she may be abroad, for anything the fashionable intelligence can with confidence predict. Even Sir Leicester's gallantry has some trouble to keep pace with her. It would have more but that his other faithful ally, for better and for worse--the gout--darts into the old oak bed-chamber at Chesney Wold and grips him by both legs. Sir Leicester receives the gout as a troublesome demon, but still a demon of the patrician order. All the Dedlocks, in the direct male line, through a course of time during and beyond which the memory of man goeth not to the contrary, have had the gout. It can be proved, sir. Other men's fathers may have died of the rheumatism or may have taken base contagion from the tainted blood of the sick vulgar, but the Dedlock family have communicated something exclusive even to the levelling process of dying by dying of their own family gout. It has come down through the illustrious line like the plate, or the pictures, or the place in Lincolnshire. It is among their dignities. Sir Leicester is perhaps not wholly without an impression, though he has never resolved it into words, that the angel of death in the discharge of his necessary duties may observe to the shades of the aristocracy, "My lords and gentlemen, I have the honour to present to you another Dedlock certified to have arrived per the family gout." Hence Sir Leicester yields up his family legs to the family disorder as if he held his name and fortune on that feudal tenure. He feels that for a Dedlock to be laid upon his back and spasmodically twitched and stabbed in his extremities is a liberty taken somewhere, but he thinks, "We have all yielded to this; it belongs to us; it has for some hundreds of years been understood that we are not to make the vaults in the park interesting on more ignoble terms; and I submit myself to the compromise." And a goodly show he makes, lying in a flush of crimson and gold in the midst of the great drawing-room before his favourite picture of my Lady, with broad strips of sunlight shining in, down the long perspective, through the long line of windows, and alternating with soft reliefs of shadow. Outside, the stately oaks, rooted for ages in the green ground which has never known ploughshare, but was still a chase when kings rode to battle with sword and shield and rode a-hunting with bow and arrow, bear witness to his greatness. Inside, his forefathers, looking on him from the walls, say, "Each of us was a passing reality here and left this coloured shadow of himself and melted into remembrance as dreamy as the distant voices of the rooks now lulling you to rest," and hear their testimony to his greatness too. And he is very great this day. And woe to Boythorn or other daring wight who shall presumptuously contest an inch with him! My Lady is at present represented, near Sir Leicester, by her portrait. She has flitted away to town, with no intention of remaining there, and will soon flit hither again, to the confusion of the fashionable intelligence. The house in town is not prepared for her reception. It is muffled and dreary. Only one Mercury in powder gapes disconsolate at the hall-window; and he mentioned last night to another Mercury of his acquaintance, also accustomed to good society, that if that sort of thing was to last--which it couldn't, for a man of his spirits couldn't bear it, and a man of his figure couldn't be expected to bear it--there would be no resource for him, upon his honour, but to cut his throat! What connexion can there be between the place in Lincolnshire, the house in town, the Mercury in powder, and the whereabout of Jo the outlaw with the broom, who had that distant ray of light upon him when he swept the churchyard-step? What connexion can there have been between many people in the innumerable histories of this world who from opposite sides of great gulfs have, nevertheless, been very curiously brought together! Jo sweeps his crossing all day long, unconscious of the link, if any link there be. He sums up his mental condition when asked a question by replying that he "don't know nothink." He knows that it's hard to keep the mud off the crossing in dirty weather, and harder still to live by doing it. Nobody taught him even that much; he found it out. Jo lives--that is to say, Jo has not yet died--in a ruinous place known to the like of him by the name of Tom-all-Alone's. It is a black, dilapidated street, avoided by all decent people, where the crazy houses were seized upon, when their decay was far advanced, by some bold vagrants who after establishing their own possession took to letting them out in lodgings. Now, these tumbling tenements contain, by night, a swarm of misery. As on the ruined human wretch vermin parasites appear, so these ruined shelters have bred a crowd of foul existence that crawls in and out of gaps in walls and boards; and coils itself to sleep, in maggot numbers, where the rain drips in; and comes and goes, fetching and carrying fever and sowing more evil in its every footprint than Lord Coodle, and Sir Thomas Doodle, and the Duke of Foodle, and all the fine gentlemen in office, down to Zoodle, shall set right in five hundred years--though born expressly to do it. Twice lately there has been a crash and a cloud of dust, like the springing of a mine, in Tom-all-Alone's; and each time a house has fallen. These accidents have made a paragraph in the newspapers and have filled a bed or two in the nearest hospital. The gaps remain, and there are not unpopular lodgings among the rubbish. As several more houses are nearly ready to go, the next crash in Tom-all-Alone's may be expected to be a good one. This desirable property is in Chancery, of course. It would be an insult to the discernment of any man with half an eye to tell him so. Whether "Tom" is the popular representative of the original plaintiff or defendant in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, or whether Tom lived here when the suit had laid the street waste, all alone, until other settlers came to join him, or whether the traditional title is a comprehensive name for a retreat cut off from honest company and put out of the pale of hope, perhaps nobody knows. Certainly Jo don't know. "For I don't," says Jo, "I don't know nothink." It must be a strange state to be like Jo! To shuffle through the streets, unfamiliar with the shapes, and in utter darkness as to the meaning, of those mysterious symbols, so abundant over the shops, and at the corners of streets, and on the doors, and in the windows! To see people read, and to see people write, and to see the postmen deliver letters, and not to have the least idea of all that language--to be, to every scrap of it, stone blind and dumb! It must be very puzzling to see the good company going to the churches on Sundays, with their books in their hands, and to think (for perhaps Jo DOES think at odd times) what does it all mean, and if it means anything to anybody, how comes it that it means nothing to me? To be hustled, and jostled, and moved on; and really to feel that it would appear to be perfectly true that I have no business here, or there, or anywhere; and yet to be perplexed by the consideration that I AM here somehow, too, and everybody overlooked me until I became the creature that I am! It must be a strange state, not merely to be told that I am scarcely human (as in the case of my offering myself for a witness), but to feel it of my own knowledge all my life! To see the horses, dogs, and cattle go by me and to know that in ignorance I belong to them and not to the superior beings in my shape, whose delicacy I offend! Jo's ideas of a criminal trial, or a judge, or a bishop, or a government, or that inestimable jewel to him (if he only knew it) the Constitution, should be strange! His whole material and immaterial life is wonderfully strange; his death, the strangest thing of all. Jo comes out of Tom-all-Alone's, meeting the tardy morning which is always late in getting down there, and munches his dirty bit of bread as he comes along. His way lying through many streets, and the houses not yet being open, he sits down to breakfast on the door-step of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts and gives it a brush when he has finished as an acknowledgment of the accommodation. He admires the size of the edifice and wonders what it's all about. He has no idea, poor wretch, of the spiritual destitution of a coral reef in the Pacific or what it costs to look up the precious souls among the coco-nuts and bread-fruit. He goes to his crossing and begins to lay it out for the day. The town awakes; the great tee-totum is set up for its daily spin and whirl; all that unaccountable reading and writing, which has been suspended for a few hours, recommences. Jo and the other lower animals get on in the unintelligible mess as they can. It is market-day. The blinded oxen, over-goaded, over-driven, never guided, run into wrong places and are beaten out, and plunge red-eyed and foaming at stone walls, and often sorely hurt the innocent, and often sorely hurt themselves. Very like Jo and his order; very, very like! A band of music comes and plays. Jo listens to it. So does a dog--a drover's dog, waiting for his master outside a butcher's shop, and evidently thinking about those sheep he has had upon his mind for some hours and is happily rid of. He seems perplexed respecting three or four, can't remember where he left them, looks up and down the street as half expecting to see them astray, suddenly pricks up his ears and remembers all about it. A thoroughly vagabond dog, accustomed to low company and public-houses; a terrific dog to sheep, ready at a whistle to scamper over their backs and tear out mouthfuls of their wool; but an educated, improved, developed dog who has been taught his duties and knows how to discharge them. He and Jo listen to the music, probably with much the same amount of animal satisfaction; likewise as to awakened association, aspiration, or regret, melancholy or joyful reference to things beyond the senses, they are probably upon a par. But, otherwise, how far above the human listener is the brute! Turn that dog's descendants wild, like Jo, and in a very few years they will so degenerate that they will lose even their bark--but not their bite. The day changes as it wears itself away and becomes dark and drizzly. Jo fights it out at his crossing among the mud and wheels, the horses, whips, and umbrellas, and gets but a scanty sum to pay for the unsavoury shelter of Tom-all-Alone's. Twilight comes on; gas begins to start up in the shops; the lamplighter, with his ladder, runs along the margin of the pavement. A wretched evening is beginning to close in. In his chambers Mr. Tulkinghorn sits meditating an application to the nearest magistrate to-morrow morning for a warrant. Gridley, a disappointed suitor, has been here to-day and has been alarming. We are not to be put in bodily fear, and that ill-conditioned fellow shall be held to bail again. From the ceiling, foreshortened Allegory, in the person of one impossible Roman upside down, points with the arm of Samson (out of joint, and an odd one) obtrusively toward the window. Why should Mr. Tulkinghorn, for such no reason, look out of window? Is the hand not always pointing there? So he does not look out of window. And if he did, what would it be to see a woman going by? There are women enough in the world, Mr. Tulkinghorn thinks--too many; they are at the bottom of all that goes wrong in it, though, for the matter of that, they create business for lawyers. What would it be to see a woman going by, even though she were going secretly? They are all secret. Mr. Tulkinghorn knows that very well. But they are not all like the woman who now leaves him and his house behind, between whose plain dress and her refined manner there is something exceedingly inconsistent. She should be an upper servant by her attire, yet in her air and step, though both are hurried and assumed--as far as she can assume in the muddy streets, which she treads with an unaccustomed foot--she is a lady. Her face is veiled, and still she sufficiently betrays herself to make more than one of those who pass her look round sharply. She never turns her head. Lady or servant, she has a purpose in her and can follow it. She never turns her head until she comes to the crossing where Jo plies with his broom. He crosses with her and begs. Still, she does not turn her head until she has landed on the other side. Then she slightly beckons to him and says, "Come here!" Jo follows her a pace or two into a quiet court. "Are you the boy I've read of in the papers?" she asked behind her veil. "I don't know," says Jo, staring moodily at the veil, "nothink about no papers. I don't know nothink about nothink at all." "Were you examined at an inquest?" "I don't know nothink about no--where I was took by the beadle, do you mean?" says Jo. "Was the boy's name at the inkwhich Jo?" "Yes." "That's me!" says Jo. "Come farther up." "You mean about the man?" says Jo, following. "Him as wos dead?" "Hush! Speak in a whisper! Yes. Did he look, when he was living, so very ill and poor?" "Oh, jist!" says Jo. "Did he look like--not like YOU?" says the woman with abhorrence. "Oh, not so bad as me," says Jo. "I'm a reg'lar one I am! You didn't know him, did you?" "How dare you ask me if I knew him?" "No offence, my lady," says Jo with much humility, for even he has got at the suspicion of her being a lady. "I am not a lady. I am a servant." "You are a jolly servant!" says Jo without the least idea of saying anything offensive, merely as a tribute of admiration. "Listen and be silent. Don't talk to me, and stand farther from me! Can you show me all those places that were spoken of in the account I read? The place he wrote for, the place he died at, the place where you were taken to, and the place where he was buried? Do you know the place where he was buried?" Jo answers with a nod, having also nodded as each other place was mentioned. "Go before me and show me all those dreadful places. Stop opposite to each, and don't speak to me unless I speak to you. Don't look back. Do what I want, and I will pay you well." Jo attends closely while the words are being spoken; tells them off on his broom-handle, finding them rather hard; pauses to consider their meaning; considers it satisfactory; and nods his ragged head. "I'm fly," says Jo. "But fen larks, you know. Stow hooking it!" "What does the horrible creature mean?" exclaims the servant, recoiling from him. "Stow cutting away, you know!" says Jo. "I don't understand you. Go on before! I will give you more money than you ever had in your life." Jo screws up his mouth into a whistle, gives his ragged head a rub, takes his broom under his arm, and leads the way, passing deftly with his bare feet over the hard stones and through the mud and mire. Cook's Court. Jo stops. A pause. "Who lives here?" "Him wot give him his writing and give me half a bull," says Jo in a whisper without looking over his shoulder. "Go on to the next." Krook's house. Jo stops again. A longer pause. "Who lives here?" "HE lived here," Jo answers as before. After a silence he is asked, "In which room?" "In the back room up there. You can see the winder from this corner. Up there! That's where I see him stritched out. This is the public-ouse where I was took to." "Go on to the next!" It is a longer walk to the next, but Jo, relieved of his first suspicions, sticks to the forms imposed upon him and does not look round. By many devious ways, reeking with offence of many kinds, they come to the little tunnel of a court, and to the gas-lamp (lighted now), and to the iron gate. "He was put there," says Jo, holding to the bars and looking in. "Where? Oh, what a scene of horror!" "There!" says Jo, pointing. "Over yinder. Among them piles of bones, and close to that there kitchin winder! They put him wery nigh the top. They was obliged to stamp upon it to git it in. I could unkiver it for you with my broom if the gate was open. That's why they locks it, I s'pose," giving it a shake. "It's always locked. Look at the rat!" cries Jo, excited. "Hi! Look! There he goes! Ho! Into the ground!" The servant shrinks into a corner, into a corner of that hideous archway, with its deadly stains contaminating her dress; and putting out her two hands and passionately telling him to keep away from her, for he is loathsome to her, so remains for some moments. Jo stands staring and is still staring when she recovers herself. "Is this place of abomination consecrated ground?" "I don't know nothink of consequential ground," says Jo, still staring. "Is it blessed?" "Which?" says Jo, in the last degree amazed. "Is it blessed?" "I'm blest if I know," says Jo, staring more than ever; "but I shouldn't think it warn't. Blest?" repeats Jo, something troubled in his mind. "It an't done it much good if it is. Blest? I should think it was t'othered myself. But I don't know nothink!" The servant takes as little heed of what he says as she seems to take of what she has said herself. She draws off her glove to get some money from her purse. Jo silently notices how white and small her hand is and what a jolly servant she must be to wear such sparkling rings. She drops a piece of money in his hand without touching it, and shuddering as their hands approach. "Now," she adds, "show me the spot again!" Jo thrusts the handle of his broom between the bars of the gate, and with his utmost power of elaboration, points it out. At length, looking aside to see if he has made himself intelligible, he finds that he is alone. His first proceeding is to hold the piece of money to the gas-light and to be overpowered at finding that it is yellow--gold. His next is to give it a one-sided bite at the edge as a test of its quality. His next, to put it in his mouth for safety and to sweep the step and passage with great care. His job done, he sets off for Tom-all-Alone's, stopping in the light of innumerable gas-lamps to produce the piece of gold and give it another one-sided bite as a reassurance of its being genuine. The Mercury in powder is in no want of society to-night, for my Lady goes to a grand dinner and three or four balls. Sir Leicester is fidgety down at Chesney Wold, with no better company than the gout; he complains to Mrs. Rouncewell that the rain makes such a monotonous pattering on the terrace that he can't read the paper even by the fireside in his own snug dressing-room. "Sir Leicester would have done better to try the other side of the house, my dear," says Mrs. Rouncewell to Rosa. "His dressing-room is on my Lady's side. And in all these years I never heard the step upon the Ghost's Walk more distinct than it is to-night!"

My Lady Dedlock is very restless. Today she is at Chesney Wold; yesterday she was at her house in town; tomorrow she may be abroad, for anything anyone can predict. Even Sir Leicester's gallantry cannot keep pace with her, for the gout has gripped him by both legs. Sir Leicester views the gout as a troublesome but aristocratic demon. All the Dedlocks, in the male line, have had the gout. Other men's fathers may have died of vulgar complaints, but the Dedlock family have a higher class of illness. It has come down through the illustrious line like the silver-plate, or the place in Lincolnshire. So Sir Leicester yields up his family legs to the family disorder as his inheritance. He feels that for a Dedlock to be laid upon his back and spasmodically stabbed in his extremities is a liberty taken somewhere, but he thinks, "We have all yielded to this; it belongs to us; and I submit myself to it." And a good picture he makes, lying in a flush of crimson and gold in the great drawing-room before his favourite picture of my Lady, with broad strips of sunlight shining in through the long line of windows. Outside, the stately oaks, rooted in the green ground which has never known the plough, but has been a hunting-estate for centuries, bear witness to his greatness. Inside, his forefathers, looking on him from the walls, say, "Each of us was a passing reality here and left this coloured shadow of himself." My Lady is at present represented by her portrait. She has flitted away to town, and will soon flit back here again, to the confusion of the fashionable world. The house in town is not prepared for her reception. It is muffled and dreary. Only one powdered footman gapes disconsolate at the hall-window. What connexion can there be between the place in Lincolnshire, the house in town, the footman, and the whereabouts of Jo the outlaw with the broom, who swept the churchyard-step? Jo sweeps his crossing all day long, unconscious of the link, if any link there be. He sums up his mental condition when asked a question by replying that he "don't know nothink." He knows that it's hard to keep the mud off the crossing in dirty weather, and harder still to live by doing it. Nobody taught him even that much; he found it out. Jo lives - that is to say, Jo has not yet died - in a ruinous place known as Tom-all-Alone's. It is a black, dilapidated street, avoided by decent people, where the crazy, decaying houses were seized upon by some bold vagrants who then let them out as lodgings. Now, these tumbling tenements contain, by night, a swarm of misery. Like parasites on a ruined human body, a crowd of foul existence crawls in and out of gaps in walls; and coils itself to sleep, in maggot numbers, where the rain drips in; and comes and goes, fetching and carrying fever and evil in every footprint. Twice lately there has been a crash and a cloud of dust in Tom-all-Alone's; each time a house has fallen. These accidents have made a paragraph in the newspapers and have filled a bed or two in the nearest hospital. The gaps remain, and there are not unpopular lodgings among the rubbish. As several more houses are nearly ready to go, the next crash in Tom-all-Alone's is expected to be a good one. This desirable property is in Chancery, of course. Whether "Tom" represents the original plaintiff in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, or whether Tom lived here when the suit had laid the street waste, or whether the title is a traditional name, perhaps nobody knows. Certainly Jo doesn't know. "For I don't know nothink," says Jo. It must be a strange state to be like Jo! To shuffle through the streets, in utter darkness as to the meaning of those mysterious symbols over the shops, and in the windows! To see people read and write, and not to have the least idea of all that language! It must be very puzzling to see the good company going to the churches on Sundays, with their books in their hands, and to think (for perhaps Jo does think at odd times) what does it all mean, and how comes it that it means nothing to me? To be hustled, and jostled, and moved on; and yet to be perplexed by the feeling that I am here somehow, and everybody overlooked me until I became the creature that I am! It must be a strange state, not merely to be told that I am scarcely human, but to feel it! To see the horses, dogs, and cattle go by me and to know that in ignorance I belong with them and not to the superior beings whose delicacy I offend! Jo comes out of Tom-all-Alone's, munching his dirty bit of bread. He sits down to breakfast on the door-step of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts and gives it a brush when he has finished, in return for the seat. He admires the size of the building and wonders what it's all about. He goes to his crossing and begins to lay it out for the day. The town awakes to its daily spin and whirl; all that unaccountable reading and writing recommences. Jo and the other lower animals get on in the unintelligible mess as they can. It is market-day. The blinded oxen, over-goaded, over-driven, never guided, run into wrong places and are beaten out, and plunge red-eyed at stone walls, and often sorely hurt the innocent, and themselves. Very like Jo and his order; very like! A band of music comes and plays. Jo listens to it. So does a drover's dog, waiting for his master outside a butcher's shop. A vagabond dog, accustomed to low company and public-houses; a terrifying dog to sheep, ready at a whistle to tear out mouthfuls of their wool; but an educated, improved dog who has been taught his duties and knows how to do them. He and Jo listen to the music, probably with much the same amount of animal satisfaction; as to awakened associations, they are probably upon a par. But, otherwise, how far above the human listener is the brute! The day changes as it wears itself away, and becomes dark and drizzly. Jo fights it out at his crossing among the mud and wheels, the horses, whips, and umbrellas, and gets only a scanty sum to pay for the unsavoury shelter of Tom-all-Alone's. Twilight comes on; gas lamps are lit; the lamplighter, with his ladder, runs along the pavement. A wretched evening is beginning to close in. In his chambers Mr. Tulkinghorn sits meditating an application to a magistrate tomorrow morning for a warrant. Gridley has been here today and has been alarming. He needs to be held to bail again. Mr. Tulkinghorn does not look out of the window. And if he did, what would it be to see a woman going by? There are too many women in the world, Mr. Tulkinghorn thinks; they are at the bottom of all that goes wrong in it, although they create business for lawyers. What would it be to see a woman going by, even though she were going secretly? They are all secret. Mr. Tulkinghorn knows that very well. But they are not all like the woman who now leaves him and his house behind, whose plain dress does not match her refined manner. She should be an upper servant by her clothing, yet in her air and step - even in the muddy streets - she is a lady. Her face is veiled, and still she betrays herself enough to make some who pass her look round sharply. She never turns her head. Lady or servant, she has a purpose and never turns her head until she comes to the crossing where Jo plies with his broom. He crosses with her and begs. Still, she does not turn her head until she is on the other side. Then she slightly beckons to him and says, "Come here!" Jo follows her a pace or two into a quiet court. "Are you the boy I've read of in the papers?" she asks behind her veil. "I don't know," says Jo. "I don't know nothink about no papers." "Were you examined at an inquest?" "I don't know nothink about no - where I was took by the beadle, do you mean?" says Jo. "Was the boy's name at the inkwhich Jo?" "Yes." "That's me!" says Jo. "You mean about the man? Him as wos dead?" "Hush! Whisper! Yes. Did he look, when he was living, so very ill and poor?" "Oh, jist!" says Jo. "Did he look like you?" says the woman with abhorrence. "Oh, not so bad as me," says Jo. "You didn't know him, did you?" "How dare you ask me that?" "No offence, my lady," says Jo humbly, for even he suspects her of being a lady. "I am not a lady. I am a servant." "You're a jolly servant!" says Jo in admiration. "Listen and be silent. Stand farther away! Can you show me those places that were spoken of in the account I read? The place he wrote for, the place he died at, the place where you were taken to, and the place where he was buried?" Jo answers with a nod for each. "Go ahead of me and show me all those dreadful places. Stop opposite each, and don't speak to me unless I speak to you. Don't look back. I will pay you well." Jo attends closely to these words, finding them rather hard; pauses to consider their meaning; and nods his ragged head. "I'm fly," says Jo. "But fen larks, you know. Stow hooking it!" "What does the horrible creature mean?" exclaims the servant, recoiling from him. "I don't understand you. Go on! I will give you more money than you ever had in your life." Jo screws up his mouth into a whistle, takes his broom under his arm, and leads the way in his bare feet over the hard stones and through the mud and mire. Cook's Court. Jo stops. A pause. "Who lives here?" "Him wot give him his writing," says Jo in a whisper without looking over his shoulder. "Go on to the next." Krook's house. Jo stops again. A longer pause. "Who lives here?" "He lived here," Jo answers as before. After a silence he is asked, "In which room?" "In the back room up there. You can see the winder from this corner. That's where I see him stritched out. This is the public-ouse where I was took to." "Go on to the next!" It is a longer walk to the next, but Jo does not look round. By many devious and reeking ways, they come to the little tunnel of a court, and to the iron gate. "He was put there," says Jo, holding to the bars and looking in. "Where? Oh, what a scene of horror!" "There!" says Jo, pointing. "Over yinder. Among them piles of bones, wery nigh the top. They was obliged to stamp upon it to git it in. I could unkiver it for you with my broom if the gate was open," giving it a shake, "but it's always locked. Look at the rat!" cries Jo, excited. "Hi! There he goes, into the ground!" The woman shrinks into a corner of that hideous archway, with its deadly stains contaminating her dress; and putting out her hands and passionately telling him to keep away from her, so remains for some moments. Jo stands staring until she recovers herself. "Is this place of abomination consecrated ground?" "I don't know nothink of consequential ground," says Jo. "Is it blessed?" "Which?" says Jo, amazed. "Is it blessed?" "I'm blest if I know," says Jo, staring more than ever; "but I shouldn't think so. It an't done it much good if it is. Blest? I should think it was t'othered myself. But I don't know nothink!" The servant takes little heed of what he says. She draws off her glove to get some money from her purse. Jo silently notices how white and small her hand is and what a jolly servant she must be to wear such sparkling rings. She drops a piece of money in his hand without touching it, shuddering as their hands approach. "Now," she adds, "show me the spot again!" Jo thrusts the handle of his broom between the bars of the gate, and points it out. At length, looking around, he finds that he is alone. He holds the piece of money to the gas-light and is overpowered at finding that it is yellow - gold. He tests it with a bite, then puts it in his mouth for safety. He sweeps the step and passage with great care. His job done, he sets off for Tom-all-Alone's, stopping in the light of many gas-lamps to produce the piece of gold and give it another look to reassure himself that it is genuine. That evening my Lady Dedlock goes to a grand dinner and three or four balls. Sir Leicester is fidgety down at Chesney Wold; he complains to Mrs. Rouncewell that the rain makes such a monotonous pattering on the terrace that he can't read the paper in his dressing-room. "Sir Leicester would have done better to try the other side of the house, my dear," says Mrs. Rouncewell to Rosa. "His dressing-room is on my Lady's side. And in all these years I never heard the step upon the Ghost's Walk more distinct than it is tonight!"

Bleak House

Chapter 16: Tom-all-Alone's

While we were in London Mr. Jarndyce was constantly beset by the crowd of excitable ladies and gentlemen whose proceedings had so much astonished us. Mr. Quale, who presented himself soon after our arrival, was in all such excitements. He seemed to project those two shining knobs of temples of his into everything that went on and to brush his hair farther and farther back, until the very roots were almost ready to fly out of his head in inappeasable philanthropy. All objects were alike to him, but he was always particularly ready for anything in the way of a testimonial to any one. His great power seemed to be his power of indiscriminate admiration. He would sit for any length of time, with the utmost enjoyment, bathing his temples in the light of any order of luminary. Having first seen him perfectly swallowed up in admiration of Mrs. Jellyby, I had supposed her to be the absorbing object of his devotion. I soon discovered my mistake and found him to be train-bearer and organ-blower to a whole procession of people. Mrs. Pardiggle came one day for a subscription to something, and with her, Mr. Quale. Whatever Mrs. Pardiggle said, Mr. Quale repeated to us; and just as he had drawn Mrs. Jellyby out, he drew Mrs. Pardiggle out. Mrs. Pardiggle wrote a letter of introduction to my guardian in behalf of her eloquent friend Mr. Gusher. With Mr. Gusher appeared Mr. Quale again. Mr. Gusher, being a flabby gentleman with a moist surface and eyes so much too small for his moon of a face that they seemed to have been originally made for somebody else, was not at first sight prepossessing; yet he was scarcely seated before Mr. Quale asked Ada and me, not inaudibly, whether he was not a great creature--which he certainly was, flabbily speaking, though Mr. Quale meant in intellectual beauty--and whether we were not struck by his massive configuration of brow. In short, we heard of a great many missions of various sorts among this set of people, but nothing respecting them was half so clear to us as that it was Mr. Quale's mission to be in ecstasies with everybody else's mission and that it was the most popular mission of all. Mr. Jarndyce had fallen into this company in the tenderness of his heart and his earnest desire to do all the good in his power; but that he felt it to be too often an unsatisfactory company, where benevolence took spasmodic forms, where charity was assumed as a regular uniform by loud professors and speculators in cheap notoriety, vehement in profession, restless and vain in action, servile in the last degree of meanness to the great, adulatory of one another, and intolerable to those who were anxious quietly to help the weak from failing rather than with a great deal of bluster and self-laudation to raise them up a little way when they were down, he plainly told us. When a testimonial was originated to Mr. Quale by Mr. Gusher (who had already got one, originated by Mr. Quale), and when Mr. Gusher spoke for an hour and a half on the subject to a meeting, including two charity schools of small boys and girls, who were specially reminded of the widow's mite, and requested to come forward with halfpence and be acceptable sacrifices, I think the wind was in the east for three whole weeks. I mention this because I am coming to Mr. Skimpole again. It seemed to me that his off-hand professions of childishness and carelessness were a great relief to my guardian, by contrast with such things, and were the more readily believed in since to find one perfectly undesigning and candid man among many opposites could not fail to give him pleasure. I should be sorry to imply that Mr. Skimpole divined this and was politic; I really never understood him well enough to know. What he was to my guardian, he certainly was to the rest of the world. He had not been very well; and thus, though he lived in London, we had seen nothing of him until now. He appeared one morning in his usual agreeable way and as full of pleasant spirits as ever. Well, he said, here he was! He had been bilious, but rich men were often bilious, and therefore he had been persuading himself that he was a man of property. So he was, in a certain point of view--in his expansive intentions. He had been enriching his medical attendant in the most lavish manner. He had always doubled, and sometimes quadrupled, his fees. He had said to the doctor, "Now, my dear doctor, it is quite a delusion on your part to suppose that you attend me for nothing. I am overwhelming you with money--in my expansive intentions--if you only knew it!" And really (he said) he meant it to that degree that he thought it much the same as doing it. If he had had those bits of metal or thin paper to which mankind attached so much importance to put in the doctor's hand, he would have put them in the doctor's hand. Not having them, he substituted the will for the deed. Very well! If he really meant it--if his will were genuine and real, which it was--it appeared to him that it was the same as coin, and cancelled the obligation. "It may be, partly, because I know nothing of the value of money," said Mr. Skimpole, "but I often feel this. It seems so reasonable! My butcher says to me he wants that little bill. It's a part of the pleasant unconscious poetry of the man's nature that he always calls it a 'little' bill--to make the payment appear easy to both of us. I reply to the butcher, 'My good friend, if you knew it, you are paid. You haven't had the trouble of coming to ask for the little bill. You are paid. I mean it.'" "But, suppose," said my guardian, laughing, "he had meant the meat in the bill, instead of providing it?" "My dear Jarndyce," he returned, "you surprise me. You take the butcher's position. A butcher I once dealt with occupied that very ground. Says he, 'Sir, why did you eat spring lamb at eighteen pence a pound?' 'Why did I eat spring lamb at eighteen pence a pound, my honest friend?' said I, naturally amazed by the question. 'I like spring lamb!' This was so far convincing. 'Well, sir,' says he, 'I wish I had meant the lamb as you mean the money!' 'My good fellow,' said I, 'pray let us reason like intellectual beings. How could that be? It was impossible. You HAD got the lamb, and I have NOT got the money. You couldn't really mean the lamb without sending it in, whereas I can, and do, really mean the money without paying it!' He had not a word. There was an end of the subject." "Did he take no legal proceedings?" inquired my guardian. "Yes, he took legal proceedings," said Mr. Skimpole. "But in that he was influenced by passion, not by reason. Passion reminds me of Boythorn. He writes me that you and the ladies have promised him a short visit at his bachelor-house in Lincolnshire." "He is a great favourite with my girls," said Mr. Jarndyce, "and I have promised for them." "Nature forgot to shade him off, I think," observed Mr. Skimpole to Ada and me. "A little too boisterous--like the sea. A little too vehement--like a bull who has made up his mind to consider every colour scarlet. But I grant a sledge-hammering sort of merit in him!" I should have been surprised if those two could have thought very highly of one another, Mr. Boythorn attaching so much importance to many things and Mr. Skimpole caring so little for anything. Besides which, I had noticed Mr. Boythorn more than once on the point of breaking out into some strong opinion when Mr. Skimpole was referred to. Of course I merely joined Ada in saying that we had been greatly pleased with him. "He has invited me," said Mr. Skimpole; "and if a child may trust himself in such hands--which the present child is encouraged to do, with the united tenderness of two angels to guard him--I shall go. He proposes to frank me down and back again. I suppose it will cost money? Shillings perhaps? Or pounds? Or something of that sort? By the by, Coavinses. You remember our friend Coavinses, Miss Summerson?" He asked me as the subject arose in his mind, in his graceful, light-hearted manner and without the least embarrassment. "Oh, yes!" said I. "Coavinses has been arrested by the Great Bailiff," said Mr. Skimpole. "He will never do violence to the sunshine any more." It quite shocked me to hear it, for I had already recalled with anything but a serious association the image of the man sitting on the sofa that night wiping his head. "His successor informed me of it yesterday," said Mr. Skimpole. "His successor is in my house now--in possession, I think he calls it. He came yesterday, on my blue-eyed daughter's birthday. I put it to him, 'This is unreasonable and inconvenient. If you had a blue-eyed daughter you wouldn't like ME to come, uninvited, on HER birthday?' But he stayed." Mr. Skimpole laughed at the pleasant absurdity and lightly touched the piano by which he was seated. "And he told me," he said, playing little chords where I shall put full stops, "The Coavinses had left. Three children. No mother. And that Coavinses' profession. Being unpopular. The rising Coavinses. Were at a considerable disadvantage." Mr. Jarndyce got up, rubbing his head, and began to walk about. Mr. Skimpole played the melody of one of Ada's favourite songs. Ada and I both looked at Mr. Jarndyce, thinking that we knew what was passing in his mind. After walking and stopping, and several times leaving off rubbing his head, and beginning again, my guardian put his hand upon the keys and stopped Mr. Skimpole's playing. "I don't like this, Skimpole," he said thoughtfully. Mr. Skimpole, who had quite forgotten the subject, looked up surprised. "The man was necessary," pursued my guardian, walking backward and forward in the very short space between the piano and the end of the room and rubbing his hair up from the back of his head as if a high east wind had blown it into that form. "If we make such men necessary by our faults and follies, or by our want of worldly knowledge, or by our misfortunes, we must not revenge ourselves upon them. There was no harm in his trade. He maintained his children. One would like to know more about this." "Oh! Coavinses?" cried Mr. Skimpole, at length perceiving what he meant. "Nothing easier. A walk to Coavinses' headquarters, and you can know what you will." Mr. Jarndyce nodded to us, who were only waiting for the signal. "Come! We will walk that way, my dears. Why not that way as soon as another!" We were quickly ready and went out. Mr. Skimpole went with us and quite enjoyed the expedition. It was so new and so refreshing, he said, for him to want Coavinses instead of Coavinses wanting him! He took us, first, to Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, where there was a house with barred windows, which he called Coavinses' Castle. On our going into the entry and ringing a bell, a very hideous boy came out of a sort of office and looked at us over a spiked wicket. "Who did you want?" said the boy, fitting two of the spikes into his chin. "There was a follower, or an officer, or something, here," said Mr. Jarndyce, "who is dead." "Yes?" said the boy. "Well?" "I want to know his name, if you please?" "Name of Neckett," said the boy. "And his address?" "Bell Yard," said the boy. "Chandler's shop, left hand side, name of Blinder." "Was he--I don't know how to shape the question--" murmured my guardian, "industrious?" "Was Neckett?" said the boy. "Yes, wery much so. He was never tired of watching. He'd set upon a post at a street corner eight or ten hours at a stretch if he undertook to do it." "He might have done worse," I heard my guardian soliloquize. "He might have undertaken to do it and not done it. Thank you. That's all I want." We left the boy, with his head on one side and his arms on the gate, fondling and sucking the spikes, and went back to Lincoln's Inn, where Mr. Skimpole, who had not cared to remain nearer Coavinses, awaited us. Then we all went to Bell Yard, a narrow alley at a very short distance. We soon found the chandler's shop. In it was a good-natured-looking old woman with a dropsy, or an asthma, or perhaps both. "Neckett's children?" said she in reply to my inquiry. "Yes, Surely, miss. Three pair, if you please. Door right opposite the stairs." And she handed me the key across the counter. I glanced at the key and glanced at her, but she took it for granted that I knew what to do with it. As it could only be intended for the children's door, I came out without asking any more questions and led the way up the dark stairs. We went as quietly as we could, but four of us made some noise on the aged boards, and when we came to the second story we found we had disturbed a man who was standing there looking out of his room. "Is it Gridley that's wanted?" he said, fixing his eyes on me with an angry stare. "No, sir," said I; "I am going higher up." He looked at Ada, and at Mr. Jarndyce, and at Mr. Skimpole, fixing the same angry stare on each in succession as they passed and followed me. Mr. Jarndyce gave him good day. "Good day!" he said abruptly and fiercely. He was a tall, sallow man with a careworn head on which but little hair remained, a deeply lined face, and prominent eyes. He had a combative look and a chafing, irritable manner which, associated with his figure--still large and powerful, though evidently in its decline--rather alarmed me. He had a pen in his hand, and in the glimpse I caught of his room in passing, I saw that it was covered with a litter of papers. Leaving him standing there, we went up to the top room. I tapped at the door, and a little shrill voice inside said, "We are locked in. Mrs. Blinder's got the key!" I applied the key on hearing this and opened the door. In a poor room with a sloping ceiling and containing very little furniture was a mite of a boy, some five or six years old, nursing and hushing a heavy child of eighteen months. There was no fire, though the weather was cold; both children were wrapped in some poor shawls and tippets as a substitute. Their clothing was not so warm, however, but that their noses looked red and pinched and their small figures shrunken as the boy walked up and down nursing and hushing the child with its head on his shoulder. "Who has locked you up here alone?" we naturally asked. "Charley," said the boy, standing still to gaze at us. "Is Charley your brother?" "No. She's my sister, Charlotte. Father called her Charley." "Are there any more of you besides Charley?" "Me," said the boy, "and Emma," patting the limp bonnet of the child he was nursing. "And Charley." "Where is Charley now?" "Out a-washing," said the boy, beginning to walk up and down again and taking the nankeen bonnet much too near the bedstead by trying to gaze at us at the same time. We were looking at one another and at these two children when there came into the room a very little girl, childish in figure but shrewd and older-looking in the face--pretty-faced too--wearing a womanly sort of bonnet much too large for her and drying her bare arms on a womanly sort of apron. Her fingers were white and wrinkled with washing, and the soap-suds were yet smoking which she wiped off her arms. But for this, she might have been a child playing at washing and imitating a poor working-woman with a quick observation of the truth. She had come running from some place in the neighbourhood and had made all the haste she could. Consequently, though she was very light, she was out of breath and could not speak at first, as she stood panting, and wiping her arms, and looking quietly at us. "Oh, here's Charley!" said the boy. The child he was nursing stretched forth its arms and cried out to be taken by Charley. The little girl took it, in a womanly sort of manner belonging to the apron and the bonnet, and stood looking at us over the burden that clung to her most affectionately. "Is it possible," whispered my guardian as we put a chair for the little creature and got her to sit down with her load, the boy keeping close to her, holding to her apron, "that this child works for the rest? Look at this! For God's sake, look at this!" It was a thing to look at. The three children close together, and two of them relying solely on the third, and the third so young and yet with an air of age and steadiness that sat so strangely on the childish figure. "Charley, Charley!" said my guardian. "How old are you?" "Over thirteen, sir," replied the child. "Oh! What a great age," said my guardian. "What a great age, Charley!" I cannot describe the tenderness with which he spoke to her, half playfully yet all the more compassionately and mournfully. "And do you live alone here with these babies, Charley?" said my guardian. "Yes, sir," returned the child, looking up into his face with perfect confidence, "since father died." "And how do you live, Charley? Oh! Charley," said my guardian, turning his face away for a moment, "how do you live?" "Since father died, sir, I've gone out to work. I'm out washing to-day." "God help you, Charley!" said my guardian. "You're not tall enough to reach the tub!" "In pattens I am, sir," she said quickly. "I've got a high pair as belonged to mother." "And when did mother die? Poor mother!" "Mother died just after Emma was born," said the child, glancing at the face upon her bosom. "Then father said I was to be as good a mother to her as I could. And so I tried. And so I worked at home and did cleaning and nursing and washing for a long time before I began to go out. And that's how I know how; don't you see, sir?" "And do you often go out?" "As often as I can," said Charley, opening her eyes and smiling, "because of earning sixpences and shillings!" "And do you always lock the babies up when you go out?" "To keep 'em safe, sir, don't you see?" said Charley. "Mrs. Blinder comes up now and then, and Mr. Gridley comes up sometimes, and perhaps I can run in sometimes, and they can play you know, and Tom an't afraid of being locked up, are you, Tom?" "No-o!" said Tom stoutly. "When it comes on dark, the lamps are lighted down in the court, and they show up here quite bright--almost quite bright. Don't they, Tom?" "Yes, Charley," said Tom, "almost quite bright." "Then he's as good as gold," said the little creature--Oh, in such a motherly, womanly way! "And when Emma's tired, he puts her to bed. And when he's tired he goes to bed himself. And when I come home and light the candle and has a bit of supper, he sits up again and has it with me. Don't you, Tom?" "Oh, yes, Charley!" said Tom. "That I do!" And either in this glimpse of the great pleasure of his life or in gratitude and love for Charley, who was all in all to him, he laid his face among the scanty folds of her frock and passed from laughing into crying. It was the first time since our entry that a tear had been shed among these children. The little orphan girl had spoken of their father and their mother as if all that sorrow were subdued by the necessity of taking courage, and by her childish importance in being able to work, and by her bustling busy way. But now, when Tom cried, although she sat quite tranquil, looking quietly at us, and did not by any movement disturb a hair of the head of either of her little charges, I saw two silent tears fall down her face. I stood at the window with Ada, pretending to look at the housetops, and the blackened stack of chimneys, and the poor plants, and the birds in little cages belonging to the neighbours, when I found that Mrs. Blinder, from the shop below, had come in (perhaps it had taken her all this time to get upstairs) and was talking to my guardian. "It's not much to forgive 'em the rent, sir," she said; "who could take it from them!" "Well, well!" said my guardian to us two. "It is enough that the time will come when this good woman will find that it WAS much, and that forasmuch as she did it unto the least of these--This child," he added after a few moments, "could she possibly continue this?" "Really, sir, I think she might," said Mrs. Blinder, getting her heavy breath by painful degrees. "She's as handy as it's possible to be. Bless you, sir, the way she tended them two children after the mother died was the talk of the yard! And it was a wonder to see her with him after he was took ill, it really was! 'Mrs. Blinder,' he said to me the very last he spoke--he was lying there--'Mrs. Blinder, whatever my calling may have been, I see a angel sitting in this room last night along with my child, and I trust her to Our Father!'" "He had no other calling?" said my guardian. "No, sir," returned Mrs. Blinder, "he was nothing but a follerers. When he first came to lodge here, I didn't know what he was, and I confess that when I found out I gave him notice. It wasn't liked in the yard. It wasn't approved by the other lodgers. It is NOT a genteel calling," said Mrs. Blinder, "and most people do object to it. Mr. Gridley objected to it very strong, and he is a good lodger, though his temper has been hard tried." "So you gave him notice?" said my guardian. "So I gave him notice," said Mrs. Blinder. "But really when the time came, and I knew no other ill of him, I was in doubts. He was punctual and diligent; he did what he had to do, sir," said Mrs. Blinder, unconsciously fixing Mr. Skimpole with her eye, "and it's something in this world even to do that." "So you kept him after all?" "Why, I said that if he could arrange with Mr. Gridley, I could arrange it with the other lodgers and should not so much mind its being liked or disliked in the yard. Mr. Gridley gave his consent gruff--but gave it. He was always gruff with him, but he has been kind to the children since. A person is never known till a person is proved." "Have many people been kind to the children?" asked Mr. Jarndyce. "Upon the whole, not so bad, sir," said Mrs. Blinder; "but certainly not so many as would have been if their father's calling had been different. Mr. Coavins gave a guinea, and the follerers made up a little purse. Some neighbours in the yard that had always joked and tapped their shoulders when he went by came forward with a little subscription, and--in general--not so bad. Similarly with Charlotte. Some people won't employ her because she was a follerer's child; some people that do employ her cast it at her; some make a merit of having her to work for them, with that and all her draw-backs upon her, and perhaps pay her less and put upon her more. But she's patienter than others would be, and is clever too, and always willing, up to the full mark of her strength and over. So I should say, in general, not so bad, sir, but might be better." Mrs. Blinder sat down to give herself a more favourable opportunity of recovering her breath, exhausted anew by so much talking before it was fully restored. Mr. Jarndyce was turning to speak to us when his attention was attracted by the abrupt entrance into the room of the Mr. Gridley who had been mentioned and whom we had seen on our way up. "I don't know what you may be doing here, ladies and gentlemen," he said, as if he resented our presence, "but you'll excuse my coming in. I don't come in to stare about me. Well, Charley! Well, Tom! Well, little one! How is it with us all to-day?" He bent over the group in a caressing way and clearly was regarded as a friend by the children, though his face retained its stern character and his manner to us was as rude as it could be. My guardian noticed it and respected it. "No one, surely, would come here to stare about him," he said mildly. "May be so, sir, may be so," returned the other, taking Tom upon his knee and waving him off impatiently. "I don't want to argue with ladies and gentlemen. I have had enough of arguing to last one man his life." "You have sufficient reason, I dare say," said Mr. Jarndyce, "for being chafed and irritated--" "There again!" exclaimed the man, becoming violently angry. "I am of a quarrelsome temper. I am irascible. I am not polite!" "Not very, I think." "Sir," said Gridley, putting down the child and going up to him as if he meant to strike him, "do you know anything of Courts of Equity?" "Perhaps I do, to my sorrow." "To your sorrow?" said the man, pausing in his wrath, "if so, I beg your pardon. I am not polite, I know. I beg your pardon! Sir," with renewed violence, "I have been dragged for five and twenty years over burning iron, and I have lost the habit of treading upon velvet. Go into the Court of Chancery yonder and ask what is one of the standing jokes that brighten up their business sometimes, and they will tell you that the best joke they have is the man from Shropshire. I," he said, beating one hand on the other passionately, "am the man from Shropshire." "I believe I and my family have also had the honour of furnishing some entertainment in the same grave place," said my guardian composedly. "You may have heard my name--Jarndyce." "Mr. Jarndyce," said Gridley with a rough sort of salutation, "you bear your wrongs more quietly than I can bear mine. More than that, I tell you--and I tell this gentleman, and these young ladies, if they are friends of yours--that if I took my wrongs in any other way, I should be driven mad! It is only by resenting them, and by revenging them in my mind, and by angrily demanding the justice I never get, that I am able to keep my wits together. It is only that!" he said, speaking in a homely, rustic way and with great vehemence. "You may tell me that I over-excite myself. I answer that it's in my nature to do it, under wrong, and I must do it. There's nothing between doing it, and sinking into the smiling state of the poor little mad woman that haunts the court. If I was once to sit down under it, I should become imbecile." The passion and heat in which he was, and the manner in which his face worked, and the violent gestures with which he accompanied what he said, were most painful to see. "Mr. Jarndyce," he said, "consider my case. As true as there is a heaven above us, this is my case. I am one of two brothers. My father (a farmer) made a will and left his farm and stock and so forth to my mother for her life. After my mother's death, all was to come to me except a legacy of three hundred pounds that I was then to pay my brother. My mother died. My brother some time afterwards claimed his legacy. I and some of my relations said that he had had a part of it already in board and lodging and some other things. Now mind! That was the question, and nothing else. No one disputed the will; no one disputed anything but whether part of that three hundred pounds had been already paid or not. To settle that question, my brother filing a bill, I was obliged to go into this accursed Chancery; I was forced there because the law forced me and would let me go nowhere else. Seventeen people were made defendants to that simple suit! It first came on after two years. It was then stopped for another two years while the master (may his head rot off!) inquired whether I was my father's son, about which there was no dispute at all with any mortal creature. He then found out that there were not defendants enough--remember, there were only seventeen as yet!--but that we must have another who had been left out and must begin all over again. The costs at that time--before the thing was begun!--were three times the legacy. My brother would have given up the legacy, and joyful, to escape more costs. My whole estate, left to me in that will of my father's, has gone in costs. The suit, still undecided, has fallen into rack, and ruin, and despair, with everything else--and here I stand, this day! Now, Mr. Jarndyce, in your suit there are thousands and thousands involved, where in mine there are hundreds. Is mine less hard to bear or is it harder to bear, when my whole living was in it and has been thus shamefully sucked away?" Mr. Jarndyce said that he condoled with him with all his heart and that he set up no monopoly himself in being unjustly treated by this monstrous system. "There again!" said Mr. Gridley with no diminution of his rage. "The system! I am told on all hands, it's the system. I mustn't look to individuals. It's the system. I mustn't go into court and say, 'My Lord, I beg to know this from you--is this right or wrong? Have you the face to tell me I have received justice and therefore am dismissed?' My Lord knows nothing of it. He sits there to administer the system. I mustn't go to Mr. Tulkinghorn, the solicitor in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and say to him when he makes me furious by being so cool and satisfied--as they all do, for I know they gain by it while I lose, don't I?--I mustn't say to him, 'I will have something out of some one for my ruin, by fair means or foul!' HE is not responsible. It's the system. But, if I do no violence to any of them, here--I may! I don't know what may happen if I am carried beyond myself at last! I will accuse the individual workers of that system against me, face to face, before the great eternal bar!" His passion was fearful. I could not have believed in such rage without seeing it. "I have done!" he said, sitting down and wiping his face. "Mr. Jarndyce, I have done! I am violent, I know. I ought to know it. I have been in prison for contempt of court. I have been in prison for threatening the solicitor. I have been in this trouble, and that trouble, and shall be again. I am the man from Shropshire, and I sometimes go beyond amusing them, though they have found it amusing, too, to see me committed into custody and brought up in custody and all that. It would be better for me, they tell me, if I restrained myself. I tell them that if I did restrain myself I should become imbecile. I was a good-enough-tempered man once, I believe. People in my part of the country say they remember me so, but now I must have this vent under my sense of injury or nothing could hold my wits together. It would be far better for you, Mr. Gridley,' the Lord Chancellor told me last week, 'not to waste your time here, and to stay, usefully employed, down in Shropshire.' 'My Lord, my Lord, I know it would,' said I to him, 'and it would have been far better for me never to have heard the name of your high office, but unhappily for me, I can't undo the past, and the past drives me here!' Besides," he added, breaking fiercely out, "I'll shame them. To the last, I'll show myself in that court to its shame. If I knew when I was going to die, and could be carried there, and had a voice to speak with, I would die there, saying, 'You have brought me here and sent me from here many and many a time. Now send me out feet foremost!'" His countenance had, perhaps for years, become so set in its contentious expression that it did not soften, even now when he was quiet. "I came to take these babies down to my room for an hour," he said, going to them again, "and let them play about. I didn't mean to say all this, but it don't much signify. You're not afraid of me, Tom, are you?" "No!" said Tom. "You ain't angry with ME." "You are right, my child. You're going back, Charley? Aye? Come then, little one!" He took the youngest child on his arm, where she was willing enough to be carried. "I shouldn't wonder if we found a ginger-bread soldier downstairs. Let's go and look for him!" He made his former rough salutation, which was not deficient in a certain respect, to Mr. Jarndyce, and bowing slightly to us, went downstairs to his room. Upon that, Mr. Skimpole began to talk, for the first time since our arrival, in his usual gay strain. He said, Well, it was really very pleasant to see how things lazily adapted themselves to purposes. Here was this Mr. Gridley, a man of a robust will and surprising energy--intellectually speaking, a sort of inharmonious blacksmith--and he could easily imagine that there Gridley was, years ago, wandering about in life for something to expend his superfluous combativeness upon--a sort of Young Love among the thorns--when the Court of Chancery came in his way and accommodated him with the exact thing he wanted. There they were, matched, ever afterwards! Otherwise he might have been a great general, blowing up all sorts of towns, or he might have been a great politician, dealing in all sorts of parliamentary rhetoric; but as it was, he and the Court of Chancery had fallen upon each other in the pleasantest way, and nobody was much the worse, and Gridley was, so to speak, from that hour provided for. Then look at Coavinses! How delightfully poor Coavinses (father of these charming children) illustrated the same principle! He, Mr. Skimpole, himself, had sometimes repined at the existence of Coavinses. He had found Coavinses in his way. He could had dispensed with Coavinses. There had been times when, if he had been a sultan, and his grand vizier had said one morning, "What does the Commander of the Faithful require at the hands of his slave?" he might have even gone so far as to reply, "The head of Coavinses!" But what turned out to be the case? That, all that time, he had been giving employment to a most deserving man, that he had been a benefactor to Coavinses, that he had actually been enabling Coavinses to bring up these charming children in this agreeable way, developing these social virtues! Insomuch that his heart had just now swelled and the tears had come into his eyes when he had looked round the room and thought, "I was the great patron of Coavinses, and his little comforts were MY work!" There was something so captivating in his light way of touching these fantastic strings, and he was such a mirthful child by the side of the graver childhood we had seen, that he made my guardian smile even as he turned towards us from a little private talk with Mrs. Blinder. We kissed Charley, and took her downstairs with us, and stopped outside the house to see her run away to her work. I don't know where she was going, but we saw her run, such a little, little creature in her womanly bonnet and apron, through a covered way at the bottom of the court and melt into the city's strife and sound like a dewdrop in an ocean.

While we were in London Mr. Jarndyce was constantly beset by excitable ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Quale, who presented himself soon after our arrival, was one of these. He seemed to brush his hair farther and farther back, until the very roots were almost ready to fly out of his head in inappeasable philanthropy. He was always ready for a testimonial. Having first seen him swallowed up in admiration of Mrs. Jellyby, I had supposed her to be the absorbing object of his devotion. I soon discovered my mistake and found him to be train-bearer to a whole procession of people. Mrs. Pardiggle came one day for a subscription to something, and with her, Mr. Quale, who repeated everything she said to us. Mrs. Pardiggle gave my guardian a letter of introduction on behalf of her eloquent friend Mr. Gusher. With Mr. Gusher appeared Mr. Quale again. Mr. Gusher, a flabby gentleman with eyes much too small for his moon of a face, was not prepossessing; yet he was scarcely seated before Mr. Quale asked Ada and me whether he was not a great creature - which he certainly was, flabbily speaking, though Mr. Quale meant in intellect. It became clear that it was Mr. Quale's mission to be in ecstasies with everybody else's mission. Mr. Jarndyce had fallen into this company in the tenderness of his heart and his earnest desire to do good; but he told us that he felt it to be too often an unsatisfactory company, where benevolence was spasmodic, and charity was assumed as a uniform by vain and vehement people, servile to the great, flattering to one another, and intolerable to those who were anxious to help the weak quietly, without bluster. When a testimonial was started for Mr. Quale by Mr. Gusher (who had already got one, started by Mr. Quale), and when Mr. Gusher spoke for an hour and a half on the subject to two charity schools of small boys and girls, who were requested to come forward with their halfpence, I think the wind was in the east for three whole weeks. I mention this because I am coming to Mr. Skimpole again. It seemed to me that his off-hand professions of childishness and carelessness were a great relief to my guardian, by contrast with such things, and were the more readily believed. I should be sorry to imply that Mr. Skimpole guessed this and acted accordingly; I really never understood him well enough to know. He had not been very well; but he now appeared one morning in his usual agreeable way and as full of pleasant spirits as ever. Well, he said, here he was! He had been bilious, but rich men were often bilious, and therefore he had been persuading himself that he was rich. He had told his doctor, "Now, my dear doctor, it is quite a delusion on your part to suppose that you attend me for nothing. I am overwhelming you with money - in my expansive intentions - if you only knew it!" And really (he said) he thought it much the same as doing it. If he had had those bits of metal or thin paper to which mankind attached so much importance, he would have put them in the doctor's hand. Not having them, he substituted the will for the deed. Very well! If his will were genuine, it appeared to him that it was the same as coin, and cancelled the obligation. "It may be, partly, because I know nothing of the value of money," said Mr. Skimpole, "but I often feel this. It seems so reasonable! My butcher says to me he wants that little bill paying. I reply to the butcher, 'My good friend, if you only knew it, you are paid.'" "But, suppose," said my guardian, laughing, "he had only meant the meat, instead of providing it?" "My dear Jarndyce," he returned, "A butcher I once dealt with said that very thing. Says he, 'Sir, why did you eat spring lamb at eighteen pence a pound? I wish I had meant the lamb as you mean the money!' 'My good fellow,' said I, 'pray let us be reasonable. You had got the lamb, and I have not got the money. You couldn't really mean the lamb without selling it, whereas I can, and do, really mean the money without paying it!' He had not a word to say." "Did he take no legal proceedings?" inquired my guardian. "Yes, he did," said Mr. Skimpole. "But in that he was influenced by passion, not by reason. That reminds me of Boythorn. He writes that you and the ladies have promised him a short visit at his bachelor-house in Lincolnshire." "He is a great favourite with my girls," said Mr. Jarndyce, "and I have promised for them." "Nature forgot to shade Boythorn, I think," observed Mr. Skimpole to Ada and me. "A little too boisterous - like the sea. But I grant a sledge-hammering sort of merit in him!" I should have been surprised if those two could have thought very highly of one another, Mr. Boythorn attaching so much importance to many things and Mr. Skimpole caring so little for anything. Of course I merely said that we had been greatly pleased with him. "He has invited me," said Mr. Skimpole; "and if a child may trust himself in such hands, I shall go. He proposes to frank me down and back again. I suppose it will cost money? Shillings, or something of that sort? By the by, you remember our friend Coavinses, Miss Summerson?" He asked me in his graceful, light-hearted manner, without the least embarrassment. "Oh, yes!" said I. "Coavinses has been arrested by the Great Bailiff," said Mr. Skimpole. "He is dead." It quite shocked me to hear it, as I recalled the man sitting on the sofa that night wiping his head. "His successor informed me of it yesterday," said Mr. Skimpole. "His successor is in my house now. He came yesterday, on my blue-eyed daughter's birthday. I put it to him, 'This is inconvenient. If you had a blue-eyed daughter, you wouldn't like me to come, uninvited, on her birthday?' But he stayed." Mr. Skimpole laughed at the pleasant absurdity and lightly touched the piano by which he was seated. "And he told me," he said, playing little chords between each phrase, "that Coavinses had left. Three children. No mother. And that his profession. Being unpopular. They were at a disadvantage." Mr. Jarndyce got up, rubbing his head, and began to walk about. Mr. Skimpole played the melody of one of Ada's favourite songs; but my guardian put his hand upon the keys and stopped him. "I don't like this, Skimpole," he said thoughtfully. Mr. Skimpole looked up, surprised. "The man was necessary," pursued my guardian. "If we make such men necessary by our faults or our misfortunes, we must not revenge ourselves upon them. There was no harm in his trade. He maintained his children. One would like to know more about this." "Oh! Coavinses?" cried Mr. Skimpole. "Nothing easier. Walk to Coavinses' headquarters." Mr. Jarndyce nodded to us. "Come! We will walk that way, my dears." We were quickly ready and went out with Mr. Skimpole, who quite enjoyed the expedition. It was so new and so refreshing, he said, for him to want Coavinses instead of Coavinses wanting him! He took us, first, to Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, where there was a house with barred windows, which he called Coavinses' Castle. On our ringing a bell, a hideous boy came out of an office and looked at us over a spiked gate. "Who did you want?" said the boy, fitting two of the spikes into his chin. "There was an officer, or something, here," said Mr. Jarndyce, "who is dead. I want to know his name, if you please?" "Name of Neckett," said the boy. "And his address?" "Bell Yard," said the boy. "Chandler's shop, left hand side." "Was he industrious?" "Neckett?" said the boy. "Yes, wery much so. He was never tired of watching. He'd set at a street corner eight or ten hours at a stretch if he undertook to do it." "He might have done worse," I heard my guardian murmur. "He might have undertaken to do it and not done it. Thank you. That's all I want." We left the boy, and went to Bell Yard, a narrow alley a short distance away. We soon found the chandler's shop. In it was a good-natured looking old woman. "Neckett's children?" said she in reply to my inquiry. "Yes, Surely, miss. Door right opposite the stairs." And she handed me the key. I led the way up the dark stairs. We went as quietly as we could, but when we came to the second storey we found we had disturbed a man who was standing there looking out of his room. "Is it Gridley that's wanted?" he said, fixing his eyes on me with an angry stare. "No, sir," said I; "I am going higher up." He looked at Ada, and at Mr. Jarndyce, and at Mr. Skimpole, fixing the same angry stare on each. Mr. Jarndyce gave him good day. "Good day!" he said abruptly and fiercely. He was a tall, sallow man with a careworn head, a deeply lined face, and prominent eyes. His combative, irritable manner rather alarmed me. He had a pen in his hand, and in the glimpse I caught of his room, I saw that it was covered with a litter of papers. Leaving him there, we went up to the top room. I tapped at the door, and a little shrill voice inside said, "We are locked in." I applied the key and opened the door. In a poor room with a sloping ceiling and containing very little furniture was a mite of a boy, some five or six years old, nursing and hushing a heavy child of eighteen months. There was no fire, though the weather was cold; both children were wrapped in some poor shawls as a substitute. Their noses looked red and pinched and their small figures shrunken as the boy walked up and down hushing the child with its head on his shoulder. "Who has locked you up here alone?" we asked. "Charley," said the boy, gazing at us. "Is Charley your brother?" "No. She's my sister, Charlotte." "Are there any more of you besides Charley?" "Me," said the boy, "and Emma," patting the limp bonnet of the child he was nursing. "Where is Charley now?" "Out a-washing," said the boy, beginning to walk up and down again and trying to gaze at us at the same time. Just then there came into the room a very little girl, childish in figure but shrewd and older-looking in the face - pretty too - wearing a bonnet much too large for her and drying her bare arms on an apron. Her fingers were white and wrinkled with washing, and she wiped soap-suds off her arms. She had come running from some place nearby with all the haste she could. Consequently, she was out of breath and could not speak at first, as she stood panting, and wiping her arms, and looking at us. "Oh, here's Charley!" said the boy. The child he was nursing stretched forth its arms and cried out to be taken. The little girl took it, and stood looking at us over the burden that clung to her affectionately. "Is it possible," whispered my guardian as we put a chair for the little creature to sit on, "that this child works for the rest? Look at this! For God's sake, look at this!" It was a thing to look at. The three children together, and two of them relying solely on the third, who was so young and yet with such an air of age and steadiness. "Charley!" said my guardian. "How old are you?" "Over thirteen, sir," replied the child. "Oh! What a great age," said my guardian. I cannot describe the tenderness with which he spoke to her, half playfully yet compassionately. "And do you live alone here with these babies, Charley?" said he. "Yes, sir," returned the child, "since father died." "And - Oh! Charley," said my guardian, turning his face away for a moment, "how do you live?" "Since father died, sir, I've gone out to work. I'm out washing today." "God help you, Charley!" said my guardian. "You're not tall enough to reach the tub!" "In clogs I am, sir," she said quickly. "I've got a high pair as belonged to mother." "And when did mother die?" "Just after Emma was born," said the child, glancing at the face upon her bosom. "Then father said I was to be as good a mother to her as I could. And so I tried. I worked at home and did cleaning and nursing and washing for a long time before I began to go out." "And do you often go out?" "As often as I can," said Charley, smiling, "because of earning sixpences and shillings!" "And do you always lock the babies up when you go out?" "To keep 'em safe, sir, don't you see?" said Charley. "Mrs. Blinder comes up now and then, and Mr. Gridley comes up sometimes, and I can run in sometimes, and they can play you know, and Tom an't afraid of being locked up, are you, Tom?" "No-o!" said Tom stoutly. "When it comes on dark, the lamps are lighted down in the court, and they show up here quite bright. Don't they, Tom?" "Yes, Charley," said Tom, "almost quite bright." "Then he's as good as gold," said the little creature - oh, in such a motherly, womanly way! "And when Emma's tired, he puts her to bed. And when he's tired he goes to bed himself. And when I come home and light the candle and has a bit of supper, he sits up again and has it with me. Don't you, Tom?" "Oh, yes, Charley!" said Tom. "That I do!" And either in this glimpse of the great pleasure of his life or in gratitude and love for Charley, he laid his face among the scanty folds of her frock and passed from laughing into crying. It was the first time since our entry that a tear had been shed among these children. The little orphan girl had spoken of their father and mother as if all that sorrow were subdued by the necessity of taking courage and of working. But now, when Tom cried, although she sat quite tranquil, I saw two silent tears fall down her face. I stood at the window with Ada, pretending to look at the housetops, and the blackened stack of chimneys, when I found that Mrs. Blinder, from the shop below, had come panting up the stairs and was talking to my guardian. "It's not much to forgive 'em the rent, sir," she said; "who could take it from them?" "Well, well!" said my guardian to us two. "The time will come when this good woman will find that it was much, and that as she did it unto the least of these This child," he added after a moment, "could she possibly continue this?" "Really, sir, I think she might," said Mrs. Blinder, getting her breath by painful degrees. "She's as handy as can be. Bless you, sir, the way she tended them two children after the mother died was the talk of the yard! And it was a wonder to see her with him after he was took ill, it really was! 'Mrs. Blinder,' he said to me, as he was lying there - 'Mrs. Blinder, I see a angel sitting in this room last night along with my child, and I trust her to Our Father!'" "He had no other job?" said my guardian. "No, sir," returned Mrs. Blinder. "When he first came to lodge here, I didn't know what he was, and I confess that when I found out I gave him notice. It wasn't liked in the yard, nor by the other lodgers. Mr. Gridley objected to it very strong, and he is a good lodger, though his temper has been hard tried." "So you gave him notice?" said my guardian. "So I gave him notice. But when the time came, I was in doubts. He was punctual and diligent; he did what he had to do, sir," said Mrs. Blinder, unconsciously fixing Mr. Skimpole with her eye, "and it's something in this world even to do that." "So you kept him after all?" "Why, I said that if he could arrange with Mr. Gridley, I could arrange it with the other lodgers. Mr. Gridley gave his consent gruff - but he gave it. He has been kind to the children since." "Have many people been kind to the children?" asked Mr. Jarndyce. "Upon the whole, not so bad, sir," said Mrs. Blinder; "but certainly not so many as would have been if their father's job had been different. Mr. Coavins gave a guinea, and some neighbours came forward with a little, and - in general - not so bad. Some people won't employ her because she was a bailiff's child, and some people that do employ her maybe pay her less. But she's patient, and clever too, and always willing. So I should say, in general, not so bad, sir, but might be better." Mrs. Blinder sat down to recover her breath fully. Mr. Jarndyce was turning to speak to us when his attention was attracted by the abrupt entrance into the room of Mr. Gridley, whom we had seen on our way up. "I don't know what you may be doing here, ladies and gentlemen," he said, "but you'll excuse my coming in. Well, Charley! Well, Tom! Well, little one! How is it with us all today?" He bent over the group in a caressing way and clearly was regarded as a friend by the children, though his face remained stern and his manner to us was rude. "I don't want to argue with you, ladies and gentlemen," he said, taking Tom upon his knee. "I have had enough of arguing to last one man his life." "You have sufficient reason, I dare say," said Mr. Jarndyce, "for being irritated-" "There again!" exclaimed the man, becoming angry. "I am of a quarrelsome temper. I am irascible. I am not polite!" "Not very, I think." "Sir," said Gridley, putting down the child and going up to him as if he meant to strike him, "do you know anything of Courts of Equity?" "I do, to my sorrow." "To your sorrow?" said the man, pausing in his wrath. "I beg your pardon. I am not polite, I know. Sir, I have been dragged for five and twenty years over burning iron. Go into the Court of Chancery yonder and ask what is one of the standing jokes that brighten up their business, and they will tell you that the best joke they have is the man from Shropshire. I," he said passionately, "am the man from Shropshire." "I believe I and my family have also had the honour of giving some entertainment in the same grave place," said my guardian composedly. "You may have heard my name - Jarndyce." "Mr. Jarndyce," said Gridley, "you bear your wrongs more quietly than I can bear mine. If I took my wrongs in any other way, I should be driven mad! It is only by resenting them that I am able to keep my wits together. You may tell me that I over-excite myself. I answer that I must do it, or sink into the smiling state of the poor little mad woman that haunts the court. If I was to sit down under it, I should become imbecile." His passion and vehemence were most painful to see. "Mr. Jarndyce," he said, "consider my case. I am one of two brothers. My father (a farmer) made a will and left his farm and stock to my mother for her life. After my mother's death, all was to come to me except a legacy of three hundred pounds that I was to pay my brother. My mother died. My brother some time afterwards claimed his legacy. I said that he had had a part of it already in board and lodging and some other things. Now mind! That was the question, and nothing else. No one disputed the will; no one disputed anything but whether part of that three hundred pounds had been already paid or not. To settle that question, my brother filed a bill, and I was obliged to go into this accursed Chancery. "Seventeen people were made defendants to that simple suit! It first came on after two years. It was then stopped for another two years while the master inquired whether I was my father's son, about which there was no dispute at all. He then found out that there were not defendants enough - remember, there were only seventeen! - but that we must have another who had been left out and must begin all over again. The costs at that time - before the thing was begun! - were three times the legacy. My brother would have happily given up the legacy to escape more costs. My whole estate has gone in costs. The suit is still undecided - and here I stand, this day! Now, Mr. Jarndyce, in your suit there are thousands and thousands involved, where in mine there are hundreds. Is mine any less hard to bear, when my whole living has been thus shamefully sucked away?" Mr. Jarndyce said that he condoled with him with all his heart about this monstrous system. "There again!" said Mr. Gridley. "The system! I am always told, it's the system. I can't ask My Lord any questions, because he sits there to administer the system. I mustn't go to Mr. Tulkinghorn the solicitor to protest, because he is not responsible. It's the system. But I don't know what may happen if I am carried beyond myself at last!" I have never seen such vehemence. At last, sitting down and wiping his face, he said, "I have done! Mr. Jarndyce, I am violent, I know. I have been in prison for contempt of court. I have been in prison for threatening the solicitor. I have been in trouble, and shall be again. I was a good-enough-tempered man once, I believe. People in my part of the country say they remember me so. 'It would be far better for you, Mr. Gridley,' the Lord Chancellor told me last week, 'not to waste your time here, but to stay, usefully employed, in Shropshire.' 'My Lord, I know it would,' said I to him, 'and it would have been far better for me never to have heard the name of your high office, but I can't undo the past!' Besides," he added, breaking fiercely out, "I'll shame them. To the last, I'll show myself in that court to its shame. If I knew when I was going to die, and could be carried there, and had a voice to speak with, I would die there!" His face did not soften, even now when he was quiet. "I came to take these babies down to my room for an hour," he said, "to let them play about. I didn't mean to say all this, but it don't much signify. You're not afraid of me, Tom, are you?" "No!" said Tom. "You ain't angry with me." "You are right, my child. You're going back, Charley? Aye? Come then, little one!" He took the youngest child on his arm. "I shouldn't wonder if we found a ginger-bread soldier downstairs. Let's go and look for him!" He made a rough but respectful salutation to Mr. Jarndyce, and bowing to us, went downstairs to his room. Upon that, Mr. Skimpole began to talk in his usual gay strain. He said it was really very pleasant to see how things adapted themselves to purposes. Here was this Mr. Gridley, a man of surprising energy - and he could easily imagine Gridley wandering about in life looking for something to expend his combativeness upon - when the Court of Chancery provided him with the exact thing he wanted. Then look at Coavinses! How delightfully poor Coavinses illustrated the same principle! He, Mr. Skimpole himself, could had dispensed with Coavinses. But all that time, he had been giving employment to a most deserving man; he had been a benefactor to Coavinses! His heart had swelled just now and the tears had come into his eyes when he had looked round the room and thought, "I was the great patron of Coavinses, and his little comforts were my work!" There was something so captivating and mirthful about him, that he made my guardian smile as he turned towards us from a little private talk with Mrs. Blinder. We kissed Charley, and took her downstairs with us, and watched her run away to her work: running, such a little, little creature in her womanly bonnet and apron, through the court to melt into the city's strife and sound like a dewdrop in an ocean.

Bleak House

Chapter 15: Bell Yard

One morning when I had done jingling about with my baskets of keys, as my beauty and I were walking round and round the garden I happened to turn my eyes towards the house and saw a long thin shadow going in which looked like Mr. Vholes. Ada had been telling me only that morning of her hopes that Richard might exhaust his ardour in the Chancery suit by being so very earnest in it; and therefore, not to damp my dear girl's spirits, I said nothing about Mr. Vholes's shadow. Presently came Charley, lightly winding among the bushes and tripping along the paths, as rosy and pretty as one of Flora's attendants instead of my maid, saying, "Oh, if you please, miss, would you step and speak to Mr. Jarndyce!" It was one of Charley's peculiarities that whenever she was charged with a message she always began to deliver it as soon as she beheld, at any distance, the person for whom it was intended. Therefore I saw Charley asking me in her usual form of words to "step and speak" to Mr. Jarndyce long before I heard her. And when I did hear her, she had said it so often that she was out of breath. I told Ada I would make haste back and inquired of Charley as we went in whether there was not a gentleman with Mr. Jarndyce. To which Charley, whose grammar, I confess to my shame, never did any credit to my educational powers, replied, "Yes, miss. Him as come down in the country with Mr. Richard." A more complete contrast than my guardian and Mr. Vholes I suppose there could not be. I found them looking at one another across a table, the one so open and the other so close, the one so broad and upright and the other so narrow and stooping, the one giving out what he had to say in such a rich ringing voice and the other keeping it in in such a cold-blooded, gasping, fish-like manner that I thought I never had seen two people so unmatched. "You know Mr. Vholes, my dear," said my guardian. Not with the greatest urbanity, I must say. Mr. Vholes rose, gloved and buttoned up as usual, and seated himself again, just as he had seated himself beside Richard in the gig. Not having Richard to look at, he looked straight before him. "Mr. Vholes," said my guardian, eyeing his black figure as if he were a bird of ill omen, "has brought an ugly report of our most unfortunate Rick." Laying a marked emphasis on "most unfortunate" as if the words were rather descriptive of his connexion with Mr. Vholes. I sat down between them; Mr. Vholes remained immovable, except that he secretly picked at one of the red pimples on his yellow face with his black glove. "And as Rick and you are happily good friends, I should like to know," said my guardian, "what you think, my dear. Would you be so good as to--as to speak up, Mr. Vholes?" Doing anything but that, Mr. Vholes observed, "I have been saying that I have reason to know, Miss Summerson, as Mr. C.'s professional adviser, that Mr. C.'s circumstances are at the present moment in an embarrassed state. Not so much in point of amount as owing to the peculiar and pressing nature of liabilities Mr. C. has incurred and the means he has of liquidating or meeting the same. I have staved off many little matters for Mr. C., but there is a limit to staving off, and we have reached it. I have made some advances out of pocket to accommodate these unpleasantnesses, but I necessarily look to being repaid, for I do not pretend to be a man of capital, and I have a father to support in the Vale of Taunton, besides striving to realize some little independence for three dear girls at home. My apprehension is, Mr. C.'s circumstances being such, lest it should end in his obtaining leave to part with his commission, which at all events is desirable to be made known to his connexions." Mr. Vholes, who had looked at me while speaking, here emerged into the silence he could hardly be said to have broken, so stifled was his tone, and looked before him again. "Imagine the poor fellow without even his present resource," said my guardian to me. "Yet what can I do? You know him, Esther. He would never accept of help from me now. To offer it or hint at it would be to drive him to an extremity, if nothing else did." Mr. Vholes hereupon addressed me again. "What Mr. Jarndyce remarks, miss, is no doubt the case, and is the difficulty. I do not see that anything is to be done. I do not say that anything is to be done. Far from it. I merely come down here under the seal of confidence and mention it in order that everything may be openly carried on and that it may not be said afterwards that everything was not openly carried on. My wish is that everything should be openly carried on. I desire to leave a good name behind me. If I consulted merely my own interests with Mr. C., I should not be here. So insurmountable, as you must well know, would be his objections. This is not a professional attendance. This can he charged to nobody. I have no interest in it except as a member of society and a father--AND a son," said Mr. Vholes, who had nearly forgotten that point. It appeared to us that Mr. Vholes said neither more nor less than the truth in intimating that he sought to divide the responsibility, such as it was, of knowing Richard's situation. I could only suggest that I should go down to Deal, where Richard was then stationed, and see him, and try if it were possible to avert the worst. Without consulting Mr. Vholes on this point, I took my guardian aside to propose it, while Mr. Vholes gauntly stalked to the fire and warmed his funeral gloves. The fatigue of the journey formed an immediate objection on my guardian's part, but as I saw he had no other, and as I was only too happy to go, I got his consent. We had then merely to dispose of Mr. Vholes. "Well, sir," said Mr. Jarndyce, "Miss Summerson will communicate with Mr. Carstone, and you can only hope that his position may be yet retrievable. You will allow me to order you lunch after your journey, sir." "I thank you, Mr. Jarndyce," said Mr. Vholes, putting out his long black sleeve to check the ringing of the bell, "not any. I thank you, no, not a morsel. My digestion is much impaired, and I am but a poor knife and fork at any time. If I was to partake of solid food at this period of the day, I don't know what the consequences might be. Everything having been openly carried on, sir, I will now with your permission take my leave." "And I would that you could take your leave, and we could all take our leave, Mr. Vholes," returned my guardian bitterly, "of a cause you know of." Mr. Vholes, whose black dye was so deep from head to foot that it had quite steamed before the fire, diffusing a very unpleasant perfume, made a short one-sided inclination of his head from the neck and slowly shook it. "We whose ambition it is to be looked upon in the light of respectable practitioners, sir, can but put our shoulders to the wheel. We do it, sir. At least, I do it myself; and I wish to think well of my professional brethren, one and all. You are sensible of an obligation not to refer to me, miss, in communicating with Mr. C.?" I said I would be careful not to do it. "Just so, miss. Good morning. Mr. Jarndyce, good morning, sir." Mr. Vholes put his dead glove, which scarcely seemed to have any hand in it, on my fingers, and then on my guardian's fingers, and took his long thin shadow away. I thought of it on the outside of the coach, passing over all the sunny landscape between us and London, chilling the seed in the ground as it glided along. Of course it became necessary to tell Ada where I was going and why I was going, and of course she was anxious and distressed. But she was too true to Richard to say anything but words of pity and words of excuse, and in a more loving spirit still--my dear devoted girl!--she wrote him a long letter, of which I took charge. Charley was to be my travelling companion, though I am sure I wanted none and would willingly have left her at home. We all went to London that afternoon, and finding two places in the mail, secured them. At our usual bed-time, Charley and I were rolling away seaward with the Kentish letters. It was a night's journey in those coach times, but we had the mail to ourselves and did not find the night very tedious. It passed with me as I suppose it would with most people under such circumstances. At one while my journey looked hopeful, and at another hopeless. Now I thought I should do some good, and now I wondered how I could ever have supposed so. Now it seemed one of the most reasonable things in the world that I should have come, and now one of the most unreasonable. In what state I should find Richard, what I should say to him, and what he would say to me occupied my mind by turns with these two states of feeling; and the wheels seemed to play one tune (to which the burden of my guardian's letter set itself) over and over again all night. At last we came into the narrow streets of Deal, and very gloomy they were upon a raw misty morning. The long flat beach, with its little irregular houses, wooden and brick, and its litter of capstans, and great boats, and sheds, and bare upright poles with tackle and blocks, and loose gravelly waste places overgrown with grass and weeds, wore as dull an appearance as any place I ever saw. The sea was heaving under a thick white fog; and nothing else was moving but a few early ropemakers, who, with the yarn twisted round their bodies, looked as if, tired of their present state of existence, they were spinning themselves into cordage. But when we got into a warm room in an excellent hotel and sat down, comfortably washed and dressed, to an early breakfast (for it was too late to think of going to bed), Deal began to look more cheerful. Our little room was like a ship's cabin, and that delighted Charley very much. Then the fog began to rise like a curtain, and numbers of ships that we had had no idea were near appeared. I don't know how many sail the waiter told us were then lying in the downs. Some of these vessels were of grand size--one was a large Indiaman just come home; and when the sun shone through the clouds, making silvery pools in the dark sea, the way in which these ships brightened, and shadowed, and changed, amid a bustle of boats pulling off from the shore to them and from them to the shore, and a general life and motion in themselves and everything around them, was most beautiful. The large Indiaman was our great attraction because she had come into the downs in the night. She was surrounded by boats, and we said how glad the people on board of her must be to come ashore. Charley was curious, too, about the voyage, and about the heat in India, and the serpents and the tigers; and as she picked up such information much faster than grammar, I told her what I knew on those points. I told her, too, how people in such voyages were sometimes wrecked and cast on rocks, where they were saved by the intrepidity and humanity of one man. And Charley asking how that could be, I told her how we knew at home of such a case. I had thought of sending Richard a note saying I was there, but it seemed so much better to go to him without preparation. As he lived in barracks I was a little doubtful whether this was feasible, but we went out to reconnoitre. Peeping in at the gate of the barrack-yard, we found everything very quiet at that time in the morning, and I asked a sergeant standing on the guardhouse-steps where he lived. He sent a man before to show me, who went up some bare stairs, and knocked with his knuckles at a door, and left us. "Now then!" cried Richard from within. So I left Charley in the little passage, and going on to the half-open door, said, "Can I come in, Richard? It's only Dame Durden." He was writing at a table, with a great confusion of clothes, tin cases, books, boots, brushes, and portmanteaus strewn all about the floor. He was only half dressed--in plain clothes, I observed, not in uniform--and his hair was unbrushed, and he looked as wild as his room. All this I saw after he had heartily welcomed me and I was seated near him, for he started upon hearing my voice and caught me in his arms in a moment. Dear Richard! He was ever the same to me. Down to--ah, poor poor fellow!--to the end, he never received me but with something of his old merry boyish manner. "Good heaven, my dear little woman," said he, "how do you come here? Who could have thought of seeing you! Nothing the matter? Ada is well?" "Quite well. Lovelier than ever, Richard!" "Ah!" he said, leaning back in his chair. "My poor cousin! I was writing to you, Esther." So worn and haggard as he looked, even in the fullness of his handsome youth, leaning back in his chair and crushing the closely written sheet of paper in his hand! "Have you been at the trouble of writing all that, and am I not to read it after all?" I asked. "Oh, my dear," he returned with a hopeless gesture. "You may read it in the whole room. It is all over here." I mildly entreated him not to be despondent. I told him that I had heard by chance of his being in difficulty and had come to consult with him what could best be done. "Like you, Esther, but useless, and so NOT like you!" said he with a melancholy smile. "I am away on leave this day--should have been gone in another hour--and that is to smooth it over, for my selling out. Well! Let bygones be bygones. So this calling follows the rest. I only want to have been in the church to have made the round of all the professions." "Richard," I urged, "it is not so hopeless as that?" "Esther," he returned, "it is indeed. I am just so near disgrace as that those who are put in authority over me (as the catechism goes) would far rather be without me than with me. And they are right. Apart from debts and duns and all such drawbacks, I am not fit even for this employment. I have no care, no mind, no heart, no soul, but for one thing. Why, if this bubble hadn't broken now," he said, tearing the letter he had written into fragments and moodily casting them away, by driblets, "how could I have gone abroad? I must have been ordered abroad, but how could I have gone? How could I, with my experience of that thing, trust even Vholes unless I was at his back!" I suppose he knew by my face what I was about to say, but he caught the hand I had laid upon his arm and touched my own lips with it to prevent me from going on. "No, Dame Durden! Two subjects I forbid--must forbid. The first is John Jarndyce. The second, you know what. Call it madness, and I tell you I can't help it now, and can't be sane. But it is no such thing; it is the one object I have to pursue. It is a pity I ever was prevailed upon to turn out of my road for any other. It would be wisdom to abandon it now, after all the time, anxiety, and pains I have bestowed upon it! Oh, yes, true wisdom. It would be very agreeable, too, to some people; but I never will." He was in that mood in which I thought it best not to increase his determination (if anything could increase it) by opposing him. I took out Ada's letter and put it in his hand. "Am I to read it now?" he asked. As I told him yes, he laid it on the table, and resting his head upon his hand, began. He had not read far when he rested his head upon his two hands--to hide his face from me. In a little while he rose as if the light were bad and went to the window. He finished reading it there, with his back towards me, and after he had finished and had folded it up, stood there for some minutes with the letter in his hand. When he came back to his chair, I saw tears in his eyes. "Of course, Esther, you know what she says here?" He spoke in a softened voice and kissed the letter as he asked me. "Yes, Richard." "Offers me," he went on, tapping his foot upon the floor, "the little inheritance she is certain of so soon--just as little and as much as I have wasted--and begs and prays me to take it, set myself right with it, and remain in the service." "I know your welfare to be the dearest wish of her heart," said I. "And, oh, my dear Richard, Ada's is a noble heart." "I am sure it is. I--I wish I was dead!" He went back to the window, and laying his arm across it, leaned his head down on his arm. It greatly affected me to see him so, but I hoped he might become more yielding, and I remained silent. My experience was very limited; I was not at all prepared for his rousing himself out of this emotion to a new sense of injury. "And this is the heart that the same John Jarndyce, who is not otherwise to be mentioned between us, stepped in to estrange from me," said he indignantly. "And the dear girl makes me this generous offer from under the same John Jarndyce's roof, and with the same John Jarndyce's gracious consent and connivance, I dare say, as a new means of buying me off." "Richard!" I cried out, rising hastily. "I will not hear you say such shameful words!" I was very angry with him indeed, for the first time in my life, but it only lasted a moment. When I saw his worn young face looking at me as if he were sorry, I put my hand on his shoulder and said, "If you please, my dear Richard, do not speak in such a tone to me. Consider!" He blamed himself exceedingly and told me in the most generous manner that he had been very wrong and that he begged my pardon a thousand times. At that I laughed, but trembled a little too, for I was rather fluttered after being so fiery. "To accept this offer, my dear Esther," said he, sitting down beside me and resuming our conversation, "--once more, pray, pray forgive me; I am deeply grieved--to accept my dearest cousin's offer is, I need not say, impossible. Besides, I have letters and papers that I could show you which would convince you it is all over here. I have done with the red coat, believe me. But it is some satisfaction, in the midst of my troubles and perplexities, to know that I am pressing Ada's interests in pressing my own. Vholes has his shoulder to the wheel, and he cannot help urging it on as much for her as for me, thank God!" His sanguine hopes were rising within him and lighting up his features, but they made his face more sad to me than it had been before. "No, no!" cried Richard exultingly. "If every farthing of Ada's little fortune were mine, no part of it should be spent in retaining me in what I am not fit for, can take no interest in, and am weary of. It should be devoted to what promises a better return, and should be used where she has a larger stake. Don't be uneasy for me! I shall now have only one thing on my mind, and Vholes and I will work it. I shall not be without means. Free of my commission, I shall be able to compound with some small usurers who will hear of nothing but their bond now--Vholes says so. I should have a balance in my favour anyway, but that would swell it. Come, come! You shall carry a letter to Ada from me, Esther, and you must both of you be more hopeful of me and not believe that I am quite cast away just yet, my dear." I will not repeat what I said to Richard. I know it was tiresome, and nobody is to suppose for a moment that it was at all wise. It only came from my heart. He heard it patiently and feelingly, but I saw that on the two subjects he had reserved it was at present hopeless to make any representation to him. I saw too, and had experienced in this very interview, the sense of my guardian's remark that it was even more mischievous to use persuasion with him than to leave him as he was. Therefore I was driven at last to asking Richard if he would mind convincing me that it really was all over there, as he had said, and that it was not his mere impression. He showed me without hesitation a correspondence making it quite plain that his retirement was arranged. I found, from what he told me, that Mr. Vholes had copies of these papers and had been in consultation with him throughout. Beyond ascertaining this, and having been the bearer of Ada's letter, and being (as I was going to be) Richard's companion back to London, I had done no good by coming down. Admitting this to myself with a reluctant heart, I said I would return to the hotel and wait until he joined me there, so he threw a cloak over his shoulders and saw me to the gate, and Charley and I went back along the beach. There was a concourse of people in one spot, surrounding some naval officers who were landing from a boat, and pressing about them with unusual interest. I said to Charley this would be one of the great Indiaman's boats now, and we stopped to look. The gentlemen came slowly up from the waterside, speaking good-humouredly to each other and to the people around and glancing about them as if they were glad to be in England again. "Charley, Charley," said I, "come away!" And I hurried on so swiftly that my little maid was surprised. It was not until we were shut up in our cabin-room and I had had time to take breath that I began to think why I had made such haste. In one of the sunburnt faces I had recognized Mr. Allan Woodcourt, and I had been afraid of his recognizing me. I had been unwilling that he should see my altered looks. I had been taken by surprise, and my courage had quite failed me. But I knew this would not do, and I now said to myself, "My dear, there is no reason--there is and there can be no reason at all--why it should be worse for you now than it ever has been. What you were last month, you are to-day; you are no worse, you are no better. This is not your resolution; call it up, Esther, call it up!" I was in a great tremble--with running--and at first was quite unable to calm myself; but I got better, and I was very glad to know it. The party came to the hotel. I heard them speaking on the staircase. I was sure it was the same gentlemen because I knew their voices again--I mean I knew Mr. Woodcourt's. It would still have been a great relief to me to have gone away without making myself known, but I was determined not to do so. "No, my dear, no. No, no, no!" I untied my bonnet and put my veil half up--I think I mean half down, but it matters very little--and wrote on one of my cards that I happened to be there with Mr. Richard Carstone, and I sent it in to Mr. Woodcourt. He came immediately. I told him I was rejoiced to be by chance among the first to welcome him home to England. And I saw that he was very sorry for me. "You have been in shipwreck and peril since you left us, Mr. Woodcourt," said I, "but we can hardly call that a misfortune which enabled you to be so useful and so brave. We read of it with the truest interest. It first came to my knowledge through your old patient, poor Miss Flite, when I was recovering from my severe illness." "Ah! Little Miss Flite!" he said. "She lives the same life yet?" "Just the same." I was so comfortable with myself now as not to mind the veil and to be able to put it aside. "Her gratitude to you, Mr. Woodcourt, is delightful. She is a most affectionate creature, as I have reason to say." "You--you have found her so?" he returned. "I--I am glad of that." He was so very sorry for me that he could scarcely speak. "I assure you," said I, "that I was deeply touched by her sympathy and pleasure at the time I have referred to." "I was grieved to hear that you had been very ill." "I was very ill." "But you have quite recovered?" "I have quite recovered my health and my cheerfulness," said I. "You know how good my guardian is and what a happy life we lead, and I have everything to be thankful for and nothing in the world to desire." I felt as if he had greater commiseration for me than I had ever had for myself. It inspired me with new fortitude and new calmness to find that it was I who was under the necessity of reassuring him. I spoke to him of his voyage out and home, and of his future plans, and of his probable return to India. He said that was very doubtful. He had not found himself more favoured by fortune there than here. He had gone out a poor ship's surgeon and had come home nothing better. While we were talking, and when I was glad to believe that I had alleviated (if I may use such a term) the shock he had had in seeing me, Richard came in. He had heard downstairs who was with me, and they met with cordial pleasure. I saw that after their first greetings were over, and when they spoke of Richard's career, Mr. Woodcourt had a perception that all was not going well with him. He frequently glanced at his face as if there were something in it that gave him pain, and more than once he looked towards me as though he sought to ascertain whether I knew what the truth was. Yet Richard was in one of his sanguine states and in good spirits and was thoroughly pleased to see Mr. Woodcourt again, whom he had always liked. Richard proposed that we all should go to London together; but Mr. Woodcourt, having to remain by his ship a little longer, could not join us. He dined with us, however, at an early hour, and became so much more like what he used to be that I was still more at peace to think I had been able to soften his regrets. Yet his mind was not relieved of Richard. When the coach was almost ready and Richard ran down to look after his luggage, he spoke to me about him. I was not sure that I had a right to lay his whole story open, but I referred in a few words to his estrangement from Mr Jarndyce and to his being entangled in the ill-fated Chancery suit. Mr. Woodcourt listened with interest and expressed his regret. "I saw you observe him rather closely," said I, "Do you think him so changed?" "He is changed," he returned, shaking his head. I felt the blood rush into my face for the first time, but it was only an instantaneous emotion. I turned my head aside, and it was gone. "It is not," said Mr. Woodcourt, "his being so much younger or older, or thinner or fatter, or paler or ruddier, as there being upon his face such a singular expression. I never saw so remarkable a look in a young person. One cannot say that it is all anxiety or all weariness; yet it is both, and like ungrown despair." "You do not think he is ill?" said I. No. He looked robust in body. "That he cannot be at peace in mind, we have too much reason to know," I proceeded. "Mr. Woodcourt, you are going to London?" "To-morrow or the next day." "There is nothing Richard wants so much as a friend. He always liked you. Pray see him when you get there. Pray help him sometimes with your companionship if you can. You do not know of what service it might be. You cannot think how Ada, and Mr. Jarndyce, and even I--how we should all thank you, Mr. Woodcourt!" "Miss Summerson," he said, more moved than he had been from the first, "before heaven, I will be a true friend to him! I will accept him as a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!" "God bless you!" said I, with my eyes filling fast; but I thought they might, when it was not for myself. "Ada loves him--we all love him, but Ada loves him as we cannot. I will tell her what you say. Thank you, and God bless you, in her name!" Richard came back as we finished exchanging these hurried words and gave me his arm to take me to the coach. "Woodcourt," he said, unconscious with what application, "pray let us meet in London!" "Meet?" returned the other. "I have scarcely a friend there now but you. Where shall I find you?" "Why, I must get a lodging of some sort," said Richard, pondering. "Say at Vholes's, Symond's Inn." "Good! Without loss of time." They shook hands heartily. When I was seated in the coach and Richard was yet standing in the street, Mr. Woodcourt laid his friendly hand on Richard's shoulder and looked at me. I understood him and waved mine in thanks. And in his last look as we drove away, I saw that he was very sorry for me. I was glad to see it. I felt for my old self as the dead may feel if they ever revisit these scenes. I was glad to be tenderly remembered, to be gently pitied, not to be quite forgotten.

One morning when my beauty and I were walking round the garden I happened to turn my eyes towards the house and saw a long thin shadow going in which looked like Mr. Vholes. Ada had been telling me only that morning of her hopes that Richard's ardour in the Chancery suit might lessen; and therefore I said nothing about Mr. Vholes's shadow. Presently Charley came out saying, "Oh, please, miss, would you step in and speak to Mr. Jarndyce!" I made haste inside and found my guardian and Mr. Vholes looking at one another across a table, the one so broad and upright and the other so narrow and stooping, the one speaking in such a rich ringing voice and the other in such a gasping, fish-like manner that I thought I never had seen two people so unmatched. "You know Mr. Vholes, my dear," said my guardian. Mr. Vholes rose, gloved and buttoned up as usual, and seated himself again. "Mr. Vholes," said my guardian, eyeing his black figure as if he were a bird of ill omen, "has brought an ugly report of our most unfortunate Rick." I sat down between them; Mr. Vholes remained immovable, except that he secretly picked at one of the red pimples on his yellow face with his black glove. "And as Rick and you are good friends, I should like to know what you think, my dear," said my guardian. Mr. Vholes explained. "I have been saying that Mr. C.'s circumstances are at present in an embarrassed state, owing to the peculiar nature of liabilities Mr. C. has incurred and the means he has of meeting the same. I have staved off many little matters for Mr. C., but there is a limit to staving off, and we have reached it. I have made some advances out of pocket to accommodate these unpleasantnesses, but I necessarily look to being repaid, for I do not pretend to be wealthy, and I have a father to support in the Vale of Taunton, besides three dear girls at home. My apprehension is that it may end in Mr. C wishing to part with his commission." "Imagine the poor fellow without even his present resource," said my guardian to me. "Yet what can I do? You know him, Esther. He would never accept help from me now." Mr. Vholes hereupon addressed me again. "What Mr. Jarndyce remarks, miss, is the difficulty. I do not see that anything is to be done. I merely come down here and mention it in confidence, in order that everything may be openly carried on. I desire to leave a good name behind me. If I consulted merely my own interests with Mr. C., I should not be here. I have no interest in it except as a member of society and a father - and a son." It appeared to us that Mr. Vholes sought to divide the responsibility, such as it was, of knowing Richard's situation. I could only suggest that I should go down to Deal, where Richard was then stationed, and see him, and try if possible to avert the worst. I took my guardian aside to propose this. The fatigue of the journey formed an immediate objection on my guardian's part, but as I was happy to go, I got his consent. We had then merely to dispose of Mr. Vholes. "Well, sir," said Mr. Jarndyce, "Miss Summerson will communicate with Mr. Carstone. You will allow me to order you lunch after your journey, sir." "I thank you, Mr. Jarndyce," said Mr. Vholes, "but no, not a morsel. My digestion is much impaired. If I was to partake of solid food at this period of the day, I don't know what the consequences might be. Sir, I will now take my leave." "I wish we could all take our leave, Mr. Vholes," returned my guardian bitterly, "of a cause you know of." Mr. Vholes slowly shook his head. "We who aim to be looked upon as respectable practitioners, sir, can but put our shoulders to the wheel. You will not refer to me, miss, in communicating with Mr. C.?" I said I would be careful not to. "Just so, miss. Good morning, Mr. Jarndyce." Mr. Vholes put his dead glove, which scarcely seemed to have any hand in it, on my fingers, and then on my guardian's fingers, and took his long thin shadow away. Of course it became necessary to tell Ada where I was going and why, and of course she was anxious and distressed. But she was too true to Richard to say anything but words of pity, and in a more loving spirit still - my dear devoted girl! - she wrote him a long letter, of which I took charge. Charley was to be my travelling companion, though I am sure I needed none. We secured two places in the mail-coach, and at our usual bed-time, Charley and I were rolling away seaward with the Kentish letters. It was a night's journey, but we had the mail-coach to ourselves and did not find the night very tedious. As I considered it, at one time my journey looked hopeful, and at another hopeless. In what state I should find Richard, what I should say to him, and what he would say to me occupied my mind by turns; and the wheels seemed to play one tune over and over again all night. At last we came into the narrow streets of Deal, and very gloomy they were upon a raw misty morning. The long flat beach, with its little irregular houses, and its litter of capstans, and great boats, and sheds, and gravelly waste places overgrown with grass and weeds, wore as dull an appearance as any place I ever saw. The sea was heaving under a thick white fog; and nothing else was moving but a few early ropemakers, who, with the yarn twisted round their bodies, looked as if, tired of their state of existence, they were spinning themselves into cords. But when we got into a warm room in an excellent hotel and sat down to an early breakfast (for it was too late to think of going to bed), Deal began to look more cheerful. Our little room was like a ship's cabin, and that delighted Charley. Then the fog began to rise like a curtain, and numbers of ships unexpectedly appeared. Some were of grand size - one was a large Indiaman just come home; and when the sun shone through the clouds, making silvery pools in the dark sea, the way in which these ships brightened, and changed, amid a bustle of boats pulling between them and the shore, was most beautiful. The large Indiaman was our great attraction because she had come in during the night. She was surrounded by boats, and we said how glad the people on board must be to come ashore. Charley was curious about the voyage, and about the heat in India, and the serpents and the tigers; so I told her what I knew on those points. I told her, too, how people in such voyages were sometimes wrecked and cast on rocks, where they were saved by the courage and humanity of one man. And I told her how we knew at home of such a case. I had thought of sending Richard a note saying I was there, but it seemed better to go to him without preparation. As he lived in barracks I was a little doubtful whether this was feasible, but we went out to reconnoitre. Peeping in at the gate of the barrack-yard, we found everything very quiet, and I asked a sergeant standing on the guardhouse-steps where he lived. He sent a man to show me, who went up some stairs, and knocked at a door, and left us. "Now then!" cried Richard from within. So I left Charley in the little passage, and said, "Can I come in, Richard? It's only Dame Durden." He was writing at a table, with a great confusion of clothes, books, boots and portmanteaus strewn all about the floor. He was only half dressed - in plain clothes, not in uniform - and his hair was unbrushed. He looked as wild as his room. He heartily welcomed me and caught me in his arms in a moment. Dear Richard! He was ever the same to me. Down to the end, he always received me with something of his old merry boyish manner. "Good heavens, my dear little woman," said he, "how do you come here? Nothing the matter? Ada is well?" "Quite well. Lovelier than ever, Richard!" "Ah!" he said. "My poor cousin! I was writing to you, Esther." So worn and haggard he looked, leaning back in his chair and crushing the sheet of paper in his hand! "Am I not to read it after all?" I asked. "Oh, my dear," he returned with a hopeless gesture. "You may read it in the whole room. It is all over here." I told him that I had heard by chance of his being in difficulty and had come to consult with him what could best be done. "Like you, Esther, but useless, and so not like you!" said he with a melancholy smile. "I am away on leave this day - and I am selling out. Well! So this calling follows the rest. I only want to have been in the church to have made the round of all the professions." "Richard," I urged, "it is not so hopeless as that?" "Esther," he returned, "it is indeed. Apart from debts and all such drawbacks, I am not fit even for this employment. I have no care, no heart, no soul, but for one thing. Why, how could I have gone abroad, if I were ordered? How could I trust even Vholes unless I was at his back!" I suppose he knew by my face what I was about to say, but he caught the hand I had laid upon his arm and touched my own lips with it to prevent me from going on. "No, Dame Durden! Two subjects I forbid. The first is John Jarndyce. The second, you know what. Call it madness, but it is the one object I have to pursue. It is a pity I ever was prevailed upon to turn out of my road. It would be wisdom to abandon it now, after all the time and pains I have bestowed upon it! Oh, yes, true wisdom. It would be very agreeable, too, to some people; but I never will." Seeing the mood he was in, I thought it best not to oppose him. I took out Ada's letter and put it in his hand. He began to read. He had not read far when he rested his head upon his hands to hide his face from me. In a little while he rose as if the light were bad and went to the window. He finished reading it there, with his back towards me, and after he had finished and had folded it up, stood there for some minutes. When he came back to his chair, I saw tears in his eyes. "Of course, Esther, you know what she says here?" He spoke in a softened voice. "Yes, Richard." "She offers me the little inheritance she is certain of so soon - and begs and prays me to take it, set myself right with it, and remain in the army." "I know your welfare to be the dearest wish of her heart," said I. "And, oh, my dear Richard, Ada's is a noble heart." "I am sure it is. I - I wish I was dead!" He went back to the window, and laying his arm across it, leaned his head down on his arm. It greatly affected me to see him so, but I remained silent. I was not at all prepared for his rousing himself out of this emotion to a new sense of injury. "And this is the heart that John Jarndyce stepped in to estrange from me," said he indignantly. "And the dear girl makes me this generous offer from under the same John Jarndyce's roof, and with his gracious consent and connivance, I dare say, as a new means of buying me off." "Richard!" I cried out, rising hastily. "I will not hear you say such shameful words!" I was very angry with him indeed, for the first time in my life, but it only lasted a moment. When I saw his worn young face looking at me as if he were sorry, I put my hand on his shoulder and said, "If you please, my dear Richard, do not speak in such a tone to me. Consider!" He begged my pardon a thousand times. At that I laughed, but trembled a little too, for I was rather fluttered after being so fiery. "To accept this offer, my dear Esther," said he, sitting down beside me, "is, I need not say, impossible. Besides, it is all over here. I have done with the red coat, believe me. But it is some satisfaction, in the midst of my troubles, to know that I am pressing Ada's interests in pressing my own. Vholes has his shoulder to the wheel, urging it on as much for her as for me, thank God!" His sanguine hopes were rising and lighting up his features, but they made his face more sad to me than it had been before. "No, no!" cried Richard exultingly. "If every farthing of Ada's little fortune were mine, no part of it should be spent in keeping me in a profession I am weary of. It should be devoted to what promises a better return, and where she has a larger stake. Don't be uneasy for me! I shall now have only one thing on my mind, and Vholes and I will work it. I shall be able to deal with some small usurers who will hear of nothing but their bond now - Vholes says so. Come, come! You shall carry a letter to Ada from me, Esther, and you must both of you be more hopeful of me and not believe that I am quite cast away just yet, my dear." I will not repeat what I said to Richard. I know it was tiresome, and nobody is to suppose for a moment that it was at all wise. It only came from my heart. He heard it patiently and feelingly, but I saw that on the two subjects he had reserved it was at present hopeless to intervene. I saw too that it was even more mischievous to use persuasion with him than to leave him as he was. Therefore I was driven at last to asking Richard if he would mind convincing me that it really was all over there. He showed me a letter making it quite plain that his retirement was arranged. I found that Mr. Vholes had been in consultation with him throughout. Beyond ascertaining this, and having brought Ada's letter, and being (as I was going to be) Richard's companion back to London, I had done no good by coming down. Admitting this to myself with a reluctant heart, I said I would return to the hotel and wait until he joined me there. Then Charley and I went back along the beach. There was a crowd of people in one spot, surrounding some naval officers who were landing from a boat, and pressing about them with unusual interest. I said to Charley this would be one of the great Indiaman's boats, and we stopped to look. The gentlemen came up from the waterside, speaking good-humouredly to each other and glancing around as if they were glad to be in England again. "Charley, Charley," said I, "come away!" And I hurried on so swiftly that my little maid was surprised. It was not until we were shut up in our cabin-room and I had had time to take breath that I began to think why I had made such haste. In one of the sunburnt faces I had recognized Mr. Allan Woodcourt, and I had been afraid of his recognizing me. I had been unwilling that he should see my altered looks. I had been taken by surprise, and my courage had quite failed me. But I knew this would not do, and I now said to myself, "My dear, there is no reason why it should be worse for you now than it ever has been. What you were last month, you are today." I was in a great tremble and at first was quite unable to calm myself; but I got better, and I was very glad to know it. The party came to the hotel. I heard them speaking on the staircase. I knew their voices again - I mean I knew Mr. Woodcourt's. It would still have been a great relief to me to have gone away without making myself known, but I was determined not to do so. I untied my bonnet and put my veil half down, and wrote on one of my cards that I happened to be there with Mr. Richard Carstone, and I sent it in to Mr. Woodcourt. He came immediately. I told him I was rejoiced to be by chance among the first to welcome him home to England. And I saw that he was very sorry for me. "You have been in shipwreck and peril since you left us, Mr. Woodcourt," said I, "but we can hardly call that a misfortune which enabled you to be so useful and so brave. We read of it with the truest interest. Miss Flite told me of it, when I was recovering from my severe illness." "Ah! Little Miss Flite!" he said. "She lives the same life yet?" "Just the same." I was so comfortable with myself now as not to mind the veil and to be able to put it aside. "Her gratitude to you, Mr. Woodcourt, is delightful. She is a most affectionate creature." "You - you have found her so?" he returned. "I - I am glad of that." He was so very sorry for me that he could scarcely speak. "I assure you," said I, "that I was deeply touched by her sympathy." "I was grieved to hear that you had been very ill. But you have quite recovered?" "I have quite recovered my health and my cheerfulness," said I. "You know how good my guardian is and what a happy life we lead, and I have everything to be thankful for and nothing in the world to desire." I felt as if he had greater pity for me than I had ever had for myself. It inspired me with new fortitude and new calmness to find that it was I who needed to reassure him. I spoke to him of his voyages, and of his future plans, and of his probable return to India. He said that was very doubtful. He had gone out a poor ship's surgeon and had come home no richer. While we were talking, and when I was glad to believe that I had alleviated the shock he had had in seeing me, Richard came in. They met with cordial pleasure. I saw that after their first greetings were over, and when they spoke of Richard's career, Mr. Woodcourt perceived that all was not going well with him. He frequently glanced at his face as if there were something in it that gave him pain, and more than once he looked towards me as though he sought to ascertain whether I knew what the truth was. Yet Richard was in one of his sanguine states and in good spirits, and was thoroughly pleased to see Mr. Woodcourt, whom he had always liked. Richard proposed that we all should go to London together; but Mr. Woodcourt, having to remain by his ship a little longer, could not join us. He dined with us, however, and became so much more like what he used to be that I was still more at peace to think I had been able to soften his regrets. Yet he was concerned about Richard. When Richard ran down to look after his luggage, he spoke to me about him. I was not sure that I had a right to tell his whole story, but I referred in a few words to his estrangement from Mr Jarndyce and to his being entangled in the ill-fated Chancery suit. Mr. Woodcourt listened with interest and regret. "He is changed," he said, shaking his head. I felt the blood rush into my face for the first time, but it was only an instantaneous emotion. I turned my head aside, and it was gone. "It is not," said Mr. Woodcourt, "so much a physical change, as there being upon his face such a singular expression. One cannot say that it is all anxiety or all weariness; yet it is both, and like ungrown despair." "You do not think he is ill?" said I. "No. He looked robust in body." "Yet we know that he cannot be at peace in mind. Mr. Woodcourt, you are going to London?" "Tomorrow or the next day." "There is nothing Richard needs so much as a friend. He always liked you. Pray see him when you get there. Pray help him sometimes with your companionship if you can. You cannot think how Ada, and Mr. Jarndyce, and even I - how we should all thank you, Mr. Woodcourt!" "Miss Summerson," he said, more moved than he had been from the first, "before heaven, I will be a true friend to him! I will accept him as a sacred trust." "God bless you!" said I, with my eyes filling fast. "Ada loves him - we all love him, but Ada loves him as we cannot. I will tell her what you say. Thank you, and God bless you!" Richard came back as we finished exchanging these hurried words and gave me his arm to take me to the coach. "Woodcourt," he said, "pray let us meet in London!" "I have scarcely a friend there now but you. Where shall I find you?" "Why, I must get a lodging of some sort," said Richard, pondering. "Say at Vholes's, Symond's Inn." "Good! Without loss of time." They shook hands heartily. When I was seated in the coach and Richard was standing in the street, Mr. Woodcourt laid his friendly hand on Richard's shoulder and looked at me. I understood him and waved mine in thanks. And in his last look as we drove away, I saw that he was very sorry for me. I was glad to see it. I felt for my old self as the dead may feel if they ever revisit these scenes. I was glad to be tenderly remembered, to be gently pitied, not to be quite forgotten.

Bleak House

Chapter 45: In Trust

The place in Lincolnshire has shut its many eyes again, and the house in town is awake. In Lincolnshire the Dedlocks of the past doze in their picture-frames, and the low wind murmurs through the long drawing-room as if they were breathing pretty regularly. In town the Dedlocks of the present rattle in their fire-eyed carriages through the darkness of the night, and the Dedlock Mercuries, with ashes (or hair-powder) on their heads, symptomatic of their great humility, loll away the drowsy mornings in the little windows of the hall. The fashionable world--tremendous orb, nearly five miles round--is in full swing, and the solar system works respectfully at its appointed distances. Where the throng is thickest, where the lights are brightest, where all the senses are ministered to with the greatest delicacy and refinement, Lady Dedlock is. From the shining heights she has scaled and taken, she is never absent. Though the belief she of old reposed in herself as one able to reserve whatsoever she would under her mantle of pride is beaten down, though she has no assurance that what she is to those around her she will remain another day, it is not in her nature when envious eyes are looking on to yield or to droop. They say of her that she has lately grown more handsome and more haughty. The debilitated cousin says of her that she's beauty nough--tsetup shopofwomen--but rather larming kind--remindingmanfact--inconvenient woman--who WILL getoutofbedandbawthstahlishment--Shakespeare. Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing, looks nothing. Now, as heretofore, he is to be found in doorways of rooms, with his limp white cravat loosely twisted into its old-fashioned tie, receiving patronage from the peerage and making no sign. Of all men he is still the last who might be supposed to have any influence upon my Lady. Of all women she is still the last who might be supposed to have any dread of him. One thing has been much on her mind since their late interview in his turret-room at Chesney Wold. She is now decided, and prepared to throw it off. It is morning in the great world, afternoon according to the little sun. The Mercuries, exhausted by looking out of window, are reposing in the hall and hang their heavy heads, the gorgeous creatures, like overblown sunflowers. Like them, too, they seem to run to a deal of seed in their tags and trimmings. Sir Leicester, in the library, has fallen asleep for the good of the country over the report of a Parliamentary committee. My Lady sits in the room in which she gave audience to the young man of the name of Guppy. Rosa is with her and has been writing for her and reading to her. Rosa is now at work upon embroidery or some such pretty thing, and as she bends her head over it, my Lady watches her in silence. Not for the first time to-day. "Rosa." The pretty village face looks brightly up. Then, seeing how serious my Lady is, looks puzzled and surprised. "See to the door. Is it shut?" Yes. She goes to it and returns, and looks yet more surprised. "I am about to place confidence in you, child, for I know I may trust your attachment, if not your judgment. In what I am going to do, I will not disguise myself to you at least. But I confide in you. Say nothing to any one of what passes between us." The timid little beauty promises in all earnestness to be trustworthy. "Do you know," Lady Dedlock asks her, signing to her to bring her chair nearer, "do you know, Rosa, that I am different to you from what I am to any one?" "Yes, my Lady. Much kinder. But then I often think I know you as you really are." "You often think you know me as I really am? Poor child, poor child!" She says it with a kind of scorn--though not of Rosa--and sits brooding, looking dreamily at her. "Do you think, Rosa, you are any relief or comfort to me? Do you suppose your being young and natural, and fond of me and grateful to me, makes it any pleasure to me to have you near me?" "I don't know, my Lady; I can scarcely hope so. But with all my heart, I wish it was so." "It is so, little one." The pretty face is checked in its flush of pleasure by the dark expression on the handsome face before it. It looks timidly for an explanation. "And if I were to say to-day, 'Go! Leave me!' I should say what would give me great pain and disquiet, child, and what would leave me very solitary." "My Lady! Have I offended you?" "In nothing. Come here." Rosa bends down on the footstool at my Lady's feet. My Lady, with that motherly touch of the famous ironmaster night, lays her hand upon her dark hair and gently keeps it there. "I told you, Rosa, that I wished you to be happy and that I would make you so if I could make anybody happy on this earth. I cannot. There are reasons now known to me, reasons in which you have no part, rendering it far better for you that you should not remain here. You must not remain here. I have determined that you shall not. I have written to the father of your lover, and he will be here to-day. All this I have done for your sake." The weeping girl covers her hand with kisses and says what shall she do, what shall she do, when they are separated! Her mistress kisses her on the cheek and makes no other answer. "Now, be happy, child, under better circumstances. Be beloved and happy!" "Ah, my Lady, I have sometimes thought--forgive my being so free--that YOU are not happy." "I!" "Will you be more so when you have sent me away? Pray, pray, think again. Let me stay a little while!" "I have said, my child, that what I do, I do for your sake, not my own. It is done. What I am towards you, Rosa, is what I am now--not what I shall be a little while hence. Remember this, and keep my confidence. Do so much for my sake, and thus all ends between us!" She detaches herself from her simple-hearted companion and leaves the room. Late in the afternoon, when she next appears upon the staircase, she is in her haughtiest and coldest state. As indifferent as if all passion, feeling, and interest had been worn out in the earlier ages of the world and had perished from its surface with its other departed monsters. Mercury has announced Mr. Rouncewell, which is the cause of her appearance. Mr. Rouncewell is not in the library, but she repairs to the library. Sir Leicester is there, and she wishes to speak to him first. "Sir Leicester, I am desirous--but you are engaged." Oh, dear no! Not at all. Only Mr. Tulkinghorn. Always at hand. Haunting every place. No relief or security from him for a moment. "I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. Will you allow me to retire?" With a look that plainly says, "You know you have the power to remain if you will," she tells him it is not necessary and moves towards a chair. Mr. Tulkinghorn brings it a little forward for her with his clumsy bow and retires into a window opposite. Interposed between her and the fading light of day in the now quiet street, his shadow falls upon her, and he darkens all before her. Even so does he darken her life. It is a dull street under the best conditions, where the two long rows of houses stare at each other with that severity that half-a-dozen of its greatest mansions seem to have been slowly stared into stone rather than originally built in that material. It is a street of such dismal grandeur, so determined not to condescend to liveliness, that the doors and windows hold a gloomy state of their own in black paint and dust, and the echoing mews behind have a dry and massive appearance, as if they were reserved to stable the stone chargers of noble statues. Complicated garnish of iron-work entwines itself over the flights of steps in this awful street, and from these petrified bowers, extinguishers for obsolete flambeaux gasp at the upstart gas. Here and there a weak little iron hoop, through which bold boys aspire to throw their friends' caps (its only present use), retains its place among the rusty foliage, sacred to the memory of departed oil. Nay, even oil itself, yet lingering at long intervals in a little absurd glass pot, with a knob in the bottom like an oyster, blinks and sulks at newer lights every night, like its high and dry master in the House of Lords. Therefore there is not much that Lady Dedlock, seated in her chair, could wish to see through the window in which Mr. Tulkinghorn stands. And yet--and yet--she sends a look in that direction as if it were her heart's desire to have that figure moved out of the way. Sir Leicester begs his Lady's pardon. She was about to say? "Only that Mr. Rouncewell is here (he has called by my appointment) and that we had better make an end of the question of that girl. I am tired to death of the matter." "What can I do--to--assist?" demands Sir Leicester in some considerable doubt. "Let us see him here and have done with it. Will you tell them to send him up?" "Mr. Tulkinghorn, be so good as to ring. Thank you. Request," says Sir Leicester to Mercury, not immediately remembering the business term, "request the iron gentleman to walk this way." Mercury departs in search of the iron gentleman, finds, and produces him. Sir Leicester receives that ferruginous person graciously. "I hope you are well, Mr. Rouncewell. Be seated. (My solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn.) My Lady was desirous, Mr. Rouncewell," Sir Leicester skilfully transfers him with a solemn wave of his hand, "was desirous to speak with you. Hem!" "I shall be very happy," returns the iron gentleman, "to give my best attention to anything Lady Dedlock does me the honour to say." As he turns towards her, he finds that the impression she makes upon him is less agreeable than on the former occasion. A distant supercilious air makes a cold atmosphere about her, and there is nothing in her bearing, as there was before, to encourage openness. "Pray, sir," says Lady Dedlock listlessly, "may I be allowed to inquire whether anything has passed between you and your son respecting your son's fancy?" It is almost too troublesome to her languid eyes to bestow a look upon him as she asks this question. "If my memory serves me, Lady Dedlock, I said, when I had the pleasure of seeing you before, that I should seriously advise my son to conquer that--fancy." The ironmaster repeats her expression with a little emphasis. "And did you?" "Oh! Of course I did." Sir Leicester gives a nod, approving and confirmatory. Very proper. The iron gentleman, having said that he would do it, was bound to do it. No difference in this respect between the base metals and the precious. Highly proper. "And pray has he done so?" "Really, Lady Dedlock, I cannot make you a definite reply. I fear not. Probably not yet. In our condition of life, we sometimes couple an intention with our--our fancies which renders them not altogether easy to throw off. I think it is rather our way to be in earnest." Sir Leicester has a misgiving that there may be a hidden Wat Tylerish meaning in this expression, and fumes a little. Mr. Rouncewell is perfectly good-humoured and polite, but within such limits, evidently adapts his tone to his reception. "Because," proceeds my Lady, "I have been thinking of the subject, which is tiresome to me." "I am very sorry, I am sure." "And also of what Sir Leicester said upon it, in which I quite concur"--Sir Leicester flattered--"and if you cannot give us the assurance that this fancy is at an end, I have come to the conclusion that the girl had better leave me." "I can give no such assurance, Lady Dedlock. Nothing of the kind." "Then she had better go." "Excuse me, my Lady," Sir Leicester considerately interposes, "but perhaps this may be doing an injury to the young woman which she has not merited. Here is a young woman," says Sir Leicester, magnificently laying out the matter with his right hand like a service of plate, "whose good fortune it is to have attracted the notice and favour of an eminent lady and to live, under the protection of that eminent lady, surrounded by the various advantages which such a position confers, and which are unquestionably very great--I believe unquestionably very great, sir--for a young woman in that station of life. The question then arises, should that young woman be deprived of these many advantages and that good fortune simply because she has"--Sir Leicester, with an apologetic but dignified inclination of his head towards the ironmaster, winds up his sentence--"has attracted the notice of Mr Rouncewell's son? Now, has she deserved this punishment? Is this just towards her? Is this our previous understanding?" "I beg your pardon," interposes Mr. Rouncewell's son's father. "Sir Leicester, will you allow me? I think I may shorten the subject. Pray dismiss that from your consideration. If you remember anything so unimportant--which is not to be expected--you would recollect that my first thought in the affair was directly opposed to her remaining here." Dismiss the Dedlock patronage from consideration? Oh! Sir Leicester is bound to believe a pair of ears that have been handed down to him through such a family, or he really might have mistrusted their report of the iron gentleman's observations. "It is not necessary," observes my Lady in her coldest manner before he can do anything but breathe amazedly, "to enter into these matters on either side. The girl is a very good girl; I have nothing whatever to say against her, but she is so far insensible to her many advantages and her good fortune that she is in love--or supposes she is, poor little fool--and unable to appreciate them." Sir Leicester begs to observe that wholly alters the case. He might have been sure that my Lady had the best grounds and reasons in support of her view. He entirely agrees with my Lady. The young woman had better go. "As Sir Leicester observed, Mr. Rouncewell, on the last occasion when we were fatigued by this business," Lady Dedlock languidly proceeds, "we cannot make conditions with you. Without conditions, and under present circumstances, the girl is quite misplaced here and had better go. I have told her so. Would you wish to have her sent back to the village, or would you like to take her with you, or what would you prefer?" "Lady Dedlock, if I may speak plainly--" "By all means." "--I should prefer the course which will the soonest relieve you of the incumbrance and remove her from her present position." "And to speak as plainly," she returns with the same studied carelessness, "so should I. Do I understand that you will take her with you?" The iron gentleman makes an iron bow. "Sir Leicester, will you ring?" Mr. Tulkinghorn steps forward from his window and pulls the bell. "I had forgotten you. Thank you." He makes his usual bow and goes quietly back again. Mercury, swift-responsive, appears, receives instructions whom to produce, skims away, produces the aforesaid, and departs. Rosa has been crying and is yet in distress. On her coming in, the ironmaster leaves his chair, takes her arm in his, and remains with her near the door ready to depart. "You are taken charge of, you see," says my Lady in her weary manner, "and are going away well protected. I have mentioned that you are a very good girl, and you have nothing to cry for." "She seems after all," observes Mr. Tulkinghorn, loitering a little forward with his hands behind him, "as if she were crying at going away." "Why, she is not well-bred, you see," returns Mr. Rouncewell with some quickness in his manner, as if he were glad to have the lawyer to retort upon, "and she is an inexperienced little thing and knows no better. If she had remained here, sir, she would have improved, no doubt." "No doubt," is Mr. Tulkinghorn's composed reply. Rosa sobs out that she is very sorry to leave my Lady, and that she was happy at Chesney Wold, and has been happy with my Lady, and that she thanks my Lady over and over again. "Out, you silly little puss!" says the ironmaster, checking her in a low voice, though not angrily. "Have a spirit, if you're fond of Watt!" My Lady merely waves her off with indifference, saying, "There, there, child! You are a good girl. Go away!" Sir Leicester has magnificently disengaged himself from the subject and retired into the sanctuary of his blue coat. Mr. Tulkinghorn, an indistinct form against the dark street now dotted with lamps, looms in my Lady's view, bigger and blacker than before. "Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock," says Mr. Rouncewell after a pause of a few moments, "I beg to take my leave, with an apology for having again troubled you, though not of my own act, on this tiresome subject. I can very well understand, I assure you, how tiresome so small a matter must have become to Lady Dedlock. If I am doubtful of my dealing with it, it is only because I did not at first quietly exert my influence to take my young friend here away without troubling you at all. But it appeared to me--I dare say magnifying the importance of the thing--that it was respectful to explain to you how the matter stood and candid to consult your wishes and convenience. I hope you will excuse my want of acquaintance with the polite world." Sir Leicester considers himself evoked out of the sanctuary by these remarks. "Mr. Rouncewell," he returns, "do not mention it. Justifications are unnecessary, I hope, on either side." "I am glad to hear it, Sir Leicester; and if I may, by way of a last word, revert to what I said before of my mother's long connexion with the family and the worth it bespeaks on both sides, I would point out this little instance here on my arm who shows herself so affectionate and faithful in parting and in whom my mother, I dare say, has done something to awaken such feelings--though of course Lady Dedlock, by her heartfelt interest and her genial condescension, has done much more." If he mean this ironically, it may be truer than he thinks. He points it, however, by no deviation from his straightforward manner of speech, though in saying it he turns towards that part of the dim room where my Lady sits. Sir Leicester stands to return his parting salutation, Mr. Tulkinghorn again rings, Mercury takes another flight, and Mr. Rouncewell and Rosa leave the house. Then lights are brought in, discovering Mr. Tulkinghorn still standing in his window with his hands behind him and my Lady still sitting with his figure before her, closing up her view of the night as well as of the day. She is very pale. Mr. Tulkinghorn, observing it as she rises to retire, thinks, "Well she may be! The power of this woman is astonishing. She has been acting a part the whole time." But he can act a part too--his one unchanging character--and as he holds the door open for this woman, fifty pairs of eyes, each fifty times sharper than Sir Leicester's pair, should find no flaw in him. Lady Dedlock dines alone in her own room to-day. Sir Leicester is whipped in to the rescue of the Doodle Party and the discomfiture of the Coodle Faction. Lady Dedlock asks on sitting down to dinner, still deadly pale (and quite an illustration of the debilitated cousin's text), whether he is gone out? Yes. Whether Mr. Tulkinghorn is gone yet? No. Presently she asks again, is he gone YET? No. What is he doing? Mercury thinks he is writing letters in the library. Would my Lady wish to see him? Anything but that. But he wishes to see my Lady. Within a few more minutes he is reported as sending his respects, and could my Lady please to receive him for a word or two after her dinner? My Lady will receive him now. He comes now, apologizing for intruding, even by her permission, while she is at table. When they are alone, my Lady waves her hand to dispense with such mockeries. "What do you want, sir?" "Why, Lady Dedlock," says the lawyer, taking a chair at a little distance from her and slowly rubbing his rusty legs up and down, up and down, up and down, "I am rather surprised by the course you have taken." "Indeed?" "Yes, decidedly. I was not prepared for it. I consider it a departure from our agreement and your promise. It puts us in a new position, Lady Dedlock. I feel myself under the necessity of saying that I don't approve of it." He stops in his rubbing and looks at her, with his hands on his knees. Imperturbable and unchangeable as he is, there is still an indefinable freedom in his manner which is new and which does not escape this woman's observation. "I do not quite understand you." "Oh, yes you do, I think. I think you do. Come, come, Lady Dedlock, we must not fence and parry now. You know you like this girl." "Well, sir?" "And you know--and I know--that you have not sent her away for the reasons you have assigned, but for the purpose of separating her as much as possible from--excuse my mentioning it as a matter of business--any reproach and exposure that impend over yourself." "Well, sir?" "Well, Lady Dedlock," returns the lawyer, crossing his legs and nursing the uppermost knee. "I object to that. I consider that a dangerous proceeding. I know it to be unnecessary and calculated to awaken speculation, doubt, rumour, I don't know what, in the house. Besides, it is a violation of our agreement. You were to be exactly what you were before. Whereas, it must be evident to yourself, as it is to me, that you have been this evening very different from what you were before. Why, bless my soul, Lady Dedlock, transparently so!" "If, sir," she begins, "in my knowledge of my secret--" But he interrupts her. "Now, Lady Dedlock, this is a matter of business, and in a matter of business the ground cannot be kept too clear. It is no longer your secret. Excuse me. That is just the mistake. It is my secret, in trust for Sir Leicester and the family. If it were your secret, Lady Dedlock, we should not be here holding this conversation." "That is very true. If in my knowledge of THE secret I do what I can to spare an innocent girl (especially, remembering your own reference to her when you told my story to the assembled guests at Chesney Wold) from the taint of my impending shame, I act upon a resolution I have taken. Nothing in the world, and no one in the world, could shake it or could move me." This she says with great deliberation and distinctness and with no more outward passion than himself. As for him, he methodically discusses his matter of business as if she were any insensible instrument used in business. "Really? Then you see, Lady Dedlock," he returns, "you are not to be trusted. You have put the case in a perfectly plain way, and according to the literal fact; and that being the case, you are not to be trusted." "Perhaps you may remember that I expressed some anxiety on this same point when we spoke at night at Chesney Wold?" "Yes," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, coolly getting up and standing on the hearth. "Yes. I recollect, Lady Dedlock, that you certainly referred to the girl, but that was before we came to our arrangement, and both the letter and the spirit of our arrangement altogether precluded any action on your part founded upon my discovery. There can be no doubt about that. As to sparing the girl, of what importance or value is she? Spare! Lady Dedlock, here is a family name compromised. One might have supposed that the course was straight on--over everything, neither to the right nor to the left, regardless of all considerations in the way, sparing nothing, treading everything under foot." She has been looking at the table. She lifts up her eyes and looks at him. There is a stern expression on her face and a part of her lower lip is compressed under her teeth. "This woman understands me," Mr. Tulkinghorn thinks as she lets her glance fall again. "SHE cannot be spared. Why should she spare others?" For a little while they are silent. Lady Dedlock has eaten no dinner, but has twice or thrice poured out water with a steady hand and drunk it. She rises from table, takes a lounging-chair, and reclines in it, shading her face. There is nothing in her manner to express weakness or excite compassion. It is thoughtful, gloomy, concentrated. "This woman," thinks Mr. Tulkinghorn, standing on the hearth, again a dark object closing up her view, "is a study." He studies her at his leisure, not speaking for a time. She too studies something at her leisure. She is not the first to speak, appearing indeed so unlikely to be so, though he stood there until midnight, that even he is driven upon breaking silence. "Lady Dedlock, the most disagreeable part of this business interview remains, but it is business. Our agreement is broken. A lady of your sense and strength of character will be prepared for my now declaring it void and taking my own course." "I am quite prepared." Mr. Tulkinghorn inclines his head. "That is all I have to trouble you with, Lady Dedlock." She stops him as he is moving out of the room by asking, "This is the notice I was to receive? I wish not to misapprehend you." "Not exactly the notice you were to receive, Lady Dedlock, because the contemplated notice supposed the agreement to have been observed. But virtually the same, virtually the same. The difference is merely in a lawyer's mind." "You intend to give me no other notice?" "You are right. No." "Do you contemplate undeceiving Sir Leicester to-night?" "A home question!" says Mr. Tulkinghorn with a slight smile and cautiously shaking his head at the shaded face. "No, not to-night." "To-morrow?" "All things considered, I had better decline answering that question, Lady Dedlock. If I were to say I don't know when, exactly, you would not believe me, and it would answer no purpose. It may be to-morrow. I would rather say no more. You are prepared, and I hold out no expectations which circumstances might fail to justify. I wish you good evening." She removes her hand, turns her pale face towards him as he walks silently to the door, and stops him once again as he is about to open it. "Do you intend to remain in the house any time? I heard you were writing in the library. Are you going to return there?" "Only for my hat. I am going home." She bows her eyes rather than her head, the movement is so slight and curious, and he withdraws. Clear of the room he looks at his watch but is inclined to doubt it by a minute or thereabouts. There is a splendid clock upon the staircase, famous, as splendid clocks not often are, for its accuracy. "And what do YOU say," Mr. Tulkinghorn inquires, referring to it. "What do you say?" If it said now, "Don't go home!" What a famous clock, hereafter, if it said to-night of all the nights that it has counted off, to this old man of all the young and old men who have ever stood before it, "Don't go home!" With its sharp clear bell it strikes three quarters after seven and ticks on again. "Why, you are worse than I thought you," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, muttering reproof to his watch. "Two minutes wrong? At this rate you won't last my time." What a watch to return good for evil if it ticked in answer, "Don't go home!" He passes out into the streets and walks on, with his hands behind him, under the shadow of the lofty houses, many of whose mysteries, difficulties, mortgages, delicate affairs of all kinds, are treasured up within his old black satin waistcoat. He is in the confidence of the very bricks and mortar. The high chimney-stacks telegraph family secrets to him. Yet there is not a voice in a mile of them to whisper, "Don't go home!" Through the stir and motion of the commoner streets; through the roar and jar of many vehicles, many feet, many voices; with the blazing shop-lights lighting him on, the west wind blowing him on, and the crowd pressing him on, he is pitilessly urged upon his way, and nothing meets him murmuring, "Don't go home!" Arrived at last in his dull room to light his candles, and look round and up, and see the Roman pointing from the ceiling, there is no new significance in the Roman's hand to-night or in the flutter of the attendant groups to give him the late warning, "Don't come here!" It is a moonlight night, but the moon, being past the full, is only now rising over the great wilderness of London. The stars are shining as they shone above the turret-leads at Chesney Wold. This woman, as he has of late been so accustomed to call her, looks out upon them. Her soul is turbulent within her; she is sick at heart and restless. The large rooms are too cramped and close. She cannot endure their restraint and will walk alone in a neighbouring garden. Too capricious and imperious in all she does to be the cause of much surprise in those about her as to anything she does, this woman, loosely muffled, goes out into the moonlight. Mercury attends with the key. Having opened the garden-gate, he delivers the key into his Lady's hands at her request and is bidden to go back. She will walk there some time to ease her aching head. She may be an hour, she may be more. She needs no further escort. The gate shuts upon its spring with a clash, and he leaves her passing on into the dark shade of some trees. A fine night, and a bright large moon, and multitudes of stars. Mr. Tulkinghorn, in repairing to his cellar and in opening and shutting those resounding doors, has to cross a little prison-like yard. He looks up casually, thinking what a fine night, what a bright large moon, what multitudes of stars! A quiet night, too. A very quiet night. When the moon shines very brilliantly, a solitude and stillness seem to proceed from her that influence even crowded places full of life. Not only is it a still night on dusty high roads and on hill-summits, whence a wide expanse of country may be seen in repose, quieter and quieter as it spreads away into a fringe of trees against the sky with the grey ghost of a bloom upon them; not only is it a still night in gardens and in woods, and on the river where the water-meadows are fresh and green, and the stream sparkles on among pleasant islands, murmuring weirs, and whispering rushes; not only does the stillness attend it as it flows where houses cluster thick, where many bridges are reflected in it, where wharves and shipping make it black and awful, where it winds from these disfigurements through marshes whose grim beacons stand like skeletons washed ashore, where it expands through the bolder region of rising grounds, rich in cornfield wind-mill and steeple, and where it mingles with the ever-heaving sea; not only is it a still night on the deep, and on the shore where the watcher stands to see the ship with her spread wings cross the path of light that appears to be presented to only him; but even on this stranger's wilderness of London there is some rest. Its steeples and towers and its one great dome grow more ethereal; its smoky house-tops lose their grossness in the pale effulgence; the noises that arise from the streets are fewer and are softened, and the footsteps on the pavements pass more tranquilly away. In these fields of Mr. Tulkinghorn's inhabiting, where the shepherds play on Chancery pipes that have no stop, and keep their sheep in the fold by hook and by crook until they have shorn them exceeding close, every noise is merged, this moonlight night, into a distant ringing hum, as if the city were a vast glass, vibrating. What's that? Who fired a gun or pistol? Where was it? The few foot-passengers start, stop, and stare about them. Some windows and doors are opened, and people come out to look. It was a loud report and echoed and rattled heavily. It shook one house, or so a man says who was passing. It has aroused all the dogs in the neighbourhood, who bark vehemently. Terrified cats scamper across the road. While the dogs are yet barking and howling--there is one dog howling like a demon--the church-clocks, as if they were startled too, begin to strike. The hum from the streets, likewise, seems to swell into a shout. But it is soon over. Before the last clock begins to strike ten, there is a lull. When it has ceased, the fine night, the bright large moon, and multitudes of stars, are left at peace again. Has Mr. Tulkinghorn been disturbed? His windows are dark and quiet, and his door is shut. It must be something unusual indeed to bring him out of his shell. Nothing is heard of him, nothing is seen of him. What power of cannon might it take to shake that rusty old man out of his immovable composure? For many years the persistent Roman has been pointing, with no particular meaning, from that ceiling. It is not likely that he has any new meaning in him to-night. Once pointing, always pointing--like any Roman, or even Briton, with a single idea. There he is, no doubt, in his impossible attitude, pointing, unavailingly, all night long. Moonlight, darkness, dawn, sunrise, day. There he is still, eagerly pointing, and no one minds him. But a little after the coming of the day come people to clean the rooms. And either the Roman has some new meaning in him, not expressed before, or the foremost of them goes wild, for looking up at his outstretched hand and looking down at what is below it, that person shrieks and flies. The others, looking in as the first one looked, shriek and fly too, and there is an alarm in the street. What does it mean? No light is admitted into the darkened chamber, and people unaccustomed to it enter, and treading softly but heavily, carry a weight into the bedroom and lay it down. There is whispering and wondering all day, strict search of every corner, careful tracing of steps, and careful noting of the disposition of every article of furniture. All eyes look up at the Roman, and all voices murmur, "If he could only tell what he saw!" He is pointing at a table with a bottle (nearly full of wine) and a glass upon it and two candles that were blown out suddenly soon after being lighted. He is pointing at an empty chair and at a stain upon the ground before it that might be almost covered with a hand. These objects lie directly within his range. An excited imagination might suppose that there was something in them so terrific as to drive the rest of the composition, not only the attendant big-legged boys, but the clouds and flowers and pillars too--in short, the very body and soul of Allegory, and all the brains it has--stark mad. It happens surely that every one who comes into the darkened room and looks at these things looks up at the Roman and that he is invested in all eyes with mystery and awe, as if he were a paralysed dumb witness. So it shall happen surely, through many years to come, that ghostly stories shall be told of the stain upon the floor, so easy to be covered, so hard to be got out, and that the Roman, pointing from the ceiling shall point, so long as dust and damp and spiders spare him, with far greater significance than he ever had in Mr. Tulkinghorn's time, and with a deadly meaning. For Mr. Tulkinghorn's time is over for evermore, and the Roman pointed at the murderous hand uplifted against his life, and pointed helplessly at him, from night to morning, lying face downward on the floor, shot through the heart.

The place in Lincolnshire has shut its many eyes again, and the house in town is awake. In Lincolnshire the Dedlocks of the past doze in their picture-frames. In town the Dedlocks of the present rattle in their carriages through the darkness of the night, and the Dedlock footmen loll away the drowsy mornings in the little windows of the hall. The fashionable world - tremendous orb, nearly five miles round - is in full swing. Where the throng is thickest, where the lights are brightest, Lady Dedlock is. From the shining heights she has conquered, she is never absent. Though she has no assurance that what she is to those around her, she will remain another day, it is not in her nature to yield or to droop. They say that she has lately grown more handsome and more haughty. Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing. Now, as before, he is to be found in doorways, receiving patronage from the peerage and making no sign. Of all men he is still the last who might be supposed to have any influence upon my Lady. Of all women she is still the last who might be supposed to have any dread of him. One thing has been much on her mind since their interview in his turret-room at Chesney Wold. She is now decided. It is afternoon. The footmen, exhausted by looking out of windows, are reposing in the hall and hang their heavy powdered heads like overblown sunflowers. Sir Leicester, in the library, has fallen asleep over the report of a Parliamentary committee. My Lady sits in the room in which she gave audience to the young man of the name of Guppy. Rosa is with her and has been reading to her. Rosa is now at work upon embroidery, and my Lady watches her in silence. "Rosa." The pretty village face looks brightly up. Then, seeing how serious my Lady is, looks puzzled and surprised. "Is the door shut?" Yes. She looks yet more surprised. "I am about to place confidence in you, child, for I know I may trust your attachment, if not your judgment. Say nothing to anyone of what passes between us." Rosa promises earnestly to be trustworthy. "Do you know," Lady Dedlock asks her, "that I am different to you from what I am to anyone?" "Yes, my Lady. Much kinder. But I often think I know you as you really are." "You think so? Poor child!" She says it with a kind of scorn - though not of Rosa - and sits brooding. "Do you think, Rosa, you are any relief or comfort to me? Do you suppose it gives me pleasure to have you near me?" "I don't know, my Lady. I hope and wish it was so." "It is so, little one." The pretty face is checked in its flush of pleasure by the dark expression on the handsome face before it. It looks timidly for an explanation. "And if I were to say today, 'Go! Leave me!' it would give me great pain, child, and leave me very solitary." "My Lady! Have I offended you?" "In nothing. Come here." Rosa bends down on the footstool at my Lady's feet. My Lady lays her hand upon her dark hair and gently keeps it there. "I told you, Rosa, that I wished you to be happy and that I would make you so if I could. I cannot. There are reasons now known to me, reasons in which you have no part, which mean it is far better for you that you should not remain here. I have decided that you shall not stay. I have written to the father of your lover, and he will be here today. All this I have done for your sake." The weeping girl covers her hand with kisses and says what shall she do, when they are separated! Her mistress kisses her on the cheek. "Be happy, child. Be beloved and happy!" "Ah, my Lady, I have sometimes thought - forgive me - that you are not happy." "I!" "Pray let me stay a little while!" "I have said, my child, that what I do, I do for your sake, not my own. It is done. What I am towards you, Rosa, is what I am now - not what I shall be in a little while. Remember this, and keep my confidence, for my sake!" She leaves the room. Late in the afternoon, when she next appears upon the staircase, she is in her haughtiest and coldest state. Mr. Rouncewell has arrived. Mr. Rouncewell is not in the library, but she goes to the library. Sir Leicester is there, and she wishes to speak to him first. "Sir Leicester, I am desirous - but you are engaged." Oh, dear no! Only Mr. Tulkinghorn. Always at hand. Haunting every place. "I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. Will you allow me to retire?" With a look that plainly says, "You know you have the power to remain if you will," she tells him it is not necessary. Mr. Tulkinghorn retires into a window opposite. Interposed between her and the fading light of day in the quiet street, his shadow falls upon her, and he darkens all before her. It is a dull street at the best of times, a street of dismal grandeur, with a complicated garnish of iron-work that entwines itself over the flights of steps, and here and there a weak little iron hoop, sacred to the memory of departed oil-lamps. Therefore there is not much that Lady Dedlock could wish to see through the window in which Mr. Tulkinghorn stands. And yet she sends a look in that direction as if it were her heart's desire to have him moved out of the way. Sir Leicester begs his Lady's pardon. She was about to say? "Only that Mr. Rouncewell is here (he has called by my appointment) and that we had better make an end of the question of that girl. I am tired to death of the matter. Will you tell them to send him up?" Sir Leicester tells the footman, "Request the iron gentleman to walk this way." When he comes, Sir Leicester receives him graciously. "I hope you are well, Mr. Rouncewell. Be seated. My Lady was desirous to speak with you. Hem!" "I shall be very happy," returns the iron gentleman, "to give my best attention to anything Lady Dedlock does me the honour to say." As he turns towards her, he finds she seems less agreeable than on the former occasion. A distant supercilious air makes a cold atmosphere about her, which does not encourage openness. "Pray, sir," says Lady Dedlock listlessly, "may I be allowed to inquire whether anything has passed between you and your son respecting your son's fancy?" "If my memory serves me, Lady Dedlock, I said that I should seriously advise my son to conquer that - fancy." "And did you?" "Of course I did." Sir Leicester gives an approving nod. "And pray has he done so?" "Lady Dedlock, I fear not." "Because," proceeds my Lady, "I have been thinking of the subject, which is tiresome to me." "I am very sorry, I am sure." "And also of what Sir Leicester said upon it, in which I quite concur. If you cannot assure us that this fancy is at an end, I have come to the conclusion that the girl had better leave me. She had better go." "Excuse me, my Lady," Sir Leicester considerately interposes, "but perhaps this may be doing an injury to the young woman which she has not deserved. It is her good fortune it is to have attracted the favour of an eminent lady and to live surrounded by great advantages. Should the young woman be deprived of these advantages simply because she has attracted the notice of Mr Rouncewell's son? Now, has she deserved this punishment?" "I beg your pardon," interposes Mr. Rouncewell. "Pray dismiss that from your consideration. You may recollect that my first thought in the affair was directly opposed to her remaining here." Dismiss the Dedlock patronage from consideration? Oh! Sir Leicester can scarcely believe his ears. "It is not necessary," observes my Lady in her coldest manner, "to enter into these matters. The girl is a very good girl; I have nothing whatever to say against her, but she is so far insensible to her many advantages that she is in love - or supposes she is, poor little fool - and unable to appreciate them." In that case, Sir Leicester entirely agrees with my Lady. The young woman had better go. "I have told her so," says Lady Dedlock languidly. "Mr. Rouncewell, would you wish to have her sent back to the village, or would you like to take her with you?" "I should prefer the course which will the soonest relieve you of the incumbrance." "Do I understand that you will take her with you?" The iron gentleman makes an iron bow. "Sir Leicester, will you ring?" Mr. Tulkinghorn steps forward from his window and pulls the bell. "I had forgotten you. Thank you." The footman is instructed to bring Rosa. Rosa has been crying and is still in distress. On her coming in, the ironmaster leaves his chair, and takes her arm in his. "You are taken charge of, you see," says my Lady in her weary manner, "and are going away well protected. I have mentioned that you are a very good girl, and you have nothing to cry for." "She seems after all," observes Mr. Tulkinghorn, "as if she were crying at going away." "Why, she is not well-bred, you see," returns Mr. Rouncewell with some quickness, as if he were glad to have the lawyer to retort upon, "and she is an inexperienced little thing and knows no better. If she had remained here, sir, she would have improved, no doubt." "No doubt," is Mr. Tulkinghorn's composed reply. Rosa sobs out that she is very sorry to leave my Lady, and that she was happy at Chesney Wold, and that she thanks my Lady over and over again. "Out, you silly little puss!" says the ironmaster, though not angrily. "Have a spirit, if you're fond of Watt!" My Lady merely waves her off with indifference, saying, "There, there, child! You are a good girl. Go away!" Mr. Tulkinghorn, an indistinct form against the dark street now dotted with lamps, looms in my Lady's view, bigger and blacker than before. "Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock," says Mr. Rouncewell, "I can very well understand, I assure you, how tiresome so small a matter must have become to Lady Dedlock. I only regret that I did not at first quietly exert my influence to take my young friend here away without troubling you. I hope you will excuse my want of acquaintance with the polite world." Sir Leicester stands to return his parting salutation, and Mr. Rouncewell and Rosa leave the house. Then lights are brought in, discovering Mr. Tulkinghorn still standing in his window with his hands behind him and my Lady still sitting with his figure before her. She is very pale. Mr. Tulkinghorn thinks, "The power of this woman is astonishing. She has been acting a part the whole time." But he can act a part too - his one unchanging character - and as he holds the door open for her to leave the room, fifty pairs of eyes should find no flaw in him. Lady Dedlock dines alone in her room today. Sir Leicester has a political meeting. She asks, still deadly pale, whether he is gone out? Yes. Whether Mr. Tulkinghorn is gone yet? No. Presently she asks again, is he gone yet? No. What is he doing? The footman thinks he is writing letters in the library. Would my Lady wish to see him? Anything but that. But he wishes to see my Lady. Within a few more minutes he sends his respects, and could my Lady receive him for a word or two? He comes in apologizing for intruding. When they are alone, my Lady waves her hand to dispense with such mockeries. "What do you want, sir?" "Why, Lady Dedlock," says the lawyer, taking a chair, "I am rather surprised by the course you have taken." "Indeed?" "Yes, decidedly. I was not prepared for it. I consider it a departure from our agreement and your promise. It puts us in a new position, Lady Dedlock. I feel myself under the necessity of saying that I don't approve of it." He looks at her, with his hands on his knees. Imperturbable as he is, there is still an indefinable freedom in his manner which is new and which does not escape her observation. "I do not quite understand you." "Oh, I think you do. Come, come, Lady Dedlock, we must not parry now. You know you like this girl." "Well, sir?" "And you know - and I know - that you have not sent her away for the reasons you said, but to separate her from any reproach and exposure that hang over yourself." "Well, sir?" "Well, Lady Dedlock," returns the lawyer, crossing his legs, "I object to that. I consider that a dangerous proceeding, calculated to awaken speculation, doubt, and rumour. Besides, it is a violation of our agreement. You were to be exactly what you were before. Whereas you have been this evening very different, Lady Dedlock, transparently so!" "If, sir," she begins, "in my knowledge of my secret-" But he interrupts her. "Now, Lady Dedlock, this is a matter of business. It is no longer your secret. That is your mistake. It is my secret, in trust for Sir Leicester and the family. If it were your secret, Lady Dedlock, we should not be holding this conversation." "That is very true. If in my knowledge of the secret I do what I can to spare an innocent girl from my impending shame (especially, remembering your own reference to her when you told my story at Chesney Wold), I act upon a resolution I have taken. Nothing in the world could shake it." This she says with no more outward passion than himself. "Really? Then you see, Lady Dedlock, you are not to be trusted. You have put the case in a perfectly plain way, and you are not to be trusted." "Perhaps you may remember that I expressed some anxiety on this same point when we spoke at Chesney Wold?" "Yes," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, coolly getting up. "I recollect, Lady Dedlock, that you referred to the girl, but our arrangement altogether forbade any action on your part. As to sparing the girl, of what value is she? Lady Dedlock, here is a family name compromised. One might have supposed that the course was straight on, neither to the right nor to the left, sparing nothing, treading everything under foot." She lifts up her eyes and looks at him with a stern expression. "This woman understands me," Mr. Tulkinghorn thinks as she lets her glance fall again. "She cannot be spared. Why should she spare others?" For a little while they are silent. Lady Dedlock rises from the table and reclines in a lounging-chair, shading her face. Her manner is thoughtful, gloomy, concentrated. "This woman," thinks Mr. Tulkinghorn, "is a study." He studies her at his leisure. She too studies something at her leisure. She is not the first to speak. At last he is driven to break the silence. "Lady Dedlock, the most disagreeable part of this business interview remains, but it is business. Our agreement is broken. A lady of your sense and strength of character will be prepared for my now declaring it void and taking my own course." "I am quite prepared." Mr. Tulkinghorn inclines his head. "That is all I have to say, Lady Dedlock." As he is leaving the room she asks, "This is the notice I was to receive? I wish not to misunderstand you." "Not exactly, Lady Dedlock. But virtually the same." "Do you think of undeceiving Sir Leicester tonight?" "No," says Mr. Tulkinghorn with a slight smile. "Not tonight." "Tomorrow?" "I had better not answer that question, Lady Dedlock. It may be tomorrow. I would rather say no more. I wish you good evening." As he walks silently to the door she stops him once again. "Do you intend to remain in the house? I heard you were writing in the library. Are you going to return there?" "Only for my hat. I am going home." She bows her eyes rather than her head, and he withdraws. Outside the room he looks at his watch and then at a splendid clock upon the staircase. "And what do you say?" Mr. Tulkinghorn inquires of it. If it said now, "Don't go home!" what a famous clock would it be hereafter. With its sharp clear bell it strikes three quarters after seven and ticks on. "Why, you are worse than I thought you," mutters Mr. Tulkinghorn in reproof to his watch. "Two minutes wrong." What a watch it would be if it ticked in answer, "Don't go home!" He passes out into the streets and walks on, under the shadow of the lofty houses, many of whose mysteries and mortgages are treasured up within his old black waistcoat. He is in the confidence of the very bricks and mortar. Yet there is not a voice in a mile of them to whisper, "Don't go home!" Through the stir and motion of the streets; through the roar and jar of many vehicles, many feet, many voices; with the blazing shop-lights lighting him, and the crowd pressing him on, he is pitilessly urged upon his way, and nothing meets him murmuring, "Don't go home!" Arrived at last in his dull room, he lights his candles. The moon is rising over the great wilderness of London. The stars are shining as they shone above the turret-leads at Chesney Wold. This woman, as he has of late been accustomed to call her, looks out upon them. Her soul is turbulent within her; she is sick at heart and restless. The large rooms are too cramped and close. She cannot endure their restraint and will walk alone in a neighbouring garden. Loosely muffled, she goes out into the moonlight. A footman opens the garden-gate, delivers the key into his Lady's hands and is bidden to go back. She will walk there some time to ease her aching head. She may be an hour, she may be more. The gate shuts with a clash. A fine night, and a bright large moon, and multitudes of stars. Mr. Tulkinghorn, in repairing to his cellar, has to cross a little prison-like yard. He looks up casually, thinking what a fine night, and what a quiet night, too. A very quiet night. Not only is it a still night on dusty high roads and hill-summits; not only is it a still night in gardens and in woods, and on the river where the water-meadows are fresh and green, until it mingles with the ever-heaving sea; not only is it a still night on the deep; but even on this stranger's wilderness of London there is some rest. Its steeples and towers and its one great dome grow more ethereal; the noises of the streets are softened, and the footsteps on the pavements pass tranquilly away. In Mr. Tulkinghorn's room, every noise is merged, this moonlit night, into a distant ringing hum, as if the city were a vast glass, vibrating. What's that? Who fired a gun or pistol? Where was it? The few pedestrians start, stop, and stare about them. Some windows and doors are opened, and people come out to look. It was a loud report and echoed heavily. It has aroused all the dogs in the neighbourhood, who bark. The hum from the streets, likewise, seems to swell into a shout. But it is soon over. When it has ceased, the fine night, the bright large moon, and multitudes of stars are left at peace again. Has Mr. Tulkinghorn been disturbed? His windows are dark and quiet, and his door is shut. It must be something unusual indeed to bring him out of his shell. Nothing is heard of him, nothing is seen of him. But a little after day-break come people to clean the rooms. And looking down upon the floor, one person shrieks and flies. The others, looking in, shriek and fly too, and there is an alarm in the street. What does it mean? No light is admitted into the darkened chamber. People enter, treading softly but heavily. There is whispering and wondering all day, strict search of every corner, careful tracing of steps, and careful noting of the position of every article of furniture. On the table is a bottle (nearly full of wine), a glass and two candles that were blown out suddenly soon after being lighted. There is an empty chair and a stain upon the ground before it. It shall happen surely, through many years to come, that ghostly stories shall be told of the stain upon the floor, so easy to be covered, so hard to be got out. For Mr. Tulkinghorn's time is over for evermore. He is lying face downward on the floor, shot through the heart.

Bleak House

Chapter 48: Closing In

It is but a glimpse of the world of fashion that we want on this same miry afternoon. It is not so unlike the Court of Chancery but that we may pass from the one scene to the other, as the crow flies. Both the world of fashion and the Court of Chancery are things of precedent and usage: oversleeping Rip Van Winkles who have played at strange games through a deal of thundery weather; sleeping beauties whom the knight will wake one day, when all the stopped spits in the kitchen shall begin to turn prodigiously! It is not a large world. Relatively even to this world of ours, which has its limits too (as your Highness shall find when you have made the tour of it and are come to the brink of the void beyond), it is a very little speck. There is much good in it; there are many good and true people in it; it has its appointed place. But the evil of it is that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller's cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds, and cannot see them as they circle round the sun. It is a deadened world, and its growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air. My Lady Dedlock has returned to her house in town for a few days previous to her departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to stay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain. The fashionable intelligence says so for the comfort of the Parisians, and it knows all fashionable things. To know things otherwise were to be unfashionable. My Lady Dedlock has been down at what she calls, in familiar conversation, her "place" in Lincolnshire. The waters are out in Lincolnshire. An arch of the bridge in the park has been sapped and sopped away. The adjacent low-lying ground for half a mile in breadth is a stagnant river with melancholy trees for islands in it and a surface punctured all over, all day long, with falling rain. My Lady Dedlock's place has been extremely dreary. The weather for many a day and night has been so wet that the trees seem wet through, and the soft loppings and prunings of the woodman's axe can make no crash or crackle as they fall. The deer, looking soaked, leave quagmires where they pass. The shot of a rifle loses its sharpness in the moist air, and its smoke moves in a tardy little cloud towards the green rise, coppice-topped, that makes a background for the falling rain. The view from my Lady Dedlock's own windows is alternately a lead-coloured view and a view in Indian ink. The vases on the stone terrace in the foreground catch the rain all day; and the heavy drops fall--drip, drip, drip--upon the broad flagged pavement, called from old time the Ghost's Walk, all night. On Sundays the little church in the park is mouldy; the oaken pulpit breaks out into a cold sweat; and there is a general smell and taste as of the ancient Dedlocks in their graves. My Lady Dedlock (who is childless), looking out in the early twilight from her boudoir at a keeper's lodge and seeing the light of a fire upon the latticed panes, and smoke rising from the chimney, and a child, chased by a woman, running out into the rain to meet the shining figure of a wrapped-up man coming through the gate, has been put quite out of temper. My Lady Dedlock says she has been "bored to death." Therefore my Lady Dedlock has come away from the place in Lincolnshire and has left it to the rain, and the crows, and the rabbits, and the deer, and the partridges and pheasants. The pictures of the Dedlocks past and gone have seemed to vanish into the damp walls in mere lowness of spirits, as the housekeeper has passed along the old rooms shutting up the shutters. And when they will next come forth again, the fashionable intelligence--which, like the fiend, is omniscient of the past and present, but not the future--cannot yet undertake to say. Sir Leicester Dedlock is only a baronet, but there is no mightier baronet than he. His family is as old as the hills, and infinitely more respectable. He has a general opinion that the world might get on without hills but would be done up without Dedlocks. He would on the whole admit nature to be a good idea (a little low, perhaps, when not enclosed with a park-fence), but an idea dependent for its execution on your great county families. He is a gentleman of strict conscience, disdainful of all littleness and meanness and ready on the shortest notice to die any death you may please to mention rather than give occasion for the least impeachment of his integrity. He is an honourable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely prejudiced, perfectly unreasonable man. Sir Leicester is twenty years, full measure, older than my Lady. He will never see sixty-five again, nor perhaps sixty-six, nor yet sixty-seven. He has a twist of the gout now and then and walks a little stiffly. He is of a worthy presence, with his light-grey hair and whiskers, his fine shirt-frill, his pure-white waistcoat, and his blue coat with bright buttons always buttoned. He is ceremonious, stately, most polite on every occasion to my Lady, and holds her personal attractions in the highest estimation. His gallantry to my Lady, which has never changed since he courted her, is the one little touch of romantic fancy in him. Indeed, he married her for love. A whisper still goes about that she had not even family; howbeit, Sir Leicester had so much family that perhaps he had enough and could dispense with any more. But she had beauty, pride, ambition, insolent resolve, and sense enough to portion out a legion of fine ladies. Wealth and station, added to these, soon floated her upward, and for years now my Lady Dedlock has been at the centre of the fashionable intelligence and at the top of the fashionable tree. How Alexander wept when he had no more worlds to conquer, everybody knows--or has some reason to know by this time, the matter having been rather frequently mentioned. My Lady Dedlock, having conquered HER world, fell not into the melting, but rather into the freezing, mood. An exhausted composure, a worn-out placidity, an equanimity of fatigue not to be ruffled by interest or satisfaction, are the trophies of her victory. She is perfectly well-bred. If she could be translated to heaven to-morrow, she might be expected to ascend without any rapture. She has beauty still, and if it be not in its heyday, it is not yet in its autumn. She has a fine face--originally of a character that would be rather called very pretty than handsome, but improved into classicality by the acquired expression of her fashionable state. Her figure is elegant and has the effect of being tall. Not that she is so, but that "the most is made," as the Honourable Bob Stables has frequently asserted upon oath, "of all her points." The same authority observes that she is perfectly got up and remarks in commendation of her hair especially that she is the best-groomed woman in the whole stud. With all her perfections on her head, my Lady Dedlock has come up from her place in Lincolnshire (hotly pursued by the fashionable intelligence) to pass a few days at her house in town previous to her departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to stay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain. And at her house in town, upon this muddy, murky afternoon, presents himself an old-fashioned old gentleman, attorney-at-law and eke solicitor of the High Court of Chancery, who has the honour of acting as legal adviser of the Dedlocks and has as many cast-iron boxes in his office with that name outside as if the present baronet were the coin of the conjuror's trick and were constantly being juggled through the whole set. Across the hall, and up the stairs, and along the passages, and through the rooms, which are very brilliant in the season and very dismal out of it--fairy-land to visit, but a desert to live in--the old gentleman is conducted by a Mercury in powder to my Lady's presence. The old gentleman is rusty to look at, but is reputed to have made good thrift out of aristocratic marriage settlements and aristocratic wills, and to be very rich. He is surrounded by a mysterious halo of family confidences, of which he is known to be the silent depository. There are noble mausoleums rooted for centuries in retired glades of parks among the growing timber and the fern, which perhaps hold fewer noble secrets than walk abroad among men, shut up in the breast of Mr. Tulkinghorn. He is of what is called the old school--a phrase generally meaning any school that seems never to have been young--and wears knee-breeches tied with ribbons, and gaiters or stockings. One peculiarity of his black clothes and of his black stockings, be they silk or worsted, is that they never shine. Mute, close, irresponsive to any glancing light, his dress is like himself. He never converses when not professionally consulted. He is found sometimes, speechless but quite at home, at corners of dinner-tables in great country houses and near doors of drawing-rooms, concerning which the fashionable intelligence is eloquent, where everybody knows him and where half the Peerage stops to say "How do you do, Mr. Tulkinghorn?" He receives these salutations with gravity and buries them along with the rest of his knowledge. Sir Leicester Dedlock is with my Lady and is happy to see Mr. Tulkinghorn. There is an air of prescription about him which is always agreeable to Sir Leicester; he receives it as a kind of tribute. He likes Mr. Tulkinghorn's dress; there is a kind of tribute in that too. It is eminently respectable, and likewise, in a general way, retainer-like. It expresses, as it were, the steward of the legal mysteries, the butler of the legal cellar, of the Dedlocks. Has Mr. Tulkinghorn any idea of this himself? It may be so, or it may not, but there is this remarkable circumstance to be noted in everything associated with my Lady Dedlock as one of a class--as one of the leaders and representatives of her little world. She supposes herself to be an inscrutable Being, quite out of the reach and ken of ordinary mortals--seeing herself in her glass, where indeed she looks so. Yet every dim little star revolving about her, from her maid to the manager of the Italian Opera, knows her weaknesses, prejudices, follies, haughtinesses, and caprices and lives upon as accurate a calculation and as nice a measure of her moral nature as her dressmaker takes of her physical proportions. Is a new dress, a new custom, a new singer, a new dancer, a new form of jewellery, a new dwarf or giant, a new chapel, a new anything, to be set up? There are deferential people in a dozen callings whom my Lady Dedlock suspects of nothing but prostration before her, who can tell you how to manage her as if she were a baby, who do nothing but nurse her all their lives, who, humbly affecting to follow with profound subservience, lead her and her whole troop after them; who, in hooking one, hook all and bear them off as Lemuel Gulliver bore away the stately fleet of the majestic Lilliput. "If you want to address our people, sir," say Blaze and Sparkle, the jewellers--meaning by our people Lady Dedlock and the rest--"you must remember that you are not dealing with the general public; you must hit our people in their weakest place, and their weakest place is such a place." "To make this article go down, gentlemen," say Sheen and Gloss, the mercers, to their friends the manufacturers, "you must come to us, because we know where to have the fashionable people, and we can make it fashionable." "If you want to get this print upon the tables of my high connexion, sir," says Mr. Sladdery, the librarian, "or if you want to get this dwarf or giant into the houses of my high connexion, sir, or if you want to secure to this entertainment the patronage of my high connexion, sir, you must leave it, if you please, to me, for I have been accustomed to study the leaders of my high connexion, sir, and I may tell you without vanity that I can turn them round my finger"--in which Mr. Sladdery, who is an honest man, does not exaggerate at all. Therefore, while Mr. Tulkinghorn may not know what is passing in the Dedlock mind at present, it is very possible that he may. "My Lady's cause has been again before the Chancellor, has it, Mr. Tulkinghorn?" says Sir Leicester, giving him his hand. "Yes. It has been on again to-day," Mr. Tulkinghorn replies, making one of his quiet bows to my Lady, who is on a sofa near the fire, shading her face with a hand-screen. "It would be useless to ask," says my Lady with the dreariness of the place in Lincolnshire still upon her, "whether anything has been done." "Nothing that YOU would call anything has been done to-day," replies Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Nor ever will be," says my Lady. Sir Leicester has no objection to an interminable Chancery suit. It is a slow, expensive, British, constitutional kind of thing. To be sure, he has not a vital interest in the suit in question, her part in which was the only property my Lady brought him; and he has a shadowy impression that for his name--the name of Dedlock--to be in a cause, and not in the title of that cause, is a most ridiculous accident. But he regards the Court of Chancery, even if it should involve an occasional delay of justice and a trifling amount of confusion, as a something devised in conjunction with a variety of other somethings by the perfection of human wisdom for the eternal settlement (humanly speaking) of everything. And he is upon the whole of a fixed opinion that to give the sanction of his countenance to any complaints respecting it would be to encourage some person in the lower classes to rise up somewhere--like Wat Tyler. "As a few fresh affidavits have been put upon the file," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "and as they are short, and as I proceed upon the troublesome principle of begging leave to possess my clients with any new proceedings in a cause"--cautious man Mr. Tulkinghorn, taking no more responsibility than necessary--"and further, as I see you are going to Paris, I have brought them in my pocket." (Sir Leicester was going to Paris too, by the by, but the delight of the fashionable intelligence was in his Lady.) Mr. Tulkinghorn takes out his papers, asks permission to place them on a golden talisman of a table at my Lady's elbow, puts on his spectacles, and begins to read by the light of a shaded lamp. "'In Chancery. Between John Jarndyce--'" My Lady interrupts, requesting him to miss as many of the formal horrors as he can. Mr. Tulkinghorn glances over his spectacles and begins again lower down. My Lady carelessly and scornfully abstracts her attention. Sir Leicester in a great chair looks at the file and appears to have a stately liking for the legal repetitions and prolixities as ranging among the national bulwarks. It happens that the fire is hot where my Lady sits and that the hand-screen is more beautiful than useful, being priceless but small. My Lady, changing her position, sees the papers on the table--looks at them nearer--looks at them nearer still--asks impulsively, "Who copied that?" Mr. Tulkinghorn stops short, surprised by my Lady's animation and her unusual tone. "Is it what you people call law-hand?" she asks, looking full at him in her careless way again and toying with her screen. "Not quite. Probably"--Mr. Tulkinghorn examines it as he speaks--"the legal character which it has was acquired after the original hand was formed. Why do you ask?" "Anything to vary this detestable monotony. Oh, go on, do!" Mr. Tulkinghorn reads again. The heat is greater; my Lady screens her face. Sir Leicester dozes, starts up suddenly, and cries, "Eh? What do you say?" "I say I am afraid," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, who had risen hastily, "that Lady Dedlock is ill." "Faint," my Lady murmurs with white lips, "only that; but it is like the faintness of death. Don't speak to me. Ring, and take me to my room!" Mr. Tulkinghorn retires into another chamber; bells ring, feet shuffle and patter, silence ensues. Mercury at last begs Mr. Tulkinghorn to return. "Better now," quoth Sir Leicester, motioning the lawyer to sit down and read to him alone. "I have been quite alarmed. I never knew my Lady swoon before. But the weather is extremely trying, and she really has been bored to death down at our place in Lincolnshire."

We need but a glimpse of the fashionable world on this miry afternoon. It is not unlike the Court of Chancery: both are things of precedent and usage. It is not a large world. There are many good and true people in it; it has its place. But it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller's cotton, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds, and cannot see them. It is a deadened world, and sometimes unhealthy for want of air. My Lady Dedlock has returned to her house in town for a few days before departing for Paris, where she intends to stay some weeks. My Lady Dedlock has been down at what she calls her "place" in Lincolnshire. There are floods in Lincolnshire. An arch of the bridge in the park has been sapped away. The low-lying ground has become a stagnant river with melancholy trees for islands and a surface punctured all over, all day long, with falling rain. The deer leave quagmires where they pass. The view from my Lady Dedlock's windows is lead-coloured. The vases on the stone terrace catch the rain all day; and the heavy drops fall upon the broad flag-stoned pavement, known as the Ghost's Walk. On Sundays the little church in the park is mouldy; there is a general smell as of the ancient Dedlocks in their graves. My Lady Dedlock (who is childless), looking out in the early twilight from a game-keeper's lodge, and seeing a child running out into the rain to meet the wrapped-up figure of a man coming through the gate, has been put quite out of temper. My Lady Dedlock says she has been "bored to death." Therefore my Lady Dedlock has come away from the place in Lincolnshire and has left it to the rain. The pictures of Dedlocks past and gone have seemed to vanish into the dark walls as the housekeeper has passed along the old rooms shutting up the shutters. And when they will next come forth again, the fashionable world cannot yet say. Sir Leicester Dedlock is only a baronet, but his family is as old as the hills, and infinitely more respectable. He has the opinion that the world might get on without hills but would be finished without Dedlocks. He is a gentleman of strict conscience, disdainful of meanness: an honourable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely prejudiced, perfectly unreasonable man. Sir Leicester is twenty years older than my Lady. He is nearly seventy. He has gout now and then and walks a little stiffly. He is ceremonious, stately, most polite to my Lady, and holds her personal attractions in the highest esteem. His gallantry to my Lady, which has never changed since he courted her, is the one little touch of romantic fancy in him. Indeed, he married her for love. It is said that she had no family; however, Sir Leicester had so much family that perhaps he could dispense with any more. But she had beauty, pride, ambition, insolent resolve, and sense. Wealth and position, added to these, soon floated her upward, and for years now my Lady Dedlock has been at the top of the fashionable tree. An exhausted composure, an even-tempered fatigue are the trophies of her victory. She is perfectly well-bred. She has beauty still: a fine face, with a classical demeanour; her figure is elegant, well-dressed and well-groomed. My Lady Dedlock has come up from her place in Lincolnshire to pass a few days at her house in town before departing to Paris for some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain. And at her house in town, upon this murky afternoon, arrives an old-fashioned old gentleman, solicitor of the High Court of Chancery, who is legal adviser of the Dedlocks. Across the hall, and up the stairs, and through the rooms, which are very brilliant in the season and very dismal out of it - fairy-land to visit, but a desert to live in - the old gentleman is conducted into my Lady's presence. The old gentleman is rusty to look at, but is reputed to be very rich. He is surrounded by a mysterious halo of family confidences; there are many noble secrets shut up in the breast of Mr. Tulkinghorn. He is of what is called the old school - a phrase generally meaning anybody that seems never to have been young - and wears knee-breeches tied with ribbons, and black stockings. He never talks unless professionally consulted. He is found sometimes, silent but quite at home, at dinner-tables in great country houses, where everybody knows him and stops to say "How do you do, Mr. Tulkinghorn?" He receives these salutations with gravity and buries them along with the rest of his knowledge. Sir Leicester Dedlock is with my Lady and is happy to see Mr. Tulkinghorn. He likes Mr. Tulkinghorn's air, and his clothes, which are eminently respectable and retainer-like, as if he were the butler of the legal cellar of the Dedlocks. Has Mr. Tulkinghorn any idea of this himself? It may be so, or it may not; but there is one remarkable thing about Lady Dedlock and indeed her whole class. She supposes herself to be an inscrutable Being, quite out of the reach of ordinary mortals. Yet every dim little star revolving about her, from her maid to the manager of the Italian Opera, knows her weaknesses, prejudices, and follies as well as her dressmaker knows her physical measurements. There are deferential people in a dozen callings who can tell you how to manage Lady Dedlock as if she were a baby, who do nothing but nurse her all their lives, who, pretending to follow with profound subservience, lead her and her whole troop after them. Therefore, while Mr. Tulkinghorn may not know what is passing in the Dedlock mind at present, it is very possible that he may. "My Lady's cause has been again before the Chancellor, has it, Mr. Tulkinghorn?" says Sir Leicester. "Yes. It has been on again today," Mr. Tulkinghorn replies, bowing to my Lady, who is on a sofa near the fire, shading her face. "It would be useless to ask," says my Lady with the dreariness of Lincolnshire still upon her, "whether anything has been done." "Nothing that you would call anything has been done today," replies Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Nor ever will be," says my Lady. Sir Leicester has no objection to an interminable Chancery suit. It is a slow, expensive, British kind of thing. To be sure, he has not a vital interest in the suit in question; Lady Dedlock's part in it was the only property she brought him on marriage. But he regards the Court of Chancery, even if it should involve some trifling delay and confusion, as a wise and good institution, about which he should not complain. "As a few fresh affidavits have been put upon the file," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "and as you are going to Paris, I have brought them in my pocket." He takes out his papers, puts on his spectacles, and begins to read. "'In Chancery. Between John Jarndyce-'" My Lady interrupts, requesting him to miss as many of the formal horrors as he can. Mr. Tulkinghorn begins again. My Lady sees the papers on the table - looks at them nearer - and asks impulsively, "Who copied that?" Mr. Tulkinghorn stops short, surprised. "Is it what you people call law-hand?" she asks, looking full at him. "Not quite. Why do you ask?" "Anything to vary this detestable monotony. Oh, go on, do!" Mr. Tulkinghorn reads again. The heat is greater; my Lady screens her face. Sir Leicester dozes, starts up suddenly, and cries, "Eh? What do you say?" "I say I am afraid," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, who had risen hastily, "that Lady Dedlock is ill." "Faint," my Lady murmurs with white lips, "only that; but it is like the faintness of death. Don't speak to me. Ring, and take me to my room!" Mr. Tulkinghorn retires into another chamber; bells ring, feet shuffle and patter, silence ensues. Mr. Tulkinghorn is summoned to return. "Better now," says Sir Leicester, motioning the lawyer to sit down. "I have been quite alarmed. I never knew my Lady swoon before. But the weather is extremely trying, and she really has been bored to death down at our place in Lincolnshire."

Bleak House

Chapter 2: In Fashion

Still impassive, as behoves its breeding, the Dedlock town house carries itself as usual towards the street of dismal grandeur. There are powdered heads from time to time in the little windows of the hall, looking out at the untaxed powder falling all day from the sky; and in the same conservatory there is peach blossom turning itself exotically to the great hall fire from the nipping weather out of doors. It is given out that my Lady has gone down into Lincolnshire, but is expected to return presently. Rumour, busy overmuch, however, will not go down into Lincolnshire. It persists in flitting and chattering about town. It knows that that poor unfortunate man, Sir Leicester, has been sadly used. It hears, my dear child, all sorts of shocking things. It makes the world of five miles round quite merry. Not to know that there is something wrong at the Dedlocks' is to augur yourself unknown. One of the peachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats is already apprised of all the principal circumstances that will come out before the Lords on Sir Leicester's application for a bill of divorce. At Blaze and Sparkle's the jewellers and at Sheen and Gloss's the mercers, it is and will be for several hours the topic of the age, the feature of the century. The patronesses of those establishments, albeit so loftily inscrutable, being as nicely weighed and measured there as any other article of the stock-in-trade, are perfectly understood in this new fashion by the rawest hand behind the counter. "Our people, Mr. Jones," said Blaze and Sparkle to the hand in question on engaging him, "our people, sir, are sheep--mere sheep. Where two or three marked ones go, all the rest follow. Keep those two or three in your eye, Mr. Jones, and you have the flock." So, likewise, Sheen and Gloss to THEIR Jones, in reference to knowing where to have the fashionable people and how to bring what they (Sheen and Gloss) choose into fashion. On similar unerring principles, Mr. Sladdery the librarian, and indeed the great farmer of gorgeous sheep, admits this very day, "Why yes, sir, there certainly ARE reports concerning Lady Dedlock, very current indeed among my high connexion, sir. You see, my high connexion must talk about something, sir; and it's only to get a subject into vogue with one or two ladies I could name to make it go down with the whole. Just what I should have done with those ladies, sir, in the case of any novelty you had left to me to bring in, they have done of themselves in this case through knowing Lady Dedlock and being perhaps a little innocently jealous of her too, sir. You'll find, sir, that this topic will be very popular among my high connexion. If it had been a speculation, sir, it would have brought money. And when I say so, you may trust to my being right, sir, for I have made it my business to study my high connexion and to be able to wind it up like a clock, sir." Thus rumour thrives in the capital, and will not go down into Lincolnshire. By half-past five, post meridian, Horse Guards' time, it has even elicited a new remark from the Honourable Mr. Stables, which bids fair to outshine the old one, on which he has so long rested his colloquial reputation. This sparkling sally is to the effect that although he always knew she was the best-groomed woman in the stud, he had no idea she was a bolter. It is immensely received in turf-circles. At feasts and festivals also, in firmaments she has often graced, and among constellations she outshone but yesterday, she is still the prevalent subject. What is it? Who is it? When was it? Where was it? How was it? She is discussed by her dear friends with all the genteelest slang in vogue, with the last new word, the last new manner, the last new drawl, and the perfection of polite indifference. A remarkable feature of the theme is that it is found to be so inspiring that several people come out upon it who never came out before--positively say things! William Buffy carries one of these smartnesses from the place where he dines down to the House, where the Whip for his party hands it about with his snuff-box to keep men together who want to be off, with such effect that the Speaker (who has had it privately insinuated into his own ear under the corner of his wig) cries, "Order at the bar!" three times without making an impression. And not the least amazing circumstance connected with her being vaguely the town talk is that people hovering on the confines of Mr. Sladdery's high connexion, people who know nothing and ever did know nothing about her, think it essential to their reputation to pretend that she is their topic too, and to retail her at second-hand with the last new word and the last new manner, and the last new drawl, and the last new polite indifference, and all the rest of it, all at second-hand but considered equal to new in inferior systems and to fainter stars. If there be any man of letters, art, or science among these little dealers, how noble in him to support the feeble sisters on such majestic crutches! So goes the wintry day outside the Dedlock mansion. How within it? Sir Leicester, lying in his bed, can speak a little, though with difficulty and indistinctness. He is enjoined to silence and to rest, and they have given him some opiate to lull his pain, for his old enemy is very hard with him. He is never asleep, though sometimes he seems to fall into a dull waking doze. He caused his bedstead to be moved out nearer to the window when he heard it was such inclement weather, and his head to be so adjusted that he could see the driving snow and sleet. He watches it as it falls, throughout the whole wintry day. Upon the least noise in the house, which is kept hushed, his hand is at the pencil. The old housekeeper, sitting by him, knows what he would write and whispers, "No, he has not come back yet, Sir Leicester. It was late last night when he went. He has been but a little time gone yet." He withdraws his hand and falls to looking at the sleet and snow again until they seem, by being long looked at, to fall so thick and fast that he is obliged to close his eyes for a minute on the giddy whirl of white flakes and icy blots. He began to look at them as soon as it was light. The day is not yet far spent when he conceives it to be necessary that her rooms should be prepared for her. It is very cold and wet. Let there be good fires. Let them know that she is expected. Please see to it yourself. He writes to this purpose on his slate, and Mrs. Rouncewell with a heavy heart obeys. "For I dread, George," the old lady says to her son, who waits below to keep her company when she has a little leisure, "I dread, my dear, that my Lady will never more set foot within these walls." "That's a bad presentiment, mother." "Nor yet within the walls of Chesney Wold, my dear." "That's worse. But why, mother?" "When I saw my Lady yesterday, George, she looked to me--and I may say at me too--as if the step on the Ghost's Walk had almost walked her down." "Come, come! You alarm yourself with old-story fears, mother." "No I don't, my dear. No I don't. It's going on for sixty year that I have been in this family, and I never had any fears for it before. But it's breaking up, my dear; the great old Dedlock family is breaking up." "I hope not, mother." "I am thankful I have lived long enough to be with Sir Leicester in this illness and trouble, for I know I am not too old nor too useless to be a welcomer sight to him than anybody else in my place would be. But the step on the Ghost's Walk will walk my Lady down, George; it has been many a day behind her, and now it will pass her and go on." "Well, mother dear, I say again, I hope not." "Ah, so do I, George," the old lady returns, shaking her head and parting her folded hands. "But if my fears come true, and he has to know it, who will tell him!" "Are these her rooms?" "These are my Lady's rooms, just as she left them." "Why, now," says the trooper, glancing round him and speaking in a lower voice, "I begin to understand how you come to think as you do think, mother. Rooms get an awful look about them when they are fitted up, like these, for one person you are used to see in them, and that person is away under any shadow, let alone being God knows where." He is not far out. As all partings foreshadow the great final one, so, empty rooms, bereft of a familiar presence, mournfully whisper what your room and what mine must one day be. My Lady's state has a hollow look, thus gloomy and abandoned; and in the inner apartment, where Mr. Bucket last night made his secret perquisition, the traces of her dresses and her ornaments, even the mirrors accustomed to reflect them when they were a portion of herself, have a desolate and vacant air. Dark and cold as the wintry day is, it is darker and colder in these deserted chambers than in many a hut that will barely exclude the weather; and though the servants heap fires in the grates and set the couches and the chairs within the warm glass screens that let their ruddy light shoot through to the furthest corners, there is a heavy cloud upon the rooms which no light will dispel. The old housekeeper and her son remain until the preparations are complete, and then she returns upstairs. Volumnia has taken Mrs. Rouncewell's place in the meantime, though pearl necklaces and rouge pots, however calculated to embellish Bath, are but indifferent comforts to the invalid under present circumstances. Volumnia, not being supposed to know (and indeed not knowing) what is the matter, has found it a ticklish task to offer appropriate observations and consequently has supplied their place with distracting smoothings of the bed-linen, elaborate locomotion on tiptoe, vigilant peeping at her kinsman's eyes, and one exasperating whisper to herself of, "He is asleep." In disproof of which superfluous remark Sir Leicester has indignantly written on the slate, "I am not." Yielding, therefore, the chair at the bedside to the quaint old housekeeper, Volumnia sits at a table a little removed, sympathetically sighing. Sir Leicester watches the sleet and snow and listens for the returning steps that he expects. In the ears of his old servant, looking as if she had stepped out of an old picture-frame to attend a summoned Dedlock to another world, the silence is fraught with echoes of her own words, "Who will tell him!" He has been under his valet's hands this morning to be made presentable and is as well got up as the circumstances will allow. He is propped with pillows, his grey hair is brushed in its usual manner, his linen is arranged to a nicety, and he is wrapped in a responsible dressing-gown. His eye-glass and his watch are ready to his hand. It is necessary--less to his own dignity now perhaps than for her sake--that he should be seen as little disturbed and as much himself as may be. Women will talk, and Volumnia, though a Dedlock, is no exceptional case. He keeps her here, there is little doubt, to prevent her talking somewhere else. He is very ill, but he makes his present stand against distress of mind and body most courageously. The fair Volumnia, being one of those sprightly girls who cannot long continue silent without imminent peril of seizure by the dragon Boredom, soon indicates the approach of that monster with a series of undisguisable yawns. Finding it impossible to suppress those yawns by any other process than conversation, she compliments Mrs. Rouncewell on her son, declaring that he positively is one of the finest figures she ever saw and as soldierly a looking person, she should think, as what's his name, her favourite Life Guardsman--the man she dotes on, the dearest of creatures--who was killed at Waterloo. Sir Leicester hears this tribute with so much surprise and stares about him in such a confused way that Mrs. Rouncewell feels it necessary to explain. "Miss Dedlock don't speak of my eldest son, Sir Leicester, but my youngest. I have found him. He has come home." Sir Leicester breaks silence with a harsh cry. "George? Your son George come home, Mrs. Rouncewell?" The old housekeeper wipes her eyes. "Thank God. Yes, Sir Leicester." Does this discovery of some one lost, this return of some one so long gone, come upon him as a strong confirmation of his hopes? Does he think, "Shall I not, with the aid I have, recall her safely after this, there being fewer hours in her case than there are years in his?" It is of no use entreating him; he is determined to speak now, and he does. In a thick crowd of sounds, but still intelligibly enough to be understood. "Why did you not tell me, Mrs. Rouncewell?" "It happened only yesterday, Sir Leicester, and I doubted your being well enough to be talked to of such things." Besides, the giddy Volumnia now remembers with her little scream that nobody was to have known of his being Mrs. Rouncewell's son and that she was not to have told. But Mrs. Rouncewell protests, with warmth enough to swell the stomacher, that of course she would have told Sir Leicester as soon as he got better. "Where is your son George, Mrs. Rouncewell?" asks Sir Leicester, Mrs. Rouncewell, not a little alarmed by his disregard of the doctor's injunctions, replies, in London. "Where in London?" Mrs. Rouncewell is constrained to admit that he is in the house. "Bring him here to my room. Bring him directly." The old lady can do nothing but go in search of him. Sir Leicester, with such power of movement as he has, arranges himself a little to receive him. When he has done so, he looks out again at the falling sleet and snow and listens again for the returning steps. A quantity of straw has been tumbled down in the street to deaden the noises there, and she might be driven to the door perhaps without his hearing wheels. He is lying thus, apparently forgetful of his newer and minor surprise, when the housekeeper returns, accompanied by her trooper son. Mr. George approaches softly to the bedside, makes his bow, squares his chest, and stands, with his face flushed, very heartily ashamed of himself. "Good heaven, and it is really George Rouncewell!" exclaims Sir Leicester. "Do you remember me, George?" The trooper needs to look at him and to separate this sound from that sound before he knows what he has said, but doing this and being a little helped by his mother, he replies, "I must have a very bad memory, indeed, Sir Leicester, if I failed to remember you." "When I look at you, George Rouncewell," Sir Leicester observes with difficulty, "I see something of a boy at Chesney Wold--I remember well--very well." He looks at the trooper until tears come into his eyes, and then he looks at the sleet and snow again. "I ask your pardon, Sir Leicester," says the trooper, "but would you accept of my arms to raise you up? You would lie easier, Sir Leicester, if you would allow me to move you." "If you please, George Rouncewell; if you will be so good." The trooper takes him in his arms like a child, lightly raises him, and turns him with his face more towards the window. "Thank you. You have your mother's gentleness," returns Sir Leicester, "and your own strength. Thank you." He signs to him with his hand not to go away. George quietly remains at the bedside, waiting to be spoken to. "Why did you wish for secrecy?" It takes Sir Leicester some time to ask this. "Truly I am not much to boast of, Sir Leicester, and I--I should still, Sir Leicester, if you was not so indisposed--which I hope you will not be long--I should still hope for the favour of being allowed to remain unknown in general. That involves explanations not very hard to be guessed at, not very well timed here, and not very creditable to myself. However opinions may differ on a variety of subjects, I should think it would be universally agreed, Sir Leicester, that I am not much to boast of." "You have been a soldier," observes Sir Leicester, "and a faithful one." George makes his military bow. "As far as that goes, Sir Leicester, I have done my duty under discipline, and it was the least I could do." "You find me," says Sir Leicester, whose eyes are much attracted towards him, "far from well, George Rouncewell." "I am very sorry both to hear it and to see it, Sir Leicester." "I am sure you are. No. In addition to my older malady, I have had a sudden and bad attack. Something that deadens," making an endeavour to pass one hand down one side, "and confuses," touching his lips. George, with a look of assent and sympathy, makes another bow. The different times when they were both young men (the trooper much the younger of the two) and looked at one another down at Chesney Wold arise before them both and soften both. Sir Leicester, evidently with a great determination to say, in his own manner, something that is on his mind before relapsing into silence, tries to raise himself among his pillows a little more. George, observant of the action, takes him in his arms again and places him as he desires to be. "Thank you, George. You are another self to me. You have often carried my spare gun at Chesney Wold, George. You are familiar to me in these strange circumstances, very familiar." He has put Sir Leicester's sounder arm over his shoulder in lifting him up, and Sir Leicester is slow in drawing it away again as he says these words. "I was about to add," he presently goes on, "I was about to add, respecting this attack, that it was unfortunately simultaneous with a slight misunderstanding between my Lady and myself. I do not mean that there was any difference between us (for there has been none), but that there was a misunderstanding of certain circumstances important only to ourselves, which deprives me, for a little while, of my Lady's society. She has found it necessary to make a journey--I trust will shortly return. Volumnia, do I make myself intelligible? The words are not quite under my command in the manner of pronouncing them." Volumnia understands him perfectly, and in truth he delivers himself with far greater plainness than could have been supposed possible a minute ago. The effort by which he does so is written in the anxious and labouring expression of his face. Nothing but the strength of his purpose enables him to make it. "Therefore, Volumnia, I desire to say in your presence--and in the presence of my old retainer and friend, Mrs. Rouncewell, whose truth and fidelity no one can question, and in the presence of her son George, who comes back like a familiar recollection of my youth in the home of my ancestors at Chesney Wold--in case I should relapse, in case I should not recover, in case I should lose both my speech and the power of writing, though I hope for better things--" The old housekeeper weeping silently; Volumnia in the greatest agitation, with the freshest bloom on her cheeks; the trooper with his arms folded and his head a little bent, respectfully attentive. "Therefore I desire to say, and to call you all to witness--beginning, Volumnia, with yourself, most solemnly--that I am on unaltered terms with Lady Dedlock. That I assert no cause whatever of complaint against her. That I have ever had the strongest affection for her, and that I retain it undiminished. Say this to herself, and to every one. If you ever say less than this, you will be guilty of deliberate falsehood to me." Volumnia tremblingly protests that she will observe his injunctions to the letter. "My Lady is too high in position, too handsome, too accomplished, too superior in most respects to the best of those by whom she is surrounded, not to have her enemies and traducers, I dare say. Let it be known to them, as I make it known to you, that being of sound mind, memory, and understanding, I revoke no disposition I have made in her favour. I abridge nothing I have ever bestowed upon her. I am on unaltered terms with her, and I recall--having the full power to do it if I were so disposed, as you see--no act I have done for her advantage and happiness." His formal array of words might have at any other time, as it has often had, something ludicrous in it, but at this time it is serious and affecting. His noble earnestness, his fidelity, his gallant shielding of her, his generous conquest of his own wrong and his own pride for her sake, are simply honourable, manly, and true. Nothing less worthy can be seen through the lustre of such qualities in the commonest mechanic, nothing less worthy can be seen in the best-born gentleman. In such a light both aspire alike, both rise alike, both children of the dust shine equally. Overpowered by his exertions, he lays his head back on his pillows and closes his eyes for not more than a minute, when he again resumes his watching of the weather and his attention to the muffled sounds. In the rendering of those little services, and in the manner of their acceptance, the trooper has become installed as necessary to him. Nothing has been said, but it is quite understood. He falls a step or two backward to be out of sight and mounts guard a little behind his mother's chair. The day is now beginning to decline. The mist and the sleet into which the snow has all resolved itself are darker, and the blaze begins to tell more vividly upon the room walls and furniture. The gloom augments; the bright gas springs up in the streets; and the pertinacious oil lamps which yet hold their ground there, with their source of life half frozen and half thawed, twinkle gaspingly like fiery fish out of water--as they are. The world, which has been rumbling over the straw and pulling at the bell, "to inquire," begins to go home, begins to dress, to dine, to discuss its dear friend with all the last new modes, as already mentioned. Now does Sir Leicester become worse, restless, uneasy, and in great pain. Volumnia, lighting a candle (with a predestined aptitude for doing something objectionable), is bidden to put it out again, for it is not yet dark enough. Yet it is very dark too, as dark as it will be all night. By and by she tries again. No! Put it out. It is not dark enough yet. His old housekeeper is the first to understand that he is striving to uphold the fiction with himself that it is not growing late. "Dear Sir Leicester, my honoured master," she softly whispers, "I must, for your own good, and my duty, take the freedom of begging and praying that you will not lie here in the lone darkness watching and waiting and dragging through the time. Let me draw the curtains, and light the candles, and make things more comfortable about you. The church-clocks will strike the hours just the same, Sir Leicester, and the night will pass away just the same. My Lady will come back, just the same." "I know it, Mrs. Rouncewell, but I am weak--and she has been so long gone." "Not so very long, Sir Leicester. Not twenty-four hours yet." "But that is a long time. Oh, it is a long time!" He says it with a groan that wrings her heart. She knows that this is not a period for bringing the rough light upon him; she thinks his tears too sacred to be seen, even by her. Therefore she sits in the darkness for a while without a word, then gently begins to move about, now stirring the fire, now standing at the dark window looking out. Finally he tells her, with recovered self-command, "As you say, Mrs. Rouncewell, it is no worse for being confessed. It is getting late, and they are not come. Light the room!" When it is lighted and the weather shut out, it is only left to him to listen. But they find that however dejected and ill he is, he brightens when a quiet pretence is made of looking at the fires in her rooms and being sure that everything is ready to receive her. Poor pretence as it is, these allusions to her being expected keep up hope within him. Midnight comes, and with it the same blank. The carriages in the streets are few, and other late sounds in that neighbourhood there are none, unless a man so very nomadically drunk as to stray into the frigid zone goes brawling and bellowing along the pavement. Upon this wintry night it is so still that listening to the intense silence is like looking at intense darkness. If any distant sound be audible in this case, it departs through the gloom like a feeble light in that, and all is heavier than before. The corporation of servants are dismissed to bed (not unwilling to go, for they were up all last night), and only Mrs. Rouncewell and George keep watch in Sir Leicester's room. As the night lags tardily on--or rather when it seems to stop altogether, at between two and three o'clock--they find a restless craving on him to know more about the weather, now he cannot see it. Hence George, patrolling regularly every half-hour to the rooms so carefully looked after, extends his march to the hall-door, looks about him, and brings back the best report he can make of the worst of nights, the sleet still falling and even the stone footways lying ankle-deep in icy sludge. Volumnia, in her room up a retired landing on the staircase--the second turning past the end of the carving and gilding, a cousinly room containing a fearful abortion of a portrait of Sir Leicester banished for its crimes, and commanding in the day a solemn yard planted with dried-up shrubs like antediluvian specimens of black tea--is a prey to horrors of many kinds. Not last nor least among them, possibly, is a horror of what may befall her little income in the event, as she expresses it, "of anything happening" to Sir Leicester. Anything, in this sense, meaning one thing only; and that the last thing that can happen to the consciousness of any baronet in the known world. An effect of these horrors is that Volumnia finds she cannot go to bed in her own room or sit by the fire in her own room, but must come forth with her fair head tied up in a profusion of shawl, and her fair form enrobed in drapery, and parade the mansion like a ghost, particularly haunting the rooms, warm and luxurious, prepared for one who still does not return. Solitude under such circumstances being not to be thought of, Volumnia is attended by her maid, who, impressed from her own bed for that purpose, extremely cold, very sleepy, and generally an injured maid as condemned by circumstances to take office with a cousin, when she had resolved to be maid to nothing less than ten thousand a year, has not a sweet expression of countenance. The periodical visits of the trooper to these rooms, however, in the course of his patrolling is an assurance of protection and company both to mistress and maid, which renders them very acceptable in the small hours of the night. Whenever he is heard advancing, they both make some little decorative preparation to receive him; at other times they divide their watches into short scraps of oblivion and dialogues not wholly free from acerbity, as to whether Miss Dedlock, sitting with her feet upon the fender, was or was not falling into the fire when rescued (to her great displeasure) by her guardian genius the maid. "How is Sir Leicester now, Mr. George?" inquires Volumnia, adjusting her cowl over her head. "Why, Sir Leicester is much the same, miss. He is very low and ill, and he even wanders a little sometimes." "Has he asked for me?" inquires Volumnia tenderly. "Why, no, I can't say he has, miss. Not within my hearing, that is to say." "This is a truly sad time, Mr. George." "It is indeed, miss. Hadn't you better go to bed?" "You had a deal better go to bed, Miss Dedlock," quoth the maid sharply. But Volumnia answers No! No! She may be asked for, she may be wanted at a moment's notice. She never should forgive herself "if anything was to happen" and she was not on the spot. She declines to enter on the question, mooted by the maid, how the spot comes to be there, and not in her room (which is nearer to Sir Leicester's), but staunchly declares that on the spot she will remain. Volumnia further makes a merit of not having "closed an eye"--as if she had twenty or thirty--though it is hard to reconcile this statement with her having most indisputably opened two within five minutes. But when it comes to four o'clock, and still the same blank, Volumnia's constancy begins to fail her, or rather it begins to strengthen, for she now considers that it is her duty to be ready for the morrow, when much may be expected of her, that, in fact, howsoever anxious to remain upon the spot, it may be required of her, as an act of self-devotion, to desert the spot. So when the trooper reappears with his, "Hadn't you better go to bed, miss?" and when the maid protests, more sharply than before, "You had a deal better go to bed, Miss Dedlock!" she meekly rises and says, "Do with me what you think best!" Mr. George undoubtedly thinks it best to escort her on his arm to the door of her cousinly chamber, and the maid as undoubtedly thinks it best to hustle her into bed with mighty little ceremony. Accordingly, these steps are taken; and now the trooper, in his rounds, has the house to himself. There is no improvement in the weather. From the portico, from the eaves, from the parapet, from every ledge and post and pillar, drips the thawed snow. It has crept, as if for shelter, into the lintels of the great door--under it, into the corners of the windows, into every chink and crevice of retreat, and there wastes and dies. It is falling still; upon the roof, upon the skylight, even through the skylight, and drip, drip, drip, with the regularity of the Ghost's Walk, on the stone floor below. The trooper, his old recollections awakened by the solitary grandeur of a great house--no novelty to him once at Chesney Wold--goes up the stairs and through the chief rooms, holding up his light at arm's length. Thinking of his varied fortunes within the last few weeks, and of his rustic boyhood, and of the two periods of his life so strangely brought together across the wide intermediate space; thinking of the murdered man whose image is fresh in his mind; thinking of the lady who has disappeared from these very rooms and the tokens of whose recent presence are all here; thinking of the master of the house upstairs and of the foreboding, "Who will tell him!" he looks here and looks there, and reflects how he MIGHT see something now, which it would tax his boldness to walk up to, lay his hand upon, and prove to be a fancy. But it is all blank, blank as the darkness above and below, while he goes up the great staircase again, blank as the oppressive silence. "All is still in readiness, George Rouncewell?" "Quite orderly and right, Sir Leicester." "No word of any kind?" The trooper shakes his head. "No letter that can possibly have been overlooked?" But he knows there is no such hope as that and lays his head down without looking for an answer. Very familiar to him, as he said himself some hours ago, George Rouncewell lifts him into easier positions through the long remainder of the blank wintry night, and equally familiar with his unexpressed wish, extinguishes the light and undraws the curtains at the first late break of day. The day comes like a phantom. Cold, colourless, and vague, it sends a warning streak before it of a deathlike hue, as if it cried out, "Look what I am bringing you who watch there! Who will tell him!"

Still impassive, as behoves its breeding, the Dedlock town house bears its usual appearance of dismal grandeur. It is given out that my Lady has gone down into Lincolnshire, but is expected to return presently. Rumour, however, persists in flitting and chattering about town. It knows that poor Sir Leicester has been sadly used. It hears, my dear child, all sorts of shocking things. It makes the world of five miles round quite merry. By half-past five in the afternoon, it has even elicited a new remark from the Honourable Mr. Stables, which bids fair to outshine the old one. This sparkling sally is to the effect that although he always knew she was the best-groomed woman in the stud, he had no idea she was a bolter. It is immensely well received in turf-circles. She is discussed by her dear friends with all the genteelest slang in vogue, with the last new word, the last new manner, the last new drawl, and the perfection of polite indifference. And even people who know nothing about her think it essential to pretend that she is their topic too, and to retail her at second-hand with the last new word and the last new drawl, and all the rest of it. So goes the wintry day outside the Dedlock mansion. How within it? Sir Leicester, lying in his bed, can speak a little, though with difficulty and indistinctness. He is told to rest, and they have given him some opiate to lull his pain, for his gout is very hard with him. He is never asleep, though sometimes he falls into a dull waking doze. He caused his bedstead to be moved nearer to the window when he heard it was inclement weather, so he can see the driving snow and sleet. He watches it as it falls, throughout the whole wintry day. Upon the least noise in the house, which is kept hushed, his hand is at the pencil. The old housekeeper, sitting by him, knows what he would write and whispers, "No, he has not come back yet, Sir Leicester. It was late last night when he went. He has been only a little time gone yet." He withdraws his hand and falls to looking at the sleet and snow again until they seem to fall so thick and fast that he is obliged to close his eyes for a minute on the giddy whirl of white flakes. The day is not yet far spent when he conceives it to be necessary that her rooms should be prepared for her. It is very cold and wet. Let there be good fires. Let them know that she is expected. He writes this on his slate, and Mrs. Rouncewell with a heavy heart obeys. "For I dread, George," the old lady says to her son, "I dread that my Lady will never more set foot within these walls. Nor yet within the walls of Chesney Wold, my dear." "But why, mother?" "When I saw my Lady yesterday, George, she looked to me as if the step on the Ghost's Walk had almost walked her down." "Come, come! You alarm yourself with old-story fears, mother." "No, I don't, my dear. It's going on for sixty year that I have been in this family, and I never had any fears for it before. But it's breaking up, my dear." "I hope not, mother." "I am thankful I have lived long enough to be with Sir Leicester now, for I know I am a welcomer sight to him than anybody else in my place would be. But the step on the Ghost's Walk will walk my Lady down, George; it has been many a day behind her, and now it will pass her and go on." "Are these her rooms?" "These are my Lady's rooms, just as she left them." "Why, now," says the trooper, glancing round him and speaking in a lower voice, "I begin to understand how you come to think as you do, mother. Rooms get an awful look about them when they are fitted up for one person, who is away under a shadow, God knows where." He is right. My Lady's room has a hollow and abandoned look; dark and cold as the wintry day is, it is darker and colder in these deserted chambers than in many a poor hut. Though the servants heap fires in the grates, there is a heavy cloud upon the rooms which no light will dispel. When the preparations are complete, Mrs. Rouncewell returns upstairs. Volumnia has taken her place by Sir Leicester's bed, though pearl necklaces and rouge pots are indifferent comforts to the invalid. Volumnia, not knowing what is the matter, has resorted to distracting smoothings of the bed-linen, elaborate tiptoe-ing around, and one exasperating whisper of, "He is asleep." Which has caused Sir Leicester to have indignantly written on the slate, "I am not." Yielding, therefore, to the quaint old housekeeper, Volumnia sits at a table, sympathetically sighing. Sir Leicester watches the sleet and snow and listens for the returning steps that he expects. His valet has made him as presentable as the circumstances will allow. He is propped with pillows, his grey hair is brushed, his linen neatly arranged, and he is wrapped in a dressing-gown. His eye-glass and his watch are ready to his hand. It is necessary that he should be seen as little as may be. Women will talk, and Volumnia is no exception. He keeps her here to prevent her talking somewhere else. He is very ill, but he makes his stand against distress of mind and body most courageously. The fair Volumnia, being one of those sprightly girls who cannot long continue silent without seizure by the dragon Boredom, soon indicates the approach of that monster with a series of yawns. Finding it impossible to suppress the yawns except by conversation, she compliments Mrs. Rouncewell on her son, declaring that he positively is one of the finest figures she ever saw and as soldierly a looking person, she should think, as what's his name, who was killed at Waterloo. Sir Leicester hears this tribute with so much surprise that Mrs. Rouncewell needs to explain. "Miss Dedlock don't speak of my eldest son, Sir Leicester, but my youngest. I have found him. He has come home." "George? Your son George is come home, Mrs. Rouncewell?" The old housekeeper wipes her eyes. "Thank God. Yes, Sir Leicester." Does this discovery of some one lost come upon him as a strong confirmation of his hopes? He is determined to speak now, and he does. In a thick crowd of sounds, but still intelligibly enough to be understood. "Why did you not tell me, Mrs. Rouncewell?" "It happened only yesterday, Sir Leicester, and I doubted your being well enough to be talked to of such things." Besides, the giddy Volumnia now remembers with a little scream that George's presence was meant to be a secret. But Mrs. Rouncewell protests warmly that of course she would have told Sir Leicester as soon as he was better. "Where is George, Mrs. Rouncewell?" asks Sir Leicester, Mrs. Rouncewell admits that he is in the house. "Bring him here directly." The old lady goes; and Sir Leicester, with such power of movement as he has, arranges himself a little to receive him. When he has done so, he looks out again at the falling sleet and snow and listens again for the returning steps. Straw has been laid in the street to deaden the noises there, and she might be driven to the door without his hearing wheels. He is lying thus when the housekeeper returns, accompanied by her trooper son. Mr. George approaches softly to the bedside, makes his bow, squares his chest, and stands, with his face flushed, very heartily ashamed of himself. "Good heaven, it is really George Rouncewell!" exclaims Sir Leicester. "Do you remember me, George?" The trooper needs to work out what he has said, but being a little helped by his mother, he replies, "I must have a very bad memory, indeed, Sir Leicester, if I failed to remember you." "When I look at you, George Rouncewell," Sir Leicester observes with difficulty, "I see something of a boy at Chesney Wold - I remember well." Tears come into his eyes, and then he looks at the sleet and snow again. "I ask your pardon, Sir Leicester," says the trooper, "but would you let me raise you up? You would lie easier, Sir Leicester, if you would allow me to move you." "If you will be so good." The trooper takes him in his arms like a child, lightly raises him, and turns him more towards the window. "Thank you. You have your mother's gentleness," returns Sir Leicester, "and your own strength." He signs to him not to go away. George quietly remains at the bedside, waiting to be spoken to. "Why did you wish for secrecy?" It takes Sir Leicester some time to ask this. "Truly I am not much to boast of, Sir Leicester, and I - I hope to be allowed to remain unknown in general. I should think it would be universally agreed, Sir Leicester, that I am not much to boast of." "You have been a soldier," observes Sir Leicester, "and a faithful one." George makes his military bow. "I have done my duty, and it was the least I could do." "You find me far from well, George Rouncewell. I have had a sudden and bad attack. Something that deadens," trying to pass one hand down one side, "and confuses," touching his lips. George, with a look of sympathy, makes another bow. The different times when they were both younger men at Chesney Wold arise before them and soften both. Sir Leicester tries to raise himself among his pillows a little more. George, observing this, takes him in his arms again and places him as he desires to be. "Thank you, George. You are another self to me. You have often carried my spare gun at Chesney Wold, George. You are familiar to me in these strange circumstances, very familiar." George has put Sir Leicester's sounder arm over his shoulder in lifting him up, and Sir Leicester is slow in drawing it away again as he says these words. "I was about to add," he goes on, "that this attack was unfortunately simultaneous with a slight misunderstanding between my Lady and myself - not a disagreement, but a misunderstanding which deprives me, for a little while, of my Lady's society. She has found it necessary to make a journey - I trust will shortly return. Volumnia, do I make myself intelligible?" Volumnia understands him perfectly, and in truth he speaks more clearly than could have been supposed possible a minute ago. The effort by which he does so is written in his face. Nothing but the strength of his purpose enables him to make it. "Therefore, Volumnia, I desire to say in your presence - and in the presence of my faithful old friend, Mrs. Rouncewell, and her son George - in case I should relapse, in case I should lose both my speech and the power of writing-" The old housekeeper weeping silently; Volumnia in the greatest agitation; the trooper with his arms folded and his head a little bent, respectfully attentive. "Therefore I desire to say, and to call you all to witness that I am on unaltered terms with Lady Dedlock. That I have no cause whatever of complaint against her. That I have ever had the strongest affection for her, and retain it undiminished. Say this to her, and to everyone." Volumnia tremblingly protests that she will obey. "My Lady is too high in position, too handsome, too accomplished, not to have her enemies. Let it be known to them, that being of sound mind and understanding, I revoke no favour from her. I am on unaltered terms with her, and I retract no act I have done for her advantage and happiness." His formal array of words is serious and affecting. His noble earnestness, his gallant shielding of her, his generous conquest of his own pride for her sake, are honourable, manly, and true. Overpowered by his exertions, he lays his head back on his pillows and closes his eyes for a minute, then resumes his watching of the weather. The trooper has become installed as necessary to him. Nothing has been said, but it is understood. He mounts guard behind his mother's chair. The day is now beginning to decline. The mist and the sleet are darker, and the blaze begins to tell more vividly upon the walls and furniture. The gloom grows; the world begins to go home, to dress, to dine, to discuss its dear friend, as already mentioned. Now does Sir Leicester become worse; restless, uneasy, and in great pain. Volumnia, lighting a candle, is told to put it out again, for it is not yet dark enough. Yet it is very dark by now. By and by she tries again. No! Put it out. It is not yet dark enough. His old housekeeper realises that he is striving to uphold the fiction that it is not growing late. "Dear Sir Leicester, my honoured master," she softly whispers, "I must beg and pray that you will not lie here in the lone darkness watching and waiting. Let me draw the curtains, and light the candles, and make things more comfortable about you. The church-clocks will strike the hours just the same, Sir Leicester, and the night will pass away just the same. My Lady will come back, just the same." "I know it, Mrs. Rouncewell, but I am weak - and he has been so long gone." "Not twenty-four hours yet, Sir Leicester." "But that is a long time. Oh, it is a long time!" He says it with a groan that wrings her heart. She thinks his tears too sacred to be seen, even by her. Therefore she sits in the darkness for a while without a word, then gently begins to move about, stirring the fire. Finally he tells her, with recovered self-command, "As you say, Mrs. Rouncewell, it is getting late. Light the room!" But they find that he brightens when a quiet pretence is made of looking at the fires in her rooms and being sure that everything is ready to receive her. Poor pretence as it is, it keeps up hope within him. Midnight comes, and with it the same blank. The carriages in the streets are few, and other late sounds there are none. It is so still that listening to the intense silence is like looking at intense darkness. The servants are dismissed to bed, and only Mrs. Rouncewell and George keep watch in Sir Leicester's room. As the night lags on - or rather when it seems to stop altogether, between two and three o'clock - they find a restless craving on him to know about the weather. Hence George, patrolling regularly every half-hour to the rooms so carefully looked after, extends his march to the hall-door, looks around, and brings back the best report he can make of the worst of nights, the sleet still falling and the stone footways lying ankle-deep in icy sludge. Volumnia, up in her room, is a prey to horrors of many kinds. Not least among them, possibly, is a horror of what may befall her little income in the event, as she expresses it, "of anything happening" to Sir Leicester. Anything, in this sense, meaning one thing only. An effect of these horrors is that Volumnia finds she cannot go to bed in her own room, but must come forth with her fair head tied up in a shawl, and parade the mansion like a ghost, particularly haunting the warm rooms prepared for one who still does not return. Volumnia is attended by her maid, who is extremely cold, very sleepy, and does not have a sweet expression on her face. The periodical visits of the trooper to these rooms, however, is an assurance of protection and company both to mistress and to maid. Whenever he is heard advancing, they both make some little decorative preparation to receive him. "How is Sir Leicester now, Mr. George?" inquires Volumnia, adjusting her shawl. "Much the same, miss. He is very low and ill, and he even wanders a little sometimes." "Has he asked for me?" inquires Volumnia tenderly. "Why, no, I can't say he has, miss." "This is a truly sad time, Mr. George." "It is indeed, miss. Hadn't you better go to bed?" "You had better go to bed, Miss Dedlock," says the maid sharply. But Volumnia answers No! No! She may be asked for at a moment's notice. She never should forgive herself "if anything was to happen" and she was not on the spot. She declines to answer her maid's question on how the spot comes to be there, and not in her room, but staunchly declares that on the spot she will remain. Volumnia further states that she has not "closed an eye" - as if she had twenty or thirty - though she indisputably opened two just five minutes ago. But when it comes to four o'clock, and still the same blank, Volumnia's constancy begins to fail her, or rather it begins to strengthen, for she now considers that it is her duty to be ready for the morrow, when much may be expected of her. So when the trooper reappears with his, "Hadn't you better go to bed, miss?" she meekly rises and says, "Do with me what you think best!" Mr. George thinks it best to escort her to the door of her chamber, and the maid thinks it best to hustle her into bed with mighty little ceremony. Accordingly, these steps are taken; and now the trooper, in his rounds, has the house to himself. There is no improvement in the weather. From every ledge and post and pillar drips the thawed snow. It is falling still; upon the roof, upon the skylight, even through the skylight, and drip, drip, drip, with the regularity of the Ghost's Walk, on the stone floor below. The trooper goes up the stairs and through the chief rooms, holding up his light at arm's length. Thinking of his varied fortunes within the last few weeks, and of his rustic boyhood, two periods of his life so strangely brought together now; thinking of the murdered man; thinking of the lady who has disappeared from these very rooms; thinking of the master of the house upstairs, he looks here and looks there, and reflects how he might see something now, which it would tax his boldness to walk up to. But it is all blank, blank as the oppressive silence. "All is still ready, George Rouncewell?" "Quite orderly and right, Sir Leicester." "No word of any kind?" The trooper shakes his head. "No letter that can possibly have been overlooked?" But he knows there is no such hope and lays his head down without looking for an answer. George Rouncewell lifts him into easier positions through the long remainder of the blank wintry night, and extinguishes the light and opens the curtains at the first late break of day. The day comes like a phantom. Cold, colourless, and vague, it sends a warning streak before it of a deathlike hue, as if it cried out, "Look what I bring you who watch there! Who will tell him?"

Bleak House

Chapter 58: A Wintry Day and Night

London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes--gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest. Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds. Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time--as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look. The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery. Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth. On such an afternoon, if ever, the Lord High Chancellor ought to be sitting here--as here he is--with a foggy glory round his head, softly fenced in with crimson cloth and curtains, addressed by a large advocate with great whiskers, a little voice, and an interminable brief, and outwardly directing his contemplation to the lantern in the roof, where he can see nothing but fog. On such an afternoon some score of members of the High Court of Chancery bar ought to be--as here they are--mistily engaged in one of the ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running their goat-hair and horsehair warded heads against walls of words and making a pretence of equity with serious faces, as players might. On such an afternoon the various solicitors in the cause, some two or three of whom have inherited it from their fathers, who made a fortune by it, ought to be--as are they not?--ranged in a line, in a long matted well (but you might look in vain for truth at the bottom of it) between the registrar's red table and the silk gowns, with bills, cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, injunctions, affidavits, issues, references to masters, masters' reports, mountains of costly nonsense, piled before them. Well may the court be dim, with wasting candles here and there; well may the fog hang heavy in it, as if it would never get out; well may the stained-glass windows lose their colour and admit no light of day into the place; well may the uninitiated from the streets, who peep in through the glass panes in the door, be deterred from entrance by its owlish aspect and by the drawl, languidly echoing to the roof from the padded dais where the Lord High Chancellor looks into the lantern that has no light in it and where the attendant wigs are all stuck in a fog-bank! This is the Court of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round of every man's acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give--who does not often give--the warning, "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!" Who happen to be in the Lord Chancellor's court this murky afternoon besides the Lord Chancellor, the counsel in the cause, two or three counsel who are never in any cause, and the well of solicitors before mentioned? There is the registrar below the judge, in wig and gown; and there are two or three maces, or petty-bags, or privy purses, or whatever they may be, in legal court suits. These are all yawning, for no crumb of amusement ever falls from Jarndyce and Jarndyce (the cause in hand), which was squeezed dry years upon years ago. The short-hand writers, the reporters of the court, and the reporters of the newspapers invariably decamp with the rest of the regulars when Jarndyce and Jarndyce comes on. Their places are a blank. Standing on a seat at the side of the hall, the better to peer into the curtained sanctuary, is a little mad old woman in a squeezed bonnet who is always in court, from its sitting to its rising, and always expecting some incomprehensible judgment to be given in her favour. Some say she really is, or was, a party to a suit, but no one knows for certain because no one cares. She carries some small litter in a reticule which she calls her documents, principally consisting of paper matches and dry lavender. A sallow prisoner has come up, in custody, for the half-dozenth time to make a personal application "to purge himself of his contempt," which, being a solitary surviving executor who has fallen into a state of conglomeration about accounts of which it is not pretended that he had ever any knowledge, he is not at all likely ever to do. In the meantime his prospects in life are ended. Another ruined suitor, who periodically appears from Shropshire and breaks out into efforts to address the Chancellor at the close of the day's business and who can by no means be made to understand that the Chancellor is legally ignorant of his existence after making it desolate for a quarter of a century, plants himself in a good place and keeps an eye on the judge, ready to call out "My Lord!" in a voice of sonorous complaint on the instant of his rising. A few lawyers' clerks and others who know this suitor by sight linger on the chance of his furnishing some fun and enlivening the dismal weather a little. Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least, but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause; innumerable young people have married into it; innumerable old people have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the suit. The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a new rocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled has grown up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the other world. Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere bills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth perhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has passed into a joke. That is the only good that has ever come of it. It has been death to many, but it is a joke in the profession. Every master in Chancery has had a reference out of it. Every Chancellor was "in it," for somebody or other, when he was counsel at the bar. Good things have been said about it by blue-nosed, bulbous-shoed old benchers in select port-wine committee after dinner in hall. Articled clerks have been in the habit of fleshing their legal wit upon it. The last Lord Chancellor handled it neatly, when, correcting Mr. Blowers, the eminent silk gown who said that such a thing might happen when the sky rained potatoes, he observed, "or when we get through Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mr. Blowers"--a pleasantry that particularly tickled the maces, bags, and purses. How many people out of the suit Jarndyce and Jarndyce has stretched forth its unwholesome hand to spoil and corrupt would be a very wide question. From the master upon whose impaling files reams of dusty warrants in Jarndyce and Jarndyce have grimly writhed into many shapes, down to the copying-clerk in the Six Clerks' Office who has copied his tens of thousands of Chancery folio-pages under that eternal heading, no man's nature has been made better by it. In trickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under false pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never come to good. The very solicitors' boys who have kept the wretched suitors at bay, by protesting time out of mind that Mr. Chizzle, Mizzle, or otherwise was particularly engaged and had appointments until dinner, may have got an extra moral twist and shuffle into themselves out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The receiver in the cause has acquired a goodly sum of money by it but has acquired too a distrust of his own mother and a contempt for his own kind. Chizzle, Mizzle, and otherwise have lapsed into a habit of vaguely promising themselves that they will look into that outstanding little matter and see what can be done for Drizzle--who was not well used--when Jarndyce and Jarndyce shall be got out of the office. Shirking and sharking in all their many varieties have been sown broadcast by the ill-fated cause; and even those who have contemplated its history from the outermost circle of such evil have been insensibly tempted into a loose way of letting bad things alone to take their own bad course, and a loose belief that if the world go wrong it was in some off-hand manner never meant to go right. Thus, in the midst of the mud and at the heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery. "Mr. Tangle," says the Lord High Chancellor, latterly something restless under the eloquence of that learned gentleman. "Mlud," says Mr. Tangle. Mr. Tangle knows more of Jarndyce and Jarndyce than anybody. He is famous for it--supposed never to have read anything else since he left school. "Have you nearly concluded your argument?" "Mlud, no--variety of points--feel it my duty tsubmit--ludship," is the reply that slides out of Mr. Tangle. "Several members of the bar are still to be heard, I believe?" says the Chancellor with a slight smile. Eighteen of Mr. Tangle's learned friends, each armed with a little summary of eighteen hundred sheets, bob up like eighteen hammers in a pianoforte, make eighteen bows, and drop into their eighteen places of obscurity. "We will proceed with the hearing on Wednesday fortnight," says the Chancellor. For the question at issue is only a question of costs, a mere bud on the forest tree of the parent suit, and really will come to a settlement one of these days. The Chancellor rises; the bar rises; the prisoner is brought forward in a hurry; the man from Shropshire cries, "My lord!" Maces, bags, and purses indignantly proclaim silence and frown at the man from Shropshire. "In reference," proceeds the Chancellor, still on Jarndyce and Jarndyce, "to the young girl--" "Begludship's pardon--boy," says Mr. Tangle prematurely. "In reference," proceeds the Chancellor with extra distinctness, "to the young girl and boy, the two young people"--Mr. Tangle crushed--"whom I directed to be in attendance to-day and who are now in my private room, I will see them and satisfy myself as to the expediency of making the order for their residing with their uncle." Mr. Tangle on his legs again. "Begludship's pardon--dead." "With their"--Chancellor looking through his double eye-glass at the papers on his desk--"grandfather." "Begludship's pardon--victim of rash action--brains." Suddenly a very little counsel with a terrific bass voice arises, fully inflated, in the back settlements of the fog, and says, "Will your lordship allow me? I appear for him. He is a cousin, several times removed. I am not at the moment prepared to inform the court in what exact remove he is a cousin, but he IS a cousin." Leaving this address (delivered like a sepulchral message) ringing in the rafters of the roof, the very little counsel drops, and the fog knows him no more. Everybody looks for him. Nobody can see him. "I will speak with both the young people," says the Chancellor anew, "and satisfy myself on the subject of their residing with their cousin. I will mention the matter to-morrow morning when I take my seat." The Chancellor is about to bow to the bar when the prisoner is presented. Nothing can possibly come of the prisoner's conglomeration but his being sent back to prison, which is soon done. The man from Shropshire ventures another remonstrative "My lord!" but the Chancellor, being aware of him, has dexterously vanished. Everybody else quickly vanishes too. A battery of blue bags is loaded with heavy charges of papers and carried off by clerks; the little mad old woman marches off with her documents; the empty court is locked up. If all the injustice it has committed and all the misery it has caused could only be locked up with it, and the whole burnt away in a great funeral pyre--why so much the better for other parties than the parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce!

London, and implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had only just retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be extraordinary to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses splashed to their very blinkers. Pedestrians, jostling each other in a general infection of ill temper, and slipping and sliding at street-corners. Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog creeping round collier-brigs; fog hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the barges. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners; fog in the bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little apprentice boy on deck. People on bridges peeping into a sky of fog below them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds. Gas-light looming through the fog in various places in the streets. Most of the shops lit up two hours early - as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look. The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-roofed old obstruction, Temple Bar. And close to Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery. Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, for the groping and floundering condition of this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners. Here sits the Lord High Chancellor with a foggy glory round his head, softly fenced in with crimson cloth and curtains, addressed by a large lawyer with great whiskers. Some twenty members of the High Court of Chancery bar are here, engaged in one of the ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, and putting on serious faces, as actors might. On such an afternoon the various solicitors in the cause are ranged in a line, with bills, cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, affidavits, issues, reports, mountains of costly nonsense piled before them. Well may the court be dim; well may the fog hang heavy in it; well may the stained-glass windows lose their colour and admit no daylight; well may the public, who peep in through the door, be deterred from entrance! This is the Court of Chancery, which has its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable lawyer who would not give the warning, "Endure any wrong rather than come here!" Who else are in the Lord Chancellor's court this murky afternoon? There is the registrar below the judge, in wig and gown; and there are two or three juniors. They are all yawning, for no crumb of amusement ever falls from Jarndyce and Jarndyce (the cause in hand), which was squeezed dry years upon years ago. The short-hand writers and court reporters invariably leave when Jarndyce and Jarndyce comes on. Their places are empty. Standing on a seat at the side of the hall is a little mad old woman with a squeezed bonnet and a bag of documents who is always in court, and always expecting some incomprehensible judgment to be given in her favour. Some say she really is a party to a suit, but no one knows for certain because no one cares. A sallow prisoner has come up, in custody, for the half-dozenth time, in confusion about accounts of which it is not pretended that he had ever any knowledge. Another ruined suitor, who periodically appears from Shropshire and tries vainly to address the Chancellor at the close of the day's business, plants himself in a good place and keeps an eye on the judge, ready to call out "My Lord!" in a voice of sonorous complaint on the instant of his rising. Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a lawsuit has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. No two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement. Innumerable children have been born into the cause; innumerable old people have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the suit. Chancellors have come and gone; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the court, forever hopeless. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has become a joke. That is the only good that has ever come of it. Every master in Chancery has made a reference to it after dinner. Articled clerks have practised their legal wit upon it. The last Lord Chancellor said that getting through Jarndyce and Jarndyce was as likely as the sky raining potatoes - a pleasantry that particularly tickled the juniors in court. How many people Jarndyce and Jarndyce has stretched forth its unwholesome hand to spoil and corrupt would be a very wide question. From the master down to the copying-clerk, no man has been improved by it. It brings trickery, evasion, procrastination, botheration, and false pretences of all sorts. Even those on the outermost circle of such evil have been tempted into letting bad things take their own bad course, and a loose belief that if the world goes wrong it was in some off-hand manner never meant to go right. Thus, in the midst of the mud and at the heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery. "Mr. Tangle," says the Lord High Chancellor. "Mlud," says Mr. Tangle. Mr. Tangle knows more of Jarndyce and Jarndyce than anybody. He is famous for it - supposed never to have read anything else since he left school. "Have you nearly concluded your argument?" "Mlud, no - variety of points - feel it my duty tsubmit - ludship." "Several members of the bar are still to be heard, I believe?" says the Chancellor with a slight smile. Eighteen of Mr. Tangle's learned friends bob up like eighteen hammers in a pianoforte, and make eighteen bows. "We will proceed with the hearing on Wednesday fortnight," says the Chancellor. For the question at issue is only a question of costs, a mere bud on the forest tree of the lawsuit, and really will come to a settlement one of these days. The Chancellor rises; the bar rises; the man from Shropshire cries, "My lord!" The junior lawyers frown at him indignantly. "In reference," proceeds the Chancellor, still on Jarndyce and Jarndyce, "to the young girl-" "Begludship's pardon - boy," says Mr. Tangle. "In reference," proceeds the Chancellor with extra distinctness, "to the young girl and boy, the two young people" - Mr. Tangle crushed - "whom I told to come today and who are now in my private room, I will see them and consider making the order for their residing with their uncle." Mr. Tangle on his legs again. "Begludship's pardon - dead." "With their" - Chancellor looking through his eye-glass at his papers - "grandfather." "Begludship's pardon - victim of rash action - brains." Suddenly a very little lawyer with a terrific bass voice arises in the fog, and says, "I appear for him. He is a distant cousin." The very little counsel drops back into the fog. Everybody looks for him. Nobody can see him. "I will speak with both the young people," says the Chancellor, "on the subject of their residing with their cousin. I will mention the matter tomorrow morning when I take my seat." The man from Shropshire ventures another "My lord!" but the Chancellor has vanished. Everybody else quickly vanishes too. The little mad old woman marches off with her documents; the empty court is locked up. If all the injustice it has committed and all the misery it has caused could only be locked up with it, and the whole burnt away in a great funeral pyre - why, so much the better it would be!

Bleak House

Chapter 1: In Chancery

I have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of these pages, for I know I am not clever. I always knew that. I can remember, when I was a very little girl indeed, I used to say to my doll when we were alone together, "Now, Dolly, I am not clever, you know very well, and you must be patient with me, like a dear!" And so she used to sit propped up in a great arm-chair, with her beautiful complexion and rosy lips, staring at me--or not so much at me, I think, as at nothing--while I busily stitched away and told her every one of my secrets. My dear old doll! I was such a shy little thing that I seldom dared to open my lips, and never dared to open my heart, to anybody else. It almost makes me cry to think what a relief it used to be to me when I came home from school of a day to run upstairs to my room and say, "Oh, you dear faithful Dolly, I knew you would be expecting me!" and then to sit down on the floor, leaning on the elbow of her great chair, and tell her all I had noticed since we parted. I had always rather a noticing way--not a quick way, oh, no!--a silent way of noticing what passed before me and thinking I should like to understand it better. I have not by any means a quick understanding. When I love a person very tenderly indeed, it seems to brighten. But even that may be my vanity. I was brought up, from my earliest remembrance--like some of the princesses in the fairy stories, only I was not charming--by my godmother. At least, I only knew her as such. She was a good, good woman! She went to church three times every Sunday, and to morning prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays, and to lectures whenever there were lectures; and never missed. She was handsome; and if she had ever smiled, would have been (I used to think) like an angel--but she never smiled. She was always grave and strict. She was so very good herself, I thought, that the badness of other people made her frown all her life. I felt so different from her, even making every allowance for the differences between a child and a woman; I felt so poor, so trifling, and so far off that I never could be unrestrained with her--no, could never even love her as I wished. It made me very sorry to consider how good she was and how unworthy of her I was, and I used ardently to hope that I might have a better heart; and I talked it over very often with the dear old doll, but I never loved my godmother as I ought to have loved her and as I felt I must have loved her if I had been a better girl. This made me, I dare say, more timid and retiring than I naturally was and cast me upon Dolly as the only friend with whom I felt at ease. But something happened when I was still quite a little thing that helped it very much. I had never heard my mama spoken of. I had never heard of my papa either, but I felt more interested about my mama. I had never worn a black frock, that I could recollect. I had never been shown my mama's grave. I had never been told where it was. Yet I had never been taught to pray for any relation but my godmother. I had more than once approached this subject of my thoughts with Mrs. Rachael, our only servant, who took my light away when I was in bed (another very good woman, but austere to me), and she had only said, "Esther, good night!" and gone away and left me. Although there were seven girls at the neighbouring school where I was a day boarder, and although they called me little Esther Summerson, I knew none of them at home. All of them were older than I, to be sure (I was the youngest there by a good deal), but there seemed to be some other separation between us besides that, and besides their being far more clever than I was and knowing much more than I did. One of them in the first week of my going to the school (I remember it very well) invited me home to a little party, to my great joy. But my godmother wrote a stiff letter declining for me, and I never went. I never went out at all. It was my birthday. There were holidays at school on other birthdays--none on mine. There were rejoicings at home on other birthdays, as I knew from what I heard the girls relate to one another--there were none on mine. My birthday was the most melancholy day at home in the whole year. I have mentioned that unless my vanity should deceive me (as I know it may, for I may be very vain without suspecting it, though indeed I don't), my comprehension is quickened when my affection is. My disposition is very affectionate, and perhaps I might still feel such a wound if such a wound could be received more than once with the quickness of that birthday. Dinner was over, and my godmother and I were sitting at the table before the fire. The clock ticked, the fire clicked; not another sound had been heard in the room or in the house for I don't know how long. I happened to look timidly up from my stitching, across the table at my godmother, and I saw in her face, looking gloomily at me, "It would have been far better, little Esther, that you had had no birthday, that you had never been born!" I broke out crying and sobbing, and I said, "Oh, dear godmother, tell me, pray do tell me, did Mama die on my birthday?" "No," she returned. "Ask me no more, child!" "Oh, do pray tell me something of her. Do now, at last, dear godmother, if you please! What did I do to her? How did I lose her? Why am I so different from other children, and why is it my fault, dear godmother? No, no, no, don't go away. Oh, speak to me!" I was in a kind of fright beyond my grief, and I caught hold of her dress and was kneeling to her. She had been saying all the while, "Let me go!" But now she stood still. Her darkened face had such power over me that it stopped me in the midst of my vehemence. I put up my trembling little hand to clasp hers or to beg her pardon with what earnestness I might, but withdrew it as she looked at me, and laid it on my fluttering heart. She raised me, sat in her chair, and standing me before her, said slowly in a cold, low voice--I see her knitted brow and pointed finger--"Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. The time will come--and soon enough--when you will understand this better and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can. I have forgiven her"--but her face did not relent--"the wrong she did to me, and I say no more of it, though it was greater than you will ever know--than any one will ever know but I, the sufferer. For yourself, unfortunate girl, orphaned and degraded from the first of these evil anniversaries, pray daily that the sins of others be not visited upon your head, according to what is written. Forget your mother and leave all other people to forget her who will do her unhappy child that greatest kindness. Now, go!" She checked me, however, as I was about to depart from her--so frozen as I was!--and added this, "Submission, self-denial, diligent work, are the preparations for a life begun with such a shadow on it. You are different from other children, Esther, because you were not born, like them, in common sinfulness and wrath. You are set apart." I went up to my room, and crept to bed, and laid my doll's cheek against mine wet with tears, and holding that solitary friend upon my bosom, cried myself to sleep. Imperfect as my understanding of my sorrow was, I knew that I had brought no joy at any time to anybody's heart and that I was to no one upon earth what Dolly was to me. Dear, dear, to think how much time we passed alone together afterwards, and how often I repeated to the doll the story of my birthday and confided to her that I would try as hard as ever I could to repair the fault I had been born with (of which I confessedly felt guilty and yet innocent) and would strive as I grew up to be industrious, contented, and kind-hearted and to do some good to some one, and win some love to myself if I could. I hope it is not self-indulgent to shed these tears as I think of it. I am very thankful, I am very cheerful, but I cannot quite help their coming to my eyes. There! I have wiped them away now and can go on again properly. I felt the distance between my godmother and myself so much more after the birthday, and felt so sensible of filling a place in her house which ought to have been empty, that I found her more difficult of approach, though I was fervently grateful to her in my heart, than ever. I felt in the same way towards my school companions; I felt in the same way towards Mrs. Rachael, who was a widow; and oh, towards her daughter, of whom she was proud, who came to see her once a fortnight! I was very retired and quiet, and tried to be very diligent. One sunny afternoon when I had come home from school with my books and portfolio, watching my long shadow at my side, and as I was gliding upstairs to my room as usual, my godmother looked out of the parlour-door and called me back. Sitting with her, I found--which was very unusual indeed--a stranger. A portly, important-looking gentleman, dressed all in black, with a white cravat, large gold watch seals, a pair of gold eye-glasses, and a large seal-ring upon his little finger. "This," said my godmother in an undertone, "is the child." Then she said in her naturally stern way of speaking, "This is Esther, sir." The gentleman put up his eye-glasses to look at me and said, "Come here, my dear!" He shook hands with me and asked me to take off my bonnet, looking at me all the while. When I had complied, he said, "Ah!" and afterwards "Yes!" And then, taking off his eye-glasses and folding them in a red case, and leaning back in his arm-chair, turning the case about in his two hands, he gave my godmother a nod. Upon that, my godmother said, "You may go upstairs, Esther!" And I made him my curtsy and left him. It must have been two years afterwards, and I was almost fourteen, when one dreadful night my godmother and I sat at the fireside. I was reading aloud, and she was listening. I had come down at nine o'clock as I always did to read the Bible to her, and was reading from St. John how our Saviour stooped down, writing with his finger in the dust, when they brought the sinful woman to him. "So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said unto them, 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her!'" I was stopped by my godmother's rising, putting her hand to her head, and crying out in an awful voice from quite another part of the book, "'Watch ye, therefore, lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch!'" In an instant, while she stood before me repeating these words, she fell down on the floor. I had no need to cry out; her voice had sounded through the house and been heard in the street. She was laid upon her bed. For more than a week she lay there, little altered outwardly, with her old handsome resolute frown that I so well knew carved upon her face. Many and many a time, in the day and in the night, with my head upon the pillow by her that my whispers might be plainer to her, I kissed her, thanked her, prayed for her, asked her for her blessing and forgiveness, entreated her to give me the least sign that she knew or heard me. No, no, no. Her face was immovable. To the very last, and even afterwards, her frown remained unsoftened. On the day after my poor good godmother was buried, the gentleman in black with the white neckcloth reappeared. I was sent for by Mrs. Rachael, and found him in the same place, as if he had never gone away. "My name is Kenge," he said; "you may remember it, my child; Kenge and Carboy, Lincoln's Inn." I replied that I remembered to have seen him once before. "Pray be seated--here near me. Don't distress yourself; it's of no use. Mrs. Rachael, I needn't inform you who were acquainted with the late Miss Barbary's affairs, that her means die with her and that this young lady, now her aunt is dead--" "My aunt, sir!" "It is really of no use carrying on a deception when no object is to be gained by it," said Mr. Kenge smoothly, "Aunt in fact, though not in law. Don't distress yourself! Don't weep! Don't tremble! Mrs. Rachael, our young friend has no doubt heard of--the--a--Jarndyce and Jarndyce." "Never," said Mrs. Rachael. "Is it possible," pursued Mr. Kenge, putting up his eye-glasses, "that our young friend--I BEG you won't distress yourself!--never heard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce!" I shook my head, wondering even what it was. "Not of Jarndyce and Jarndyce?" said Mr. Kenge, looking over his glasses at me and softly turning the case about and about as if he were petting something. "Not of one of the greatest Chancery suits known? Not of Jarndyce and Jarndyce--the--a--in itself a monument of Chancery practice. In which (I would say) every difficulty, every contingency, every masterly fiction, every form of procedure known in that court, is represented over and over again? It is a cause that could not exist out of this free and great country. I should say that the aggregate of costs in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mrs. Rachael"--I was afraid he addressed himself to her because I appeared inattentive"--amounts at the present hour to from SIX-ty to SEVEN-ty THOUSAND POUNDS!" said Mr. Kenge, leaning back in his chair. I felt very ignorant, but what could I do? I was so entirely unacquainted with the subject that I understood nothing about it even then. "And she really never heard of the cause!" said Mr. Kenge. "Surprising!" "Miss Barbary, sir," returned Mrs. Rachael, "who is now among the Seraphim--" "I hope so, I am sure," said Mr. Kenge politely. "--Wished Esther only to know what would be serviceable to her. And she knows, from any teaching she has had here, nothing more." "Well!" said Mr. Kenge. "Upon the whole, very proper. Now to the point," addressing me. "Miss Barbary, your sole relation (in fact that is, for I am bound to observe that in law you had none) being deceased and it naturally not being to be expected that Mrs. Rachael--" "Oh, dear no!" said Mrs. Rachael quickly. "Quite so," assented Mr. Kenge; "--that Mrs. Rachael should charge herself with your maintenance and support (I beg you won't distress yourself), you are in a position to receive the renewal of an offer which I was instructed to make to Miss Barbary some two years ago and which, though rejected then, was understood to be renewable under the lamentable circumstances that have since occurred. Now, if I avow that I represent, in Jarndyce and Jarndyce and otherwise, a highly humane, but at the same time singular, man, shall I compromise myself by any stretch of my professional caution?" said Mr. Kenge, leaning back in his chair again and looking calmly at us both. He appeared to enjoy beyond everything the sound of his own voice. I couldn't wonder at that, for it was mellow and full and gave great importance to every word he uttered. He listened to himself with obvious satisfaction and sometimes gently beat time to his own music with his head or rounded a sentence with his hand. I was very much impressed by him--even then, before I knew that he formed himself on the model of a great lord who was his client and that he was generally called Conversation Kenge. "Mr. Jarndyce," he pursued, "being aware of the--I would say, desolate--position of our young friend, offers to place her at a first-rate establishment where her education shall be completed, where her comfort shall be secured, where her reasonable wants shall be anticipated, where she shall be eminently qualified to discharge her duty in that station of life unto which it has pleased--shall I say Providence?--to call her." My heart was filled so full, both by what he said and by his affecting manner of saying it, that I was not able to speak, though I tried. "Mr. Jarndyce," he went on, "makes no condition beyond expressing his expectation that our young friend will not at any time remove herself from the establishment in question without his knowledge and concurrence. That she will faithfully apply herself to the acquisition of those accomplishments, upon the exercise of which she will be ultimately dependent. That she will tread in the paths of virtue and honour, and--the--a--so forth." I was still less able to speak than before. "Now, what does our young friend say?" proceeded Mr. Kenge. "Take time, take time! I pause for her reply. But take time!" What the destitute subject of such an offer tried to say, I need not repeat. What she did say, I could more easily tell, if it were worth the telling. What she felt, and will feel to her dying hour, I could never relate. This interview took place at Windsor, where I had passed (as far as I knew) my whole life. On that day week, amply provided with all necessaries, I left it, inside the stagecoach, for Reading. Mrs. Rachael was too good to feel any emotion at parting, but I was not so good, and wept bitterly. I thought that I ought to have known her better after so many years and ought to have made myself enough of a favourite with her to make her sorry then. When she gave me one cold parting kiss upon my forehead, like a thaw-drop from the stone porch--it was a very frosty day--I felt so miserable and self-reproachful that I clung to her and told her it was my fault, I knew, that she could say good-bye so easily! "No, Esther!" she returned. "It is your misfortune!" The coach was at the little lawn-gate--we had not come out until we heard the wheels--and thus I left her, with a sorrowful heart. She went in before my boxes were lifted to the coach-roof and shut the door. As long as I could see the house, I looked back at it from the window through my tears. My godmother had left Mrs. Rachael all the little property she possessed; and there was to be a sale; and an old hearth-rug with roses on it, which always seemed to me the first thing in the world I had ever seen, was hanging outside in the frost and snow. A day or two before, I had wrapped the dear old doll in her own shawl and quietly laid her--I am half ashamed to tell it--in the garden-earth under the tree that shaded my old window. I had no companion left but my bird, and him I carried with me in his cage. When the house was out of sight, I sat, with my bird-cage in the straw at my feet, forward on the low seat to look out of the high window, watching the frosty trees, that were like beautiful pieces of spar, and the fields all smooth and white with last night's snow, and the sun, so red but yielding so little heat, and the ice, dark like metal where the skaters and sliders had brushed the snow away. There was a gentleman in the coach who sat on the opposite seat and looked very large in a quantity of wrappings, but he sat gazing out of the other window and took no notice of me. I thought of my dead godmother, of the night when I read to her, of her frowning so fixedly and sternly in her bed, of the strange place I was going to, of the people I should find there, and what they would be like, and what they would say to me, when a voice in the coach gave me a terrible start. It said, "What the de-vil are you crying for?" I was so frightened that I lost my voice and could only answer in a whisper, "Me, sir?" For of course I knew it must have been the gentleman in the quantity of wrappings, though he was still looking out of his window. "Yes, you," he said, turning round. "I didn't know I was crying, sir," I faltered. "But you are!" said the gentleman. "Look here!" He came quite opposite to me from the other corner of the coach, brushed one of his large furry cuffs across my eyes (but without hurting me), and showed me that it was wet. "There! Now you know you are," he said. "Don't you?" "Yes, sir," I said. "And what are you crying for?" said the gentleman, "Don't you want to go there?" "Where, sir?" "Where? Why, wherever you are going," said the gentleman. "I am very glad to go there, sir," I answered. "Well, then! Look glad!" said the gentleman. I thought he was very strange, or at least that what I could see of him was very strange, for he was wrapped up to the chin, and his face was almost hidden in a fur cap with broad fur straps at the side of his head fastened under his chin; but I was composed again, and not afraid of him. So I told him that I thought I must have been crying because of my godmother's death and because of Mrs. Rachael's not being sorry to part with me. "Confound Mrs. Rachael!" said the gentleman. "Let her fly away in a high wind on a broomstick!" I began to be really afraid of him now and looked at him with the greatest astonishment. But I thought that he had pleasant eyes, although he kept on muttering to himself in an angry manner and calling Mrs. Rachael names. After a little while he opened his outer wrapper, which appeared to me large enough to wrap up the whole coach, and put his arm down into a deep pocket in the side. "Now, look here!" he said. "In this paper," which was nicely folded, "is a piece of the best plum-cake that can be got for money--sugar on the outside an inch thick, like fat on mutton chops. Here's a little pie (a gem this is, both for size and quality), made in France. And what do you suppose it's made of? Livers of fat geese. There's a pie! Now let's see you eat 'em." "Thank you, sir," I replied; "thank you very much indeed, but I hope you won't be offended--they are too rich for me." "Floored again!" said the gentleman, which I didn't at all understand, and threw them both out of window. He did not speak to me any more until he got out of the coach a little way short of Reading, when he advised me to be a good girl and to be studious, and shook hands with me. I must say I was relieved by his departure. We left him at a milestone. I often walked past it afterwards, and never for a long time without thinking of him and half expecting to meet him. But I never did; and so, as time went on, he passed out of my mind. When the coach stopped, a very neat lady looked up at the window and said, "Miss Donny." "No, ma'am, Esther Summerson." "That is quite right," said the lady, "Miss Donny." I now understood that she introduced herself by that name, and begged Miss Donny's pardon for my mistake, and pointed out my boxes at her request. Under the direction of a very neat maid, they were put outside a very small green carriage; and then Miss Donny, the maid, and I got inside and were driven away. "Everything is ready for you, Esther," said Miss Donny, "and the scheme of your pursuits has been arranged in exact accordance with the wishes of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce." "Of--did you say, ma'am?" "Of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce," said Miss Donny. I was so bewildered that Miss Donny thought the cold had been too severe for me and lent me her smelling-bottle. "Do you know my--guardian, Mr. Jarndyce, ma'am?" I asked after a good deal of hesitation. "Not personally, Esther," said Miss Donny; "merely through his solicitors, Messrs. Kenge and Carboy, of London. A very superior gentleman, Mr. Kenge. Truly eloquent indeed. Some of his periods quite majestic!" I felt this to be very true but was too confused to attend to it. Our speedy arrival at our destination, before I had time to recover myself, increased my confusion, and I never shall forget the uncertain and the unreal air of everything at Greenleaf (Miss Donny's house) that afternoon! But I soon became used to it. I was so adapted to the routine of Greenleaf before long that I seemed to have been there a great while and almost to have dreamed rather than really lived my old life at my godmother's. Nothing could be more precise, exact, and orderly than Greenleaf. There was a time for everything all round the dial of the clock, and everything was done at its appointed moment. We were twelve boarders, and there were two Miss Donnys, twins. It was understood that I would have to depend, by and by, on my qualifications as a governess, and I was not only instructed in everything that was taught at Greenleaf, but was very soon engaged in helping to instruct others. Although I was treated in every other respect like the rest of the school, this single difference was made in my case from the first. As I began to know more, I taught more, and so in course of time I had plenty to do, which I was very fond of doing because it made the dear girls fond of me. At last, whenever a new pupil came who was a little downcast and unhappy, she was so sure--indeed I don't know why--to make a friend of me that all new-comers were confided to my care. They said I was so gentle, but I am sure THEY were! I often thought of the resolution I had made on my birthday to try to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted and to do some good to some one and win some love if I could; and indeed, indeed, I felt almost ashamed to have done so little and have won so much. I passed at Greenleaf six happy, quiet years. I never saw in any face there, thank heaven, on my birthday, that it would have been better if I had never been born. When the day came round, it brought me so many tokens of affectionate remembrance that my room was beautiful with them from New Year's Day to Christmas. In those six years I had never been away except on visits at holiday time in the neighbourhood. After the first six months or so I had taken Miss Donny's advice in reference to the propriety of writing to Mr. Kenge to say that I was happy and grateful, and with her approval I had written such a letter. I had received a formal answer acknowledging its receipt and saying, "We note the contents thereof, which shall be duly communicated to our client." After that I sometimes heard Miss Donny and her sister mention how regular my accounts were paid, and about twice a year I ventured to write a similar letter. I always received by return of post exactly the same answer in the same round hand, with the signature of Kenge and Carboy in another writing, which I supposed to be Mr. Kenge's. It seems so curious to me to be obliged to write all this about myself! As if this narrative were the narrative of MY life! But my little body will soon fall into the background now. Six quiet years (I find I am saying it for the second time) I had passed at Greenleaf, seeing in those around me, as it might be in a looking-glass, every stage of my own growth and change there, when, one November morning, I received this letter. I omit the date. Old Square, Lincoln's Inn Madam, Jarndyce and Jarndyce Our clt Mr. Jarndyce being abt to rece into his house, under an Order of the Ct of Chy, a Ward of the Ct in this cause, for whom he wishes to secure an elgble compn, directs us to inform you that he will be glad of your serces in the afsd capacity. We have arrngd for your being forded, carriage free, pr eight o'clock coach from Reading, on Monday morning next, to White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, London, where one of our clks will be in waiting to convey you to our offe as above. We are, Madam, Your obedt Servts, Kenge and Carboy Miss Esther Summerson Oh, never, never, never shall I forget the emotion this letter caused in the house! It was so tender in them to care so much for me, it was so gracious in that father who had not forgotten me to have made my orphan way so smooth and easy and to have inclined so many youthful natures towards me, that I could hardly bear it. Not that I would have had them less sorry--I am afraid not; but the pleasure of it, and the pain of it, and the pride and joy of it, and the humble regret of it were so blended that my heart seemed almost breaking while it was full of rapture. The letter gave me only five days' notice of my removal. When every minute added to the proofs of love and kindness that were given me in those five days, and when at last the morning came and when they took me through all the rooms that I might see them for the last time, and when some cried, "Esther, dear, say good-bye to me here at my bedside, where you first spoke so kindly to me!" and when others asked me only to write their names, "With Esther's love," and when they all surrounded me with their parting presents and clung to me weeping and cried, "What shall we do when dear, dear Esther's gone!" and when I tried to tell them how forbearing and how good they had all been to me and how I blessed and thanked them every one, what a heart I had! And when the two Miss Donnys grieved as much to part with me as the least among them, and when the maids said, "Bless you, miss, wherever you go!" and when the ugly lame old gardener, who I thought had hardly noticed me in all those years, came panting after the coach to give me a little nosegay of geraniums and told me I had been the light of his eyes--indeed the old man said so!--what a heart I had then! And could I help it if with all this, and the coming to the little school, and the unexpected sight of the poor children outside waving their hats and bonnets to me, and of a grey-haired gentleman and lady whose daughter I had helped to teach and at whose house I had visited (who were said to be the proudest people in all that country), caring for nothing but calling out, "Good-bye, Esther. May you be very happy!"--could I help it if I was quite bowed down in the coach by myself and said "Oh, I am so thankful, I am so thankful!" many times over! But of course I soon considered that I must not take tears where I was going after all that had been done for me. Therefore, of course, I made myself sob less and persuaded myself to be quiet by saying very often, "Esther, now you really must! This WILL NOT do!" I cheered myself up pretty well at last, though I am afraid I was longer about it than I ought to have been; and when I had cooled my eyes with lavender water, it was time to watch for London. I was quite persuaded that we were there when we were ten miles off, and when we really were there, that we should never get there. However, when we began to jolt upon a stone pavement, and particularly when every other conveyance seemed to be running into us, and we seemed to be running into every other conveyance, I began to believe that we really were approaching the end of our journey. Very soon afterwards we stopped. A young gentleman who had inked himself by accident addressed me from the pavement and said, "I am from Kenge and Carboy's, miss, of Lincoln's Inn." "If you please, sir," said I. He was very obliging, and as he handed me into a fly after superintending the removal of my boxes, I asked him whether there was a great fire anywhere? For the streets were so full of dense brown smoke that scarcely anything was to be seen. "Oh, dear no, miss," he said. "This is a London particular." I had never heard of such a thing. "A fog, miss," said the young gentleman. "Oh, indeed!" said I. We drove slowly through the dirtiest and darkest streets that ever were seen in the world (I thought) and in such a distracting state of confusion that I wondered how the people kept their senses, until we passed into sudden quietude under an old gateway and drove on through a silent square until we came to an odd nook in a corner, where there was an entrance up a steep, broad flight of stairs, like an entrance to a church. And there really was a churchyard outside under some cloisters, for I saw the gravestones from the staircase window. This was Kenge and Carboy's. The young gentleman showed me through an outer office into Mr. Kenge's room--there was no one in it--and politely put an arm-chair for me by the fire. He then called my attention to a little looking-glass hanging from a nail on one side of the chimney-piece. "In case you should wish to look at yourself, miss, after the journey, as you're going before the Chancellor. Not that it's requisite, I am sure," said the young gentleman civilly. "Going before the Chancellor?" I said, startled for a moment. "Only a matter of form, miss," returned the young gentleman. "Mr. Kenge is in court now. He left his compliments, and would you partake of some refreshment"--there were biscuits and a decanter of wine on a small table--"and look over the paper," which the young gentleman gave me as he spoke. He then stirred the fire and left me. Everything was so strange--the stranger from its being night in the day-time, the candles burning with a white flame, and looking raw and cold--that I read the words in the newspaper without knowing what they meant and found myself reading the same words repeatedly. As it was of no use going on in that way, I put the paper down, took a peep at my bonnet in the glass to see if it was neat, and looked at the room, which was not half lighted, and at the shabby, dusty tables, and at the piles of writings, and at a bookcase full of the most inexpressive-looking books that ever had anything to say for themselves. Then I went on, thinking, thinking, thinking; and the fire went on, burning, burning, burning; and the candles went on flickering and guttering, and there were no snuffers--until the young gentleman by and by brought a very dirty pair--for two hours. At last Mr. Kenge came. HE was not altered, but he was surprised to see how altered I was and appeared quite pleased. "As you are going to be the companion of the young lady who is now in the Chancellor's private room, Miss Summerson," he said, "we thought it well that you should be in attendance also. You will not be discomposed by the Lord Chancellor, I dare say?" "No, sir," I said, "I don't think I shall," really not seeing on consideration why I should be. So Mr. Kenge gave me his arm and we went round the corner, under a colonnade, and in at a side door. And so we came, along a passage, into a comfortable sort of room where a young lady and a young gentleman were standing near a great, loud-roaring fire. A screen was interposed between them and it, and they were leaning on the screen, talking. They both looked up when I came in, and I saw in the young lady, with the fire shining upon her, such a beautiful girl! With such rich golden hair, such soft blue eyes, and such a bright, innocent, trusting face! "Miss Ada," said Mr. Kenge, "this is Miss Summerson." She came to meet me with a smile of welcome and her hand extended, but seemed to change her mind in a moment and kissed me. In short, she had such a natural, captivating, winning manner that in a few minutes we were sitting in the window-seat, with the light of the fire upon us, talking together as free and happy as could be. What a load off my mind! It was so delightful to know that she could confide in me and like me! It was so good of her, and so encouraging to me! The young gentleman was her distant cousin, she told me, and his name Richard Carstone. He was a handsome youth with an ingenuous face and a most engaging laugh; and after she had called him up to where we sat, he stood by us, in the light of the fire, talking gaily, like a light-hearted boy. He was very young, not more than nineteen then, if quite so much, but nearly two years older than she was. They were both orphans and (what was very unexpected and curious to me) had never met before that day. Our all three coming together for the first time in such an unusual place was a thing to talk about, and we talked about it; and the fire, which had left off roaring, winked its red eyes at us--as Richard said--like a drowsy old Chancery lion. We conversed in a low tone because a full-dressed gentleman in a bag wig frequently came in and out, and when he did so, we could hear a drawling sound in the distance, which he said was one of the counsel in our case addressing the Lord Chancellor. He told Mr. Kenge that the Chancellor would be up in five minutes; and presently we heard a bustle and a tread of feet, and Mr. Kenge said that the Court had risen and his lordship was in the next room. The gentleman in the bag wig opened the door almost directly and requested Mr. Kenge to come in. Upon that, we all went into the next room, Mr. Kenge first, with my darling--it is so natural to me now that I can't help writing it; and there, plainly dressed in black and sitting in an arm-chair at a table near the fire, was his lordship, whose robe, trimmed with beautiful gold lace, was thrown upon another chair. He gave us a searching look as we entered, but his manner was both courtly and kind. The gentleman in the bag wig laid bundles of papers on his lordship's table, and his lordship silently selected one and turned over the leaves. "Miss Clare," said the Lord Chancellor. "Miss Ada Clare?" Mr. Kenge presented her, and his lordship begged her to sit down near him. That he admired her and was interested by her even I could see in a moment. It touched me that the home of such a beautiful young creature should be represented by that dry, official place. The Lord High Chancellor, at his best, appeared so poor a substitute for the love and pride of parents. "The Jarndyce in question," said the Lord Chancellor, still turning over leaves, "is Jarndyce of Bleak House." "Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord," said Mr. Kenge. "A dreary name," said the Lord Chancellor. "But not a dreary place at present, my lord," said Mr. Kenge. "And Bleak House," said his lordship, "is in--" "Hertfordshire, my lord." "Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House is not married?" said his lordship. "He is not, my lord," said Mr. Kenge. A pause. "Young Mr. Richard Carstone is present?" said the Lord Chancellor, glancing towards him. Richard bowed and stepped forward. "Hum!" said the Lord Chancellor, turning over more leaves. "Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord," Mr. Kenge observed in a low voice, "if I may venture to remind your lordship, provides a suitable companion for--" "For Mr. Richard Carstone?" I thought (but I am not quite sure) I heard his lordship say in an equally low voice and with a smile. "For Miss Ada Clare. This is the young lady. Miss Summerson." His lordship gave me an indulgent look and acknowledged my curtsy very graciously. "Miss Summerson is not related to any party in the cause, I think?" "No, my lord." Mr. Kenge leant over before it was quite said and whispered. His lordship, with his eyes upon his papers, listened, nodded twice or thrice, turned over more leaves, and did not look towards me again until we were going away. Mr. Kenge now retired, and Richard with him, to where I was, near the door, leaving my pet (it is so natural to me that again I can't help it!) sitting near the Lord Chancellor, with whom his lordship spoke a little part, asking her, as she told me afterwards, whether she had well reflected on the proposed arrangement, and if she thought she would be happy under the roof of Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, and why she thought so? Presently he rose courteously and released her, and then he spoke for a minute or two with Richard Carstone, not seated, but standing, and altogether with more ease and less ceremony, as if he still knew, though he WAS Lord Chancellor, how to go straight to the candour of a boy. "Very well!" said his lordship aloud. "I shall make the order. Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House has chosen, so far as I may judge," and this was when he looked at me, "a very good companion for the young lady, and the arrangement altogether seems the best of which the circumstances admit." He dismissed us pleasantly, and we all went out, very much obliged to him for being so affable and polite, by which he had certainly lost no dignity but seemed to us to have gained some. When we got under the colonnade, Mr. Kenge remembered that he must go back for a moment to ask a question and left us in the fog, with the Lord Chancellor's carriage and servants waiting for him to come out. "Well!" said Richard Carstone. "THAT'S over! And where do we go next, Miss Summerson?" "Don't you know?" I said. "Not in the least," said he. "And don't YOU know, my love?" I asked Ada. "No!" said she. "Don't you?" "Not at all!" said I. We looked at one another, half laughing at our being like the children in the wood, when a curious little old woman in a squeezed bonnet and carrying a reticule came curtsying and smiling up to us with an air of great ceremony. "Oh!" said she. "The wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure, to have the honour! It is a good omen for youth, and hope, and beauty when they find themselves in this place, and don't know what's to come of it." "Mad!" whispered Richard, not thinking she could hear him. "Right! Mad, young gentleman," she returned so quickly that he was quite abashed. "I was a ward myself. I was not mad at that time," curtsying low and smiling between every little sentence. "I had youth and hope. I believe, beauty. It matters very little now. Neither of the three served or saved me. I have the honour to attend court regularly. With my documents. I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the Day of Judgment. I have discovered that the sixth seal mentioned in the Revelations is the Great Seal. It has been open a long time! Pray accept my blessing." As Ada was a little frightened, I said, to humour the poor old lady, that we were much obliged to her. "Ye-es!" she said mincingly. "I imagine so. And here is Conversation Kenge. With HIS documents! How does your honourable worship do?" "Quite well, quite well! Now don't be troublesome, that's a good soul!" said Mr. Kenge, leading the way back. "By no means," said the poor old lady, keeping up with Ada and me. "Anything but troublesome. I shall confer estates on both--which is not being troublesome, I trust? I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the Day of Judgment. This is a good omen for you. Accept my blessing!" She stopped at the bottom of the steep, broad flight of stairs; but we looked back as we went up, and she was still there, saying, still with a curtsy and a smile between every little sentence, "Youth. And hope. And beauty. And Chancery. And Conversation Kenge! Ha! Pray accept my blessing!"

I have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of these pages, for I know I am not clever. I always knew that. I remember, when I was a very little girl, I used to say to my doll when we were alone together, "Now, Dolly, I am not clever, and you must be patient with me, like a dear!" And she used to sit propped up in a great arm-chair, staring at me - or, rather, at nothing - while I busily stitched away and told her every one of my secrets. My dear old doll! I was such a shy little thing that I seldom dared to open my lips, and never dared to open my heart, to anybody else. It almost makes me cry to think what a relief it used to be when I came home from school, to run upstairs to my room and say, "Oh, dear faithful Dolly, I knew you would be expecting me!" and then to sit down and tell her all I had noticed since we parted. I had always rather a silent way of noticing what passed before me and thinking I should like to understand it better. I have not a quick understanding. When I love a person very tenderly, it seems to brighten. But even that may be my vanity. I was brought up, from my earliest remembrance, by my godmother. At least, I only knew her as such. She was a good, good woman! She went to church three times every Sunday, and to morning prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays, and never missed. She was handsome; and if she had ever smiled, would have been (I used to think) like an angel - but she never smiled. She was always grave and strict. She was so very good herself, I thought, that the badness of other people made her frown all her life. I felt so different from her, so poor, so trifling, and so far off that I could never even love her as I wished. It made me very sorry to consider how good she was and how unworthy of her I was, and I used ardently to hope that I might have a better heart; and I talked it over often with the dear old doll, but I never loved my godmother as I ought to have loved her if I had been a better girl. This made me, I dare say, more timid and retiring than I naturally was. But something happened when I was still quite small that helped it very much. I had never heard my mama spoken of. I had never been shown my mama's grave, nor told where it was. Yet I had never been taught to pray for any relation but my godmother. I had more than once approached this subject of my thoughts with Mrs. Rachael, our only servant, who took my light away when I was in bed (another very good woman), and she had only said, "Esther, good night!" and gone away. Although there were seven girls at the neighbouring school where I was a pupil, and although they called me little Esther Summerson, there seemed to be some other separation between us besides their being older and far more clever than I was. One of them did invite me home to a little party, to my great joy. But my godmother wrote a stiff letter declining, and I never went. I never went out at all. It was my birthday. There were rejoicings at home on other birthdays, I knew - there were none on mine. My birthday was the most melancholy day at home in the whole year. Dinner was over, and my godmother and I were sitting at the table before the fire. The clock ticked; not another sound was heard in the house. I happened to look timidly up from my stitching, across the table at my godmother, and I saw her looking gloomily at me as if to say, "It would have been far better that you had no birthday, that you had never been born!" I broke out crying and said, "Oh, dear godmother, pray do tell me, did Mama die on my birthday?" "No," she returned. "Ask me no more, child!" "Oh, do pray tell me something of her, dear godmother, please! What did I do to her? How did I lose her? Why am I so different from other children, and why is it my fault, dear godmother? No, no, don't go away. Oh, speak to me!" I caught hold of her dress and was kneeling, while she said, "Let me go!" But now she stood still. Her darkened face stopped me. I put up my trembling hand to clasp hers, but withdrew it as she looked at me, and laid it on my fluttering heart. She said slowly in a cold, low voice, "Your mother is your disgrace, and you were hers. The time will come when you will understand this better and will feel it too. I have forgiven her" - but her face did not relent - "the wrong she did to me, and I say no more of it, though it was greater than anyone will ever know but I. For yourself, unfortunate girl, orphaned and degraded, pray that the sins of others be not visited upon your head. Forget your mother. Now, go!" As I was about to depart, she added this: "Submission, self-denial, diligent work, are the preparations for a life begun with such a shadow on it. You are different from other children, Esther. You are set apart." I went up to my room, and crept to bed, laid my doll's cheek against mine, and cried myself to sleep. Imperfect as my understanding was, I knew that I had brought no joy at any time to anybody's heart and that I was to no one upon earth what Dolly was to me. Dear, dear, to think how often I repeated to the doll the story of my birthday and confided to her that I would try to repair the fault I had been born with (of which I felt guilty and yet innocent) and would strive to be industrious, contented, and kind-hearted and to do some good to some one, and win some love to myself if I could. I hope it is not self-indulgent to shed these tears as I think of it. I am very thankful, I am very cheerful, but I cannot quite help their coming to my eyes. There! I have wiped them away and can go on again properly. I felt the distance between my godmother and myself so much more after the birthday that I found her even more difficult to approach; and I felt the same way towards my school companions, and towards Mrs. Rachael, who was a widow. I was very quiet, and tried to be very diligent. One sunny afternoon when I had come home from school and was gliding upstairs to my room as usual, my godmother looked out of the parlour-door and called me back. I found a stranger sitting with her: a portly, important-looking gentleman, dressed all in black. My godmother said in her stern way, "This is Esther, sir." The gentleman put on his glasses to look at me and said, "Come here, my dear!" He shook hands and asked me to take off my bonnet. "Ah!" he said; "Yes!" And he gave my godmother a nod. My godmother said, "You may go upstairs, Esther!" And I curtsied and left him. It must have been two years afterwards, and I was almost fourteen, when one dreadful night my godmother and I sat at the fireside. I had come down at nine o'clock as I always did to read the Bible to her, and was reading aloud from St. John how our Saviour stooped down, writing with his finger in the dust, when they brought the sinful woman to him. "'So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her!'" I was stopped by my godmother's rising, putting her hand to her head, and crying out in an awful voice from quite another part of the book, "'Watch ye, therefore, lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch!'" Then she fell down on the floor. I had no need to cry out; her voice had sounded through the house. She was laid upon her bed. For more than a week she lay there, with her handsome resolute frown carved upon her face. Many and many a time, with my head upon the pillow next to her, I kissed her, thanked her, prayed for her, asked her for her blessing and forgiveness, entreated her to give me the least sign that she knew or heard me. No, no, no. Her face was immovable. To the very last her frown remained unsoftened. On the day after my poor good godmother was buried, the gentleman in black reappeared. I was sent for by Mrs. Rachael, and found him in the same place, as if he had never gone away. "My name is Kenge," he said; "you may remember it, my child; Kenge and Carboy, Lincoln's Inn." I replied that I remembered to have seen him once before. "Pray be seated. Don't distress yourself. Mrs. Rachael, I needn't inform you that the late Miss Barbary's means die with her and that this young lady, now her aunt is dead-" "My aunt, sir!" "It is really of no use carrying on a deception when no object is to be gained by it," said Mr. Kenge smoothly, "Aunt in fact, though not in law. Don't distress yourself! Don't tremble! Mrs. Rachael, our young friend has no doubt heard of - the - Jarndyce and Jarndyce." "Never," said Mrs. Rachael. "Not of Jarndyce and Jarndyce?" said Mr. Kenge, looking over his glasses at me. "Not of one of the greatest Chancery suits, in which every form of procedure is represented over and over again? It is a cause that could not exist outside of this free and great country. I should say that the total costs in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mrs. Rachael, amount at present to sixty or seventy thousand pounds! And she really never heard of the cause!" said Mr. Kenge. "Surprising!" "Miss Barbary, sir," returned Mrs. Rachael, "wished Esther only to know what would be useful to her." "Well!" said Mr. Kenge. "Very proper. Now to the point," addressing me. "Miss Barbary being deceased and it naturally not being to be expected that Mrs. Rachael-" "Oh, dear no!" said Mrs. Rachael quickly. "-that Mrs. Rachael should charge herself with your maintenance (I beg you won't distress yourself), you are in a position to receive the renewal of an offer which I was instructed to make to Miss Barbary two years ago and which, though rejected then, is now renewed. Now, I represent a highly humane, but at the same time singular man." Mr. Kenge, leaning back in his chair, appeared to enjoy the sound of his own voice. I couldn't wonder at that, for it was mellow and full, and he listened to himself with obvious satisfaction. I was very much impressed by him. "Mr. Jarndyce," he pursued, "being aware of the desolate position of our young friend, offers to place her at a first-rate establishment where her education shall be completed, where her comfort shall be secured, and where she shall be qualified to do her duty in that station of life unto which Providence has called her." My heart was filled so full that I was not able to speak. "Mr. Jarndyce," he went on, "makes no condition beyond asking that our young friend will not remove herself from the establishment in question without his knowledge and agreement. That she will faithfully apply herself to acquiring those accomplishments upon which she will be ultimately dependent. That she will tread in the paths of virtue and honour, and so forth. Now, what does our young friend say?" What I said, I need not repeat. What I felt, I could never relate. This interview took place at Windsor, where I had passed my whole life. A week later I left it, inside the stagecoach, for Reading. Mrs. Rachael was too good to feel any emotion at parting, but I was not so good, and wept bitterly. I thought that I ought to have made myself enough of a favourite with her to make her sorry. When she gave me one cold parting kiss upon my forehead, I felt so miserable and self-reproachful that I clung to her and told her it was my fault, I knew, that she could say good-bye so easily. "No, Esther!" she returned. "It is your misfortune!" The coach was at the gate; and thus I left her, with a sorrowful heart. She went in before my boxes were lifted to the coach-roof. As long as I could see the house, I looked back at it from the window through my tears. My godmother had left Mrs. Rachael all the little property she possessed; and there was to be a sale. A day or two before, I had wrapped the dear old doll in her own shawl and quietly laid her - I am half ashamed to tell it - in the garden-earth under the tree outside my old window. I had no companion left but my bird, and him I carried with me in his cage. When the house was out of sight, I sat, with my bird-cage at my feet, looking out of the window, watching the frosty trees, and the fields all smooth and white with last night's snow, and the sun, so red but yielding so little heat. There was a gentleman in the coach who sat on the opposite seat and looked very large in a quantity of wrappings, but he gazed out of the other window and took no notice of me. I thought of my dead godmother, of the night when I read to her, of her frowning so sternly in her bed, of the strange place I was going to, of the people I should find there, and what they would be like, when a voice gave me a terrible start. It said, "What the de-vil are you crying for?" I was so frightened that I could only answer in a whisper, "Me, sir?" For of course it was the gentleman in the quantity of wrappings. "Yes, you," he said, turning round. "I didn't know I was crying, sir," I faltered. "But you are!" said the gentleman. "Look here!" He came across to me, brushed one of his large furry cuffs across my eyes (but without hurting me), and showed me that it was wet. "There!" he said. "what are you crying for? Don't you want to go there?" "Where, sir?" "Why, wherever you are going," said the gentleman. "I am very glad to go there, sir," I answered. "Well, then! Look glad!" said the gentleman. I thought he was very strange. He was wrapped up to the chin, and his face was almost hidden in a fur cap; but I was not afraid of him. So I told him that I thought I must have been crying because of my godmother's death and because of Mrs. Rachael's not being sorry to part with me. "Confound Mrs. Rachael!" said the gentleman. "Let her fly away in a high wind on a broomstick!" I began to be really afraid of him now and looked at him with the greatest astonishment. But I thought that he had pleasant eyes, although he kept on muttering to himself in an angry manner. After a little while he opened his outer wrapper, and put his arm down into a deep pocket in the side. "Now, look here!" he said. "In this paper is a piece of the best plum-cake with sugar an inch thick. And here's a little pie made in France from the livers of fat geese. Now let's see you eat 'em." "Thank you, sir," I replied; "but I hope you won't be offended - they are too rich for me." "Floored again!" said the gentleman, which I didn't at all understand, and threw them both out of the window. He did not speak to me any more until he got out of the coach near Reading, when he advised me to be a good girl and to be studious, and shook hands with me. I must say I was relieved. We left him at a milestone. I often walked past it afterwards, and thought of him, half expecting to meet him. But I never did; and as time went on, he passed out of my mind. When the coach stopped, a very neat lady looked up at the window and said, "Miss Donny." "No, ma'am, Esther Summerson." "That is quite right," said the lady. "Miss Donny." I now understood that she was Miss Donny, and apologised, and at her request pointed out my boxes. They were put on a very small green carriage; and then Miss Donny, her maid, and I got inside and were driven away. "Everything is ready for you, Esther," said Miss Donny, "in exact accordance with the wishes of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce." "Of - who did you say, ma'am?" "Of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce." I was bewildered. "Do you know my - guardian, Mr. Jarndyce, ma'am?" I asked after a good deal of hesitation. "Not personally, Esther," said Miss Donny; "merely through his solicitors, Kenge and Carboy of London. A very superior gentleman, Mr. Kenge!" I felt this to be true, but was confused. Our speedy arrival at our destination increased my confusion, and I never shall forget the unreal air of everything at Greenleaf (Miss Donny's house) that afternoon. But I soon became used to it. Before long, I seemed to have been there a great while and almost to have dreamed my old life at my godmother's. Nothing could be more precise, exact, and orderly than Greenleaf. We were twelve boarders, and there were two Miss Donnys, twins. It was understood that I would have to become a governess by and by, and I was not only instructed in everything that was taught, but was very soon helping to instruct others. Although I was treated in every other respect like the rest of the school, this single difference was made in my case. As I began to know more, I taught more, and had plenty to do, which I was very fond of doing because it made the dear girls fond of me. At last, whenever a new pupil came who was a little downcast and unhappy, she was so sure - indeed I don't know why - to make a friend of me that all new-comers were confided to my care. They said I was so gentle, but I am sure they were! I often thought of the resolution I had made on my birthday to try to be industrious, contented, and to do some good and win some love if I could; and indeed, I felt almost ashamed to have done so little and to have won so much. I passed at Greenleaf six happy, quiet years. I never saw in any face there, thank heaven, on my birthday, that it would have been better if I had never been born. Instead I was given so many affectionate tokens that my room was beautiful with them. In those six years I had never been away except on visits at holiday time in the neighbourhood. After the first six months or so I had asked Miss Donny's advice about writing to Mr. Kenge, and with her approval I had written saying that I was happy and grateful. I had received a formal answer: "We note the contents thereof, which shall be duly communicated to our client." After that I sometimes heard Miss Donny and her sister mention how regularly my accounts were paid, and about twice a year I wrote a similar letter, and received exactly the same answer in the same round handwriting. It seems so curious to me to be obliged to write all this about myself! As if this narrative were the story of my life! But I will soon fall into the background now. Six quiet years I had passed at Greenleaf, when, one November morning, I received this letter. Old Square, Lincoln's Inn Madam, Our clt Mr. Jarndyce being abt to rece into his house, under an Order of the Ct of Chy, a Ward of the Ct for whom he wishes to secure an elgble compn, directs us to inform you that he will be glad of your serces in the afsd capacity. We have arrngd for your being forded, carriage free, pr eight o'clock coach from Reading, on Monday morning next, to White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, London, where one of our clks will be in waiting to convey you to our offe as above. We are, Madam, Your obedt Servts, Kenge and Carboy Oh, never shall I forget the emotion this letter caused in the house! It was so tender in them to care so much for me, it was so gracious in God to have made my orphan way so smooth and easy, that I could hardly bear it. The pleasure and the pain of it, and pride and joy and humble regret were so blended that my heart seemed almost breaking while it was full of rapture. The letter gave me only five days' notice of my removal. When at last the morning came and they took me through all the rooms to see them for the last time, and when some cried, "Esther, dear, say good-bye to me here, where you first spoke so kindly to me!" and when they all surrounded me and clung to me weeping, and when I tried to tell them how good they had all been to me, and how I blessed and thanked them every one - what a heart I had! And when the two Miss Donnys grieved as much as any, and when the maids said, "Bless you, miss, wherever you go!" and when the ugly lame old gardener, who I thought had hardly noticed me in all those years, came panting after the coach to give me a little nosegay of geraniums and told me I had been the light of his eyes - what a heart I had then! Could I help it if I was quite bowed down in the coach by myself and said "Oh, I am so thankful, I am so thankful!" many times over! But of course I soon considered that I must not take tears where I was going, after all that had been done for me. I made myself sob less by saying to myself, "Esther, now, this will not do!" I cheered myself up pretty well at last, though I am afraid I was longer about it than I ought to have been; and then it was time to watch for London. When we began to jolt upon a stone pavement, and when every other conveyance seemed to be running into us, and we seemed to be running into every other conveyance, I began to believe that we were approaching the end of our journey. Very soon afterwards we stopped. An ink-stained young gentleman addressed me from the pavement and said, "I am from Kenge and Carboy's, miss, of Lincoln's Inn." He was very obliging, and as he handed me into a carriage with my boxes, I asked him whether there was a great fire anywhere? For the streets were so full of dense brown smoke that scarcely anything was to be seen. "Oh, dear no, miss," he said. "This is a London particular." I had never heard of such a thing. "A fog, miss," said the young gentleman. "Oh, indeed!" said I. We drove slowly through the dirtiest, darkest, busiest streets that ever were seen (I thought), until we passed into sudden quietude under an old gateway and drove on through a silent square to a steep, broad flight of stairs in a corner, and an entrance like an entrance to a church. And there really was a churchyard outside under some cloisters, for I saw the gravestones from the staircase window. This was Kenge and Carboy's. The young gentleman showed me into Mr. Kenge's room - there was no one in it - and politely put an arm-chair for me by the fire. He then called my attention to a little looking-glass hanging by the chimney-piece. "In case you should wish to look at yourself, miss, after the journey, as you're going before the Chancellor. Not that it's needed, I am sure," said he civilly. "Going before the Chancellor?" I said, startled. "Only a matter of form, miss," returned the young gentleman. "Mr. Kenge is in court. He left his compliments, and would you partake of some refreshment" - there were biscuits and a decanter of wine on a small table - "and look over the newspaper," which the young gentleman gave me. Then he left. Everything was so strange that I read the newspaper without knowing what the words meant. I put the paper down, took a peep at my bonnet in the glass to see if it was neat, and looked at the room, with its shabby, dusty tables, and piles of writings, and a bookcase full of the most inexpressive-looking books. Then I went on, thinking, thinking; and the fire went on, burning, burning, for two hours. At last Mr. Kenge came. He was not altered, but he was surprised to see how altered I was and appeared quite pleased. "As you are going to be the companion of the young lady who is now in the Chancellor's private room, Miss Summerson," he said, "we thought you should attend also. You will not be discomposed by the Lord Chancellor, I dare say?" "No, sir," I said, "I don't think I shall." So Mr. Kenge gave me his arm and we went round the corner, under a colonnade, and into a comfortable room where a young lady and a young gentleman were standing near a great, loud-roaring fire, and leaning on the fire-screen, talking. They both looked up when I came in. The young lady was such a beautiful girl! With such rich golden hair, such soft blue eyes, and such a bright, innocent, trusting face! "Miss Ada," said Mr. Kenge, "this is Miss Summerson." She came to meet me with a smile of welcome, and impulsively kissed me. She had such a natural, winning manner that in a few minutes we were sitting in the window-seat, talking together as free and happy as could be. What a load off my mind! It was so delightful to know that she could confide in me and like me! It was so good of her, and so encouraging to me! The young gentleman was her distant cousin, she told me, and his name was Richard Carstone. He was a handsome youth with an ingenuous face and a most engaging laugh; and after she called him over, he stood by us, talking gaily, like a light-hearted boy. He was only nineteen, but that was nearly two years older than she was. They were both orphans, and curiously, had never met before that day. Our all three coming together for the first time in such an unusual place was a thing to talk about, and we talked about it - in low voices, because a gentleman in a wig frequently came in and out. He told Mr. Kenge that the Chancellor would be up in five minutes; and presently we heard a bustle, and Mr. Kenge said that the Court had risen and his lordship was in the next room. So we all went into the next room, Mr. Kenge first, with my darling - it is so natural to me now that I can't help writing it; and there, plainly dressed in black and sitting in an arm-chair, was his lordship, whose robe, trimmed with beautiful gold lace, was thrown upon another chair. He gave us a searching look as we entered, but his manner was both courtly and kind. "Miss Ada Clare?" said the Lord Chancellor. Mr. Kenge presented her, and his lordship begged her to sit down. I could see he was interested by her; it touched me that the home of such a beautiful young creature should be represented by that dry, official place. Even the Lord High Chancellor appeared a poor substitute for the love and pride of parents. "The Jarndyce in question," said the Lord Chancellor, turning over some papers, "is Jarndyce of Bleak House." "Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord," said Mr. Kenge. "A dreary name," said the Lord Chancellor. "But not a dreary place at present, my lord," said Mr. Kenge. "And Bleak House," said his lordship, "is in-" "Hertfordshire, my lord." "Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House is not married?" said his lordship. "He is not, my lord," said Mr. Kenge. A pause. "Young Mr. Richard Carstone is present?" said the Lord Chancellor, glancing towards him. Richard bowed and stepped forward. "Hum!" said the Lord Chancellor, turning over more leaves. "Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord," Mr. Kenge observed in a low voice, "if I may remind your lordship, provides a suitable companion for Miss Ada Clare. This is the young lady. Miss Summerson." His lordship gave me an indulgent look and acknowledged my curtsy graciously. "Miss Summerson is not related to any party in the cause, I think?" "No, my lord." Mr. Kenge leant over and whispered. His lordship, with his eyes upon his papers, listened, nodded, and did not look towards me again until we were going away. His lordship spoke a little to my pet (it is so natural to call her that that I can't help it), asking her whether she thought she would be happy under the roof of Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, and why she thought so? Presently he rose courteously, and then he spoke for a minute or two with Richard Carstone, with more ease and less ceremony, as if he knew how to go straight to the candour of a boy. "Very well!" said his lordship. "I shall make the order. Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House has chosen, so far as I may judge," and he looked at me, "a very good companion for the young lady, and the arrangement seems the best which the circumstances admit." He dismissed us pleasantly, and we all went out. Mr. Kenge left us outside in the fog for a moment while he went back in to ask a question. "Well!" said Richard Carstone. "That's over! And where do we go next, Miss Summerson?" "Don't you know?" I said. "Not in the least." "And don't you know, my love?" I asked Ada. "No!" said she. "Don't you?" "Not at all!" said I. We looked at one another, laughing, when a curious little old woman in a squeezed bonnet and carrying a handbag came curtsying and smiling up to us. "Oh!" said she. "The wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure, to meet you! It is a good omen for youth, and hope, and beauty when they find themselves here, and don't know what's to come of it." "Mad!" whispered Richard, not thinking she could hear him. "Right! Mad, young gentleman," she returned. "I was a ward myself. I was not mad at that time," curtsying low and smiling between every sentence. "I had youth and hope, and I believe, beauty. It matters very little now. Neither of the three saved me. I have the honour to attend court regularly. With my documents. I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the Day of Judgment. I have discovered that the sixth seal mentioned in the Revelations is the Great Seal." As Ada was a little frightened, I said, to humour the poor old lady, that we were much obliged to her. "Ye-es!" she said. "I imagine so. And here is Kenge. How does your honourable worship do?" "Quite well, quite well! Now don't be troublesome, that's a good soul!" said Mr. Kenge, leading the way back. "By no means," said the poor old lady, keeping up with us. "I shall confer estates on both. I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the Day of Judgment. This is a good omen for you. Accept my blessing!" She stopped at the bottom of the stairs; and when we looked back she was still there, saying with a curtsy and a smile, "Youth. And hope. And beauty. And Chancery. Ha! Pray accept my blessing!"

Bleak House

Chapter 3: A Progress

We held many consultations about what Richard was to be, first without Mr. Jarndyce, as he had requested, and afterwards with him, but it was a long time before we seemed to make progress. Richard said he was ready for anything. When Mr. Jarndyce doubted whether he might not already be too old to enter the Navy, Richard said he had thought of that, and perhaps he was. When Mr. Jarndyce asked him what he thought of the Army, Richard said he had thought of that, too, and it wasn't a bad idea. When Mr. Jarndyce advised him to try and decide within himself whether his old preference for the sea was an ordinary boyish inclination or a strong impulse, Richard answered, Well he really HAD tried very often, and he couldn't make out. "How much of this indecision of character," Mr. Jarndyce said to me, "is chargeable on that incomprehensible heap of uncertainty and procrastination on which he has been thrown from his birth, I don't pretend to say; but that Chancery, among its other sins, is responsible for some of it, I can plainly see. It has engendered or confirmed in him a habit of putting off--and trusting to this, that, and the other chance, without knowing what chance--and dismissing everything as unsettled, uncertain, and confused. The character of much older and steadier people may be even changed by the circumstances surrounding them. It would be too much to expect that a boy's, in its formation, should be the subject of such influences and escape them." I felt this to be true; though if I may venture to mention what I thought besides, I thought it much to be regretted that Richard's education had not counteracted those influences or directed his character. He had been eight years at a public school and had learnt, I understood, to make Latin verses of several sorts in the most admirable manner. But I never heard that it had been anybody's business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to HIM. HE had been adapted to the verses and had learnt the art of making them to such perfection that if he had remained at school until he was of age, I suppose he could only have gone on making them over and over again unless he had enlarged his education by forgetting how to do it. Still, although I had no doubt that they were very beautiful, and very improving, and very sufficient for a great many purposes of life, and always remembered all through life, I did doubt whether Richard would not have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his studying them quite so much. To be sure, I knew nothing of the subject and do not even now know whether the young gentlemen of classic Rome or Greece made verses to the same extent--or whether the young gentlemen of any country ever did. "I haven't the least idea," said Richard, musing, "what I had better be. Except that I am quite sure I don't want to go into the Church, it's a toss-up." "You have no inclination in Mr. Kenge's way?" suggested Mr. Jarndyce. "I don't know that, sir!" replied Richard. "I am fond of boating. Articled clerks go a good deal on the water. It's a capital profession!" "Surgeon--" suggested Mr. Jarndyce. "That's the thing, sir!" cried Richard. I doubt if he had ever once thought of it before. "That's the thing, sir," repeated Richard with the greatest enthusiasm. "We have got it at last. M.R.C.S.!" He was not to be laughed out of it, though he laughed at it heartily. He said he had chosen his profession, and the more he thought of it, the more he felt that his destiny was clear; the art of healing was the art of all others for him. Mistrusting that he only came to this conclusion because, having never had much chance of finding out for himself what he was fitted for and having never been guided to the discovery, he was taken by the newest idea and was glad to get rid of the trouble of consideration, I wondered whether the Latin verses often ended in this or whether Richard's was a solitary case. Mr. Jarndyce took great pains to talk with him seriously and to put it to his good sense not to deceive himself in so important a matter. Richard was a little grave after these interviews, but invariably told Ada and me that it was all right, and then began to talk about something else. "By heaven!" cried Mr. Boythorn, who interested himself strongly in the subject--though I need not say that, for he could do nothing weakly; "I rejoice to find a young gentleman of spirit and gallantry devoting himself to that noble profession! The more spirit there is in it, the better for mankind and the worse for those mercenary task-masters and low tricksters who delight in putting that illustrious art at a disadvantage in the world. By all that is base and despicable," cried Mr. Boythorn, "the treatment of surgeons aboard ship is such that I would submit the legs--both legs--of every member of the Admiralty Board to a compound fracture and render it a transportable offence in any qualified practitioner to set them if the system were not wholly changed in eight and forty hours!" "Wouldn't you give them a week?" asked Mr. Jarndyce. "No!" cried Mr. Boythorn firmly. "Not on any consideration! Eight and forty hours! As to corporations, parishes, vestry-boards, and similar gatherings of jolter-headed clods who assemble to exchange such speeches that, by heaven, they ought to be worked in quicksilver mines for the short remainder of their miserable existence, if it were only to prevent their detestable English from contaminating a language spoken in the presence of the sun--as to those fellows, who meanly take advantage of the ardour of gentlemen in the pursuit of knowledge to recompense the inestimable services of the best years of their lives, their long study, and their expensive education with pittances too small for the acceptance of clerks, I would have the necks of every one of them wrung and their skulls arranged in Surgeons' Hall for the contemplation of the whole profession in order that its younger members might understand from actual measurement, in early life, HOW thick skulls may become!" He wound up this vehement declaration by looking round upon us with a most agreeable smile and suddenly thundering, "Ha, ha, ha!" over and over again, until anybody else might have been expected to be quite subdued by the exertion. As Richard still continued to say that he was fixed in his choice after repeated periods for consideration had been recommended by Mr. Jarndyce and had expired, and he still continued to assure Ada and me in the same final manner that it was "all right," it became advisable to take Mr. Kenge into council. Mr. Kenge, therefore, came down to dinner one day, and leaned back in his chair, and turned his eye-glasses over and over, and spoke in a sonorous voice, and did exactly what I remembered to have seen him do when I was a little girl. "Ah!" said Mr. Kenge. "Yes. Well! A very good profession, Mr. Jarndyce, a very good profession." "The course of study and preparation requires to be diligently pursued," observed my guardian with a glance at Richard. "Oh, no doubt," said Mr. Kenge. "Diligently." "But that being the case, more or less, with all pursuits that are worth much," said Mr. Jarndyce, "it is not a special consideration which another choice would be likely to escape." "Truly," said Mr. Kenge. "And Mr. Richard Carstone, who has so meritoriously acquitted himself in the--shall I say the classic shades?--in which his youth had been passed, will, no doubt, apply the habits, if not the principles and practice, of versification in that tongue in which a poet was said (unless I mistake) to be born, not made, to the more eminently practical field of action on which he enters." "You may rely upon it," said Richard in his off-hand manner, "that I shall go at it and do my best." "Very well, Mr. Jarndyce!" said Mr. Kenge, gently nodding his head. "Really, when we are assured by Mr. Richard that he means to go at it and to do his best," nodding feelingly and smoothly over those expressions, "I would submit to you that we have only to inquire into the best mode of carrying out the object of his ambition. Now, with reference to placing Mr. Richard with some sufficiently eminent practitioner. Is there any one in view at present?" "No one, Rick, I think?" said my guardian. "No one, sir," said Richard. "Quite so!" observed Mr. Kenge. "As to situation, now. Is there any particular feeling on that head?" "N--no," said Richard. "Quite so!" observed Mr. Kenge again. "I should like a little variety," said Richard; "I mean a good range of experience." "Very requisite, no doubt," returned Mr. Kenge. "I think this may be easily arranged, Mr. Jarndyce? We have only, in the first place, to discover a sufficiently eligible practitioner; and as soon as we make our want--and shall I add, our ability to pay a premium?--known, our only difficulty will be in the selection of one from a large number. We have only, in the second place, to observe those little formalities which are rendered necessary by our time of life and our being under the guardianship of the court. We shall soon be--shall I say, in Mr. Richard's own light-hearted manner, 'going at it'--to our heart's content. It is a coincidence," said Mr. Kenge with a tinge of melancholy in his smile, "one of those coincidences which may or may not require an explanation beyond our present limited faculties, that I have a cousin in the medical profession. He might be deemed eligible by you and might be disposed to respond to this proposal. I can answer for him as little as for you, but he MIGHT!" As this was an opening in the prospect, it was arranged that Mr. Kenge should see his cousin. And as Mr. Jarndyce had before proposed to take us to London for a few weeks, it was settled next day that we should make our visit at once and combine Richard's business with it. Mr. Boythorn leaving us within a week, we took up our abode at a cheerful lodging near Oxford Street over an upholsterer's shop. London was a great wonder to us, and we were out for hours and hours at a time, seeing the sights, which appeared to be less capable of exhaustion than we were. We made the round of the principal theatres, too, with great delight, and saw all the plays that were worth seeing. I mention this because it was at the theatre that I began to be made uncomfortable again by Mr. Guppy. I was sitting in front of the box one night with Ada, and Richard was in the place he liked best, behind Ada's chair, when, happening to look down into the pit, I saw Mr. Guppy, with his hair flattened down upon his head and woe depicted in his face, looking up at me. I felt all through the performance that he never looked at the actors but constantly looked at me, and always with a carefully prepared expression of the deepest misery and the profoundest dejection. It quite spoiled my pleasure for that night because it was so very embarrassing and so very ridiculous. But from that time forth, we never went to the play without my seeing Mr. Guppy in the pit, always with his hair straight and flat, his shirt-collar turned down, and a general feebleness about him. If he were not there when we went in, and I began to hope he would not come and yielded myself for a little while to the interest of the scene, I was certain to encounter his languishing eyes when I least expected it and, from that time, to be quite sure that they were fixed upon me all the evening. I really cannot express how uneasy this made me. If he would only have brushed up his hair or turned up his collar, it would have been bad enough; but to know that that absurd figure was always gazing at me, and always in that demonstrative state of despondency, put such a constraint upon me that I did not like to laugh at the play, or to cry at it, or to move, or to speak. I seemed able to do nothing naturally. As to escaping Mr. Guppy by going to the back of the box, I could not bear to do that because I knew Richard and Ada relied on having me next them and that they could never have talked together so happily if anybody else had been in my place. So there I sat, not knowing where to look--for wherever I looked, I knew Mr. Guppy's eyes were following me--and thinking of the dreadful expense to which this young man was putting himself on my account. Sometimes I thought of telling Mr. Jarndyce. Then I feared that the young man would lose his situation and that I might ruin him. Sometimes I thought of confiding in Richard, but was deterred by the possibility of his fighting Mr. Guppy and giving him black eyes. Sometimes I thought, should I frown at him or shake my head. Then I felt I could not do it. Sometimes I considered whether I should write to his mother, but that ended in my being convinced that to open a correspondence would be to make the matter worse. I always came to the conclusion, finally, that I could do nothing. Mr. Guppy's perseverance, all this time, not only produced him regularly at any theatre to which we went, but caused him to appear in the crowd as we were coming out, and even to get up behind our fly--where I am sure I saw him, two or three times, struggling among the most dreadful spikes. After we got home, he haunted a post opposite our house. The upholsterer's where we lodged being at the corner of two streets, and my bedroom window being opposite the post, I was afraid to go near the window when I went upstairs, lest I should see him (as I did one moonlight night) leaning against the post and evidently catching cold. If Mr. Guppy had not been, fortunately for me, engaged in the daytime, I really should have had no rest from him. While we were making this round of gaieties, in which Mr. Guppy so extraordinarily participated, the business which had helped to bring us to town was not neglected. Mr. Kenge's cousin was a Mr. Bayham Badger, who had a good practice at Chelsea and attended a large public institution besides. He was quite willing to receive Richard into his house and to superintend his studies, and as it seemed that those could be pursued advantageously under Mr. Badger's roof, and Mr. Badger liked Richard, and as Richard said he liked Mr. Badger "well enough," an agreement was made, the Lord Chancellor's consent was obtained, and it was all settled. On the day when matters were concluded between Richard and Mr. Badger, we were all under engagement to dine at Mr. Badger's house. We were to be "merely a family party," Mrs. Badger's note said; and we found no lady there but Mrs. Badger herself. She was surrounded in the drawing-room by various objects, indicative of her painting a little, playing the piano a little, playing the guitar a little, playing the harp a little, singing a little, working a little, reading a little, writing poetry a little, and botanizing a little. She was a lady of about fifty, I should think, youthfully dressed, and of a very fine complexion. If I add to the little list of her accomplishments that she rouged a little, I do not mean that there was any harm in it. Mr. Bayham Badger himself was a pink, fresh-faced, crisp-looking gentleman with a weak voice, white teeth, light hair, and surprised eyes, some years younger, I should say, than Mrs. Bayham Badger. He admired her exceedingly, but principally, and to begin with, on the curious ground (as it seemed to us) of her having had three husbands. We had barely taken our seats when he said to Mr. Jarndyce quite triumphantly, "You would hardly suppose that I am Mrs. Bayham Badger's third!" "Indeed?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "Her third!" said Mr. Badger. "Mrs. Bayham Badger has not the appearance, Miss Summerson, of a lady who has had two former husbands?" I said "Not at all!" "And most remarkable men!" said Mr. Badger in a tone of confidence. "Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy, who was Mrs. Badger's first husband, was a very distinguished officer indeed. The name of Professor Dingo, my immediate predecessor, is one of European reputation." Mrs. Badger overheard him and smiled. "Yes, my dear!" Mr. Badger replied to the smile, "I was observing to Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson that you had had two former husbands--both very distinguished men. And they found it, as people generally do, difficult to believe." "I was barely twenty," said Mrs. Badger, "when I married Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy. I was in the Mediterranean with him; I am quite a sailor. On the twelfth anniversary of my wedding-day, I became the wife of Professor Dingo." "Of European reputation," added Mr. Badger in an undertone. "And when Mr. Badger and myself were married," pursued Mrs. Badger, "we were married on the same day of the year. I had become attached to the day." "So that Mrs. Badger has been married to three husbands--two of them highly distinguished men," said Mr. Badger, summing up the facts, "and each time upon the twenty-first of March at eleven in the forenoon!" We all expressed our admiration. "But for Mr. Badger's modesty," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I would take leave to correct him and say three distinguished men." "Thank you, Mr. Jarndyce! What I always tell him!" observed Mrs. Badger. "And, my dear," said Mr. Badger, "what do I always tell you? That without any affectation of disparaging such professional distinction as I may have attained (which our friend Mr. Carstone will have many opportunities of estimating), I am not so weak--no, really," said Mr. Badger to us generally, "so unreasonable--as to put my reputation on the same footing with such first-rate men as Captain Swosser and Professor Dingo. Perhaps you may be interested, Mr. Jarndyce," continued Mr. Bayham Badger, leading the way into the next drawing-room, "in this portrait of Captain Swosser. It was taken on his return home from the African station, where he had suffered from the fever of the country. Mrs. Badger considers it too yellow. But it's a very fine head. A very fine head!" We all echoed, "A very fine head!" "I feel when I look at it," said Mr. Badger, "'That's a man I should like to have seen!' It strikingly bespeaks the first-class man that Captain Swosser pre-eminently was. On the other side, Professor Dingo. I knew him well--attended him in his last illness--a speaking likeness! Over the piano, Mrs. Bayham Badger when Mrs. Swosser. Over the sofa, Mrs. Bayham Badger when Mrs. Dingo. Of Mrs. Bayham Badger IN ESSE, I possess the original and have no copy." Dinner was now announced, and we went downstairs. It was a very genteel entertainment, very handsomely served. But the captain and the professor still ran in Mr. Badger's head, and as Ada and I had the honour of being under his particular care, we had the full benefit of them. "Water, Miss Summerson? Allow me! Not in that tumbler, pray. Bring me the professor's goblet, James!" Ada very much admired some artificial flowers under a glass. "Astonishing how they keep!" said Mr. Badger. "They were presented to Mrs. Bayham Badger when she was in the Mediterranean." He invited Mr. Jarndyce to take a glass of claret. "Not that claret!" he said. "Excuse me! This is an occasion, and ON an occasion I produce some very special claret I happen to have. (James, Captain Swosser's wine!) Mr. Jarndyce, this is a wine that was imported by the captain, we will not say how many years ago. You will find it very curious. My dear, I shall be happy to take some of this wine with you. (Captain Swosser's claret to your mistress, James!) My love, your health!" After dinner, when we ladies retired, we took Mrs. Badger's first and second husband with us. Mrs. Badger gave us in the drawing-room a biographical sketch of the life and services of Captain Swosser before his marriage and a more minute account of him dating from the time when he fell in love with her at a ball on board the Crippler, given to the officers of that ship when she lay in Plymouth Harbour. "The dear old Crippler!" said Mrs. Badger, shaking her head. "She was a noble vessel. Trim, ship-shape, all a taunto, as Captain Swosser used to say. You must excuse me if I occasionally introduce a nautical expression; I was quite a sailor once. Captain Swosser loved that craft for my sake. When she was no longer in commission, he frequently said that if he were rich enough to buy her old hulk, he would have an inscription let into the timbers of the quarter-deck where we stood as partners in the dance to mark the spot where he fell--raked fore and aft (Captain Swosser used to say) by the fire from my tops. It was his naval way of mentioning my eyes." Mrs. Badger shook her head, sighed, and looked in the glass. "It was a great change from Captain Swosser to Professor Dingo," she resumed with a plaintive smile. "I felt it a good deal at first. Such an entire revolution in my mode of life! But custom, combined with science--particularly science--inured me to it. Being the professor's sole companion in his botanical excursions, I almost forgot that I had ever been afloat, and became quite learned. It is singular that the professor was the antipodes of Captain Swosser and that Mr. Badger is not in the least like either!" We then passed into a narrative of the deaths of Captain Swosser and Professor Dingo, both of whom seem to have had very bad complaints. In the course of it, Mrs. Badger signified to us that she had never madly loved but once and that the object of that wild affection, never to be recalled in its fresh enthusiasm, was Captain Swosser. The professor was yet dying by inches in the most dismal manner, and Mrs. Badger was giving us imitations of his way of saying, with great difficulty, "Where is Laura? Let Laura give me my toast and water!" when the entrance of the gentlemen consigned him to the tomb. Now, I observed that evening, as I had observed for some days past, that Ada and Richard were more than ever attached to each other's society, which was but natural, seeing that they were going to be separated so soon. I was therefore not very much surprised when we got home, and Ada and I retired upstairs, to find Ada more silent than usual, though I was not quite prepared for her coming into my arms and beginning to speak to me, with her face hidden. "My darling Esther!" murmured Ada. "I have a great secret to tell you!" A mighty secret, my pretty one, no doubt! "What is it, Ada?" "Oh, Esther, you would never guess!" "Shall I try to guess?" said I. "Oh, no! Don't! Pray don't!" cried Ada, very much startled by the idea of my doing so. "Now, I wonder who it can be about?" said I, pretending to consider. "It's about--" said Ada in a whisper. "It's about--my cousin Richard!" "Well, my own!" said I, kissing her bright hair, which was all I could see. "And what about him?" "Oh, Esther, you would never guess!" It was so pretty to have her clinging to me in that way, hiding her face, and to know that she was not crying in sorrow but in a little glow of joy, and pride, and hope, that I would not help her just yet. "He says--I know it's very foolish, we are both so young--but he says," with a burst of tears, "that he loves me dearly, Esther." "Does he indeed?" said I. "I never heard of such a thing! Why, my pet of pets, I could have told you that weeks and weeks ago!" To see Ada lift up her flushed face in joyful surprise, and hold me round the neck, and laugh, and cry, and blush, was so pleasant! "Why, my darling," said I, "what a goose you must take me for! Your cousin Richard has been loving you as plainly as he could for I don't know how long!" "And yet you never said a word about it!" cried Ada, kissing me. "No, my love," said I. "I waited to be told." "But now I have told you, you don't think it wrong of me, do you?" returned Ada. She might have coaxed me to say no if I had been the hardest-hearted duenna in the world. Not being that yet, I said no very freely. "And now," said I, "I know the worst of it." "Oh, that's not quite the worst of it, Esther dear!" cried Ada, holding me tighter and laying down her face again upon my breast. "No?" said I. "Not even that?" "No, not even that!" said Ada, shaking her head. "Why, you never mean to say--" I was beginning in joke. But Ada, looking up and smiling through her tears, cried, "Yes, I do! You know, you know I do!" And then sobbed out, "With all my heart I do! With all my whole heart, Esther!" I told her, laughing, why I had known that, too, just as well as I had known the other! And we sat before the fire, and I had all the talking to myself for a little while (though there was not much of it); and Ada was soon quiet and happy. "Do you think my cousin John knows, dear Dame Durden?" she asked. "Unless my cousin John is blind, my pet," said I, "I should think my cousin John knows pretty well as much as we know." "We want to speak to him before Richard goes," said Ada timidly, "and we wanted you to advise us, and to tell him so. Perhaps you wouldn't mind Richard's coming in, Dame Durden?" "Oh! Richard is outside, is he, my dear?" said I. "I am not quite certain," returned Ada with a bashful simplicity that would have won my heart if she had not won it long before, "but I think he's waiting at the door." There he was, of course. They brought a chair on either side of me, and put me between them, and really seemed to have fallen in love with me instead of one another, they were so confiding, and so trustful, and so fond of me. They went on in their own wild way for a little while--I never stopped them; I enjoyed it too much myself--and then we gradually fell to considering how young they were, and how there must be a lapse of several years before this early love could come to anything, and how it could come to happiness only if it were real and lasting and inspired them with a steady resolution to do their duty to each other, with constancy, fortitude, and perseverance, each always for the other's sake. Well! Richard said that he would work his fingers to the bone for Ada, and Ada said that she would work her fingers to the bone for Richard, and they called me all sorts of endearing and sensible names, and we sat there, advising and talking, half the night. Finally, before we parted, I gave them my promise to speak to their cousin John to-morrow. So, when to-morrow came, I went to my guardian after breakfast, in the room that was our town-substitute for the growlery, and told him that I had it in trust to tell him something. "Well, little woman," said he, shutting up his book, "if you have accepted the trust, there can be no harm in it." "I hope not, guardian," said I. "I can guarantee that there is no secrecy in it. For it only happened yesterday." "Aye? And what is it, Esther?" "Guardian," said I, "you remember the happy night when first we came down to Bleak House? When Ada was singing in the dark room?" I wished to call to his remembrance the look he had given me then. Unless I am much mistaken, I saw that I did so. "Because--" said I with a little hesitation. "Yes, my dear!" said he. "Don't hurry." "Because," said I, "Ada and Richard have fallen in love. And have told each other so." "Already!" cried my guardian, quite astonished. "Yes!" said I. "And to tell you the truth, guardian, I rather expected it." "The deuce you did!" said he. He sat considering for a minute or two, with his smile, at once so handsome and so kind, upon his changing face, and then requested me to let them know that he wished to see them. When they came, he encircled Ada with one arm in his fatherly way and addressed himself to Richard with a cheerful gravity. "Rick," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I am glad to have won your confidence. I hope to preserve it. When I contemplated these relations between us four which have so brightened my life and so invested it with new interests and pleasures, I certainly did contemplate, afar off, the possibility of you and your pretty cousin here (don't be shy, Ada, don't be shy, my dear!) being in a mind to go through life together. I saw, and do see, many reasons to make it desirable. But that was afar off, Rick, afar off!" "We look afar off, sir," returned Richard. "Well!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "That's rational. Now, hear me, my dears! I might tell you that you don't know your own minds yet, that a thousand things may happen to divert you from one another, that it is well this chain of flowers you have taken up is very easily broken, or it might become a chain of lead. But I will not do that. Such wisdom will come soon enough, I dare say, if it is to come at all. I will assume that a few years hence you will be in your hearts to one another what you are to-day. All I say before speaking to you according to that assumption is, if you DO change--if you DO come to find that you are more commonplace cousins to each other as man and woman than you were as boy and girl (your manhood will excuse me, Rick!)--don't be ashamed still to confide in me, for there will be nothing monstrous or uncommon in it. I am only your friend and distant kinsman. I have no power over you whatever. But I wish and hope to retain your confidence if I do nothing to forfeit it." "I am very sure, sir," returned Richard, "that I speak for Ada too when I say that you have the strongest power over us both--rooted in respect, gratitude, and affection--strengthening every day." "Dear cousin John," said Ada, on his shoulder, "my father's place can never be empty again. All the love and duty I could ever have rendered to him is transferred to you." "Come!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "Now for our assumption. Now we lift our eyes up and look hopefully at the distance! Rick, the world is before you; and it is most probable that as you enter it, so it will receive you. Trust in nothing but in Providence and your own efforts. Never separate the two, like the heathen waggoner. Constancy in love is a good thing, but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort. If you had the abilities of all the great men, past and present, you could do nothing well without sincerely meaning it and setting about it. If you entertain the supposition that any real success, in great things or in small, ever was or could be, ever will or can be, wrested from Fortune by fits and starts, leave that wrong idea here or leave your cousin Ada here." "I will leave IT here, sir," replied Richard smiling, "if I brought it here just now (but I hope I did not), and will work my way on to my cousin Ada in the hopeful distance." "Right!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "If you are not to make her happy, why should you pursue her?" "I wouldn't make her unhappy--no, not even for her love," retorted Richard proudly. "Well said!" cried Mr. Jarndyce. "That's well said! She remains here, in her home with me. Love her, Rick, in your active life, no less than in her home when you revisit it, and all will go well. Otherwise, all will go ill. That's the end of my preaching. I think you and Ada had better take a walk." Ada tenderly embraced him, and Richard heartily shook hands with him, and then the cousins went out of the room, looking back again directly, though, to say that they would wait for me. The door stood open, and we both followed them with our eyes as they passed down the adjoining room, on which the sun was shining, and out at its farther end. Richard with his head bent, and her hand drawn through his arm, was talking to her very earnestly; and she looked up in his face, listening, and seemed to see nothing else. So young, so beautiful, so full of hope and promise, they went on lightly through the sunlight as their own happy thoughts might then be traversing the years to come and making them all years of brightness. So they passed away into the shadow and were gone. It was only a burst of light that had been so radiant. The room darkened as they went out, and the sun was clouded over. "Am I right, Esther?" said my guardian when they were gone. He was so good and wise to ask ME whether he was right! "Rick may gain, out of this, the quality he wants. Wants, at the core of so much that is good!" said Mr. Jarndyce, shaking his head. "I have said nothing to Ada, Esther. She has her friend and counsellor always near." And he laid his hand lovingly upon my head. I could not help showing that I was a little moved, though I did all I could to conceal it. "Tut tut!" said he. "But we must take care, too, that our little woman's life is not all consumed in care for others." "Care? My dear guardian, I believe I am the happiest creature in the world!" "I believe so, too," said he. "But some one may find out what Esther never will--that the little woman is to be held in remembrance above all other people!" I have omitted to mention in its place that there was some one else at the family dinner party. It was not a lady. It was a gentleman. It was a gentleman of a dark complexion--a young surgeon. He was rather reserved, but I thought him very sensible and agreeable. At least, Ada asked me if I did not, and I said yes.

We held many consultations about what Richard was to be, but it was a long time before we seemed to make progress. Richard said he was ready for anything. When Mr. Jarndyce doubted whether he might not already be too old to enter the Navy, Richard said he had thought of that, and perhaps he was. When Mr. Jarndyce asked him what he thought of the Army, Richard said he had thought of that, too, and it wasn't a bad idea. When Mr. Jarndyce advised him to try and decide whether his old preference for the sea was a boyish inclination or a strong impulse, Richard answered, Well he really had tried very often, and he couldn't make it out. "How much of this indecision of character," Mr. Jarndyce said to me, "is due to the uncertainty on which he has been thrown from his birth, I don't know; but that Chancery is responsible for some of it, I can plainly see. It has confirmed in him a habit of putting off - and trusting to chance, without knowing what chance - and dismissing everything as unsettled and confused. The character of much older people may be changed by the circumstances surrounding them. It would be too much to expect that a boy's should escape." I felt this to be true; though I also thought it much to be regretted that Richard's education had not counteracted those influences. He had been eight years at a public school and had learnt, I understood, to make Latin verses in the most admirable manner. But I never heard that it had been anybody's business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to him. He had been adapted to the verses and had learnt to make them to perfection; but although no doubt they were very beautiful, and very improving, I felt that Richard would have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his studying them quite so much. "I haven't the least idea," said Richard, "what I had better be. Except that I am quite sure I don't want to go into the Church, it's a toss-up." "You have no inclination for the law?" suggested Mr. Jarndyce. "I don't know that, sir!" replied Richard. "I am fond of boating. Articled clerks go a good deal on the water. It's a capital profession!" "Surgeon-" suggested Mr. Jarndyce. "That's the thing, sir!" cried Richard. "We have got it at last!" I doubt if he had ever thought of it before. He was not to be laughed out of it. He said he had chosen his profession, and felt that the art of healing was the art of all others for him. I suspected that he was simply taken by the newest idea and was glad to get rid of the trouble of consideration. Mr. Jarndyce took great pains to talk with him seriously about the matter. Richard was a little grave after these interviews, but invariably told Ada and me that it was all right, and then began to talk about something else. "By heaven!" cried Mr. Boythorn, who interested himself strongly in the subject; "I rejoice to find a young gentleman of spirit devoting himself to that noble profession! By all that is base and despicable, the treatment of surgeons aboard ship is such that I would submit the legs of every member of the Admiralty Board to a compound fracture if the system were not wholly changed in eight and forty hours!" "Wouldn't you give them a week?" asked Mr. Jarndyce. "No!" cried Mr. Boythorn firmly. "Not on any consideration! Those fellows meanly take advantage of the ardour of these gentlemen to reward the services of the best years of their lives and their long study with pittances too small even for clerks. I would have the necks of every one of them wrung!" He looked round at us with an agreeable smile, thundering, "Ha, ha, ha!" As Richard still continued to say that he was fixed in his choice, it became advisable to take Mr. Kenge into council. Mr. Kenge, therefore, came to dinner one day, and leaned back in his chair, and turned his eye-glasses over and over, exactly as I remembered to have seen him do when I was a little girl. "Ah!" said Mr. Kenge. "Well! A very good profession, Mr. Jarndyce." "It requires diligent study and preparation," observed my guardian, with a glance at Richard. "Truly," said Mr. Kenge. "And Mr. Richard Carstone, who has so well acquitted himself in the classics, will no doubt apply the habits, if not the principles and practice, of that study to the more eminently practical field of action on which he enters." "You may rely upon it," said Richard in his off-hand manner, "that I shall go at it and do my best." "Very well, Mr. Jarndyce!" said Mr. Kenge, gently nodding. "In that case we have only to inquire into the best mode of carrying out this ambition. Now, with reference to placing Mr. Richard with some eminent practitioner. Is there anyone in view at present?" "No one, sir," said Richard. "Quite so!" observed Mr. Kenge. "As to situation, now. Is there any particular feeling about that?" "N - no," said Richard. "I should like a little variety. I mean a good range of experience." "I think this may be easily arranged, Mr. Jarndyce," returned Mr. Kenge. "We have only to discover an eligible practitioner; and to observe those little formalities which are rendered necessary by our being under the guardianship of the court. We shall soon be - shall I say, 'going at it' - to our heart's content. By coincidence, I have a cousin in the medical profession. He might be deemed eligible by you and might agree to this proposal." So it was arranged that Mr. Kenge should see his cousin. And as Mr. Jarndyce had proposed to take us to London for a few weeks, it was settled that we should make our visit at once and combine Richard's business with it. Mr. Boythorn having left us, we took up our abode at a cheerful lodging near Oxford Street over an upholsterer's shop. London was a great wonder to us, and we were out for hours at a time, seeing the sights. We made the round of the principal theatres with great delight, and saw all the plays that were worth seeing. I mention this because it was at the theatre that I began to be made uncomfortable again by Mr. Guppy. I was sitting in the box one night with Ada, and Richard was behind Ada's chair, when, happening to look down into the pit, I saw Mr. Guppy, with his hair flattened upon his head and woe in his face, looking up at me. I felt all through the performance that he never looked at the actors but only at me, with a carefully prepared expression of the deepest misery. It quite spoiled my pleasure that night because it was so very embarrassing and very ridiculous. But from that time forth, we never went to the play without my seeing Mr. Guppy in the pit, always with his hair flat, his shirt-collar turned down, and a general feebleness about him. If he were not there when we went in, and I began to hope he would not come, I was certain to see him when I least expected it; and then his languishing eyes would be fixed upon me all the evening. I really cannot express how uneasy this made me. To know that he was always gazing at me in despondency put such a constraint upon me that I did not like to laugh at the play, or move, or speak. I seemed able to do nothing naturally. I could not escape Mr. Guppy by going to the back of the box, because I knew Richard and Ada relied on having me next to them and that they could never have talked together so happily otherwise. So there I sat, not knowing where to look - for wherever I looked, I knew Mr. Guppy's eyes were following me. Sometimes I thought of telling Mr. Jarndyce; but I feared that the young man might lose his job. Sometimes I thought of confiding in Richard, but was deterred by the possibility of their fighting. Sometimes I considered whether I should write to his mother, but I felt that opening a correspondence would make the matter worse. I always came to the conclusion, finally, that I could do nothing. Mr. Guppy's perseverance, all this time, not only produced him regularly at the theatre, but caused him to appear in the crowd as we were coming out. After we got home, he haunted a post opposite our house. I was afraid to go near the window when I went upstairs, lest I should see him (as I did one moonlight night) leaning against the post and evidently catching cold. If Mr. Guppy had not been, fortunately for me, engaged in the daytime, I really should have had no rest from him. While we were making this round of gaieties, in which Mr. Guppy so extraordinarily participated, the business which had helped to bring us to town was not neglected. Mr. Kenge's cousin was a Mr. Bayham Badger, who had a good practice at Chelsea and attended a large hospital besides. He was quite willing to receive Richard into his house and to superintend his studies, and as Mr. Badger liked Richard, and as Richard said he liked Mr. Badger "well enough," an agreement was made, the Lord Chancellor's consent was obtained, and it was all settled. On the day when these matters were concluded, we were invited to dine at Mr. Badger's house. We were to be "merely a family party," Mrs. Badger's note said. We found Mrs. Badger to be a lady of about fifty, youthfully dressed, and of a very fine complexion. Mr. Bayham Badger himself was a pink, fresh-faced gentleman with a weak voice, light hair, and surprised eyes, some years younger, I should say, than Mrs. Bayham Badger. He admired her exceedingly, but principally on the curious ground of her having had three husbands. We had barely taken our seats when he said to Mr. Jarndyce quite triumphantly, "You would hardly suppose that I am Mrs. Bayham Badger's third!" "Indeed?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "Her third!" said Mr. Badger. "Mrs. Bayham Badger has not the appearance, Miss Summerson, of a lady who has had two former husbands?" I said "Not at all!" "And most remarkable men!" said Mr. Badger. "Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy, Mrs. Badger's first husband, was a very distinguished officer indeed. The name of Professor Dingo, my immediate predecessor, is one of European reputation." Mrs. Badger overheard him and smiled. "I was barely twenty," she said, "when I married Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy. On the twelfth anniversary of my wedding-day, I became the wife of Professor Dingo." "Of European reputation," added Mr. Badger. "And when Mr. Badger and myself were married," pursued Mrs. Badger, "we were married on the same day of the year. I had become attached to the day." "Perhaps you may be interested, Mr. Jarndyce," continued Mr. Bayham Badger, leading the way into the next drawing-room, "in this portrait of Captain Swosser. It was taken on his return home from the African station, where he had suffered from the fever. Mrs. Badger considers it too yellow. But it's a very fine head!" We all echoed, "A very fine head!" "As for Professor Dingo. I knew him well - attended him in his last illness - a speaking likeness over the piano." Dinner was now announced, and we went downstairs. It was very handsomely served. But the captain and the professor still ran in Mr. Badger's head. "Water, Miss Summerson? Allow me! Bring me the professor's goblet, James!" He invited Mr. Jarndyce to take a glass of claret. "Excuse me!" he said. "This is an occasion, and on an occasion I produce some very special claret. James, Captain Swosser's wine!" After dinner, when we ladies retired, Mrs. Badger gave us in the drawing-room an outline of the life of Captain Swosser before his marriage, and a minute account from the time when he fell in love with her at a ball on board the Crippler, when she lay in Plymouth Harbour. "The dear old Crippler!" said Mrs. Badger, shaking her head. "She was a noble vessel. Captain Swosser loved that craft for my sake. When she was no longer in commission, he frequently said that if he were rich enough to buy her, he would have an inscription made on the timbers of the quarter-deck where we stood as partners in the dance." Mrs. Badger shook her head, sighed, and looked in the glass. "It was a great change from Captain Swosser to Professor Dingo," she resumed with a plaintive smile. "I felt it a good deal at first. But soon I almost forgot that I had ever been afloat, and became quite learned!" Now, I observed that evening, as I had observed for some days past, that Ada and Richard were more than ever attached to each other's society. I was therefore not very much surprised when we got home, and Ada and I retired upstairs, to find Ada more silent than usual, though I was not quite prepared for her coming into my arms and beginning to speak with her face hidden. "My darling Esther!" murmured Ada. "I have a great secret to tell you!" "What is it, Ada?" "Oh, Esther, you would never guess!" "Shall I try to guess?" said I. "Oh, no! Pray don't! It's about - my cousin Richard!" "Well, my own!" said I, kissing her bright hair. "And what about him?" "Oh, Esther, you would never guess!" It was so pretty to have her clinging to me, hiding her face, and crying in a little glow of joy and hope, that I would not help her just yet. "He says - I know it's very foolish, we are both so young - but he says," with a burst of tears, "that he loves me dearly, Esther." "Does he indeed?" said I. "Why, my pet of pets, I could have told you that weeks and weeks ago!" To see Ada lift up her flushed face in joyful surprise was so pleasant! "Why, my darling," said I, "your cousin Richard has been loving you as plainly as he could for I don't know how long!" "And yet you never said a word about it!" cried Ada, kissing me. "You don't think it wrong of me, do you?" "Not at all. And now," said I, "I know the worst of it." "Oh, that's not quite the worst of it, Esther dear!" cried Ada, holding me tighter and laying down her face again upon my breast. "No?" said I. "Why, you never mean to say-" I was beginning in joke. But Ada, looking up and smiling through her tears, cried, "Yes, I do! You know I do!" And then sobbed out, "With all my heart I do, Esther!" I told her, laughing, I had known that, too! And we sat before the fire and talked until she was quiet and happy. "Do you think my cousin John knows, dear Dame Durden?" she asked. "Unless my cousin John is blind, my pet, I should think he knows." "We want to speak to him before Richard goes," said Ada timidly, "and we wanted you to advise us. Perhaps you wouldn't mind Richard's coming in?" "Oh! Richard is outside, is he, my dear?" said I. "I am not quite certain," returned Ada with bashful simplicity, "but I think he's waiting at the door." There he was, of course. They sat on either side of me, and really seemed to have fallen in love with me instead of one another, they were so confiding and trustful. They went on in their own wild way for a little while; and then we began to consider how young they were, and how there must be a lapse of several years before this early love could come to anything, and how it could come to happiness only if it were real and lasting, and inspired them with constancy, fortitude, and perseverance for the other's sake. Well! Richard said that he would work his fingers to the bone for Ada, and Ada said that she would work her fingers to the bone for Richard, and they called me all sorts of endearing things, and we sat there talking half the night. Before we parted, I promised to speak to their cousin John tomorrow. So, when tomorrow came, I went to my guardian after breakfast, in the room that was our town-substitute for the growlery. "Guardian," said I, "you remember the happy night when first we came down to Bleak House? When Ada was singing in the dark room?" I wished to call to his remembrance the look he had given me then. "Because-" said I with a little hesitation - "because Ada and Richard have fallen in love. And have told each other so." "Already!" cried my guardian, quite astonished. "Yes!" said I. "And to tell you the truth, guardian, I rather expected it." "The deuce you did!" said he. He sat considering for a minute or two, with his kind smile, and then asked me to let them know that he wished to see them. When they came, he encircled Ada with one arm in his fatherly way and addressed himself to Richard with a cheerful gravity. "Rick," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I am glad to have won your confidence. I certainly did contemplate, afar off, the possibility of you and your pretty cousin here (don't be shy, Ada, my dear!) being in a mind to go through life together. I saw, and do see, many reasons to make it desirable. But that was afar off, Rick, afar off!" "We look afar off, sir," returned Richard. "Well!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "That's rational. Now, hear me, my dears! I might tell you that you don't know your own minds yet, that a thousand things may happen to divert you from one another, that this chain of flowers you have taken up is very easily broken. But I will not do that. I will assume that a few years hence you will be in your hearts to one another what you are today. All I say therefore is that if you do change and find that you are commonplace cousins to each other, don't be ashamed to confide in me, for there will be nothing monstrous or uncommon in it. I am only your friend and distant kinsman. I have no power over you whatever. But I hope to retain your confidence." "I am very sure, sir," returned Richard, "that I speak for Ada too when I say that you have the strongest power over us both - rooted in respect, gratitude, and affection - strengthening every day." "Dear cousin John," said Ada, "all the love and duty I could ever have rendered to my father is transferred to you." "Come!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "Now we lift our eyes up and look hopefully at the distance! Rick, the world is before you; trust in Providence and your own efforts. Constancy in love is a good thing, but it means nothing without constancy in every kind of effort. Even with the greatest abilities, you could do nothing well without sincerely meaning it and setting about it. If you suppose that any real success can ever be gained by fits and starts, leave that wrong idea here or leave your cousin Ada here." "I will leave it here, sir," replied Richard smiling. "Well said!" cried Mr. Jarndyce. "She remains here, in her home with me. Love her, Rick, in your active life, and all will go well. Otherwise, all will go ill. That's the end of my preaching. I think you and Ada had better take a walk." Ada tenderly embraced him, and Richard heartily shook hands with him, and then the cousins went out of the room, saying that they would wait for me. The door stood open, and we both watched them as they passed through the sunny room and out at its farther end. Richard, with his head bent, and her hand drawn through his arm, was talking very earnestly; and Ada looked up in his face, and seemed to see nothing else. So young, so beautiful, so full of hope and promise, they went on lightly through the sunlight, passed away into the shadow and were gone. The room darkened as they went out, and the sun was clouded over. "Am I right, Esther?" said my guardian. He was so good to ask me whether he was right! "Rick may gain, out of this, the quality he lacks, at the core of so much that is good!" said Mr. Jarndyce, shaking his head. "I have said nothing to Ada. She has her friend and counsellor always near." And he laid his hand lovingly upon my head. I was a little moved, though I did all I could to conceal it. "Tut tut!" said he. "But we must take care, too, that our little woman's life is not all consumed in care for others." "Care? My dear guardian, I believe I am the happiest creature in the world!" "I believe so, too," said he. "But some one may find out what Esther never will - that the little woman is to be remembered above all other people!" I have omitted to mention that there was some one else at the doctor's dinner party. It was not a lady. It was a gentleman, of a dark complexion - a young surgeon. He was rather reserved, but I thought him very sensible and agreeable. At least, Ada asked me if I did, and I said yes.

Bleak House

Chapter 13: 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 Mewlinnwillinwodd (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. It seemed that Caddy's unfortunate papa had got over his bankruptcy--"gone through the Gazette," was the expression Caddy used, as if it were a tunnel--with the general clemency and commiseration of his creditors, and had got rid of his affairs in some blessed manner without succeeding in understanding them, and had given up everything he possessed (which was not worth much, I should think, to judge from the state of the furniture), and had satisfied every one concerned that he could do no more, poor man. So, he had been honourably dismissed to "the office" to begin the world again. What he did at the office, I never knew; Caddy said he was a "custom-house and general agent," and the only thing I ever understood about that business was that when he wanted money more than usual he went to the docks to look for it, and hardly ever found it. As soon as her papa had tranquillized his mind by becoming this shorn lamb, and they had removed to a furnished lodging in Hatton Garden (where I found the children, when I afterwards went there, cutting the horse hair out of the seats of the chairs and choking themselves with it), Caddy had brought about a meeting between him and old Mr. Turveydrop; and poor Mr. Jellyby, being very humble and meek, had deferred to Mr. Turveydrop's deportment so submissively that they had become excellent friends. By degrees, old Mr. Turveydrop, thus familiarized with the idea of his son's marriage, had worked up his parental feelings to the height of contemplating that event as being near at hand and had given his gracious consent to the young couple commencing housekeeping at the academy in Newman Street when they would. "And your papa, Caddy. What did he say?" "Oh! Poor Pa," said Caddy, "only cried and said he hoped we might get on better than he and Ma had got on. He didn't say so before Prince, he only said so to me. And he said, 'My poor girl, you have not been very well taught how to make a home for your husband, but unless you mean with all your heart to strive to do it, you had better murder him than marry him--if you really love him.'" "And how did you reassure him, Caddy?" "Why, it was very distressing, you know, to see poor Pa so low and hear him say such terrible things, and I couldn't help crying myself. But I told him that I DID mean it with all my heart and that I hoped our house would be a place for him to come and find some comfort in of an evening and that I hoped and thought I could be a better daughter to him there than at home. Then I mentioned Peepy's coming to stay with me, and then Pa began to cry again and said the children were Indians." "Indians, Caddy?" "Yes," said Caddy, "wild Indians. And Pa said"--here she began to sob, poor girl, not at all like the happiest girl in the world--"that he was sensible the best thing that could happen to them was their being all tomahawked together." Ada suggested that it was comfortable to know that Mr. Jellyby did not mean these destructive sentiments. "No, of course I know Pa wouldn't like his family to be weltering in their blood," said Caddy, "but he means that they are very unfortunate in being Ma's children and that he is very unfortunate in being Ma's husband; and I am sure that's true, though it seems unnatural to say so." I asked Caddy if Mrs. Jellyby knew that her wedding-day was fixed. "Oh! You know what Ma is, Esther," she returned. "It's impossible to say whether she knows it or not. She has been told it often enough; and when she IS told it, she only gives me a placid look, as if I was I don't know what--a steeple in the distance," said Caddy with a sudden idea; "and then she shakes her head and says 'Oh, Caddy, Caddy, what a tease you are!' and goes on with the Borrioboola letters." "And about your wardrobe, Caddy?" said I. For she was under no restraint with us. "Well, my dear Esther," she returned, drying her eyes, "I must do the best I can and trust to my dear Prince never to have an unkind remembrance of my coming so shabbily to him. If the question concerned an outfit for Borrioboola, Ma would know all about it and would be quite excited. Being what it is, she neither knows nor cares." Caddy was not at all deficient in natural affection for her mother, but mentioned this with tears as an undeniable fact, which I am afraid it was. We were sorry for the poor dear girl and found so much to admire in the good disposition which had survived under such discouragement that we both at once (I mean Ada and I) proposed a little scheme that made her perfectly joyful. This was her staying with us for three weeks, my staying with her for one, and our all three contriving and cutting out, and repairing, and sewing, and saving, and doing the very best we could think of to make the most of her stock. My guardian being as pleased with the idea as Caddy was, we took her home next day to arrange the matter and brought her out again in triumph with her boxes and all the purchases that could be squeezed out of a ten-pound note, which Mr. Jellyby had found in the docks I suppose, but which he at all events gave her. What my guardian would not have given her if we had encouraged him, it would be difficult to say, but we thought it right to compound for no more than her wedding-dress and bonnet. He agreed to this compromise, and if Caddy had ever been happy in her life, she was happy when we sat down to work. She was clumsy enough with her needle, poor girl, and pricked her fingers as much as she had been used to ink them. She could not help reddening a little now and then, partly with the smart and partly with vexation at being able to do no better, but she soon got over that and began to improve rapidly. So day after day she, and my darling, and my little maid Charley, and a milliner out of the town, and I, sat hard at work, as pleasantly as possible. Over and above this, Caddy was very anxious "to learn housekeeping," as she said. Now, mercy upon us! The idea of her learning housekeeping of a person of my vast experience was such a joke that I laughed, and coloured up, and fell into a comical confusion when she proposed it. However, I said, "Caddy, I am sure you are very welcome to learn anything that you can learn of ME, my dear," and I showed her all my books and methods and all my fidgety ways. You would have supposed that I was showing her some wonderful inventions, by her study of them; and if you had seen her, whenever I jingled my housekeeping keys, get up and attend me, certainly you might have thought that there never was a greater imposter than I with a blinder follower than Caddy Jellyby. So what with working and housekeeping, and lessons to Charley, and backgammon in the evening with my guardian, and duets with Ada, the three weeks slipped fast away. Then I went home with Caddy to see what could be done there, and Ada and Charley remained behind to take care of my guardian. When I say I went home with Caddy, I mean to the furnished lodging in Hatton Garden. We went to Newman Street two or three times, where preparations were in progress too--a good many, I observed, for enhancing the comforts of old Mr. Turveydrop, and a few for putting the newly married couple away cheaply at the top of the house--but our great point was to make the furnished lodging decent for the wedding-breakfast and to imbue Mrs. Jellyby beforehand with some faint sense of the occasion. The latter was the more difficult thing of the two because Mrs. Jellyby and an unwholesome boy occupied the front sitting-room (the back one was a mere closet), and it was littered down with waste-paper and Borrioboolan documents, as an untidy stable might be littered with straw. Mrs. Jellyby sat there all day drinking strong coffee, dictating, and holding Borrioboolan interviews by appointment. The unwholesome boy, who seemed to me to be going into a decline, took his meals out of the house. When Mr. Jellyby came home, he usually groaned and went down into the kitchen. There he got something to eat if the servant would give him anything, and then, feeling that he was in the way, went out and walked about Hatton Garden in the wet. The poor children scrambled up and tumbled down the house as they had always been accustomed to do. The production of these devoted little sacrifices in any presentable condition being quite out of the question at a week's notice, I proposed to Caddy that we should make them as happy as we could on her marriage morning in the attic where they all slept, and should confine our greatest efforts to her mama and her mama's room, and a clean breakfast. In truth Mrs. Jellyby required a good deal of attention, the lattice-work up her back having widened considerably since I first knew her and her hair looking like the mane of a dustman's horse. Thinking that the display of Caddy's wardrobe would be the best means of approaching the subject, I invited Mrs. Jellyby to come and look at it spread out on Caddy's bed in the evening after the unwholesome boy was gone. "My dear Miss Summerson," said she, rising from her desk with her usual sweetness of temper, "these are really ridiculous preparations, though your assisting them is a proof of your kindness. There is something so inexpressibly absurd to me in the idea of Caddy being married! Oh, Caddy, you silly, silly, silly puss!" She came upstairs with us notwithstanding and looked at the clothes in her customary far-off manner. They suggested one distinct idea to her, for she said with her placid smile, and shaking her head, "My good Miss Summerson, at half the cost, this weak child might have been equipped for Africa!" On our going downstairs again, Mrs. Jellyby asked me whether this troublesome business was really to take place next Wednesday. And on my replying yes, she said, "Will my room be required, my dear Miss Summerson? For it's quite impossible that I can put my papers away." I took the liberty of saying that the room would certainly be wanted and that I thought we must put the papers away somewhere. "Well, my dear Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Jellyby, "you know best, I dare say. But by obliging me to employ a boy, Caddy has embarrassed me to that extent, overwhelmed as I am with public business, that I don't know which way to turn. We have a Ramification meeting, too, on Wednesday afternoon, and the inconvenience is very serious." "It is not likely to occur again," said I, smiling. "Caddy will be married but once, probably." "That's true," Mrs. Jellyby replied; "that's true, my dear. I suppose we must make the best of it!" The next question was how Mrs. Jellyby should be dressed on the occasion. I thought it very curious to see her looking on serenely from her writing-table while Caddy and I discussed it, occasionally shaking her head at us with a half-reproachful smile like a superior spirit who could just bear with our trifling. The state in which her dresses were, and the extraordinary confusion in which she kept them, added not a little to our difficulty; but at length we devised something not very unlike what a common-place mother might wear on such an occasion. The abstracted manner in which Mrs. Jellyby would deliver herself up to having this attire tried on by the dressmaker, and the sweetness with which she would then observe to me how sorry she was that I had not turned my thoughts to Africa, were consistent with the rest of her behaviour. The lodging was rather confined as to space, but I fancied that if Mrs. Jellyby's household had been the only lodgers in Saint Paul's or Saint Peter's, the sole advantage they would have found in the size of the building would have been its affording a great deal of room to be dirty in. I believe that nothing belonging to the family which it had been possible to break was unbroken at the time of those preparations for Caddy's marriage, that nothing which it had been possible to spoil in any way was unspoilt, and that no domestic object which was capable of collecting dirt, from a dear child's knee to the door-plate, was without as much dirt as could well accumulate upon it. Poor Mr. Jellyby, who very seldom spoke and almost always sat when he was at home with his head against the wall, became interested when he saw that Caddy and I were attempting to establish some order among all this waste and ruin and took off his coat to help. But such wonderful things came tumbling out of the closets when they were opened--bits of mouldy pie, sour bottles, Mrs. Jellyby's caps, letters, tea, forks, odd boots and shoes of children, firewood, wafers, saucepan-lids, damp sugar in odds and ends of paper bags, footstools, blacklead brushes, bread, Mrs. Jellyby's bonnets, books with butter sticking to the binding, guttered candle ends put out by being turned upside down in broken candlesticks, nutshells, heads and tails of shrimps, dinner-mats, gloves, coffee-grounds, umbrellas--that he looked frightened, and left off again. But he came regularly every evening and sat without his coat, with his head against the wall, as though he would have helped us if he had known how. "Poor Pa!" said Caddy to me on the night before the great day, when we really had got things a little to rights. "It seems unkind to leave him, Esther. But what could I do if I stayed! Since I first knew you, I have tidied and tidied over and over again, but it's useless. Ma and Africa, together, upset the whole house directly. We never have a servant who don't drink. Ma's ruinous to everything." Mr. Jellyby could not hear what she said, but he seemed very low indeed and shed tears, I thought. "My heart aches for him; that it does!" sobbed Caddy. "I can't help thinking to-night, Esther, how dearly I hope to be happy with Prince, and how dearly Pa hoped, I dare say, to be happy with Ma. What a disappointed life!" "My dear Caddy!" said Mr. Jellyby, looking slowly round from the wail. It was the first time, I think, I ever heard him say three words together. "Yes, Pa!" cried Caddy, going to him and embracing him affectionately. "My dear Caddy," said Mr. Jellyby. "Never have--" "Not Prince, Pa?" faltered Caddy. "Not have Prince?" "Yes, my dear," said Mr. Jellyby. "Have him, certainly. But, never have--" I mentioned in my account of our first visit in Thavies Inn that Richard described Mr. Jellyby as frequently opening his mouth after dinner without saying anything. It was a habit of his. He opened his mouth now a great many times and shook his head in a melancholy manner. "What do you wish me not to have? Don't have what, dear Pa?" asked Caddy, coaxing him, with her arms round his neck. "Never have a mission, my dear child." Mr. Jellyby groaned and laid his head against the wall again, and this was the only time I ever heard him make any approach to expressing his sentiments on the Borrioboolan question. I suppose he had been more talkative and lively once, but he seemed to have been completely exhausted long before I knew him. I thought Mrs. Jellyby never would have left off serenely looking over her papers and drinking coffee that night. It was twelve o'clock before we could obtain possession of the room, and the clearance it required then was so discouraging that Caddy, who was almost tired out, sat down in the middle of the dust and cried. But she soon cheered up, and we did wonders with it before we went to bed. In the morning it looked, by the aid of a few flowers and a quantity of soap and water and a little arrangement, quite gay. The plain breakfast made a cheerful show, and Caddy was perfectly charming. But when my darling came, I thought--and I think now--that I never had seen such a dear face as my beautiful pet's. We made a little feast for the children upstairs, and we put Peepy at the head of the table, and we showed them Caddy in her bridal dress, and they clapped their hands and hurrahed, and Caddy cried to think that she was going away from them and hugged them over and over again until we brought Prince up to fetch her away--when, I am sorry to say, Peepy bit him. Then there was old Mr. Turveydrop downstairs, in a state of deportment not to be expressed, benignly blessing Caddy and giving my guardian to understand that his son's happiness was his own parental work and that he sacrificed personal considerations to ensure it. "My dear sir," said Mr. Turveydrop, "these young people will live with me; my house is large enough for their accommodation, and they shall not want the shelter of my roof. I could have wished--you will understand the allusion, Mr. Jarndyce, for you remember my illustrious patron the Prince Regent--I could have wished that my son had married into a family where there was more deportment, but the will of heaven be done!" Mr. and Mrs. Pardiggle were of the party--Mr. Pardiggle, an obstinate-looking man with a large waistcoat and stubbly hair, who was always talking in a loud bass voice about his mite, or Mrs. Pardiggle's mite, or their five boys' mites. Mr. Quale, with his hair brushed back as usual and his knobs of temples shining very much, was also there, not in the character of a disappointed lover, but as the accepted of a young--at least, an unmarried--lady, a Miss Wisk, who was also there. Miss Wisk's mission, my guardian said, was to show the world that woman's mission was man's mission and that the only genuine mission of both man and woman was to be always moving declaratory resolutions about things in general at public meetings. The guests were few, but were, as one might expect at Mrs. Jellyby's, all devoted to public objects only. Besides those I have mentioned, there was an extremely dirty lady with her bonnet all awry and the ticketed price of her dress still sticking on it, whose neglected home, Caddy told me, was like a filthy wilderness, but whose church was like a fancy fair. A very contentious gentleman, who said it was his mission to be everybody's brother but who appeared to be on terms of coolness with the whole of his large family, completed the party. A party, having less in common with such an occasion, could hardly have been got together by any ingenuity. Such a mean mission as the domestic mission was the very last thing to be endured among them; indeed, Miss Wisk informed us, with great indignation, before we sat down to breakfast, that the idea of woman's mission lying chiefly in the narrow sphere of home was an outrageous slander on the part of her tyrant, man. One other singularity was that nobody with a mission--except Mr. Quale, whose mission, as I think I have formerly said, was to be in ecstasies with everybody's mission--cared at all for anybody's mission. Mrs. Pardiggle being as clear that the only one infallible course was her course of pouncing upon the poor and applying benevolence to them like a strait-waistcoat; as Miss Wisk was that the only practical thing for the world was the emancipation of woman from the thraldom of her tyrant, man. Mrs. Jellyby, all the while, sat smiling at the limited vision that could see anything but Borrioboola-Gha. But I am anticipating now the purport of our conversation on the ride home instead of first marrying Caddy. We all went to church, and Mr. Jellyby gave her away. Of the air with which old Mr. Turveydrop, with his hat under his left arm (the inside presented at the clergyman like a cannon) and his eyes creasing themselves up into his wig, stood stiff and high-shouldered behind us bridesmaids during the ceremony, and afterwards saluted us, I could never say enough to do it justice. Miss Wisk, whom I cannot report as prepossessing in appearance, and whose manner was grim, listened to the proceedings, as part of woman's wrongs, with a disdainful face. Mrs. Jellyby, with her calm smile and her bright eyes, looked the least concerned of all the company. We duly came back to breakfast, and Mrs. Jellyby sat at the head of the table and Mr. Jellyby at the foot. Caddy had previously stolen upstairs to hug the children again and tell them that her name was Turveydrop. But this piece of information, instead of being an agreeable surprise to Peepy, threw him on his back in such transports of kicking grief that I could do nothing on being sent for but accede to the proposal that he should be admitted to the breakfast table. So he came down and sat in my lap; and Mrs. Jellyby, after saying, in reference to the state of his pinafore, "Oh, you naughty Peepy, what a shocking little pig you are!" was not at all discomposed. He was very good except that he brought down Noah with him (out of an ark I had given him before we went to church) and WOULD dip him head first into the wine-glasses and then put him in his mouth. My guardian, with his sweet temper and his quick perception and his amiable face, made something agreeable even out of the ungenial company. None of them seemed able to talk about anything but his, or her, own one subject, and none of them seemed able to talk about even that as part of a world in which there was anything else; but my guardian turned it all to the merry encouragement of Caddy and the honour of the occasion, and brought us through the breakfast nobly. What we should have done without him, I am afraid to think, for all the company despising the bride and bridegroom and old Mr. Turveydrop--and old Mr. Thurveydrop, in virtue of his deportment, considering himself vastly superior to all the company--it was a very unpromising case. At last the time came when poor Caddy was to go and when all her property was packed on the hired coach and pair that was to take her and her husband to Gravesend. It affected us to see Caddy clinging, then, to her deplorable home and hanging on her mother's neck with the greatest tenderness. "I am very sorry I couldn't go on writing from dictation, Ma," sobbed Caddy. "I hope you forgive me now." "Oh, Caddy, Caddy!" said Mrs. Jellyby. "I have told you over and over again that I have engaged a boy, and there's an end of it." "You are sure you are not the least angry with me, Ma? Say you are sure before I go away, Ma?" "You foolish Caddy," returned Mrs. Jellyby, "do I look angry, or have I inclination to be angry, or time to be angry? How CAN you?" "Take a little care of Pa while I am gone, Mama!" Mrs. Jellyby positively laughed at the fancy. "You romantic child," said she, lightly patting Caddy's back. "Go along. I am excellent friends with you. Now, good-bye, Caddy, and be very happy!" Then Caddy hung upon her father and nursed his cheek against hers as if he were some poor dull child in pain. All this took place in the hall. Her father released her, took out his pocket handkerchief, and sat down on the stairs with his head against the wall. I hope he found some consolation in walls. I almost think he did. And then Prince took her arm in his and turned with great emotion and respect to his father, whose deportment at that moment was overwhelming. "Thank you over and over again, father!" said Prince, kissing his hand. "I am very grateful for all your kindness and consideration regarding our marriage, and so, I can assure you, is Caddy." "Very," sobbed Caddy. "Ve-ry!" "My dear son," said Mr. Turveydrop, "and dear daughter, I have done my duty. If the spirit of a sainted wooman hovers above us and looks down on the occasion, that, and your constant affection, will be my recompense. You will not fail in YOUR duty, my son and daughter, I believe?" "Dear father, never!" cried Prince. "Never, never, dear Mr. Turveydrop!" said Caddy. "This," returned Mr. Turveydrop, "is as it should be. My children, my home is yours, my heart is yours, my all is yours. I will never leave you; nothing but death shall part us. My dear son, you contemplate an absence of a week, I think?" "A week, dear father. We shall return home this day week." "My dear child," said Mr. Turveydrop, "let me, even under the present exceptional circumstances, recommend strict punctuality. It is highly important to keep the connexion together; and schools, if at all neglected, are apt to take offence." "This day week, father, we shall be sure to be home to dinner." "Good!" said Mr. Turveydrop. "You will find fires, my dear Caroline, in your own room, and dinner prepared in my apartment. Yes, yes, Prince!" anticipating some self-denying objection on his son's part with a great air. "You and our Caroline will be strange in the upper part of the premises and will, therefore, dine that day in my apartment. Now, bless ye!" They drove away, and whether I wondered most at Mrs. Jellyby or at Mr. Turveydrop, I did not know. Ada and my guardian were in the same condition when we came to talk it over. But before we drove away too, I received a most unexpected and eloquent compliment from Mr. Jellyby. He came up to me in the hall, took both my hands, pressed them earnestly, and opened his mouth twice. I was so sure of his meaning that I said, quite flurried, "You are very welcome, sir. Pray don't mention it!" "I hope this marriage is for the best, guardian," said I when we three were on our road home. "I hope it is, little woman. Patience. We shall see." "Is the wind in the east to-day?" I ventured to ask him. He laughed heartily and answered, "No." "But it must have been this morning, I think," said I. He answered "No" again, and this time my dear girl confidently answered "No" too and shook the lovely head which, with its blooming flowers against the golden hair, was like the very spring. "Much YOU know of east winds, my ugly darling," said I, kissing her in my admiration--I couldn't help it. Well! It was only their love for me, I know very well, and it is a long time ago. I must write it even if I rub it out again, because it gives me so much pleasure. They said there could be no east wind where Somebody was; they said that wherever Dame Durden went, there was sunshine and summer air.

Richard had been gone away some time when a visitor came to pass a few days with us. It was an elderly lady: Mrs. Woodcourt, who, having come from Wales to stay with Mrs. Bayham Badger, 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 felt it was unreasonable of me; still, I could not help it. She was such a sharp little lady and used to sit with her hands folded, looking so very watchful while she talked that perhaps I found that rather irksome. I don't think it was her being so upright and trim, nor the 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 did not then. Or at least - but it doesn't matter. 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 Mewlinnwillinwodd (though I dare say these are not the right names), and would become quite fiery with the sentiments they expressed. Though I never knew what they were, being in Welsh. "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 has family, my dear." I had my doubts of their caring 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. "My son's choice of a wife is limited by it, but the royal family is limited in much the same manner." Then she would pat me on the arm. "His father, my dear," she would say with some emotion, for 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 unite them with another old family." It was in vain for me to try to change the subject. Mrs. Woodcourt never would let me. "My dear," she said one night, "you have so much sense for your age 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 recollect him?" "Yes, ma'am. I recollect him." "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, "it is so difficult 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 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. "Allan is a dear fellow, and in his profession faultless. Still, I must confess he is not without faults." "None of us are," said I. "Ah! But his really are faults that he ought to correct," returned the sharp old lady. "I am so much attached to you that I may confide in you, my dear, that he is fickleness itself. He is always paying trivial attentions to young ladies, and has been since he was eighteen. Now, my dear, he has never really cared for any of them and has never meant to express anything but 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. "I have told him many times that he really should be more careful. And he has always said, 'Mother, I will be; but you know I mean no harm - in short, mean nothing.' Which is very true, my dear, but is no justification. However, as he is now gone so far away, and as he will have good opportunities and introductions, we may consider this past and gone. And you, my dear," said the old lady, 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? Now you blush!" I don't think I did blush. 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 your future, 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, "you are so busy, and so neat, and so peculiarly situated that it is suitable, 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 it did. I was so ashamed of my folly that I did not like to confess it even to Ada. I would have given anything not to have been so much in the bright old lady's confidence; it gave me the most inconsistent opinions of her. At one time I thought she was a story-teller, and next moment I believed her honest Welsh heart to be perfectly innocent and simple. And after all, why did it matter to me? Why did I trouble myself about the harmless things she said? I was certainly very anxious that she should like me and was very glad that she did, but why should I harp afterwards, with distress and pain, on every word she said and weigh it over and over again in twenty scales? These were perplexities that I could not account for. At least, if I could - but I shall come to all that by and by. So when Mrs. Woodcourt went away, I was sorry to lose her but relieved too. And then Caddy Jellyby came down with a packet of domestic news. First Caddy declared that I was the best adviser that ever was known. Then she 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. It seemed that Caddy's unfortunate papa had got over his bankruptcy and had given up everything he possessed (which was not worth much, I should think, to judge from the state of the furniture), and had satisfied his creditors that he could do no more, poor man. So he had been honourably dismissed to "the office" to begin the world again. What he did at the office, I never knew; Caddy said he was a custom-house and general agent. They had moved to a furnished lodging in Hatton Garden (where I found the children, when I afterwards went there, cutting the horse hair out of the chair seats and choking themselves with it). Caddy had brought about a meeting between him and old Mr. Turveydrop; and poor Mr. Jellyby, being very humble and meek, had deferred to Mr. Turveydrop's deportment so submissively that they had become excellent friends. By degrees, old Mr. Turveydrop had worked up his parental feelings to contemplating his son's marriage and had given his gracious consent to the young couple setting up house at the academy in Newman Street. "And your papa, Caddy. What did he say?" "Oh! Poor Pa," said Caddy, "only cried and said he hoped we might get on better than he and Ma had got on. He didn't say it before Prince, but he said to me, 'My poor girl, you have not been very well taught how to make a home for your husband, but unless you mean with all your heart to strive to do it, you had better murder him than marry him - if you really love him.'" "And how did you reassure him, Caddy?" "Why, it was very distressing, you know, to see poor Pa so low and hear him say such terrible things. But I told him that I did mean it with all my heart and that I hoped our house would be a place for him to come and find some comfort and that I hoped I could be a better daughter to him there than at home. Then I mentioned Peepy's coming to stay with me, and Pa began to cry again and said the children were wild Indians. And Pa said" - here she began to sob, poor girl - "that the best thing that could happen to them was their being all tomahawked together." Ada suggested that he did not mean it. "No, of course not," said Caddy, "but he means that they are very unfortunate in being Ma's children and that he is very unfortunate in being Ma's husband; and I am sure that's true, though it seems unnatural to say so." I asked Caddy if Mrs. Jellyby knew that her wedding-day was fixed. "Oh! It's impossible to say whether she knows it or not. She has been told it often enough; but she only gives me a placid look, and then she shakes her head and says 'Oh, Caddy, what a tease you are!' and goes on with the Borrioboola letters." "And about your wardrobe, Caddy?" said I. "Well, my dear Esther," she returned, drying her eyes, "I must do the best I can and trust to my dear Prince not to mind my coming so shabbily to him. If it was an outfit for Borrioboola, Ma would be quite excited. Being what it is, she neither knows nor cares." Caddy did not lack natural affection for her mother, but mentioned this with tears as an undeniable fact, which I am afraid it was. We were sorry for the poor dear girl and proposed a little scheme that made her joyful. This was her staying with us for three weeks, my staying with her for one, and our all three contriving and cutting out, and repairing, and sewing, and doing the very best we could with her stock. My guardian being as pleased with the idea as Caddy was, we took her home next day to arrange the matter and brought her out again in triumph with her boxes and all the purchases that could be squeezed out of a ten-pound note, which Mr. Jellyby gave her. What my guardian would not have given her if we had encouraged him, it would be difficult to say, but we thought it right to ask for no more than her wedding-dress and bonnet. He agreed to this compromise, and if Caddy had ever been happy in her life, she was happy when we sat down to work. She was clumsy enough with her needle, poor girl, and vexed at being able to do no better, but she soon began to improve rapidly. So day after day she, and my darling, and my little maid Charley, and a milliner from the town, and I, sat hard at work as pleasantly as possible. Caddy was very anxious "to learn housekeeping," as she said. Now, mercy upon us! The idea of her learning housekeeping of a person of my vast experience was such a joke that I laughed when she proposed it. However, I said, "Caddy, you are very welcome to learn anything that you can of me, my dear," and I showed her all my books and methods and all my fidgety ways. So what with working and housekeeping, and lessons to Charley, and backgammon in the evening with my guardian, and duets with Ada, the three weeks slipped fast away. Then I went home with Caddy to see what could be done there, and Ada and Charley remained behind. When I say I went home with Caddy, I mean to the furnished lodging in Hatton Garden. We went to Newman Street two or three times, where preparations were in progress too - many, I observed, for enhancing the comforts of old Mr. Turveydrop, and a few for putting the newly married couple away cheaply at the top of the house. But our aim was to make the furnished lodging decent for the wedding-breakfast and to imbue Mrs. Jellyby beforehand with some faint sense of the occasion. The latter was the more difficult thing of the two. Mrs. Jellyby and an unwholesome boy occupied the front sitting-room, which was littered with waste-paper and documents, as an untidy stable might be littered with straw. Mrs. Jellyby sat there all day drinking strong coffee and dictating. The unwholesome boy seemed to me to be going into a decline. When Mr. Jellyby came home, he usually groaned and went down into the kitchen to get something to eat, and then went out and walked about Hatton Garden in the wet. The poor children scrambled up and tumbled down the house as they had always been accustomed to do. I proposed to Caddy that we should make the children as happy as we could on her marriage morning in the attic where they all slept, and should confine our greatest efforts to her mama and her mama's room, and a clean breakfast. Thinking that the display of Caddy's wardrobe would be the best means of approaching the subject, I invited Mrs. Jellyby to come and look at it spread out on Caddy's bed. "My dear Miss Summerson," said she, rising from her desk with her usual sweetness of temper, "these are really ridiculous preparations, though you are kind to assist them. There is something so absurd to me in the idea of Caddy being married! Oh, Caddy, you silly, silly puss!" She came upstairs with us notwithstanding and looked at the clothes in her far-off manner. She said with her placid smile, shaking her head, "My good Miss Summerson, at half the cost, this weak child might have been equipped for Africa!" On our going downstairs again, Mrs. Jellyby asked, "Will my room be required for this troublesome business, my dear Miss Summerson? For it's quite impossible that I can put my papers away." I said that the room would certainly be wanted and that I thought we must put the papers away somewhere. "Well, my dear Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Jellyby, "you know best, I dare say. But I am so overwhelmed with public business, that I don't know which way to turn. We have a Ramification meeting, too, on Wednesday afternoon, and the inconvenience is very serious." "It is not likely to occur again," said I, smiling. "Caddy will be married only once, probably." "That's true," Mrs. Jellyby replied. The next question was how Mrs. Jellyby should be dressed for the wedding. The state of her dresses, and the extraordinary confusion in which she kept them, added to our difficulty; but at length we devised something not very unlike what a commonplace mother might wear. Mrs. Jellyby tried on this attire in an abstracted manner, observing how sorry she was that I had not turned my thoughts to Africa. The lodging was rather confined, but if it had been the size of Saint Paul's it would only have afforded more room to be dirty in. I believe that none of the family possessions which it had been possible to break was unbroken at this time, nothing which it had been possible to spoil was unspoilt, and that no domestic object which was capable of collecting dirt was free of it. Poor Mr. Jellyby, who very seldom spoke and almost always sat with his head against the wall, became interested when he saw that Caddy and I were attempting to establish some order, and took off his coat to help. But such wonderful things came tumbling out of the closets - bits of mouldy pie, sour bottles, letters, tea, forks, odd boots and shoes, firewood, saucepan-lids, brushes, candle ends, nutshells, dinner-mats, gloves, coffee-grounds, umbrellas - that he looked frightened, and stopped again. But he came regularly every evening and sat with his head against the wall, as though he would have helped us if he had known how. "Poor Pa!" said Caddy to me on the night before the great day. "It seems unkind to leave him, Esther. But what could I do if I stayed? I have tidied over and over again, but it's useless. Ma and Africa, together, upset the whole house directly. Ma's ruinous to everything." Mr. Jellyby could not hear what she said, but he shed tears, I thought. "My heart aches for him!" sobbed Caddy. "I can't help thinking, Esther, how dearly I hope to be happy with Prince, and how dearly Pa hoped, I dare say, to be happy with Ma. What a disappointed life!" "My dear Caddy!" said Mr. Jellyby, looking slowly round. It was the first time, I think, I ever heard him say three words together. "Yes, Pa!" cried Caddy, going to him and embracing him affectionately. "My dear Caddy," said Mr. Jellyby. "Never have-" "Not Prince, Pa?" faltered Caddy. "Not have Prince?" "Yes, my dear," said Mr. Jellyby. "Have him, certainly. But, never have-" "Don't have what, dear Pa?" asked Caddy, with her arms round his neck. "Never have a mission, my dear child." Mr. Jellyby groaned and laid his head against the wall again. I suppose he had been more talkative and lively once, but he seemed to have been completely exhausted long before I knew him. I thought Mrs. Jellyby never would have stopped looking over her papers and drinking coffee that night. It was twelve o'clock before we could obtain possession of the room, and its state was so discouraging that Caddy, who was almost tired out, sat down in the middle of the dust and cried. But she soon cheered up, and we did wonders with it before we went to bed. In the morning it looked, by the aid of a few flowers and a quantity of soap and water, quite gay. The plain breakfast made a cheerful show, and Caddy was perfectly charming. But when my darling came, I thought - and I think now - that I never had seen such a dear face as my beautiful pet's. We made a little feast for the children upstairs, and put Peepy at the head of the table, and we showed them Caddy in her bridal dress, and they clapped their hands and hurrahed, and Caddy cried and hugged them until we brought Prince up to fetch her away - when, I am sorry to say, Peepy bit him. Old Mr. Turveydrop downstairs benignly blessed Caddy, giving my guardian to understand that he was making sacrifices to ensure his son's happiness. "My dear sir," said Mr. Turveydrop, "these young people will live with me; they shall not lack the shelter of my roof. I could have wished that my son had married into a family where there was more deportment, but the will of heaven be done!" Mr. and Mrs. Pardiggle were there, and Mr. Quale, with his hair brushed back and his temples shining very much, was also there, not in the character of a disappointed lover, but as the accepted of a Miss Wisk. The guests were few, but were, as one might expect at Mrs. Jellyby's, all devoted to public objects. Such a mean mission as the domestic mission was the very last thing to be endured by such a group; indeed, Miss Wisk informed us, with great indignation, that the idea of woman's mission lying chiefly in the narrow sphere of home was an outrageous slander by her tyrant, man. But I am anticipating the conversation on the ride home, instead of first marrying Caddy. We all went to church, and Mr. Jellyby gave her away. Old Mr. Turveydrop, with his hat under his left arm, stood stiff and high-shouldered behind us bridesmaids during the ceremony, and afterwards saluted us with inexpressible deportment. Miss Wisk grimly listened to the proceedings, as part of woman's wrongs, with a disdainful face. Mrs. Jellyby, with her calm smile, looked the least concerned of all the company. We duly came back to breakfast, and Caddy stole upstairs to hug the children again and tell them that her name was Turveydrop. But this piece of information, instead of being an agreeable surprise to Peepy, threw him on his back in such transports of kicking grief that he had to be admitted to the breakfast table. So he came down and sat in my lap; and was very good except that he brought down Noah (out of an ark I had given him) and would dip him head first into the wine-glasses and then put him in his mouth. My guardian, with his sweet temper, made something agreeable even out of this ungenial company. None of them seemed able to talk about anything but his, or her, own subject; but my guardian turned it all to the honour of the occasion, and brought us through the breakfast nobly. What we should have done without him, I am afraid to think. At last the time came when poor Caddy had to go on the hired coach that was to take her and her husband to Gravesend. It affected us to see her clinging on her mother's neck with the greatest tenderness. "I am very sorry I couldn't go on writing from dictation, Ma," sobbed Caddy. "I hope you forgive me." "Oh, Caddy, Caddy!" said Mrs. Jellyby. "I have told you over and over again that I have engaged a boy, and there's an end of it." "You are sure you are not the least angry with me, Ma? Say you are sure before I go away, Ma?" "You foolish Caddy," returned Mrs. Jellyby, "do I look angry, or have I time to be angry?" "Take care of Pa while I am gone, Mama!" Mrs. Jellyby positively laughed at the fancy. "You romantic child," said she, lightly patting Caddy's back. "Go along. I am excellent friends with you. Now, goodbye, Caddy, and be very happy!" Then Caddy hung upon her father in the hall and nursed his cheek against hers as if he were some poor dull child in pain. Her father released her, took out his handkerchief, and sat down on the stairs with his head against the wall. I hope he found some consolation in walls. And then Prince took her arm and turned with great emotion and respect to his father, whose deportment at that moment was overwhelming. "Thank you over and over again, father!" said Prince, kissing his hand. "I am very grateful for all your kindness and consideration regarding our marriage, and so, I can assure you, is Caddy." "Very," sobbed Caddy. "My dear son," said Mr. Turveydrop, "and dear daughter, I have done my duty. Your constant affection will be my recompense. You will not fail in your duty, my son and daughter, I believe?" "Dear father, never!" cried Prince. "Never, dear Mr. Turveydrop!" said Caddy. "This," returned Mr. Turveydrop, "is as it should be. My children, my home is yours, my heart is yours, my all is yours. I will never leave you; nothing but death shall part us. My dear son, you are absent for a week, I think?" "A week, dear father." "My dear child," said Mr. Turveydrop, "let me recommend strict punctuality. Schools, if at all neglected, are apt to take offence." "This day week, father, we shall be home." "Good!" said Mr. Turveydrop. "You will find fires, my dear Caroline, in your own room, and dinner prepared in my apartment. Yes, yes, Prince! You and Caroline will dine that day in my apartment. Now, bless ye!" They drove away. But before we drove away too, I received a most unexpected compliment from Mr. Jellyby. He came up to me in the hall, took both my hands, pressed them earnestly, and opened his mouth twice. I was so sure of his meaning that I said, quite flurried, "You are very welcome, sir. Pray don't mention it!" "I hope this marriage is for the best, guardian," said I when we three were on our road home. "I hope it is, little woman. We shall see." "Is the wind in the east today?" I ventured to ask. He laughed and answered, "No." My dear girl confidently answered "No" too and shook her lovely head. "Much you know of east winds, my ugly darling," said I, kissing her - I couldn't help it. Well! It was only their love for me, but to write it gives me pleasure. They said there could be no east wind where Somebody was; they said that wherever Dame Durden went, there was sunshine and summer air.

Bleak House

Chapter 30: Esther's Narrative

Mr. George has not far to ride with folded arms upon the box, for their destination is Lincoln's Inn Fields. When the driver stops his horses, Mr. George alights, and looking in at the window, says, "What, Mr. Tulkinghorn's your man, is he?" "Yes, my dear friend. Do you know him, Mr. George?" "Why, I have heard of him--seen him too, I think. But I don't know him, and he don't know me." There ensues the carrying of Mr. Smallweed upstairs, which is done to perfection with the trooper's help. He is borne into Mr. Tulkinghorn's great room and deposited on the Turkey rug before the fire. Mr. Tulkinghorn is not within at the present moment but will be back directly. The occupant of the pew in the hall, having said thus much, stirs the fire and leaves the triumvirate to warm themselves. Mr. George is mightily curious in respect of the room. He looks up at the painted ceiling, looks round at the old law-books, contemplates the portraits of the great clients, reads aloud the names on the boxes. "'Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,'" Mr. George reads thoughtfully. "Ha! 'Manor of Chesney Wold.' Humph!" Mr. George stands looking at these boxes a long while--as if they were pictures--and comes back to the fire repeating, "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and Manor of Chesney Wold, hey?" "Worth a mint of money, Mr. George!" whispers Grandfather Smallweed, rubbing his legs. "Powerfully rich!" "Who do you mean? This old gentleman, or the Baronet?" "This gentleman, this gentleman." "So I have heard; and knows a thing or two, I'll hold a wager. Not bad quarters, either," says Mr. George, looking round again. "See the strong-box yonder!" This reply is cut short by Mr. Tulkinghorn's arrival. There is no change in him, of course. Rustily drest, with his spectacles in his hand, and their very case worn threadbare. In manner, close and dry. In voice, husky and low. In face, watchful behind a blind; habitually not uncensorious and contemptuous perhaps. The peerage may have warmer worshippers and faithfuller believers than Mr. Tulkinghorn, after all, if everything were known. "Good morning, Mr. Smallweed, good morning!" he says as he comes in. "You have brought the sergeant, I see. Sit down, sergeant." As Mr. Tulkinghorn takes off his gloves and puts them in his hat, he looks with half-closed eyes across the room to where the trooper stands and says within himself perchance, "You'll do, my friend!" "Sit down, sergeant," he repeats as he comes to his table, which is set on one side of the fire, and takes his easy-chair. "Cold and raw this morning, cold and raw!" Mr. Tulkinghorn warms before the bars, alternately, the palms and knuckles of his hands and looks (from behind that blind which is always down) at the trio sitting in a little semicircle before him. "Now, I can feel what I am about" (as perhaps he can in two senses), "Mr. Smallweed." The old gentleman is newly shaken up by Judy to bear his part in the conversation. "You have brought our good friend the sergeant, I see." "Yes, sir," returns Mr. Smallweed, very servile to the lawyer's wealth and influence. "And what does the sergeant say about this business?" "Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed with a tremulous wave of his shrivelled hand, "this is the gentleman, sir." Mr. George salutes the gentleman but otherwise sits bolt upright and profoundly silent--very forward in his chair, as if the full complement of regulation appendages for a field-day hung about him. Mr. Tulkinghorn proceeds, "Well, George--I believe your name is George?" "It is so, Sir." "What do you say, George?" "I ask your pardon, sir," returns the trooper, "but I should wish to know what YOU say?" "Do you mean in point of reward?" "I mean in point of everything, sir." This is so very trying to Mr. Smallweed's temper that he suddenly breaks out with "You're a brimstone beast!" and as suddenly asks pardon of Mr. Tulkinghorn, excusing himself for this slip of the tongue by saying to Judy, "I was thinking of your grandmother, my dear." "I supposed, sergeant," Mr. Tulkinghorn resumes as he leans on one side of his chair and crosses his legs, "that Mr. Smallweed might have sufficiently explained the matter. It lies in the smallest compass, however. You served under Captain Hawdon at one time, and were his attendant in illness, and rendered him many little services, and were rather in his confidence, I am told. That is so, is it not?" "Yes, sir, that is so," says Mr. George with military brevity. "Therefore you may happen to have in your possession something--anything, no matter what; accounts, instructions, orders, a letter, anything--in Captain Hawdon's writing. I wish to compare his writing with some that I have. If you can give me the opportunity, you shall be rewarded for your trouble. Three, four, five, guineas, you would consider handsome, I dare say." "Noble, my dear friend!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, screwing up his eyes. "If not, say how much more, in your conscience as a soldier, you can demand. There is no need for you to part with the writing, against your inclination--though I should prefer to have it." Mr. George sits squared in exactly the same attitude, looks at the painted ceiling, and says never a word. The irascible Mr. Smallweed scratches the air. "The question is," says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his methodical, subdued, uninterested way, "first, whether you have any of Captain Hawdon's writing?" "First, whether I have any of Captain Hawdon's writing, sir," repeats Mr. George. "Secondly, what will satisfy you for the trouble of producing it?" "Secondly, what will satisfy me for the trouble of producing it, sir," repeats Mr. George. "Thirdly, you can judge for yourself whether it is at all like that," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, suddenly handing him some sheets of written paper tied together. "Whether it is at all like that, sir. Just so," repeats Mr. George. All three repetitions Mr. George pronounces in a mechanical manner, looking straight at Mr. Tulkinghorn; nor does he so much as glance at the affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, that has been given to him for his inspection (though he still holds it in his hand), but continues to look at the lawyer with an air of troubled meditation. "Well?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "What do you say?" "Well, sir," replies Mr. George, rising erect and looking immense, "I would rather, if you'll excuse me, have nothing to do with this." Mr. Tulkinghorn, outwardly quite undisturbed, demands, "Why not?" "Why, sir," returns the trooper. "Except on military compulsion, I am not a man of business. Among civilians I am what they call in Scotland a ne'er-do-weel. I have no head for papers, sir. I can stand any fire better than a fire of cross questions. I mentioned to Mr. Smallweed, only an hour or so ago, that when I come into things of this kind I feel as if I was being smothered. And that is my sensation," says Mr. George, looking round upon the company, "at the present moment." With that, he takes three strides forward to replace the papers on the lawyer's table and three strides backward to resume his former station, where he stands perfectly upright, now looking at the ground and now at the painted ceiling, with his hands behind him as if to prevent himself from accepting any other document whatever. Under this provocation, Mr. Smallweed's favourite adjective of disparagement is so close to his tongue that he begins the words "my dear friend" with the monosyllable "brim," thus converting the possessive pronoun into brimmy and appearing to have an impediment in his speech. Once past this difficulty, however, he exhorts his dear friend in the tenderest manner not to be rash, but to do what so eminent a gentleman requires, and to do it with a good grace, confident that it must be unobjectionable as well as profitable. Mr. Tulkinghorn merely utters an occasional sentence, as, "You are the best judge of your own interest, sergeant." "Take care you do no harm by this." "Please yourself, please yourself." "If you know what you mean, that's quite enough." These he utters with an appearance of perfect indifference as he looks over the papers on his table and prepares to write a letter. Mr. George looks distrustfully from the painted ceiling to the ground, from the ground to Mr. Smallweed, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr. Tulkinghorn, and from Mr. Tulkinghorn to the painted ceiling again, often in his perplexity changing the leg on which he rests. "I do assure you, sir," says Mr. George, "not to say it offensively, that between you and Mr. Smallweed here, I really am being smothered fifty times over. I really am, sir. I am not a match for you gentlemen. Will you allow me to ask why you want to see the captain's hand, in the case that I could find any specimen of it?" Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly shakes his head. "No. If you were a man of business, sergeant, you would not need to be informed that there are confidential reasons, very harmless in themselves, for many such wants in the profession to which I belong. But if you are afraid of doing any injury to Captain Hawdon, you may set your mind at rest about that." "Aye! He is dead, sir." "IS he?" Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly sits down to write. "Well, sir," says the trooper, looking into his hat after another disconcerted pause, "I am sorry not to have given you more satisfaction. If it would be any satisfaction to any one that I should be confirmed in my judgment that I would rather have nothing to do with this by a friend of mine who has a better head for business than I have, and who is an old soldier, I am willing to consult with him. I--I really am so completely smothered myself at present," says Mr. George, passing his hand hopelessly across his brow, "that I don't know but what it might be a satisfaction to me." Mr. Smallweed, hearing that this authority is an old soldier, so strongly inculcates the expediency of the trooper's taking counsel with him, and particularly informing him of its being a question of five guineas or more, that Mr. George engages to go and see him. Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing either way. "I'll consult my friend, then, by your leave, sir," says the trooper, "and I'll take the liberty of looking in again with the final answer in the course of the day. Mr. Smallweed, if you wish to be carried downstairs--" "In a moment, my dear friend, in a moment. Will you first let me speak half a word with this gentleman in private?" "Certainly, sir. Don't hurry yourself on my account." The trooper retires to a distant part of the room and resumes his curious inspection of the boxes, strong and otherwise. "If I wasn't as weak as a brimstone baby, sir," whispers Grandfather Smallweed, drawing the lawyer down to his level by the lapel of his coat and flashing some half-quenched green fire out of his angry eyes, "I'd tear the writing away from him. He's got it buttoned in his breast. I saw him put it there. Judy saw him put it there. Speak up, you crabbed image for the sign of a walking-stick shop, and say you saw him put it there!" This vehement conjuration the old gentleman accompanies with such a thrust at his granddaughter that it is too much for his strength, and he slips away out of his chair, drawing Mr. Tulkinghorn with him, until he is arrested by Judy, and well shaken. "Violence will not do for me, my friend," Mr. Tulkinghorn then remarks coolly. "No, no, I know, I know, sir. But it's chafing and galling--it's--it's worse than your smattering chattering magpie of a grandmother," to the imperturbable Judy, who only looks at the fire, "to know he has got what's wanted and won't give it up. He, not to give it up! HE! A vagabond! But never mind, sir, never mind. At the most, he has only his own way for a little while. I have him periodically in a vice. I'll twist him, sir. I'll screw him, sir. If he won't do it with a good grace, I'll make him do it with a bad one, sir! Now, my dear Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed, winking at the lawyer hideously as he releases him, "I am ready for your kind assistance, my excellent friend!" Mr. Tulkinghorn, with some shadowy sign of amusement manifesting itself through his self-possession, stands on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire, watching the disappearance of Mr. Smallweed and acknowledging the trooper's parting salute with one slight nod. It is more difficult to get rid of the old gentleman, Mr. George finds, than to bear a hand in carrying him downstairs, for when he is replaced in his conveyance, he is so loquacious on the subject of the guineas and retains such an affectionate hold of his button--having, in truth, a secret longing to rip his coat open and rob him--that some degree of force is necessary on the trooper's part to effect a separation. It is accomplished at last, and he proceeds alone in quest of his adviser. By the cloisterly Temple, and by Whitefriars (there, not without a glance at Hanging-Sword Alley, which would seem to be something in his way), and by Blackfriars Bridge, and Blackfriars Road, Mr. George sedately marches to a street of little shops lying somewhere in that ganglion of roads from Kent and Surrey, and of streets from the bridges of London, centring in the far-famed elephant who has lost his castle formed of a thousand four-horse coaches to a stronger iron monster than he, ready to chop him into mince-meat any day he dares. To one of the little shops in this street, which is a musician's shop, having a few fiddles in the window, and some Pan's pipes and a tambourine, and a triangle, and certain elongated scraps of music, Mr. George directs his massive tread. And halting at a few paces from it, as he sees a soldierly looking woman, with her outer skirts tucked up, come forth with a small wooden tub, and in that tub commence a-whisking and a-splashing on the margin of the pavement, Mr. George says to himself, "She's as usual, washing greens. I never saw her, except upon a baggage-waggon, when she wasn't washing greens!" The subject of this reflection is at all events so occupied in washing greens at present that she remains unsuspicious of Mr. George's approach until, lifting up herself and her tub together when she has poured the water off into the gutter, she finds him standing near her. Her reception of him is not flattering. "George, I never see you but I wish you was a hundred mile away!" The trooper, without remarking on this welcome, follows into the musical-instrument shop, where the lady places her tub of greens upon the counter, and having shaken hands with him, rests her arms upon it. "I never," she says, "George, consider Matthew Bagnet safe a minute when you're near him. You are that restless and that roving--" "Yes! I know I am, Mrs. Bagnet. I know I am." "You know you are!" says Mrs. Bagnet. "What's the use of that? WHY are you?" "The nature of the animal, I suppose," returns the trooper good-humouredly. "Ah!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, something shrilly. "But what satisfaction will the nature of the animal be to me when the animal shall have tempted my Mat away from the musical business to New Zealand or Australey?" Mrs. Bagnet is not at all an ill-looking woman. Rather large-boned, a little coarse in the grain, and freckled by the sun and wind which have tanned her hair upon the forehead, but healthy, wholesome, and bright-eyed. A strong, busy, active, honest-faced woman of from forty-five to fifty. Clean, hardy, and so economically dressed (though substantially) that the only article of ornament of which she stands possessed appear's to be her wedding-ring, around which her finger has grown to be so large since it was put on that it will never come off again until it shall mingle with Mrs. Bagnet's dust. "Mrs. Bagnet," says the trooper, "I am on my parole with you. Mat will get no harm from me. You may trust me so far." "Well, I think I may. But the very looks of you are unsettling," Mrs. Bagnet rejoins. "Ah, George, George! If you had only settled down and married Joe Pouch's widow when he died in North America, SHE'D have combed your hair for you." "It was a chance for me, certainly," returns the trooper half laughingly, half seriously, "but I shall never settle down into a respectable man now. Joe Pouch's widow might have done me good--there was something in her, and something of her--but I couldn't make up my mind to it. If I had had the luck to meet with such a wife as Mat found!" Mrs. Bagnet, who seems in a virtuous way to be under little reserve with a good sort of fellow, but to be another good sort of fellow herself for that matter, receives this compliment by flicking Mr. George in the face with a head of greens and taking her tub into the little room behind the shop. "Why, Quebec, my poppet," says George, following, on invitation, into that department. "And little Malta, too! Come and kiss your Bluffy!" These young ladies--not supposed to have been actually christened by the names applied to them, though always so called in the family from the places of their birth in barracks--are respectively employed on three-legged stools, the younger (some five or six years old) in learning her letters out of a penny primer, the elder (eight or nine perhaps) in teaching her and sewing with great assiduity. Both hail Mr. George with acclamations as an old friend and after some kissing and romping plant their stools beside him. "And how's young Woolwich?" says Mr. George. "Ah! There now!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning about from her saucepans (for she is cooking dinner) with a bright flush on her face. "Would you believe it? Got an engagement at the theayter, with his father, to play the fife in a military piece." "Well done, my godson!" cries Mr. George, slapping his thigh. "I believe you!" says Mrs. Bagnet. "He's a Briton. That's what Woolwich is. A Briton!" "And Mat blows away at his bassoon, and you're respectable civilians one and all," says Mr. George. "Family people. Children growing up. Mat's old mother in Scotland, and your old father somewhere else, corresponded with, and helped a little, and--well, well! To be sure, I don't know why I shouldn't be wished a hundred mile away, for I have not much to do with all this!" Mr. George is becoming thoughtful, sitting before the fire in the whitewashed room, which has a sanded floor and a barrack smell and contains nothing superfluous and has not a visible speck of dirt or dust in it, from the faces of Quebec and Malta to the bright tin pots and pannikins upon the dresser shelves--Mr. George is becoming thoughtful, sitting here while Mrs. Bagnet is busy, when Mr. Bagnet and young Woolwich opportunely come home. Mr. Bagnet is an ex-artilleryman, tall and upright, with shaggy eyebrows and whiskers like the fibres of a coco-nut, not a hair upon his head, and a torrid complexion. His voice, short, deep, and resonant, is not at all unlike the tones of the instrument to which he is devoted. Indeed there may be generally observed in him an unbending, unyielding, brass-bound air, as if he were himself the bassoon of the human orchestra. Young Woolwich is the type and model of a young drummer. Both father and son salute the trooper heartily. He saying, in due season, that he has come to advise with Mr. Bagnet, Mr. Bagnet hospitably declares that he will hear of no business until after dinner and that his friend shall not partake of his counsel without first partaking of boiled pork and greens. The trooper yielding to this invitation, he and Mr. Bagnet, not to embarrass the domestic preparations, go forth to take a turn up and down the little street, which they promenade with measured tread and folded arms, as if it were a rampart. "George," says Mr. Bagnet. "You know me. It's my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained. Wait till the greens is off her mind. Then we'll consult. Whatever the old girl says, do--do it!" "I intend to, Mat," replies the other. "I would sooner take her opinion than that of a college." "College," returns Mr. Bagnet in short sentences, bassoon-like. "What college could you leave--in another quarter of the world--with nothing but a grey cloak and an umbrella--to make its way home to Europe? The old girl would do it to-morrow. Did it once!" "You are right," says Mr. George. "What college," pursues Bagnet, "could you set up in life--with two penn'orth of white lime--a penn'orth of fuller's earth--a ha'porth of sand--and the rest of the change out of sixpence in money? That's what the old girl started on. In the present business." "I am rejoiced to hear it's thriving, Mat." "The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, acquiescing, "saves. Has a stocking somewhere. With money in it. I never saw it. But I know she's got it. Wait till the greens is off her mind. Then she'll set you up." "She is a treasure!" exclaims Mr. George. "She's more. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained. It was the old girl that brought out my musical abilities. I should have been in the artillery now but for the old girl. Six years I hammered at the fiddle. Ten at the flute. The old girl said it wouldn't do; intention good, but want of flexibility; try the bassoon. The old girl borrowed a bassoon from the bandmaster of the Rifle Regiment. I practised in the trenches. Got on, got another, get a living by it!" George remarks that she looks as fresh as a rose and as sound as an apple. "The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet in reply, "is a thoroughly fine woman. Consequently she is like a thoroughly fine day. Gets finer as she gets on. I never saw the old girl's equal. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained!" Proceeding to converse on indifferent matters, they walk up and down the little street, keeping step and time, until summoned by Quebec and Malta to do justice to the pork and greens, over which Mrs. Bagnet, like a military chaplain, says a short grace. In the distribution of these comestibles, as in every other household duty, Mrs. Bagnet developes an exact system, sitting with every dish before her, allotting to every portion of pork its own portion of pot-liquor, greens, potatoes, and even mustard, and serving it out complete. Having likewise served out the beer from a can and thus supplied the mess with all things necessary, Mrs. Bagnet proceeds to satisfy her own hunger, which is in a healthy state. The kit of the mess, if the table furniture may be so denominated, is chiefly composed of utensils of horn and tin that have done duty in several parts of the world. Young Woolwich's knife, in particular, which is of the oyster kind, with the additional feature of a strong shutting-up movement which frequently balks the appetite of that young musician, is mentioned as having gone in various hands the complete round of foreign service. The dinner done, Mrs. Bagnet, assisted by the younger branches (who polish their own cups and platters, knives and forks), makes all the dinner garniture shine as brightly as before and puts it all away, first sweeping the hearth, to the end that Mr. Bagnet and the visitor may not be retarded in the smoking of their pipes. These household cares involve much pattening and counter-pattening in the backyard and considerable use of a pail, which is finally so happy as to assist in the ablutions of Mrs. Bagnet herself. That old girl reappearing by and by, quite fresh, and sitting down to her needlework, then and only then--the greens being only then to be considered as entirely off her mind--Mr. Bagnet requests the trooper to state his case. This Mr. George does with great discretion, appearing to address himself to Mr. Bagnet, but having an eye solely on the old girl all the time, as Bagnet has himself. She, equally discreet, busies herself with her needlework. The case fully stated, Mr. Bagnet resorts to his standard artifice for the maintenance of discipline. "That's the whole of it, is it, George?" says he. "That's the whole of it." "You act according to my opinion?" "I shall be guided," replies George, "entirely by it." "Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "give him my opinion. You know it. Tell him what it is." It is that he cannot have too little to do with people who are too deep for him and cannot be too careful of interference with matters he does not understand--that the plain rule is to do nothing in the dark, to be a party to nothing underhanded or mysterious, and never to put his foot where he cannot see the ground. This, in effect, is Mr. Bagnet's opinion, as delivered through the old girl, and it so relieves Mr. George's mind by confirming his own opinion and banishing his doubts that he composes himself to smoke another pipe on that exceptional occasion and to have a talk over old times with the whole Bagnet family, according to their various ranges of experience. Through these means it comes to pass that Mr. George does not again rise to his full height in that parlour until the time is drawing on when the bassoon and fife are expected by a British public at the theatre; and as it takes time even then for Mr. George, in his domestic character of Bluffy, to take leave of Quebec and Malta and insinuate a sponsorial shilling into the pocket of his godson with felicitations on his success in life, it is dark when Mr. George again turns his face towards Lincoln's Inn Fields. "A family home," he ruminates as he marches along, "however small it is, makes a man like me look lonely. But it's well I never made that evolution of matrimony. I shouldn't have been fit for it. I am such a vagabond still, even at my present time of life, that I couldn't hold to the gallery a month together if it was a regular pursuit or if I didn't camp there, gipsy fashion. Come! I disgrace nobody and cumber nobody; that's something. I have not done that for many a long year!" So he whistles it off and marches on. Arrived in Lincoln's Inn Fields and mounting Mr. Tulkinghorn's stair, he finds the outer door closed and the chambers shut, but the trooper not knowing much about outer doors, and the staircase being dark besides, he is yet fumbling and groping about, hoping to discover a bell-handle or to open the door for himself, when Mr. Tulkinghorn comes up the stairs (quietly, of course) and angrily asks, "Who is that? What are you doing there?" "I ask your pardon, sir. It's George. The sergeant." "And couldn't George, the sergeant, see that my door was locked?" "Why, no, sir, I couldn't. At any rate, I didn't," says the trooper, rather nettled. "Have you changed your mind? Or are you in the same mind?" Mr. Tulkinghorn demands. But he knows well enough at a glance. "In the same mind, sir." "I thought so. That's sufficient. You can go. So you are the man," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, opening his door with the key, "in whose hiding-place Mr. Gridley was found?" "Yes, I AM the man," says the trooper, stopping two or three stairs down. "What then, sir?" "What then? I don't like your associates. You should not have seen the inside of my door this morning if I had thought of your being that man. Gridley? A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow." With these words, spoken in an unusually high tone for him, the lawyer goes into his rooms and shuts the door with a thundering noise. Mr. George takes his dismissal in great dudgeon, the greater because a clerk coming up the stairs has heard the last words of all and evidently applies them to him. "A pretty character to bear," the trooper growls with a hasty oath as he strides downstairs. "A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow!" And looking up, he sees the clerk looking down at him and marking him as he passes a lamp. This so intensifies his dudgeon that for five minutes he is in an ill humour. But he whistles that off like the rest of it and marches home to the shooting gallery.

They have not far to go, for their destination is Lincoln's Inn Fields. When the driver stops his horses, Mr. George alights, and looking in at the window, says, "What, Mr. Tulkinghorn's your man, is he?" "Yes, my dear friend. Do you know him, Mr. George?" "Why, I have heard of him. But I don't know him." With the trooper's help, Mr. Smallweed is carried upstairs into Mr. Tulkinghorn's great room and deposited on the rug before the fire. They are told that Mr. Tulkinghorn is not in, but will be back directly. Mr. George is mightily curious about the room. He looks round at the old law-books, contemplates the portraits of the great clients, reads aloud the names on the boxes. "'Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,'" Mr. George reads thoughtfully. "Ha! 'Manor of Chesney Wold.' Humph!" He stands looking at these boxes a long while, and comes back to the fire repeating, "Sir Leicester Dedlock, of Chesney Wold, hey?" "Worth a mint of money, Mr. George!" whispers Grandfather Smallweed, rubbing his legs. "Who do you mean? This old gentleman, or the Baronet?" "This gentleman." "So I have heard; and knows a thing or two, I'll wager. Not bad quarters, either," says Mr. George, looking round again. This reply is cut short by Mr. Tulkinghorn's arrival. Rustily dressed; in manner, close and dry. In voice, husky and low. In face, watchful behind a blind; contemptuous perhaps. "Good morning, Mr. Smallweed!" he says. "You have brought the sergeant, I see. Sit down, sergeant." He looks with half-closed eyes to where the trooper stands, then takes his easy-chair. "Cold and raw this morning! Now, Mr. Smallweed, what does the sergeant say about this business?" Mr. George salutes the gentleman but otherwise sits bolt upright and profoundly silent. "What do you say, George?" "I ask your pardon, sir," returns the trooper, "but I should wish to know what you say?" "Do you mean in point of reward?" "I mean in point of everything, sir." This is so very trying to Mr. Smallweed's temper that he suddenly breaks out with "You're a brimstone beast!" "I supposed, sergeant," Mr. Tulkinghorn says, "that Mr. Smallweed might have sufficiently explained the matter. You served under Captain Hawdon at one time, and were his attendant in illness, and were rather in his confidence, I am told. That is so, is it not?" "Yes, sir, that is so," says Mr. George. "Therefore you may happen to have in your possession something - anything, no matter what; accounts, instructions, a letter, anything - in Captain Hawdon's writing. I wish to compare his writing with some that I have. You shall be rewarded for your trouble. Three, four, five guineas, I dare say. There is no need for you to part with the writing - though I should prefer to have it." Mr. George says never a word. The irascible Mr. Smallweed scratches the air. "The question is," says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his methodical, uninterested way, "first, whether you have any of Captain Hawdon's writing? Secondly, what will satisfy you for the trouble of producing it? Thirdly, you can judge for yourself whether it is at all like that," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, suddenly handing him some sheets of written paper. Mr. George looks straight at Mr. Tulkinghorn; he does not so much as glance at the affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, that has been given to him for his inspection. "Well?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "What do you say?" "Well, sir," replies Mr. George, rising and looking immense, "I would rather, if you'll excuse me, have nothing to do with this." Mr. Tulkinghorn, outwardly quite undisturbed, demands, "Why not?" "Why, sir," returns the trooper, "I am not a man of business. I have no head for papers, sir." With that, he takes three strides forward to replace the papers on the lawyer's table and three strides backward to resume his former station, where he stands perfectly upright with his hands behind him. Under this provocation, Mr. Smallweed's favourite adjective is so close to his tongue that he begins the words "my dear friend" with "brim," thus appearing to have an impediment in his speech. Once past this difficulty, however, he exhorts his dear friend not to be rash, but to do what the gentleman requires. Mr. Tulkinghorn merely says, "You are the best judge of your own interest, sergeant. Take care you do no harm by this." He has an appearance of perfect indifference as he looks over the papers on his table. Mr. George looks distrustfully from one to the other. "Will you allow me to ask why you want to see the captain's hand, if I could find any specimen of it?" Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly shakes his head. "No. If you were a man of business, sergeant, you would not need to be informed that there are confidential reasons for many such requests in my profession. But if you are afraid of doing any injury to Captain Hawdon, you may set your mind at rest." "Aye! He is dead, sir." "Is he?" Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly sits down to write. "Well, sir," says the trooper, looking into his hat after a disconcerted pause, "I am sorry not to have given you more satisfaction. I am willing to consult with a friend of mine who has a better head for business than I have, and who is an old soldier. I - I think that might be best," says Mr. George, passing his hand hopelessly across his brow. Mr. Smallweed strongly urges him to consult this old soldier. Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing either way. "I'll consult my friend, then, sir," says the trooper, "and I'll take the liberty of looking in again with the final answer in the course of the day. Mr. Smallweed, if you wish to be carried downstairs-" "In a moment, my dear friend. Will you first let me speak a word with this gentleman in private?" "Certainly, sir." The trooper retires to a distant part of the room. "If I wasn't as weak as a brimstone baby, sir," whispers Grandfather Smallweed, drawing the lawyer down to his level by the lapel of his coat, "I'd tear the writing away from him. He's got it buttoned in his breast. I saw him put it there. Judy saw him put it there. Speak up, Judy!" The old gentleman accompanies this such a thrust at his granddaughter that it is too much for his strength, and he slips out of his chair, until he is arrested by Judy, and well shaken. "Violence will not do for me, my friend," Mr. Tulkinghorn remarks coolly. "No, I know, sir. But it's galling to know he has got what's wanted and won't give it up. Vagabond! But never mind, sir. At the most, he has only his own way for a little while. I have him in a vice. I'll twist him, sir. I'll screw him. Now, my dear Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed, winking at the lawyer hideously, "I am ready for your kind assistance, my excellent friend!" Mr. Tulkinghorn, showing some shadowy sign of amusement through his self-possession, stands on the hearth-rug watching the disappearance of Mr. Smallweed and acknowledging the trooper's parting salute with a slight nod. Mr. George finds it difficult to get rid of the old gentleman. When he is replaced in his carriage, he retains such an affectionate hold of Mr. George's button - having, in truth, a secret longing to rip his coat open and rob him - that some force is necessary on the trooper's part to separate them. Then he proceeds alone in quest of his adviser. By Whitefriars, and by Blackfriars Bridge, Mr. George sedately marches to a street of little shops lying in that tangle of roads centring in the far-famed elephant and castle. To one of the little shops in this street, which is a musician's shop, with a few fiddles and a tambourine in the window, Mr. George directs his massive tread. He halts a few paces from it, as he sees a soldierly looking woman come forth with a small wooden tub, and commence a-whisking and a-splashing on the margin of the pavement. Mr. George says to himself, "She's as usual, washing greens. I never saw her when she wasn't washing greens!" The subject of this reflection remains unsuspicious of Mr. George's approach until she has poured the water off into the gutter, and finds him standing near her. Her reception is not flattering. "George, I never see you but I wish you was a hundred mile away!" The trooper, without remarking on this welcome, follows her into the shop, where the lady places her tub upon the counter, and having shaken hands with him, rests her arms upon it. "I never," she says, "consider Matthew Bagnet safe a minute when you're near him, George. You are that restless, roving-" "Yes! I know I am, Mrs. Bagnet. It's my nature, I suppose." "Ah!" cries Mrs. Bagnet. "But what good will that be when your nature shall have tempted my Mat away from the musical business to New Zealand or Australey?" Mrs. Bagnet is not an ill-looking woman. Rather large-boned, and freckled by the sun and wind, but a healthy, wholesome, active, honest-faced woman of from forty-five to fifty. Clean and economically dressed; her only ornament is her wedding-ring, around which her finger has grown to be so large since it was put on that it will never come off again. "Mrs. Bagnet," says the trooper, "Mat will get no harm from me. You may trust me." "Well, I think I may. But the very looks of you are unsettling," Mrs. Bagnet rejoins. "Ah, George! If you had only settled down and married Joe Pouch's widow!" "It was a chance for me, certainly," returns the trooper half laughingly, "but I shall never settle down into a respectable man now. If I had only had the luck to meet with such a wife as Mat found!" Mrs. Bagnet receives this compliment by flicking Mr. George in the face with a head of greens and taking her tub into the little room behind the shop. "Why, Quebec, my poppet," says George, following at her invitation. "And little Malta, too! Come and kiss your Bluffy!" These young ladies - not actually christened by these names, though always so called, from the places of their birth in barracks - are sitting on stools, the younger (five or six years old) learning her letters out of a penny primer, the elder (eight or nine) teaching her and sewing. Both hail Mr. George as an old friend and after some kissing and romping plant their stools beside him. "And how's young Woolwich?" says Mr. George. "Ah! There now!" cries Mrs. Bagnet. "Would you believe it? Got an engagement at the theayter, with his father, to play the fife in a military piece." "Well done, my godson!" cries Mr. George, slapping his thigh. "And Mat blows away at his bassoon, and you're respectable civilians one and all. "Family people. To be sure, I don't know why I shouldn't be wished a hundred mile away, for I have not much to do with all this!" Mr. George is becoming thoughtful, sitting before the fire in the whitewashed room, which contains nothing superfluous and has not a speck of dust - Mr. George is becoming thoughtful, when Mr. Bagnet and young Woolwich come home. Mr. Bagnet is an ex-artilleryman, tall and upright, with shaggy eyebrows and whiskers, a bald head, and a torrid complexion. His voice, deep, and resonant, is not at all unlike the tones of his bassoon. Both father and son salute the trooper heartily. When he says that he has come to seek advice with Mr. Bagnet, Mr. Bagnet declares that he will hear of no business until after dinner and that his friend shall first partake of boiled pork and greens. While dinner is being prepared, he and the trooper go forth to take a turn up and down the little street with measured tread and folded arms. "George," says Mr. Bagnet. "You know me. It's my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never admit to it before her. Discipline must be maintained. Wait till the greens is off her mind. Then we'll consult. Whatever the old girl says, do it!" "I intend to, Mat," replies the other. "I would sooner take her opinion than that of a college." "College," returns Mr. Bagnet, bassoon-like. "What college could you leave - in another part of the world - with nothing but a grey cloak and an umbrella - to make its way home to Europe? The old girl would do it tomorrow. Did it once!" "You are right," says Mr. George. "What college," pursues Bagnet, "could you set up in life - with three penn'orth of lime and fuller's earth? That's what the old girl started on. In the present cleaning business." "I am rejoiced to hear it's thriving, Mat." "The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "saves. Has a stocking somewhere. With money in it. I never saw it. But I know she's got it. Wait till the greens is off her mind. Then she'll set you up." "She is a treasure!" exclaims Mr. George. "She's more. But I never admit it before her. Discipline must be maintained. I would have been in the artillery now but for the old girl. Six years I hammered at the fiddle. Ten at the flute. The old girl said it wouldn't do; try the bassoon. The old girl borrowed a bassoon from the bandmaster of the Rifle Regiment. I practised in the trenches. Got on, get a living by it!" George remarks that she looks as fresh as a rose and as sound as an apple. "The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "is a thoroughly fine woman. Gets finer as she gets on. I never saw the old girl's equal. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained!" They walk up and down the little street, keeping step, until summoned by Quebec and Malta to do justice to the pork and greens. The table-ware is chiefly composed of utensils of horn and tin that have done duty in several parts of the world. The dinner done, Mrs. Bagnet, assisted by the younger branches (who polish their own cups and platters, knives and forks), puts all away and sweeps the hearth, so that Mr. Bagnet and the visitor may smoke their pipes. When Mrs. Bagnet reappears from the backyard and sits down to her needlework, then and only then - the greens being entirely off her mind - Mr. Bagnet requests the trooper to state his case. This Mr. George does in full, appearing to address himself to Mr. Bagnet, but having an eye solely on the old girl all the time. "That's the whole of it, is it, George?" says Mr. Bagnet. "That's the whole of it." "You act according to my opinion?" "I shall be guided," replies George, "entirely by it." "Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "give him my opinion. You know it. Tell him what it is." It is that he should have nothing to do with people who are too deep for him, and cannot be too careful of matters he does not understand - the plain rule is to be a party to nothing underhanded or mysterious, and never to put his foot where he cannot see the ground. This, in effect, is Mr. Bagnet's opinion, as delivered through the old girl, and it relieves Mr. George's mind by confirming his own opinion. He smokes another pipe and has a talk over old times with the whole Bagnet family. Thus time draws on, until the bassoon and fife are expected at the theatre; and Mr. George takes leave of Quebec and Malta and insinuates a shilling into his godson's pocket. It is dark when he again turns his face towards Lincoln's Inn Fields. "A family home," he ruminates as he marches along, "makes a man like me look lonely. But it's well I never married. I shouldn't have been fit for it. I am such a vagabond still, even now, that I couldn't keep to the gallery a month together if I didn't camp there, gipsy fashion. Come! I disgrace nobody and encumber nobody; that's something!" Back in Lincoln's Inn Fields and mounting Mr. Tulkinghorn's stair, he finds the outer door closed and the chambers shut. The trooper is fumbling and groping about in the dark of the stairs, hoping to discover a bell-handle, when Mr. Tulkinghorn comes up the stairs (quietly, of course) and angrily asks, "Who is that? What are you doing there?" "I ask your pardon, sir. It's George. The sergeant." "And couldn't you see that my door was locked?" "Why, no, sir, I couldn't," says the trooper, rather nettled. "Have you changed your mind? Or are you in the same mind?" Mr. Tulkinghorn demands. But he knows well enough at a glance. "In the same mind, sir." "I thought so. That's sufficient. You can go. So you are the man," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, opening his door with the key, "in whose hiding-place Mr. Gridley was found?" "Yes, I am the man," says the trooper, stopping two or three stairs down. "What then, sir?" "I don't like your associates. A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow." With these words, spoken in an unusually high tone for him, the lawyer goes into his rooms and slams the door. Mr. George takes his dismissal in great dudgeon, the greater because a clerk coming up the stairs with a lamp has heard the last words and evidently applies them to him, by the way he studies his face. For five minutes Mr. George is in an ill humour. But he whistles that off like the rest of it and marches home to the shooting gallery.

Bleak House

Chapter 27: More Old Soldiers Than One

A touch on the lawyer's wrinkled hand as he stands in the dark room, irresolute, makes him start and say, "What's that?" "It's me," returns the old man of the house, whose breath is in his ear. "Can't you wake him?" "No." "What have you done with your candle?" "It's gone out. Here it is." Krook takes it, goes to the fire, stoops over the red embers, and tries to get a light. The dying ashes have no light to spare, and his endeavours are vain. Muttering, after an ineffectual call to his lodger, that he will go downstairs and bring a lighted candle from the shop, the old man departs. Mr. Tulkinghorn, for some new reason that he has, does not await his return in the room, but on the stairs outside. The welcome light soon shines upon the wall, as Krook comes slowly up with his green-eyed cat following at his heels. "Does the man generally sleep like this?" inquired the lawyer in a low voice. "Hi! I don't know," says Krook, shaking his head and lifting his eyebrows. "I know next to nothing of his habits except that he keeps himself very close." Thus whispering, they both go in together. As the light goes in, the great eyes in the shutters, darkening, seem to close. Not so the eyes upon the bed. "God save us!" exclaims Mr. Tulkinghorn. "He is dead!" Krook drops the heavy hand he has taken up so suddenly that the arm swings over the bedside. They look at one another for a moment. "Send for some doctor! Call for Miss Flite up the stairs, sir. Here's poison by the bed! Call out for Flite, will you?" says Krook, with his lean hands spread out above the body like a vampire's wings. Mr. Tulkinghorn hurries to the landing and calls, "Miss Flite! Flite! Make haste, here, whoever you are! Flite!" Krook follows him with his eyes, and while he is calling, finds opportunity to steal to the old portmanteau and steal back again. "Run, Flite, run! The nearest doctor! Run!" So Mr. Krook addresses a crazy little woman who is his female lodger, who appears and vanishes in a breath, who soon returns accompanied by a testy medical man brought from his dinner, with a broad, snuffy upper lip and a broad Scotch tongue. "Ey! Bless the hearts o' ye," says the medical man, looking up at them after a moment's examination. "He's just as dead as Phairy!" Mr. Tulkinghorn (standing by the old portmanteau) inquires if he has been dead any time. "Any time, sir?" says the medical gentleman. "It's probable he wull have been dead aboot three hours." "About that time, I should say," observes a dark young man on the other side of the bed. "Air you in the maydickle prayfession yourself, sir?" inquires the first. The dark young man says yes. "Then I'll just tak' my depairture," replies the other, "for I'm nae gude here!" With which remark he finishes his brief attendance and returns to finish his dinner. The dark young surgeon passes the candle across and across the face and carefully examines the law-writer, who has established his pretensions to his name by becoming indeed No one. "I knew this person by sight very well," says he. "He has purchased opium of me for the last year and a half. Was anybody present related to him?" glancing round upon the three bystanders. "I was his landlord," grimly answers Krook, taking the candle from the surgeon's outstretched hand. "He told me once I was the nearest relation he had." "He has died," says the surgeon, "of an over-dose of opium, there is no doubt. The room is strongly flavoured with it. There is enough here now," taking an old tea-pot from Mr. Krook, "to kill a dozen people." "Do you think he did it on purpose?" asks Krook. "Took the over-dose?" "Yes!" Krook almost smacks his lips with the unction of a horrible interest. "I can't say. I should think it unlikely, as he has been in the habit of taking so much. But nobody can tell. He was very poor, I suppose?" "I suppose he was. His room--don't look rich," says Krook, who might have changed eyes with his cat, as he casts his sharp glance around. "But I have never been in it since he had it, and he was too close to name his circumstances to me." "Did he owe you any rent?" "Six weeks." "He will never pay it!" says the young man, resuming his examination. "It is beyond a doubt that he is indeed as dead as Pharaoh; and to judge from his appearance and condition, I should think it a happy release. Yet he must have been a good figure when a youth, and I dare say, good-looking." He says this, not unfeelingly, while sitting on the bedstead's edge with his face towards that other face and his hand upon the region of the heart. "I recollect once thinking there was something in his manner, uncouth as it was, that denoted a fall in life. Was that so?" he continues, looking round. Krook replies, "You might as well ask me to describe the ladies whose heads of hair I have got in sacks downstairs. Than that he was my lodger for a year and a half and lived--or didn't live--by law-writing, I know no more of him." During this dialogue Mr. Tulkinghorn has stood aloof by the old portmanteau, with his hands behind him, equally removed, to all appearance, from all three kinds of interest exhibited near the bed--from the young surgeon's professional interest in death, noticeable as being quite apart from his remarks on the deceased as an individual; from the old man's unction; and the little crazy woman's awe. His imperturbable face has been as inexpressive as his rusty clothes. One could not even say he has been thinking all this while. He has shown neither patience nor impatience, nor attention nor abstraction. He has shown nothing but his shell. As easily might the tone of a delicate musical instrument be inferred from its case, as the tone of Mr. Tulkinghorn from his case. He now interposes, addressing the young surgeon in his unmoved, professional way. "I looked in here," he observes, "just before you, with the intention of giving this deceased man, whom I never saw alive, some employment at his trade of copying. I had heard of him from my stationer--Snagsby of Cook's Court. Since no one here knows anything about him, it might be as well to send for Snagsby. Ah!" to the little crazy woman, who has often seen him in court, and whom he has often seen, and who proposes, in frightened dumb-show, to go for the law-stationer. "Suppose you do!" While she is gone, the surgeon abandons his hopeless investigation and covers its subject with the patchwork counterpane. Mr. Krook and he interchange a word or two. Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing, but stands, ever, near the old portmanteau. Mr. Snagsby arrives hastily in his grey coat and his black sleeves. "Dear me, dear me," he says; "and it has come to this, has it! Bless my soul!" "Can you give the person of the house any information about this unfortunate creature, Snagsby?" inquires Mr. Tulkinghorn. "He was in arrears with his rent, it seems. And he must be buried, you know." "Well, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, coughing his apologetic cough behind his hand, "I really don't know what advice I could offer, except sending for the beadle." "I don't speak of advice," returns Mr. Tulkinghorn. "I could advise--" "No one better, sir, I am sure," says Mr. Snagsby, with his deferential cough. "I speak of affording some clue to his connexions, or to where he came from, or to anything concerning him." "I assure you, sir," says Mr. Snagsby after prefacing his reply with his cough of general propitiation, "that I no more know where he came from than I know--" "Where he has gone to, perhaps," suggests the surgeon to help him out. A pause. Mr. Tulkinghorn looking at the law-stationer. Mr. Krook, with his mouth open, looking for somebody to speak next. "As to his connexions, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, "if a person was to say to me, 'Snagsby, here's twenty thousand pound down, ready for you in the Bank of England if you'll only name one of 'em,' I couldn't do it, sir! About a year and a half ago--to the best of my belief, at the time when he first came to lodge at the present rag and bottle shop--" "That was the time!" says Krook with a nod. "About a year and a half ago," says Mr. Snagsby, strengthened, "he came into our place one morning after breakfast, and finding my little woman (which I name Mrs. Snagsby when I use that appellation) in our shop, produced a specimen of his handwriting and gave her to understand that he was in want of copying work to do and was, not to put too fine a point upon it," a favourite apology for plain speaking with Mr. Snagsby, which he always offers with a sort of argumentative frankness, "hard up! My little woman is not in general partial to strangers, particular--not to put too fine a point upon it--when they want anything. But she was rather took by something about this person, whether by his being unshaved, or by his hair being in want of attention, or by what other ladies' reasons, I leave you to judge; and she accepted of the specimen, and likewise of the address. My little woman hasn't a good ear for names," proceeds Mr. Snagsby after consulting his cough of consideration behind his hand, "and she considered Nemo equally the same as Nimrod. In consequence of which, she got into a habit of saying to me at meals, 'Mr. Snagsby, you haven't found Nimrod any work yet!' or 'Mr. Snagsby, why didn't you give that eight and thirty Chancery folio in Jarndyce to Nimrod?' or such like. And that is the way he gradually fell into job-work at our place; and that is the most I know of him except that he was a quick hand, and a hand not sparing of night-work, and that if you gave him out, say, five and forty folio on the Wednesday night, you would have it brought in on the Thursday morning. All of which--" Mr. Snagsby concludes by politely motioning with his hat towards the bed, as much as to add, "I have no doubt my honourable friend would confirm if he were in a condition to do it." "Hadn't you better see," says Mr. Tulkinghorn to Krook, "whether he had any papers that may enlighten you? There will be an inquest, and you will be asked the question. You can read?" "No, I can't," returns the old man with a sudden grin. "Snagsby," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "look over the room for him. He will get into some trouble or difficulty otherwise. Being here, I'll wait if you make haste, and then I can testify on his behalf, if it should ever be necessary, that all was fair and right. If you will hold the candle for Mr. Snagsby, my friend, he'll soon see whether there is anything to help you." "In the first place, here's an old portmanteau, sir," says Snagsby. Ah, to be sure, so there is! Mr. Tulkinghorn does not appear to have seen it before, though he is standing so close to it, and though there is very little else, heaven knows. The marine-store merchant holds the light, and the law-stationer conducts the search. The surgeon leans against the corner of the chimney-piece; Miss Flite peeps and trembles just within the door. The apt old scholar of the old school, with his dull black breeches tied with ribbons at the knees, his large black waistcoat, his long-sleeved black coat, and his wisp of limp white neckerchief tied in the bow the peerage knows so well, stands in exactly the same place and attitude. There are some worthless articles of clothing in the old portmanteau; there is a bundle of pawnbrokers' duplicates, those turnpike tickets on the road of poverty; there is a crumpled paper, smelling of opium, on which are scrawled rough memoranda--as, took, such a day, so many grains; took, such another day, so many more--begun some time ago, as if with the intention of being regularly continued, but soon left off. There are a few dirty scraps of newspapers, all referring to coroners' inquests; there is nothing else. They search the cupboard and the drawer of the ink-splashed table. There is not a morsel of an old letter or of any other writing in either. The young surgeon examines the dress on the law-writer. A knife and some odd halfpence are all he finds. Mr. Snagsby's suggestion is the practical suggestion after all, and the beadle must be called in. So the little crazy lodger goes for the beadle, and the rest come out of the room. "Don't leave the cat there!" says the surgeon; "that won't do!" Mr. Krook therefore drives her out before him, and she goes furtively downstairs, winding her lithe tail and licking her lips. "Good night!" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, and goes home to Allegory and meditation. By this time the news has got into the court. Groups of its inhabitants assemble to discuss the thing, and the outposts of the army of observation (principally boys) are pushed forward to Mr. Krook's window, which they closely invest. A policeman has already walked up to the room, and walked down again to the door, where he stands like a tower, only condescending to see the boys at his base occasionally; but whenever he does see them, they quail and fall back. Mrs. Perkins, who has not been for some weeks on speaking terms with Mrs. Piper in consequence for an unpleasantness originating in young Perkins' having "fetched" young Piper "a crack," renews her friendly intercourse on this auspicious occasion. The potboy at the corner, who is a privileged amateur, as possessing official knowledge of life and having to deal with drunken men occasionally, exchanges confidential communications with the policeman and has the appearance of an impregnable youth, unassailable by truncheons and unconfinable in station-houses. People talk across the court out of window, and bare-headed scouts come hurrying in from Chancery Lane to know what's the matter. The general feeling seems to be that it's a blessing Mr. Krook warn't made away with first, mingled with a little natural disappointment that he was not. In the midst of this sensation, the beadle arrives. The beadle, though generally understood in the neighbourhood to be a ridiculous institution, is not without a certain popularity for the moment, if it were only as a man who is going to see the body. The policeman considers him an imbecile civilian, a remnant of the barbarous watchmen times, but gives him admission as something that must be borne with until government shall abolish him. The sensation is heightened as the tidings spread from mouth to mouth that the beadle is on the ground and has gone in. By and by the beadle comes out, once more intensifying the sensation, which has rather languished in the interval. He is understood to be in want of witnesses for the inquest to-morrow who can tell the coroner and jury anything whatever respecting the deceased. Is immediately referred to innumerable people who can tell nothing whatever. Is made more imbecile by being constantly informed that Mrs. Green's son "was a law-writer his-self and knowed him better than anybody," which son of Mrs. Green's appears, on inquiry, to be at the present time aboard a vessel bound for China, three months out, but considered accessible by telegraph on application to the Lords of the Admiralty. Beadle goes into various shops and parlours, examining the inhabitants, always shutting the door first, and by exclusion, delay, and general idiotcy exasperating the public. Policeman seen to smile to potboy. Public loses interest and undergoes reaction. Taunts the beadle in shrill youthful voices with having boiled a boy, choruses fragments of a popular song to that effect and importing that the boy was made into soup for the workhouse. Policeman at last finds it necessary to support the law and seize a vocalist, who is released upon the flight of the rest on condition of his getting out of this then, come, and cutting it--a condition he immediately observes. So the sensation dies off for the time; and the unmoved policeman (to whom a little opium, more or less, is nothing), with his shining hat, stiff stock, inflexible great-coat, stout belt and bracelet, and all things fitting, pursues his lounging way with a heavy tread, beating the palms of his white gloves one against the other and stopping now and then at a street-corner to look casually about for anything between a lost child and a murder. Under cover of the night, the feeble-minded beadle comes flitting about Chancery Lane with his summonses, in which every juror's name is wrongly spelt, and nothing rightly spelt but the beadle's own name, which nobody can read or wants to know. The summonses served and his witnesses forewarned, the beadle goes to Mr. Krook's to keep a small appointment he has made with certain paupers, who, presently arriving, are conducted upstairs, where they leave the great eyes in the shutter something new to stare at, in that last shape which earthly lodgings take for No one--and for Every one. And all that night the coffin stands ready by the old portmanteau; and the lonely figure on the bed, whose path in life has lain through five and forty years, lies there with no more track behind him that any one can trace than a deserted infant. Next day the court is all alive--is like a fair, as Mrs. Perkins, more than reconciled to Mrs. Piper, says in amicable conversation with that excellent woman. The coroner is to sit in the first-floor room at the Sol's Arms, where the Harmonic Meetings take place twice a week and where the chair is filled by a gentleman of professional celebrity, faced by Little Swills, the comic vocalist, who hopes (according to the bill in the window) that his friends will rally round him and support first-rate talent. The Sol's Arms does a brisk stroke of business all the morning. Even children so require sustaining under the general excitement that a pieman who has established himself for the occasion at the corner of the court says his brandy-balls go off like smoke. What time the beadle, hovering between the door of Mr. Krook's establishment and the door of the Sol's Arms, shows the curiosity in his keeping to a few discreet spirits and accepts the compliment of a glass of ale or so in return. At the appointed hour arrives the coroner, for whom the jurymen are waiting and who is received with a salute of skittles from the good dry skittle-ground attached to the Sol's Arms. The coroner frequents more public-houses than any man alive. The smell of sawdust, beer, tobacco-smoke, and spirits is inseparable in his vocation from death in its most awful shapes. He is conducted by the beadle and the landlord to the Harmonic Meeting Room, where he puts his hat on the piano and takes a Windsor-chair at the head of a long table formed of several short tables put together and ornamented with glutinous rings in endless involutions, made by pots and glasses. As many of the jury as can crowd together at the table sit there. The rest get among the spittoons and pipes or lean against the piano. Over the coroner's head is a small iron garland, the pendant handle of a bell, which rather gives the majesty of the court the appearance of going to be hanged presently. Call over and swear the jury! While the ceremony is in progress, sensation is created by the entrance of a chubby little man in a large shirt-collar, with a moist eye and an inflamed nose, who modestly takes a position near the door as one of the general public, but seems familiar with the room too. A whisper circulates that this is Little Swills. It is considered not unlikely that he will get up an imitation of the coroner and make it the principal feature of the Harmonic Meeting in the evening. "Well, gentlemen--" the coroner begins. "Silence there, will you!" says the beadle. Not to the coroner, though it might appear so. "Well, gentlemen," resumes the coroner. "You are impanelled here to inquire into the death of a certain man. Evidence will be given before you as to the circumstances attending that death, and you will give your verdict according to the--skittles; they must be stopped, you know, beadle!--evidence, and not according to anything else. The first thing to be done is to view the body." "Make way there!" cries the beadle. So they go out in a loose procession, something after the manner of a straggling funeral, and make their inspection in Mr. Krook's back second floor, from which a few of the jurymen retire pale and precipitately. The beadle is very careful that two gentlemen not very neat about the cuffs and buttons (for whose accommodation he has provided a special little table near the coroner in the Harmonic Meeting Room) should see all that is to be seen. For they are the public chroniclers of such inquiries by the line; and he is not superior to the universal human infirmity, but hopes to read in print what "Mooney, the active and intelligent beadle of the district," said and did and even aspires to see the name of Mooney as familiarly and patronizingly mentioned as the name of the hangman is, according to the latest examples. Little Swills is waiting for the coroner and jury on their return. Mr. Tulkinghorn, also. Mr. Tulkinghorn is received with distinction and seated near the coroner between that high judicial officer, a bagatelle-board, and the coal-box. The inquiry proceeds. The jury learn how the subject of their inquiry died, and learn no more about him. "A very eminent solicitor is in attendance, gentlemen," says the coroner, "who, I am informed, was accidentally present when discovery of the death was made, but he could only repeat the evidence you have already heard from the surgeon, the landlord, the lodger, and the law-stationer, and it is not necessary to trouble him. Is anybody in attendance who knows anything more?" Mrs. Piper pushed forward by Mrs. Perkins. Mrs. Piper sworn. Anastasia Piper, gentlemen. Married woman. Now, Mrs. Piper, what have you got to say about this? Why, Mrs. Piper has a good deal to say, chiefly in parentheses and without punctuation, but not much to tell. Mrs. Piper lives in the court (which her husband is a cabinet-maker), and it has long been well beknown among the neighbours (counting from the day next but one before the half-baptizing of Alexander James Piper aged eighteen months and four days old on accounts of not being expected to live such was the sufferings gentlemen of that child in his gums) as the plaintive--so Mrs. Piper insists on calling the deceased--was reported to have sold himself. Thinks it was the plaintive's air in which that report originatinin. See the plaintive often and considered as his air was feariocious and not to be allowed to go about some children being timid (and if doubted hoping Mrs. Perkins may be brought forard for she is here and will do credit to her husband and herself and family). Has seen the plaintive wexed and worrited by the children (for children they will ever be and you cannot expect them specially if of playful dispositions to be Methoozellers which you was not yourself). On accounts of this and his dark looks has often dreamed as she see him take a pick-axe from his pocket and split Johnny's head (which the child knows not fear and has repeatually called after him close at his eels). Never however see the plaintive take a pick-axe or any other wepping far from it. Has seen him hurry away when run and called after as if not partial to children and never see him speak to neither child nor grown person at any time (excepting the boy that sweeps the crossing down the lane over the way round the corner which if he was here would tell you that he has been seen a-speaking to him frequent). Says the coroner, is that boy here? Says the beadle, no, sir, he is not here. Says the coroner, go and fetch him then. In the absence of the active and intelligent, the coroner converses with Mr. Tulkinghorn. Oh! Here's the boy, gentlemen! Here he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very ragged. Now, boy! But stop a minute. Caution. This boy must be put through a few preliminary paces. Name, Jo. Nothing else that he knows on. Don't know that everybody has two names. Never heerd of sich a think. Don't know that Jo is short for a longer name. Thinks it long enough for HIM. HE don't find no fault with it. Spell it? No. HE can't spell it. No father, no mother, no friends. Never been to school. What's home? Knows a broom's a broom, and knows it's wicked to tell a lie. Don't recollect who told him about the broom or about the lie, but knows both. Can't exactly say what'll be done to him arter he's dead if he tells a lie to the gentlemen here, but believes it'll be something wery bad to punish him, and serve him right--and so he'll tell the truth. "This won't do, gentlemen!" says the coroner with a melancholy shake of the head. "Don't you think you can receive his evidence, sir?" asks an attentive juryman. "Out of the question," says the coroner. "You have heard the boy. 'Can't exactly say' won't do, you know. We can't take THAT in a court of justice, gentlemen. It's terrible depravity. Put the boy aside." Boy put aside, to the great edification of the audience, especially of Little Swills, the comic vocalist. Now. Is there any other witness? No other witness. Very well, gentlemen! Here's a man unknown, proved to have been in the habit of taking opium in large quantities for a year and a half, found dead of too much opium. If you think you have any evidence to lead you to the conclusion that he committed suicide, you will come to that conclusion. If you think it is a case of accidental death, you will find a verdict accordingly. Verdict accordingly. Accidental death. No doubt. Gentlemen, you are discharged. Good afternoon. While the coroner buttons his great-coat, Mr. Tulkinghorn and he give private audience to the rejected witness in a corner. That graceless creature only knows that the dead man (whom he recognized just now by his yellow face and black hair) was sometimes hooted and pursued about the streets. That one cold winter night when he, the boy, was shivering in a doorway near his crossing, the man turned to look at him, and came back, and having questioned him and found that he had not a friend in the world, said, "Neither have I. Not one!" and gave him the price of a supper and a night's lodging. That the man had often spoken to him since and asked him whether he slept sound at night, and how he bore cold and hunger, and whether he ever wished to die, and similar strange questions. That when the man had no money, he would say in passing, "I am as poor as you to-day, Jo," but that when he had any, he had always (as the boy most heartily believes) been glad to give him some. "He was wery good to me," says the boy, wiping his eyes with his wretched sleeve. "Wen I see him a-layin' so stritched out just now, I wished he could have heerd me tell him so. He wos wery good to me, he wos!" As he shuffles downstairs, Mr. Snagsby, lying in wait for him, puts a half-crown in his hand. "If you ever see me coming past your crossing with my little woman--I mean a lady--" says Mr. Snagsby with his finger on his nose, "don't allude to it!" For some little time the jurymen hang about the Sol's Arms colloquially. In the sequel, half-a-dozen are caught up in a cloud of pipe-smoke that pervades the parlour of the Sol's Arms; two stroll to Hampstead; and four engage to go half-price to the play at night, and top up with oysters. Little Swills is treated on several hands. Being asked what he thinks of the proceedings, characterizes them (his strength lying in a slangular direction) as "a rummy start." The landlord of the Sol's Arms, finding Little Swills so popular, commends him highly to the jurymen and public, observing that for a song in character he don't know his equal and that that man's character-wardrobe would fill a cart. Thus, gradually the Sol's Arms melts into the shadowy night and then flares out of it strong in gas. The Harmonic Meeting hour arriving, the gentleman of professional celebrity takes the chair, is faced (red-faced) by Little Swills; their friends rally round them and support first-rate talent. In the zenith of the evening, Little Swills says, "Gentlemen, if you'll permit me, I'll attempt a short description of a scene of real life that came off here to-day." Is much applauded and encouraged; goes out of the room as Swills; comes in as the coroner (not the least in the world like him); describes the inquest, with recreative intervals of piano-forte accompaniment, to the refrain: With his (the coroner's) tippy tol li doll, tippy tol lo doll, tippy tol li doll, Dee! The jingling piano at last is silent, and the Harmonic friends rally round their pillows. Then there is rest around the lonely figure, now laid in its last earthly habitation; and it is watched by the gaunt eyes in the shutters through some quiet hours of night. If this forlorn man could have been prophetically seen lying here by the mother at whose breast he nestled, a little child, with eyes upraised to her loving face, and soft hand scarcely knowing how to close upon the neck to which it crept, what an impossibility the vision would have seemed! Oh, if in brighter days the now-extinguished fire within him ever burned for one woman who held him in her heart, where is she, while these ashes are above the ground! It is anything but a night of rest at Mr. Snagsby's, in Cook's Court, where Guster murders sleep by going, as Mr. Snagsby himself allows--not to put too fine a point upon it--out of one fit into twenty. The occasion of this seizure is that Guster has a tender heart and a susceptible something that possibly might have been imagination, but for Tooting and her patron saint. Be it what it may, now, it was so direfully impressed at tea-time by Mr. Snagsby's account of the inquiry at which he had assisted that at supper-time she projected herself into the kitchen, preceded by a flying Dutch cheese, and fell into a fit of unusual duration, which she only came out of to go into another, and another, and so on through a chain of fits, with short intervals between, of which she has pathetically availed herself by consuming them in entreaties to Mrs. Snagsby not to give her warning "when she quite comes to," and also in appeals to the whole establishment to lay her down on the stones and go to bed. Hence, Mr. Snagsby, at last hearing the cock at the little dairy in Cursitor Street go into that disinterested ecstasy of his on the subject of daylight, says, drawing a long breath, though the most patient of men, "I thought you was dead, I am sure!" What question this enthusiastic fowl supposes he settles when he strains himself to such an extent, or why he should thus crow (so men crow on various triumphant public occasions, however) about what cannot be of any moment to him, is his affair. It is enough that daylight comes, morning comes, noon comes. Then the active and intelligent, who has got into the morning papers as such, comes with his pauper company to Mr. Krook's and bears off the body of our dear brother here departed to a hemmed-in churchyard, pestiferous and obscene, whence malignant diseases are communicated to the bodies of our dear brothers and sisters who have not departed, while our dear brothers and sisters who hang about official back-stairs--would to heaven they HAD departed!--are very complacent and agreeable. Into a beastly scrap of ground which a Turk would reject as a savage abomination and a Caffre would shudder at, they bring our dear brother here departed to receive Christian burial. With houses looking on, on every side, save where a reeking little tunnel of a court gives access to the iron gate--with every villainy of life in action close on death, and every poisonous element of death in action close on life--here they lower our dear brother down a foot or two, here sow him in corruption, to be raised in corruption: an avenging ghost at many a sick-bedside, a shameful testimony to future ages how civilization and barbarism walked this boastful island together. Come night, come darkness, for you cannot come too soon or stay too long by such a place as this! Come, straggling lights into the windows of the ugly houses; and you who do iniquity therein, do it at least with this dread scene shut out! Come, flame of gas, burning so sullenly above the iron gate, on which the poisoned air deposits its witch-ointment slimy to the touch! It is well that you should call to every passerby, "Look here!" With the night comes a slouching figure through the tunnel-court to the outside of the iron gate. It holds the gate with its hands and looks in between the bars, stands looking in for a little while. It then, with an old broom it carries, softly sweeps the step and makes the archway clean. It does so very busily and trimly, looks in again a little while, and so departs. Jo, is it thou? Well, well! Though a rejected witness, who "can't exactly say" what will be done to him in greater hands than men's, thou art not quite in outer darkness. There is something like a distant ray of light in thy muttered reason for this: "He wos wery good to me, he wos!"

A touch on the lawyer's wrinkled hand as he stands in the dark room, irresolute, makes him start and say, "What's that?" "It's me," returns the old man of the house. "Can't you wake him?" "No." "What have you done with your candle?" "It's gone out." Krook takes it, goes to the fire, stoops over the red embers, and tries to get a light, in vain. Muttering that he will go downstairs and bring a lighted candle from the shop, the old man departs. Mr. Tulkinghorn, for some reason, does not await his return in the room, but on the stairs outside. The welcome light soon shines upon the wall, as Krook comes slowly up with his green-eyed cat following at his heels. "Does the man generally sleep like this?" inquires the lawyer in a low voice. "Hi! I don't know," says Krook, shaking his head. "I know next to nothing of his habits except that he keeps himself very close." They go in together with the light. The great eyes in the shutters seem to close. Not so the eyes upon the bed. "God save us!" exclaims Mr. Tulkinghorn. "He is dead!" They look at one another for a moment. "Send for a doctor! Call for Miss Flite up the stairs, sir. Here's poison by the bed!" says Krook. Mr. Tulkinghorn hurries to the landing and calls, "Miss Flite! Make haste, here, whoever you are!" While he is calling, Krook steals across to the old portmanteau and back again. "Run, Flite, run! The nearest doctor! Run!" So Mr. Krook addresses the crazy little woman who is his female lodger, who vanishes in a breath, and soon returns accompanied by a testy medical man with a broad Scotch accent. "Ey! Bless the hearts o' ye," says the medical man, after a moment's examination. "He's just as dead as Phairy!" Mr. Tulkinghorn asks how long he has been dead. "It's probable aboot three hours, sir." "About that time, I should say," observes a dark young man on the other side of the bed. "Air you in the maydickle prayfession yourself, sir?" inquires the first. The dark young man says yes. "Then I'll just tak' my depairture," replies the other; and he leaves. The dark young surgeon carefully examines the law-writer, who has now indeed become No one. "I knew this person by sight very well," says he. "He has purchased opium from me for the last year and a half. Was anybody present related to him?" glancing round upon the three bystanders. "I was his landlord," grimly answers Krook. "He told me once I was the nearest relation he had." "He has died," says the surgeon, "of an over-dose of opium, there is no doubt. There is enough here," taking an old tea-pot from Mr. Krook, "to kill a dozen people." "Do you think he did it on purpose?" asks Krook. "I can't say. I should think it unlikely, as he has been in the habit of taking so much. But nobody can tell. He was very poor, I suppose?" "I suppose he was," says Krook. "But he never told me." "Did he owe you any rent?" "Six weeks." "He will never pay it!" says the young man. "He is indeed as dead as Pharaoh; and I should think it a happy release. Yet he must have been a good figure when a youth, and I dare say, good-looking." He says this not unfeelingly. "I recollect once thinking there was something in his manner that denoted a fall in life. Was that so?" Krook replies, "I only know that he was my lodger for a year and a half and lived - or didn't live - by law-writing, I know no more of him." During this dialogue Mr. Tulkinghorn has stood aloof by the old portmanteau, with his hands behind him, apparently unmoved. His imperturbable face has been as inexpressive as his rusty clothes. He now addresses the young surgeon in his professional way. "I looked in here," he observes, "just before you, with the intention of giving this deceased man some employment at his trade of copying. I had heard of him from my stationer - Snagsby of Cook's Court. Since no one here knows anything about him, it might be as well to send for Snagsby. Ah!" to the little crazy woman, who has often seen him in court. "Suppose you go for him!" While she is gone, the surgeon covers the body with the patchwork counterpane. Mr. Krook and he exchange a word or two. Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing, but stands near the old portmanteau. Mr. Snagsby arrives hastily. "Dear me, dear me," he says; "and it has come to this! Bless my soul!" "Can you give us any information about this unfortunate creature?" inquires Mr. Tulkinghorn. "He owed rent, it seems. And he must be buried, you know." "Well, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, coughing apologetically, "I really don't know what advice I could offer, except sending for the beadle." "I don't speak of advice," returns Mr. Tulkinghorn. "I am asking for some clue to his connexions, or to where he came from." "I assure you, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, "that I don't know. About a year and a half ago he came into our place one morning, and finding my little woman in our shop, produced a specimen of his handwriting and told her that he was in want of copying work to do and was, not to put too fine a point upon it, hard up! My little woman is not in general partial to strangers. But she was rather took by something about this person; and she accepted of the specimen. He gradually fell into job-work at our place; and that is the most I know of him except that he was a quick hand, and would work through the night." "Hadn't you better see," says Mr. Tulkinghorn to Krook, "whether he had any papers that may enlighten you? There will be an inquest, and you will be asked the question. You can read?" "No, I can't," returns the old man with a sudden grin. "Snagsby," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "look over the room for him. He will get into some difficulty otherwise. I'll wait if you make haste, and then I can testify on his behalf, if it should ever be necessary, that all was fair and right. If you will hold the candle for Mr. Snagsby, my friend, he'll soon see whether there is anything to help you." "Here's an old portmanteau, sir," says Snagsby. Ah, to be sure, so there is! Mr. Tulkinghorn does not appear to have seen it before, though he is standing so close to it. The law-stationer conducts the search. The surgeon leans against the corner of the chimney-piece; Miss Flite peeps and trembles just within the door. There are some worthless articles of clothing in the old portmanteau; a bundle of pawnbrokers' duplicates, a crumpled paper, smelling of opium, a few dirty scraps of newspapers, all referring to coroners' inquests; there is nothing else. They search the drawer of the ink-splashed table. There is not a morsel of any writing. The young surgeon examines the law-writer's clothes; a knife and some odd halfpence are all he finds. Mr. Snagsby's suggestion is the practical suggestion after all, and the beadle must be called in. So the little crazy lodger goes for the beadle, and the rest come out of the room, driving the cat before them. "Good night!" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, and goes home to Allegory and meditation. By this time the news has got into the court. Groups of its inhabitants assemble to discuss it, and several boys are pushed forward to Mr. Krook's window to see what they can. A policeman stands like a tower at the door, only condescending to see the boys occasionally; but whenever he does see them, they quail and fall back. People talk across the court out of windows, and scouts come hurrying in from Chancery Lane to know what's the matter. In the midst of this sensation, the beadle arrives and goes in. By and by the beadle comes out. He is understood to want witnesses for the inquest tomorrow who can tell the coroner anything whatever about the deceased. Is immediately referred to innumerable people who can tell nothing whatever. The beadle goes into various shops and parlours, examining the inhabitants, always shutting the door first, and exasperating the public, who lose interest. So the excitement dies off for the time; and the unmoved policeman pursues his lounging way with a heavy tread. Under cover of the night, the feeble-minded beadle comes flitting about Chancery Lane with his summonses, in which every juror's name is wrongly spelt. And all that night the coffin stands ready by the old portmanteau; and the lonely figure on the bed, whose path in life has lain through five and forty years, lies there with no track behind him. Next day the court is all alive. The coroner is to sit in the first-floor room at the Sol's Arms, which does brisk business all the morning. A pieman has established himself for the occasion at the corner of the court; and the beadle, hovering at the door, accepts a glass of ale. At the appointed hour arrives the coroner, for whom the jurymen are waiting. He is conducted by the beadle and the landlord to the Harmonic Meeting Room, where he puts his hat on the piano and takes a chair at the head of a long table formed of several short tables put together and ornamented with glutinous rings made by pots and glasses. As many of the jury as can crowd together at the table sit there. "Well, gentlemen-" the coroner begins. "Silence there, will you!" says the beadle. "Well, gentlemen," resumes the coroner. "You are to inquire into the death of a certain man. Evidence will be given as to the circumstances attending that death, and you will give your verdict according to the evidence. The first thing to be done is to view the body." "Make way there!" cries the beadle. So they go out in a loose procession, like a straggling funeral, and make their inspection in Mr. Krook's back second floor, from which a few of the jurymen retire pale and precipitately. When the jurymen return, Mr. Tulkinghorn is seated near the coroner. The inquiry proceeds. The jury learn how the subject of their inquiry died, and learn no more about him. "This eminent solicitor, gentlemen," says the coroner, "was accidentally present when the death was discovered, but he could only repeat the evidence you have already heard. Does anybody here know anything more?" Mrs. Piper is pushed forward, and sworn in. "Now, Mrs. Piper, what have you got to say about this?" Why, Mrs. Piper has a good deal to say, chiefly without punctuation, but not much to tell. Mrs. Piper lives in the court and it has long been well known among the neighbours as the plaintive - so Mrs. Piper insists on calling the deceased - was reported to have sold himself. She see the plaintive often and considered as his air was feariocious and not to be allowed to go about some children being timid. Has seen the plaintive wexed and worrited by the children. Has seen him hurry away as if not partial to children and never see him speak to neither child nor grown person at any time excepting the boy that sweeps the crossing down the lane over the way round the corner which if he was here would tell you that he has been seen a-speaking to him frequent. Says the coroner, go and fetch that boy. While waiting, he converses with Mr. Tulkinghorn. Oh! Here's the boy, gentlemen! Here he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very ragged. He must be put through a few preliminary paces. Name, Jo. Nothing else that he knows on. Don't know that everybody has two names. Don't know that Jo is short for a longer name. Thinks it long enough for him. Spell it? No, he can't spell it. No father, no mother, no friends. Never been to school. Knows a broom's a broom, and knows it's wicked to tell a lie. Don't recollect who told him about the broom or about the lie, but knows both. Can't exactly say what'll be done to him arter he's dead if he tells a lie to the gentlemen here, but believes it'll be something wery bad to punish him, so he'll tell the truth. "This won't do, gentlemen!" says the coroner with a melancholy shake of the head. "You have heard the boy. 'Can't exactly say' won't do, you know. It's terrible depravity. We can't take his evidence." Boy put aside. Is there any other witness? No other witness. Very well, gentlemen! Here's a man unknown, proved to have been in the habit of taking opium in large quantities for a year and a half, found dead of too much opium. If you think you have any evidence that he committed suicide, you will come to that conclusion. If you think it is a case of accidental death, you will find a verdict accordingly. Verdict accordingly. Accidental death. No doubt. Gentlemen, you are discharged. Good afternoon. While the coroner buttons his great-coat, he and Mr. Tulkinghorn speak privately to the rejected witness, Jo, in a corner. That graceless creature only knows that the dead man was sometimes hooted and pursued about the streets. That one cold winter night when he, the boy, was shivering in a doorway, the man turned to look at him, and came back, and having questioned him and found that he had not a friend in the world, said, "Neither have I. Not one!" and gave him the price of a supper and a night's lodging. That the man had often spoken to him since and asked him whether he slept sound at night, and how he bore cold and hunger, and whether he ever wished to die, and similar strange questions. That when the man had no money, he would say in passing, "I am as poor as you today, Jo," but that when he had any, he had always been glad to give him some. "He was wery good to me," says the boy, wiping his eyes with his wretched sleeve. "He wos wery good to me, he wos!" As he shuffles downstairs, Mr. Snagsby, lying in wait for him, puts a half-crown in his hand. "If you ever see me coming past your crossing with my little woman - I mean a lady-" says Mr. Snagsby with his finger on his nose, "don't allude to it!" For some time the jurymen hang about the Sol's Arms in a cloud of pipe-smoke. Then, gradually, the Sol's Arms melts into the shadowy night. Then there is rest around the lonely figure, now laid in its last earthly habitation; and it is watched by the gaunt eyes in the shutters through the quiet hours of night. In the morning the body is taken to a hemmed-in churchyard, pestiferous and obscene. With houses looking on, on every side, save where a reeking little tunnel of a court gives access to the iron gate - here they lower our dear brother down a foot or two, here sow him in corruption. Come night, come darkness, for you cannot come too soon or stay too long by such a place as this! Come, straggling lights into the windows of the ugly houses! With the night comes a slouching figure through the tunnel-court to the outside of the iron gate. It holds the gate with its hands and looks in between the bars for a little while. It then, with an old broom it carries, softly sweeps the step and makes the archway clean. It looks in again, and so departs. Jo, is it thou? Well, well! Though a rejected witness, who "can't exactly say" what will be done to him in greater hands than men's, thou art not quite in outer darkness. There is something like a distant ray of light in thy muttered reason: "He wos wery good to me, he wos!"

Bleak House

Chapter 11: Our Dear Brother

We were to pass the night, Mr. Kenge told us when we arrived in his room, at Mrs. Jellyby's; and then he turned to me and said he took it for granted I knew who Mrs. Jellyby was. "I really don't, sir," I returned. "Perhaps Mr. Carstone--or Miss Clare--" But no, they knew nothing whatever about Mrs. Jellyby. "In-deed! Mrs. Jellyby," said Mr. Kenge, standing with his back to the fire and casting his eyes over the dusty hearth-rug as if it were Mrs. Jellyby's biography, "is a lady of very remarkable strength of character who devotes herself entirely to the public. She has devoted herself to an extensive variety of public subjects at various times and is at present (until something else attracts her) devoted to the subject of Africa, with a view to the general cultivation of the coffee berry--AND the natives--and the happy settlement, on the banks of the African rivers, of our superabundant home population. Mr. Jarndyce, who is desirous to aid any work that is considered likely to be a good work and who is much sought after by philanthropists, has, I believe, a very high opinion of Mrs. Jellyby." Mr. Kenge, adjusting his cravat, then looked at us. "And Mr. Jellyby, sir?" suggested Richard. "Ah! Mr. Jellyby," said Mr. Kenge, "is--a--I don't know that I can describe him to you better than by saying that he is the husband of Mrs. Jellyby." "A nonentity, sir?" said Richard with a droll look. "I don't say that," returned Mr. Kenge gravely. "I can't say that, indeed, for I know nothing whatever OF Mr. Jellyby. I never, to my knowledge, had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Jellyby. He may be a very superior man, but he is, so to speak, merged--merged--in the more shining qualities of his wife." Mr. Kenge proceeded to tell us that as the road to Bleak House would have been very long, dark, and tedious on such an evening, and as we had been travelling already, Mr. Jarndyce had himself proposed this arrangement. A carriage would be at Mrs. Jellyby's to convey us out of town early in the forenoon of to-morrow. He then rang a little bell, and the young gentleman came in. Addressing him by the name of Guppy, Mr. Kenge inquired whether Miss Summerson's boxes and the rest of the baggage had been "sent round." Mr. Guppy said yes, they had been sent round, and a coach was waiting to take us round too as soon as we pleased. "Then it only remains," said Mr. Kenge, shaking hands with us, "for me to express my lively satisfaction in (good day, Miss Clare!) the arrangement this day concluded and my (GOOD-bye to you, Miss Summerson!) lively hope that it will conduce to the happiness, the (glad to have had the honour of making your acquaintance, Mr. Carstone!) welfare, the advantage in all points of view, of all concerned! Guppy, see the party safely there." "Where IS 'there,' Mr. Guppy?" said Richard as we went downstairs. "No distance," said Mr. Guppy; "round in Thavies Inn, you know." "I can't say I know where it is, for I come from Winchester and am strange in London." "Only round the corner," said Mr. Guppy. "We just twist up Chancery Lane, and cut along Holborn, and there we are in four minutes' time, as near as a toucher. This is about a London particular NOW, ain't it, miss?" He seemed quite delighted with it on my account. "The fog is very dense indeed!" said I. "Not that it affects you, though, I'm sure," said Mr. Guppy, putting up the steps. "On the contrary, it seems to do you good, miss, judging from your appearance." I knew he meant well in paying me this compliment, so I laughed at myself for blushing at it when he had shut the door and got upon the box; and we all three laughed and chatted about our inexperience and the strangeness of London until we turned up under an archway to our destination--a narrow street of high houses like an oblong cistern to hold the fog. There was a confused little crowd of people, principally children, gathered about the house at which we stopped, which had a tarnished brass plate on the door with the inscription JELLYBY. "Don't be frightened!" said Mr. Guppy, looking in at the coach-window. "One of the young Jellybys been and got his head through the area railings!" "Oh, poor child," said I; "let me out, if you please!" "Pray be careful of yourself, miss. The young Jellybys are always up to something," said Mr. Guppy. I made my way to the poor child, who was one of the dirtiest little unfortunates I ever saw, and found him very hot and frightened and crying loudly, fixed by the neck between two iron railings, while a milkman and a beadle, with the kindest intentions possible, were endeavouring to drag him back by the legs, under a general impression that his skull was compressible by those means. As I found (after pacifying him) that he was a little boy with a naturally large head, I thought that perhaps where his head could go, his body could follow, and mentioned that the best mode of extrication might be to push him forward. This was so favourably received by the milkman and beadle that he would immediately have been pushed into the area if I had not held his pinafore while Richard and Mr. Guppy ran down through the kitchen to catch him when he should be released. At last he was happily got down without any accident, and then he began to beat Mr. Guppy with a hoop-stick in quite a frantic manner. Nobody had appeared belonging to the house except a person in pattens, who had been poking at the child from below with a broom; I don't know with what object, and I don't think she did. I therefore supposed that Mrs. Jellyby was not at home, and was quite surprised when the person appeared in the passage without the pattens, and going up to the back room on the first floor before Ada and me, announced us as, "Them two young ladies, Missis Jellyby!" We passed several more children on the way up, whom it was difficult to avoid treading on in the dark; and as we came into Mrs. Jellyby's presence, one of the poor little things fell downstairs--down a whole flight (as it sounded to me), with a great noise. Mrs. Jellyby, whose face reflected none of the uneasiness which we could not help showing in our own faces as the dear child's head recorded its passage with a bump on every stair--Richard afterwards said he counted seven, besides one for the landing--received us with perfect equanimity. She was a pretty, very diminutive, plump woman of from forty to fifty, with handsome eyes, though they had a curious habit of seeming to look a long way off. As if--I am quoting Richard again--they could see nothing nearer than Africa! "I am very glad indeed," said Mrs. Jellyby in an agreeable voice, "to have the pleasure of receiving you. I have a great respect for Mr. Jarndyce, and no one in whom he is interested can be an object of indifference to me." We expressed our acknowledgments and sat down behind the door, where there was a lame invalid of a sofa. Mrs. Jellyby had very good hair but was too much occupied with her African duties to brush it. The shawl in which she had been loosely muffled dropped onto her chair when she advanced to us; and as she turned to resume her seat, we could not help noticing that her dress didn't nearly meet up the back and that the open space was railed across with a lattice-work of stay-lace--like a summer-house. The room, which was strewn with papers and nearly filled by a great writing-table covered with similar litter, was, I must say, not only very untidy but very dirty. We were obliged to take notice of that with our sense of sight, even while, with our sense of hearing, we followed the poor child who had tumbled downstairs: I think into the back kitchen, where somebody seemed to stifle him. But what principally struck us was a jaded and unhealthy-looking though by no means plain girl at the writing-table, who sat biting the feather of her pen and staring at us. I suppose nobody ever was in such a state of ink. And from her tumbled hair to her pretty feet, which were disfigured with frayed and broken satin slippers trodden down at heel, she really seemed to have no article of dress upon her, from a pin upwards, that was in its proper condition or its right place. "You find me, my dears," said Mrs. Jellyby, snuffing the two great office candles in tin candlesticks, which made the room taste strongly of hot tallow (the fire had gone out, and there was nothing in the grate but ashes, a bundle of wood, and a poker), "you find me, my dears, as usual, very busy; but that you will excuse. The African project at present employs my whole time. It involves me in correspondence with public bodies and with private individuals anxious for the welfare of their species all over the country. I am happy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger." As Ada said nothing, but looked at me, I said it must be very gratifying. "It IS gratifying," said Mrs. Jellyby. "It involves the devotion of all my energies, such as they are; but that is nothing, so that it succeeds; and I am more confident of success every day. Do you know, Miss Summerson, I almost wonder that YOU never turned your thoughts to Africa." This application of the subject was really so unexpected to me that I was quite at a loss how to receive it. I hinted that the climate-- "The finest climate in the world!" said Mrs. Jellyby. "Indeed, ma'am?" "Certainly. With precaution," said Mrs. Jellyby. "You may go into Holborn, without precaution, and be run over. You may go into Holborn, with precaution, and never be run over. Just so with Africa." I said, "No doubt." I meant as to Holborn. "If you would like," said Mrs. Jellyby, putting a number of papers towards us, "to look over some remarks on that head, and on the general subject, which have been extensively circulated, while I finish a letter I am now dictating to my eldest daughter, who is my amanuensis--" The girl at the table left off biting her pen and made a return to our recognition, which was half bashful and half sulky. "--I shall then have finished for the present," proceeded Mrs. Jellyby with a sweet smile, "though my work is never done. Where are you, Caddy?" "'Presents her compliments to Mr. Swallow, and begs--'" said Caddy. "'And begs,'" said Mrs. Jellyby, dictating, "'to inform him, in reference to his letter of inquiry on the African project--' No, Peepy! Not on my account!" Peepy (so self-named) was the unfortunate child who had fallen downstairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting himself, with a strip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his wounded knees, in which Ada and I did not know which to pity most--the bruises or the dirt. Mrs. Jellyby merely added, with the serene composure with which she said everything, "Go along, you naughty Peepy!" and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again. However, as she at once proceeded with her dictation, and as I interrupted nothing by doing it, I ventured quietly to stop poor Peepy as he was going out and to take him up to nurse. He looked very much astonished at it and at Ada's kissing him, but soon fell fast asleep in my arms, sobbing at longer and longer intervals, until he was quiet. I was so occupied with Peepy that I lost the letter in detail, though I derived such a general impression from it of the momentous importance of Africa, and the utter insignificance of all other places and things, that I felt quite ashamed to have thought so little about it. "Six o'clock!" said Mrs. Jellyby. "And our dinner hour is nominally (for we dine at all hours) five! Caddy, show Miss Clare and Miss Summerson their rooms. You will like to make some change, perhaps? You will excuse me, I know, being so much occupied. Oh, that very bad child! Pray put him down, Miss Summerson!" I begged permission to retain him, truly saying that he was not at all troublesome, and carried him upstairs and laid him on my bed. Ada and I had two upper rooms with a door of communication between. They were excessively bare and disorderly, and the curtain to my window was fastened up with a fork. "You would like some hot water, wouldn't you?" said Miss Jellyby, looking round for a jug with a handle to it, but looking in vain. "If it is not being troublesome," said we. "Oh, it's not the trouble," returned Miss Jellyby; "the question is, if there IS any." The evening was so very cold and the rooms had such a marshy smell that I must confess it was a little miserable, and Ada was half crying. We soon laughed, however, and were busily unpacking when Miss Jellyby came back to say that she was sorry there was no hot water, but they couldn't find the kettle, and the boiler was out of order. We begged her not to mention it and made all the haste we could to get down to the fire again. But all the little children had come up to the landing outside to look at the phenomenon of Peepy lying on my bed, and our attention was distracted by the constant apparition of noses and fingers in situations of danger between the hinges of the doors. It was impossible to shut the door of either room, for my lock, with no knob to it, looked as if it wanted to be wound up; and though the handle of Ada's went round and round with the greatest smoothness, it was attended with no effect whatever on the door. Therefore I proposed to the children that they should come in and be very good at my table, and I would tell them the story of Little Red Riding Hood while I dressed; which they did, and were as quiet as mice, including Peepy, who awoke opportunely before the appearance of the wolf. When we went downstairs we found a mug with "A Present from Tunbridge Wells" on it lighted up in the staircase window with a floating wick, and a young woman, with a swelled face bound up in a flannel bandage blowing the fire of the drawing-room (now connected by an open door with Mrs. Jellyby's room) and choking dreadfully. It smoked to that degree, in short, that we all sat coughing and crying with the windows open for half an hour, during which Mrs. Jellyby, with the same sweetness of temper, directed letters about Africa. Her being so employed was, I must say, a great relief to me, for Richard told us that he had washed his hands in a pie-dish and that they had found the kettle on his dressing-table, and he made Ada laugh so that they made me laugh in the most ridiculous manner. Soon after seven o'clock we went down to dinner, carefully, by Mrs. Jellyby's advice, for the stair-carpets, besides being very deficient in stair-wires, were so torn as to be absolute traps. We had a fine cod-fish, a piece of roast beef, a dish of cutlets, and a pudding; an excellent dinner, if it had had any cooking to speak of, but it was almost raw. The young woman with the flannel bandage waited, and dropped everything on the table wherever it happened to go, and never moved it again until she put it on the stairs. The person I had seen in pattens, who I suppose to have been the cook, frequently came and skirmished with her at the door, and there appeared to be ill will between them. All through dinner--which was long, in consequence of such accidents as the dish of potatoes being mislaid in the coal skuttle and the handle of the corkscrew coming off and striking the young woman in the chin--Mrs. Jellyby preserved the evenness of her disposition. She told us a great deal that was interesting about Borrioboola-Gha and the natives, and received so many letters that Richard, who sat by her, saw four envelopes in the gravy at once. Some of the letters were proceedings of ladies' committees or resolutions of ladies' meetings, which she read to us; others were applications from people excited in various ways about the cultivation of coffee, and natives; others required answers, and these she sent her eldest daughter from the table three or four times to write. She was full of business and undoubtedly was, as she had told us, devoted to the cause. I was a little curious to know who a mild bald gentleman in spectacles was, who dropped into a vacant chair (there was no top or bottom in particular) after the fish was taken away and seemed passively to submit himself to Borrioboola-Gha but not to be actively interested in that settlement. As he never spoke a word, he might have been a native but for his complexion. It was not until we left the table and he remained alone with Richard that the possibility of his being Mr. Jellyby ever entered my head. But he WAS Mr. Jellyby; and a loquacious young man called Mr. Quale, with large shining knobs for temples and his hair all brushed to the back of his head, who came in the evening, and told Ada he was a philanthropist, also informed her that he called the matrimonial alliance of Mrs. Jellyby with Mr. Jellyby the union of mind and matter. This young man, besides having a great deal to say for himself about Africa and a project of his for teaching the coffee colonists to teach the natives to turn piano-forte legs and establish an export trade, delighted in drawing Mrs. Jellyby out by saying, "I believe now, Mrs. Jellyby, you have received as many as from one hundred and fifty to two hundred letters respecting Africa in a single day, have you not?" or, "If my memory does not deceive me, Mrs. Jellyby, you once mentioned that you had sent off five thousand circulars from one post-office at one time?"--always repeating Mrs. Jellyby's answer to us like an interpreter. During the whole evening, Mr. Jellyby sat in a corner with his head against the wall as if he were subject to low spirits. It seemed that he had several times opened his mouth when alone with Richard after dinner, as if he had something on his mind, but had always shut it again, to Richard's extreme confusion, without saying anything. Mrs. Jellyby, sitting in quite a nest of waste paper, drank coffee all the evening and dictated at intervals to her eldest daughter. She also held a discussion with Mr. Quale, of which the subject seemed to be--if I understood it--the brotherhood of humanity, and gave utterance to some beautiful sentiments. I was not so attentive an auditor as I might have wished to be, however, for Peepy and the other children came flocking about Ada and me in a corner of the drawing-room to ask for another story; so we sat down among them and told them in whispers "Puss in Boots" and I don't know what else until Mrs. Jellyby, accidentally remembering them, sent them to bed. As Peepy cried for me to take him to bed, I carried him upstairs, where the young woman with the flannel bandage charged into the midst of the little family like a dragon and overturned them into cribs. After that I occupied myself in making our room a little tidy and in coaxing a very cross fire that had been lighted to burn, which at last it did, quite brightly. On my return downstairs, I felt that Mrs. Jellyby looked down upon me rather for being so frivolous, and I was sorry for it, though at the same time I knew that I had no higher pretensions. It was nearly midnight before we found an opportunity of going to bed, and even then we left Mrs. Jellyby among her papers drinking coffee and Miss Jellyby biting the feather of her pen. "What a strange house!" said Ada when we got upstairs. "How curious of my cousin Jarndyce to send us here!" "My love," said I, "it quite confuses me. I want to understand it, and I can't understand it at all." "What?" asked Ada with her pretty smile. "All this, my dear," said I. "It MUST be very good of Mrs. Jellyby to take such pains about a scheme for the benefit of natives--and yet--Peepy and the housekeeping!" Ada laughed and put her arm about my neck as I stood looking at the fire, and told me I was a quiet, dear, good creature and had won her heart. "You are so thoughtful, Esther," she said, "and yet so cheerful! And you do so much, so unpretendingly! You would make a home out of even this house." My simple darling! She was quite unconscious that she only praised herself and that it was in the goodness of her own heart that she made so much of me! "May I ask you a question?" said I when we had sat before the fire a little while. "Five hundred," said Ada. "Your cousin, Mr. Jarndyce. I owe so much to him. Would you mind describing him to me?" Shaking her golden hair, Ada turned her eyes upon me with such laughing wonder that I was full of wonder too, partly at her beauty, partly at her surprise. "Esther!" she cried. "My dear!" "You want a description of my cousin Jarndyce?" "My dear, I never saw him." "And I never saw him!" returned Ada. Well, to be sure! No, she had never seen him. Young as she was when her mama died, she remembered how the tears would come into her eyes when she spoke of him and of the noble generosity of his character, which she had said was to be trusted above all earthly things; and Ada trusted it. Her cousin Jarndyce had written to her a few months ago--"a plain, honest letter," Ada said--proposing the arrangement we were now to enter on and telling her that "in time it might heal some of the wounds made by the miserable Chancery suit." She had replied, gratefully accepting his proposal. Richard had received a similar letter and had made a similar response. He HAD seen Mr. Jarndyce once, but only once, five years ago, at Winchester school. He had told Ada, when they were leaning on the screen before the fire where I found them, that he recollected him as "a bluff, rosy fellow." This was the utmost description Ada could give me. It set me thinking so that when Ada was asleep, I still remained before the fire, wondering and wondering about Bleak House, and wondering and wondering that yesterday morning should seem so long ago. I don't know where my thoughts had wandered when they were recalled by a tap at the door. I opened it softly and found Miss Jellyby shivering there with a broken candle in a broken candlestick in one hand and an egg-cup in the other. "Good night!" she said very sulkily. "Good night!" said I. "May I come in?" she shortly and unexpectedly asked me in the same sulky way. "Certainly," said I. "Don't wake Miss Clare." She would not sit down, but stood by the fire dipping her inky middle finger in the egg-cup, which contained vinegar, and smearing it over the ink stains on her face, frowning the whole time and looking very gloomy. "I wish Africa was dead!" she said on a sudden. I was going to remonstrate. "I do!" she said "Don't talk to me, Miss Summerson. I hate it and detest it. It's a beast!" I told her she was tired, and I was sorry. I put my hand upon her head, and touched her forehead, and said it was hot now but would be cool to-morrow. She still stood pouting and frowning at me, but presently put down her egg-cup and turned softly towards the bed where Ada lay. "She is very pretty!" she said with the same knitted brow and in the same uncivil manner. I assented with a smile. "An orphan. Ain't she?" "Yes." "But knows a quantity, I suppose? Can dance, and play music, and sing? She can talk French, I suppose, and do geography, and globes, and needlework, and everything?" "No doubt," said I. "I can't," she returned. "I can't do anything hardly, except write. I'm always writing for Ma. I wonder you two were not ashamed of yourselves to come in this afternoon and see me able to do nothing else. It was like your ill nature. Yet you think yourselves very fine, I dare say!" I could see that the poor girl was near crying, and I resumed my chair without speaking and looked at her (I hope) as mildly as I felt towards her. "It's disgraceful," she said. "You know it is. The whole house is disgraceful. The children are disgraceful. I'M disgraceful. Pa's miserable, and no wonder! Priscilla drinks--she's always drinking. It's a great shame and a great story of you if you say you didn't smell her to-day. It was as bad as a public-house, waiting at dinner; you know it was!" "My dear, I don't know it," said I. "You do," she said very shortly. "You shan't say you don't. You do!" "Oh, my dear!" said I. "If you won't let me speak--" "You're speaking now. You know you are. Don't tell stories, Miss Summerson." "My dear," said I, "as long as you won't hear me out--" "I don't want to hear you out." "Oh, yes, I think you do," said I, "because that would be so very unreasonable. I did not know what you tell me because the servant did not come near me at dinner; but I don't doubt what you tell me, and I am sorry to hear it." "You needn't make a merit of that," said she. "No, my dear," said I. "That would be very foolish." She was still standing by the bed, and now stooped down (but still with the same discontented face) and kissed Ada. That done, she came softly back and stood by the side of my chair. Her bosom was heaving in a distressful manner that I greatly pitied, but I thought it better not to speak. "I wish I was dead!" she broke out. "I wish we were all dead. It would be a great deal better for us." In a moment afterwards, she knelt on the ground at my side, hid her face in my dress, passionately begged my pardon, and wept. I comforted her and would have raised her, but she cried no, no; she wanted to stay there! "You used to teach girls," she said, "If you could only have taught me, I could have learnt from you! I am so very miserable, and I like you so much!" I could not persuade her to sit by me or to do anything but move a ragged stool to where she was kneeling, and take that, and still hold my dress in the same manner. By degrees the poor tired girl fell asleep, and then I contrived to raise her head so that it should rest on my lap, and to cover us both with shawls. The fire went out, and all night long she slumbered thus before the ashy grate. At first I was painfully awake and vainly tried to lose myself, with my eyes closed, among the scenes of the day. At length, by slow degrees, they became indistinct and mingled. I began to lose the identity of the sleeper resting on me. Now it was Ada, now one of my old Reading friends from whom I could not believe I had so recently parted. Now it was the little mad woman worn out with curtsying and smiling, now some one in authority at Bleak House. Lastly, it was no one, and I was no one. The purblind day was feebly struggling with the fog when I opened my eyes to encounter those of a dirty-faced little spectre fixed upon me. Peepy had scaled his crib, and crept down in his bed-gown and cap, and was so cold that his teeth were chattering as if he had cut them all.

We were to pass the night, Mr. Kenge told us back in his room, at Mrs. Jellyby's. Then he turned to me and said he assumed I knew who Mrs. Jellyby was. "I don't, sir," I returned. "Indeed! Mrs. Jellyby," said Mr. Kenge, "is a lady of remarkable strength of character who devotes herself entirely to the public. She is at present devoted to the subject of Africa. Mr. Jarndyce, who is desirous to aid any good work, has, I believe, a very high opinion of Mrs. Jellyby." "And Mr. Jellyby, sir?" suggested Richard. "Ah! Mr. Jellyby," said Mr. Kenge, "is - a - is the husband of Mrs. Jellyby. I never had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Jellyby. He may be a very superior man, but he is, so to speak, merged in the more shining qualities of his wife." Mr. Kenge told us that as the road to Bleak House would have been very long and dark on such an evening, Mr. Jarndyce had proposed this arrangement. A carriage would be at Mrs. Jellyby's to convey us out of town early the next morning. He then rang a little bell, and the inky young gentleman came in. Addressing him by the name of Guppy, Mr. Kenge inquired whether the baggage had been sent round. Mr. Guppy said yes, and a coach was waiting for us. "Then it only remains," said Mr. Kenge, shaking hands with us, "for me to express my satisfaction in the arrangement this day concluded and my hope that it will lead to the happiness of all concerned! Guppy, see the party safely there." "Where is 'there,' Mr. Guppy?" said Richard as we went downstairs. "No distance," said Mr. Guppy; "only round the corner. We'll be there in four minutes' time. This is a London particular now, ain't it, miss?" He seemed quite delighted with it on my account. "The fog is very dense indeed!" said I. "Not that it affects you, though, I'm sure," said Mr. Guppy. "It seems to do you good, miss, judging from your appearance." I knew he meant well in paying me this compliment, so I laughed at myself for blushing when I had got into the coach and he had got up on to the box; and we all three laughed and chatted about our inexperience and the strangeness of London, until we turned up at our destination - a narrow street of high houses like an oblong tank to hold the fog. There was a confused little crowd of people, principally children, gathered about the house where we stopped, which had a tarnished brass plate on the door inscribed JELLYBY. "One of the young Jellybys has been and got his head through the railings!" said Mr. Guppy. "Oh, poor child," said I; "let me out, if you please!" "Pray be careful, miss. The young Jellybys are always up to something," said Mr. Guppy. I made my way to the poor child, who was one of the dirtiest little unfortunates I ever saw, and found him very frightened and crying loudly, fixed by the neck between two iron railings, while a milkman and a beadle were trying to drag him back by the legs. I mentioned that it might be best to push him forward; and by this means he was happily extricated, and then began to beat Mr. Guppy with a hoop-stick in quite a frantic manner. Nobody had appeared from the house except a person in clogs, who had been poking at the child with a broom. This person now appeared in the passage without the clogs, and going upstairs before Ada and me, announced us as, "Them two young ladies, Missis Jellyby!" We passed several more children on the way up, whom it was difficult to avoid treading on in the dark; and as we came into Mrs. Jellyby's presence, one of the poor little things fell downstairs with a great noise. Mrs. Jellyby, whose face reflected none of our uneasiness at hearing the dear child's head bump down every stair, received us with perfect equanimity. She was a pretty, plump woman of from forty to fifty, with handsome eyes, though they had a curious habit of seeming to look a long way off. "I am very glad," said Mrs. Jellyby, "to have the pleasure of receiving you. I have a great respect for Mr. Jarndyce." We thanked her and sat down on a limp sofa. Mrs. Jellyby had been too much occupied with her African duties to brush her hair; and when she turned, we could not help noticing that her dress didn't meet up at the back, but was railed across with a lattice-work of corset-lace. The room, which was strewn with papers and nearly filled by a great writing-table, was, I must say, not only very untidy but very dirty. A jaded and unhealthy-looking girl sat at the writing-table, biting her pen and staring at us. Nobody ever was in such a state of ink. And from her tumbled hair to her pretty feet, which were disfigured with frayed and broken slippers, she really seemed to have no article of dress that was in its proper condition. "You find me, my dears," said Mrs. Jellyby, "as usual, very busy; the African project at present employs my whole time. It involves me in correspondence with public bodies and private individuals all over the country. I am happy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have two hundred families cultivating coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger." I said it must be very gratifying. "It is gratifying," said Mrs. Jellyby. "It involves the devotion of all my energies. Do you know, Miss Summerson, I almost wonder that you never turned your thoughts to Africa." This was so unexpected that I was at a loss. I hinted that the climate- "The finest climate in the world!" said Mrs. Jellyby. "If you would like to look over some remarks on the subject, while I finish a letter I am now dictating to my eldest daughter, who is my scribe-" The girl at the table stopped biting her pen and gave a nod, half bashful and half sulky. "-I shall then have finished for the present," proceeded Mrs. Jellyby with a smile, "though my work is never done. Where are you, Caddy?" " 'Presents her compliments to Mr. Swallow, and begs-' " said Caddy. " 'And begs,' " said Mrs. Jellyby, " 'to inform him, in reference to his letter of inquiry on the African project-' No, Peepy!" Peepy was the unfortunate child who had fallen downstairs, and who now came in, with a strip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his wounded knees. Mrs. Jellyby merely said serenely, "Go along, you naughty Peepy!" and proceeded with her dictation. I ventured to pick up poor Peepy, who looked very much astonished, but soon fell fast asleep in my arms, sobbing at longer and longer intervals, until he was quiet. I was so occupied with Peepy that I lost the letter in detail, though I had a general impression of the momentous importance of Africa, and the utter insignificance of all other places and things. "Six o'clock!" said Mrs. Jellyby. "And our dinner-hour is five! Caddy, show Miss Clare and Miss Summerson their rooms. You will excuse me, I know, being so busy. Oh, that bad child! Pray put him down, Miss Summerson!" I begged permission to retain him, and carried him upstairs and laid him on my bed. Ada and I had two upper rooms with a connecting door between. They were excessively bare and disorderly, and the curtain to my window was fastened up with a fork. "You would like some hot water, wouldn't you?" said Miss Jellyby, looking round for a jug, but in vain. "If it is not being troublesome," said we. "Oh, it's not the trouble," returned Miss Jellyby; "the question is, if there is any." The evening was so very cold and the rooms had such a marshy smell that I must confess it was a little miserable, and Ada was half crying. We soon laughed, however, and were busily unpacking when Miss Jellyby came back to say that she was sorry there was no hot water, but they couldn't find the kettle, and the boiler was out of order. We begged her not to mention it. But all the little children had come up to the landing to look at Peepy lying on my bed. It was impossible to shut the door of either room, for my door had no knob; and though the handle of Ada's went round and round, it had no effect whatever on the door. Therefore I proposed to the children that they should come in and be very good, and I would tell them the story of Little Red Riding Hood while I dressed for dinner; which they did, and were as quiet as mice. When we went downstairs we found a young woman with a swelled face bound up in a flannel bandage blowing the fire of the drawing-room and choking dreadfully. It smoked so much that we all sat coughing and crying with the windows open for half an hour, while Mrs. Jellyby directed letters about Africa. Richard quietly told us that he had washed his hands in a pie-dish and that they had found the kettle on his dressing-table, and made me and Ada laugh in the most ridiculous manner. Soon after seven o'clock we went down to dinner, stepping carefully on the torn stair-carpets. We had a fine cod-fish, a piece of roast beef, a dish of cutlets, and a pudding; an excellent dinner, if it had had any cooking to speak of, but it was almost raw. The young woman with the flannel bandage dropped everything on the table. The person in clogs, who I suppose to have been the cook, frequently came and skirmished with her at the door, and there appeared to be ill will between them. All through dinner - which was long, because of such accidents as the potatoes being mislaid and the handle of the corkscrew coming off - Mrs. Jellyby stayed serene. She told us a great deal that was interesting about Borrioboola-Gha and the natives, and received so many letters that Richard, who sat by her, saw four envelopes in the gravy at once. Some of the letters were proceedings of ladies' committees, which she read to us; others were applications from people excited about the cultivation of coffee; others required answers, which she sent her eldest daughter from the table three or four times to write. I was curious to know who a mild bald gentleman in spectacles was, who dropped into a vacant chair after the fish was taken away, never speaking a word. It was not until we left the table and he remained alone with Richard that the possibility of his being Mr. Jellyby entered my head. But he was Mr. Jellyby; and a loquacious young man called Mr. Quale, with large shining knobs on his forehead and his hair all brushed back, came in, and told Ada he was a philanthropist. This young man, besides having a great deal to say about Africa, delighted in drawing Mrs. Jellyby out by saying, "I believe now, Mrs. Jellyby, you have received as many as two hundred letters about Africa in a single day, have you not?" or, "Mrs. Jellyby, you once mentioned that you had sent off five thousand circulars at one time?" During the whole evening, Mr. Jellyby sat in a corner with his head against the wall as if he were in low spirits. Mrs. Jellyby, sitting in a nest of waste paper, drank coffee and dictated to her eldest daughter. She also held a discussion with Mr. Quale, about - if I understood it - the brotherhood of humanity, and expressed some beautiful sentiments. I was not a very attentive listener, however, for Peepy and the other children came flocking about Ada and me to ask for another story; so we sat down and told them in whispers "Puss in Boots" until Mrs. Jellyby, accidentally remembering them, sent them to bed. As Peepy cried for me to take him to bed, I carried him upstairs, where the young woman with the flannel bandage charged into the midst of the little family like a dragon and overturned them into cribs. After that I tidied our room and coaxed our very cross fire into burning. On my return downstairs, I felt that Mrs. Jellyby looked down upon me rather for being so frivolous. It was nearly midnight before we could go to bed, and even then we left Mrs. Jellyby among her papers drinking coffee and Miss Jellyby biting her pen. "What a strange house!" said Ada when we got upstairs. "How curious of my cousin Jarndyce to send us here!" "My love," said I, "it quite confuses me. I can't understand it at all. It must be very good of Mrs. Jellyby to take such pains about the natives - and yet - Peepy and the housekeeping!" Ada laughed and put her arm around me, and told me I was a quiet, dear, good creature. "You are so thoughtful, Esther," she said, "and yet so cheerful! And you do so much! You would make a home out of even this house." My simple darling! It was because of the goodness of her own heart that she praised me so. "May I ask you a question?" said I when we were sitting before the fire. "Your cousin, Mr. Jarndyce. I owe so much to him. Would you mind describing him?" Shaking her golden hair, Ada turned her eyes upon me with such laughing wonder that I was full of wonder too, partly at her beauty, partly at her surprise. "Esther!" she cried. "I never saw him!" Well, to be sure! No, she had never seen him. Young as she was when her mama died, she remembered how the tears would come into her mother's eyes when she spoke of his noble generosity. Her cousin Jarndyce had written to her a few months ago - "a plain, honest letter," Ada said - proposing the arrangement we were now to enter on and telling her that "in time it might heal some of the wounds made by the miserable Chancery suit." She had replied, gratefully accepting his proposal. Richard had received a similar letter. He had seen Mr. Jarndyce once, five years ago, at Winchester school, and had told Ada that he was "a bluff, rosy fellow." This was the best description Ada could give me. It set me thinking; when Ada was asleep, I remained before the fire, wondering about Bleak House. My thoughts were recalled by a tap at the door. I opened it softly and found Miss Jellyby shivering there with a broken candle in a broken candlestick. "Good night!" she said very sulkily. "Good night!" said I. "May I come in?" she asked unexpectedly. "Certainly," said I. "Don't wake Miss Clare." She would not sit down, but stood by the fire rubbing at the ink stains on her face, and looking very gloomy. "I wish Africa was dead!" she said suddenly. "I do! I hate it and detest it. It's a beast!" I told her she was tired, and I was sorry. I put my hand upon her forehead, and said it was hot now but would be cool tomorrow. She stood pouting and frowning, but then turned softly towards the bed where Ada lay. "She is very pretty!" she said with the same knitted brow. "An orphan. Ain't she?" "Yes." "But knows a quantity, I suppose? Can dance, and play music, and sing? She can talk French, I suppose, and do geography, and globes, and needlework, and everything?" "No doubt," said I. "I can't," she returned. "I can't do anything hardly, except write. I'm always writing for Ma. I wonder you two were not ashamed of yourselves to come in and see me able to do nothing else. It was like your ill nature. Yet you think yourselves very fine, I dare say!" I could see that the poor girl was near crying, and I looked at her as mildly as I could. "It's disgraceful," she said. "You know it is. The whole house is disgraceful. The children are disgraceful. I'm disgraceful. Pa's miserable, and no wonder! Priscilla drinks - she's always drinking. Shame on you if you say you didn't smell her today. It was as bad as a public-house at dinner; you know it was!" "My dear, I don't know it," said I. "You do," she said shortly. "You do!" "Oh, my dear!" said I. "Let me speak-" "I don't want to hear you." "I think you do," said I. "I did not know what you tell me because the servant did not come near me at dinner; but I don't doubt you, and I am sorry to hear it." She was still standing by the bed, and now stooped down (with the same discontented face) and kissed Ada. Then she stood by the side of my chair. Her bosom was heaving in a distressful manner that I greatly pitied, but I thought it better not to speak. "I wish I was dead!" she broke out. "I wish we were all dead. It would be a great deal better for us." In a moment, she knelt on the ground at my side, hid her face in my dress, passionately begged my pardon, and wept. I comforted her and would have raised her, but she cried no, no; she wanted to stay there! "You used to teach girls," she said, "I wish you could have taught me! I am so very miserable, and I like you so much!" I could not persuade her to do anything but move onto a ragged stool, still holding my dress. Gradually the poor tired girl fell asleep, and then I contrived to raise her head so that it should rest on my lap, and to cover us both with shawls. The fire went out, and all night long she slumbered thus before the ashy grate. At first I was painfully awake; but at length, my thoughts became indistinct and mingled. I began to lose the identity of the sleeper resting on me. Now it was Ada, now it was the little mad woman, now some one in authority at Bleak House. Lastly, it was no one, and I was no one. The day was feebly struggling with the fog when I opened my eyes to see a dirty-faced little spectre fixed upon me. Peepy had scaled his crib, and crept down in his bed-gown and cap, his teeth chattering with the cold.

Bleak House

Chapter 4: Telescopic Philanthropy

It has left off raining down in Lincolnshire at last, and Chesney Wold has taken heart. Mrs. Rouncewell is full of hospitable cares, for Sir Leicester and my Lady are coming home from Paris. The fashionable intelligence has found it out and communicates the glad tidings to benighted England. It has also found out that they will entertain a brilliant and distinguished circle of the ELITE of the BEAU MONDE (the fashionable intelligence is weak in English, but a giant refreshed in French) at the ancient and hospitable family seat in Lincolnshire. For the greater honour of the brilliant and distinguished circle, and of Chesney Wold into the bargain, the broken arch of the bridge in the park is mended; and the water, now retired within its proper limits and again spanned gracefully, makes a figure in the prospect from the house. The clear, cold sunshine glances into the brittle woods and approvingly beholds the sharp wind scattering the leaves and drying the moss. It glides over the park after the moving shadows of the clouds, and chases them, and never catches them, all day. It looks in at the windows and touches the ancestral portraits with bars and patches of brightness never contemplated by the painters. Athwart the picture of my Lady, over the great chimney-piece, it throws a broad bend-sinister of light that strikes down crookedly into the hearth and seems to rend it. Through the same cold sunshine and the same sharp wind, my Lady and Sir Leicester, in their travelling chariot (my Lady's woman and Sir Leicester's man affectionate in the rumble), start for home. With a considerable amount of jingling and whip-cracking, and many plunging demonstrations on the part of two bare-backed horses and two centaurs with glazed hats, jack-boots, and flowing manes and tails, they rattle out of the yard of the Hotel Bristol in the Place Vendome and canter between the sun-and-shadow-chequered colonnade of the Rue de Rivoli and the garden of the ill-fated palace of a headless king and queen, off by the Place of Concord, and the Elysian Fields, and the Gate of the Star, out of Paris. Sooth to say, they cannot go away too fast, for even here my Lady Dedlock has been bored to death. Concert, assembly, opera, theatre, drive, nothing is new to my Lady under the worn-out heavens. Only last Sunday, when poor wretches were gay--within the walls playing with children among the clipped trees and the statues in the Palace Garden; walking, a score abreast, in the Elysian Fields, made more Elysian by performing dogs and wooden horses; between whiles filtering (a few) through the gloomy Cathedral of Our Lady to say a word or two at the base of a pillar within flare of a rusty little gridiron-full of gusty little tapers; without the walls encompassing Paris with dancing, love-making, wine-drinking, tobacco-smoking, tomb-visiting, billiard card and domino playing, quack-doctoring, and much murderous refuse, animate and inanimate--only last Sunday, my Lady, in the desolation of Boredom and the clutch of Giant Despair, almost hated her own maid for being in spirits. She cannot, therefore, go too fast from Paris. Weariness of soul lies before her, as it lies behind--her Ariel has put a girdle of it round the whole earth, and it cannot be unclasped--but the imperfect remedy is always to fly from the last place where it has been experienced. Fling Paris back into the distance, then, exchanging it for endless avenues and cross-avenues of wintry trees! And, when next beheld, let it be some leagues away, with the Gate of the Star a white speck glittering in the sun, and the city a mere mound in a plain--two dark square towers rising out of it, and light and shadow descending on it aslant, like the angels in Jacob's dream! Sir Leicester is generally in a complacent state, and rarely bored. When he has nothing else to do, he can always contemplate his own greatness. It is a considerable advantage to a man to have so inexhaustible a subject. After reading his letters, he leans back in his corner of the carriage and generally reviews his importance to society. "You have an unusual amount of correspondence this morning?" says my Lady after a long time. She is fatigued with reading. Has almost read a page in twenty miles. "Nothing in it, though. Nothing whatever." "I saw one of Mr. Tulkinghorn's long effusions, I think?" "You see everything," says Sir Leicester with admiration. "Ha!" sighs my Lady. "He is the most tiresome of men!" "He sends--I really beg your pardon--he sends," says Sir Leicester, selecting the letter and unfolding it, "a message to you. Our stopping to change horses as I came to his postscript drove it out of my memory. I beg you'll excuse me. He says--" Sir Leicester is so long in taking out his eye-glass and adjusting it that my Lady looks a little irritated. "He says 'In the matter of the right of way--' I beg your pardon, that's not the place. He says--yes! Here I have it! He says, 'I beg my respectful compliments to my Lady, who, I hope, has benefited by the change. Will you do me the favour to mention (as it may interest her) that I have something to tell her on her return in reference to the person who copied the affidavit in the Chancery suit, which so powerfully stimulated her curiosity. I have seen him.'" My Lady, leaning forward, looks out of her window. "That's the message," observes Sir Leicester. "I should like to walk a little," says my Lady, still looking out of her window. "Walk?" repeats Sir Leicester in a tone of surprise. "I should like to walk a little," says my Lady with unmistakable distinctness. "Please to stop the carriage." The carriage is stopped, the affectionate man alights from the rumble, opens the door, and lets down the steps, obedient to an impatient motion of my Lady's hand. My Lady alights so quickly and walks away so quickly that Sir Leicester, for all his scrupulous politeness, is unable to assist her, and is left behind. A space of a minute or two has elapsed before he comes up with her. She smiles, looks very handsome, takes his arm, lounges with him for a quarter of a mile, is very much bored, and resumes her seat in the carriage. The rattle and clatter continue through the greater part of three days, with more or less of bell-jingling and whip-cracking, and more or less plunging of centaurs and bare-backed horses. Their courtly politeness to each other at the hotels where they tarry is the theme of general admiration. Though my Lord IS a little aged for my Lady, says Madame, the hostess of the Golden Ape, and though he might be her amiable father, one can see at a glance that they love each other. One observes my Lord with his white hair, standing, hat in hand, to help my Lady to and from the carriage. One observes my Lady, how recognisant of my Lord's politeness, with an inclination of her gracious head and the concession of her so-genteel fingers! It is ravishing! The sea has no appreciation of great men, but knocks them about like the small fry. It is habitually hard upon Sir Leicester, whose countenance it greenly mottles in the manner of sage-cheese and in whose aristocratic system it effects a dismal revolution. It is the Radical of Nature to him. Nevertheless, his dignity gets over it after stopping to refit, and he goes on with my Lady for Chesney Wold, lying only one night in London on the way to Lincolnshire. Through the same cold sunlight, colder as the day declines, and through the same sharp wind, sharper as the separate shadows of bare trees gloom together in the woods, and as the Ghost's Walk, touched at the western corner by a pile of fire in the sky, resigns itself to coming night, they drive into the park. The rooks, swinging in their lofty houses in the elm-tree avenue, seem to discuss the question of the occupancy of the carriage as it passes underneath, some agreeing that Sir Leicester and my Lady are come down, some arguing with malcontents who won't admit it, now all consenting to consider the question disposed of, now all breaking out again in violent debate, incited by one obstinate and drowsy bird who will persist in putting in a last contradictory croak. Leaving them to swing and caw, the travelling chariot rolls on to the house, where fires gleam warmly through some of the windows, though not through so many as to give an inhabited expression to the darkening mass of front. But the brilliant and distinguished circle will soon do that. Mrs. Rouncewell is in attendance and receives Sir Leicester's customary shake of the hand with a profound curtsy. "How do you do, Mrs. Rouncewell? I am glad to see you." "I hope I have the honour of welcoming you in good health, Sir Leicester?" "In excellent health, Mrs. Rouncewell." "My Lady is looking charmingly well," says Mrs. Rouncewell with another curtsy. My Lady signifies, without profuse expenditure of words, that she is as wearily well as she can hope to be. But Rosa is in the distance, behind the housekeeper; and my Lady, who has not subdued the quickness of her observation, whatever else she may have conquered, asks, "Who is that girl?" "A young scholar of mine, my Lady. Rosa." "Come here, Rosa!" Lady Dedlock beckons her, with even an appearance of interest. "Why, do you know how pretty you are, child?" she says, touching her shoulder with her two forefingers. Rosa, very much abashed, says, "No, if you please, my Lady!" and glances up, and glances down, and don't know where to look, but looks all the prettier. "How old are you?" "Nineteen, my Lady." "Nineteen," repeats my Lady thoughtfully. "Take care they don't spoil you by flattery." "Yes, my Lady." My Lady taps her dimpled cheek with the same delicate gloved fingers and goes on to the foot of the oak staircase, where Sir Leicester pauses for her as her knightly escort. A staring old Dedlock in a panel, as large as life and as dull, looks as if he didn't know what to make of it, which was probably his general state of mind in the days of Queen Elizabeth. That evening, in the housekeeper's room, Rosa can do nothing but murmur Lady Dedlock's praises. She is so affable, so graceful, so beautiful, so elegant; has such a sweet voice and such a thrilling touch that Rosa can feel it yet! Mrs. Rouncewell confirms all this, not without personal pride, reserving only the one point of affability. Mrs. Rouncewell is not quite sure as to that. Heaven forbid that she should say a syllable in dispraise of any member of that excellent family, above all, of my Lady, whom the whole world admires; but if my Lady would only be "a little more free," not quite so cold and distant, Mrs. Rouncewell thinks she would be more affable. "'Tis almost a pity," Mrs. Rouncewell adds--only "almost" because it borders on impiety to suppose that anything could be better than it is, in such an express dispensation as the Dedlock affairs--"that my Lady has no family. If she had had a daughter now, a grown young lady, to interest her, I think she would have had the only kind of excellence she wants." "Might not that have made her still more proud, grandmother?" says Watt, who has been home and come back again, he is such a good grandson. "More and most, my dear," returns the housekeeper with dignity, "are words it's not my place to use--nor so much as to hear--applied to any drawback on my Lady." "I beg your pardon, grandmother. But she is proud, is she not?" "If she is, she has reason to be. The Dedlock family have always reason to be." "Well," says Watt, "it's to be hoped they line out of their prayer-books a certain passage for the common people about pride and vainglory. Forgive me, grandmother! Only a joke!" "Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, my dear, are not fit subjects for joking." "Sir Leicester is no joke by any means," says Watt, "and I humbly ask his pardon. I suppose, grandmother, that even with the family and their guests down here, there is no objection to my prolonging my stay at the Dedlock Arms for a day or two, as any other traveller might?" "Surely, none in the world, child." "I am glad of that," says Watt, "because I have an inexpressible desire to extend my knowledge of this beautiful neighbourhood." He happens to glance at Rosa, who looks down and is very shy indeed. But according to the old superstition, it should be Rosa's ears that burn, and not her fresh bright cheeks, for my Lady's maid is holding forth about her at this moment with surpassing energy. My Lady's maid is a Frenchwoman of two and thirty, from somewhere in the southern country about Avignon and Marseilles, a large-eyed brown woman with black hair who would be handsome but for a certain feline mouth and general uncomfortable tightness of face, rendering the jaws too eager and the skull too prominent. There is something indefinably keen and wan about her anatomy, and she has a watchful way of looking out of the corners of her eyes without turning her head which could be pleasantly dispensed with, especially when she is in an ill humour and near knives. Through all the good taste of her dress and little adornments, these objections so express themselves that she seems to go about like a very neat she-wolf imperfectly tamed. Besides being accomplished in all the knowledge appertaining to her post, she is almost an Englishwoman in her acquaintance with the language; consequently, she is in no want of words to shower upon Rosa for having attracted my Lady's attention, and she pours them out with such grim ridicule as she sits at dinner that her companion, the affectionate man, is rather relieved when she arrives at the spoon stage of that performance. Ha, ha, ha! She, Hortense, been in my Lady's service since five years and always kept at the distance, and this doll, this puppet, caressed--absolutely caressed--by my Lady on the moment of her arriving at the house! Ha, ha, ha! "And do you know how pretty you are, child?" "No, my Lady." You are right there! "And how old are you, child! And take care they do not spoil you by flattery, child!" Oh, how droll! It is the BEST thing altogether. In short, it is such an admirable thing that Mademoiselle Hortense can't forget it; but at meals for days afterwards, even among her countrywomen and others attached in like capacity to the troop of visitors, relapses into silent enjoyment of the joke--an enjoyment expressed, in her own convivial manner, by an additional tightness of face, thin elongation of compressed lips, and sidewise look, which intense appreciation of humour is frequently reflected in my Lady's mirrors when my Lady is not among them. All the mirrors in the house are brought into action now, many of them after a long blank. They reflect handsome faces, simpering faces, youthful faces, faces of threescore and ten that will not submit to be old; the entire collection of faces that have come to pass a January week or two at Chesney Wold, and which the fashionable intelligence, a mighty hunter before the Lord, hunts with a keen scent, from their breaking cover at the Court of St. James's to their being run down to death. The place in Lincolnshire is all alive. By day guns and voices are heard ringing in the woods, horsemen and carriages enliven the park roads, servants and hangers-on pervade the village and the Dedlock Arms. Seen by night from distant openings in the trees, the row of windows in the long drawing-room, where my Lady's picture hangs over the great chimney-piece, is like a row of jewels set in a black frame. On Sunday the chill little church is almost warmed by so much gallant company, and the general flavour of the Dedlock dust is quenched in delicate perfumes. The brilliant and distinguished circle comprehends within it no contracted amount of education, sense, courage, honour, beauty, and virtue. Yet there is something a little wrong about it in despite of its immense advantages. What can it be? Dandyism? There is no King George the Fourth now (more the pity) to set the dandy fashion; there are no clear-starched jack-towel neckcloths, no short-waisted coats, no false calves, no stays. There are no caricatures, now, of effeminate exquisites so arrayed, swooning in opera boxes with excess of delight and being revived by other dainty creatures poking long-necked scent-bottles at their noses. There is no beau whom it takes four men at once to shake into his buckskins, or who goes to see all the executions, or who is troubled with the self-reproach of having once consumed a pea. But is there dandyism in the brilliant and distinguished circle notwithstanding, dandyism of a more mischievous sort, that has got below the surface and is doing less harmless things than jack-towelling itself and stopping its own digestion, to which no rational person need particularly object? Why, yes. It cannot be disguised. There ARE at Chesney Wold this January week some ladies and gentlemen of the newest fashion, who have set up a dandyism--in religion, for instance. Who in mere lackadaisical want of an emotion have agreed upon a little dandy talk about the vulgar wanting faith in things in general, meaning in the things that have been tried and found wanting, as though a low fellow should unaccountably lose faith in a bad shilling after finding it out! Who would make the vulgar very picturesque and faithful by putting back the hands upon the clock of time and cancelling a few hundred years of history. There are also ladies and gentlemen of another fashion, not so new, but very elegant, who have agreed to put a smooth glaze on the world and to keep down all its realities. For whom everything must be languid and pretty. Who have found out the perpetual stoppage. Who are to rejoice at nothing and be sorry for nothing. Who are not to be disturbed by ideas. On whom even the fine arts, attending in powder and walking backward like the Lord Chamberlain, must array themselves in the milliners' and tailors' patterns of past generations and be particularly careful not to be in earnest or to receive any impress from the moving age. Then there is my Lord Boodle, of considerable reputation with his party, who has known what office is and who tells Sir Leicester Dedlock with much gravity, after dinner, that he really does not see to what the present age is tending. A debate is not what a debate used to be; the House is not what the House used to be; even a Cabinet is not what it formerly was. He perceives with astonishment that supposing the present government to be overthrown, the limited choice of the Crown, in the formation of a new ministry, would lie between Lord Coodle and Sir Thomas Doodle--supposing it to be impossible for the Duke of Foodle to act with Goodle, which may be assumed to be the case in consequence of the breach arising out of that affair with Hoodle. Then, giving the Home Department and the leadership of the House of Commons to Joodle, the Exchequer to Koodle, the Colonies to Loodle, and the Foreign Office to Moodle, what are you to do with Noodle? You can't offer him the Presidency of the Council; that is reserved for Poodle. You can't put him in the Woods and Forests; that is hardly good enough for Quoodle. What follows? That the country is shipwrecked, lost, and gone to pieces (as is made manifest to the patriotism of Sir Leicester Dedlock) because you can't provide for Noodle! On the other hand, the Right Honourable William Buffy, M.P., contends across the table with some one else that the shipwreck of the country--about which there is no doubt; it is only the manner of it that is in question--is attributable to Cuffy. If you had done with Cuffy what you ought to have done when he first came into Parliament, and had prevented him from going over to Duffy, you would have got him into alliance with Fuffy, you would have had with you the weight attaching as a smart debater to Guffy, you would have brought to bear upon the elections the wealth of Huffy, you would have got in for three counties Juffy, Kuffy, and Luffy, and you would have strengthened your administration by the official knowledge and the business habits of Muffy. All this, instead of being as you now are, dependent on the mere caprice of Puffy! As to this point, and as to some minor topics, there are differences of opinion; but it is perfectly clear to the brilliant and distinguished circle, all round, that nobody is in question but Boodle and his retinue, and Buffy and HIS retinue. These are the great actors for whom the stage is reserved. A People there are, no doubt--a certain large number of supernumeraries, who are to be occasionally addressed, and relied upon for shouts and choruses, as on the theatrical stage; but Boodle and Buffy, their followers and families, their heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, are the born first-actors, managers, and leaders, and no others can appear upon the scene for ever and ever. In this, too, there is perhaps more dandyism at Chesney Wold than the brilliant and distinguished circle will find good for itself in the long run. For it is, even with the stillest and politest circles, as with the circle the necromancer draws around him--very strange appearances may be seen in active motion outside. With this difference, that being realities and not phantoms, there is the greater danger of their breaking in. Chesney Wold is quite full anyhow, so full that a burning sense of injury arises in the breasts of ill-lodged ladies'-maids, and is not to be extinguished. Only one room is empty. It is a turret chamber of the third order of merit, plainly but comfortably furnished and having an old-fashioned business air. It is Mr. Tulkinghorn's room, and is never bestowed on anybody else, for he may come at any time. He is not come yet. It is his quiet habit to walk across the park from the village in fine weather, to drop into this room as if he had never been out of it since he was last seen there, to request a servant to inform Sir Leicester that he is arrived in case he should be wanted, and to appear ten minutes before dinner in the shadow of the library-door. He sleeps in his turret with a complaining flag-staff over his head, and has some leads outside on which, any fine morning when he is down here, his black figure may be seen walking before breakfast like a larger species of rook. Every day before dinner, my Lady looks for him in the dusk of the library, but he is not there. Every day at dinner, my Lady glances down the table for the vacant place that would be waiting to receive him if he had just arrived, but there is no vacant place. Every night my Lady casually asks her maid, "Is Mr. Tulkinghorn come?" Every night the answer is, "No, my Lady, not yet." One night, while having her hair undressed, my Lady loses herself in deep thought after this reply until she sees her own brooding face in the opposite glass, and a pair of black eyes curiously observing her. "Be so good as to attend," says my Lady then, addressing the reflection of Hortense, "to your business. You can contemplate your beauty at another time." "Pardon! It was your Ladyship's beauty." "That," says my Lady, "you needn't contemplate at all." At length, one afternoon a little before sunset, when the bright groups of figures which have for the last hour or two enlivened the Ghost's Walk are all dispersed and only Sir Leicester and my Lady remain upon the terrace, Mr. Tulkinghorn appears. He comes towards them at his usual methodical pace, which is never quickened, never slackened. He wears his usual expressionless mask--if it be a mask--and carries family secrets in every limb of his body and every crease of his dress. Whether his whole soul is devoted to the great or whether he yields them nothing beyond the services he sells is his personal secret. He keeps it, as he keeps the secrets of his clients; he is his own client in that matter, and will never betray himself. "How do you do, Mr. Tulkinghorn?" says Sir Leicester, giving him his hand. Mr. Tulkinghorn is quite well. Sir Leicester is quite well. My Lady is quite well. All highly satisfactory. The lawyer, with his hands behind him, walks at Sir Leicester's side along the terrace. My Lady walks upon the other side. "We expected you before," says Sir Leicester. A gracious observation. As much as to say, "Mr. Tulkinghorn, we remember your existence when you are not here to remind us of it by your presence. We bestow a fragment of our minds upon you, sir, you see!" Mr. Tulkinghorn, comprehending it, inclines his head and says he is much obliged. "I should have come down sooner," he explains, "but that I have been much engaged with those matters in the several suits between yourself and Boythorn." "A man of a very ill-regulated mind," observes Sir Leicester with severity. "An extremely dangerous person in any community. A man of a very low character of mind." "He is obstinate," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "It is natural to such a man to be so," says Sir Leicester, looking most profoundly obstinate himself. "I am not at all surprised to hear it." "The only question is," pursues the lawyer, "whether you will give up anything." "No, sir," replies Sir Leicester. "Nothing. I give up?" "I don't mean anything of importance. That, of course, I know you would not abandon. I mean any minor point." "Mr. Tulkinghorn," returns Sir Leicester, "there can be no minor point between myself and Mr. Boythorn. If I go farther, and observe that I cannot readily conceive how ANY right of mine can be a minor point, I speak not so much in reference to myself as an individual as in reference to the family position I have it in charge to maintain." Mr. Tulkinghorn inclines his head again. "I have now my instructions," he says. "Mr. Boythorn will give us a good deal of trouble--" "It is the character of such a mind, Mr. Tulkinghorn," Sir Leicester interrupts him, "TO give trouble. An exceedingly ill-conditioned, levelling person. A person who, fifty years ago, would probably have been tried at the Old Bailey for some demagogue proceeding, and severely punished--if not," adds Sir Leicester after a moment's pause, "if not hanged, drawn, and quartered." Sir Leicester appears to discharge his stately breast of a burden in passing this capital sentence, as if it were the next satisfactory thing to having the sentence executed. "But night is coming on," says he, "and my Lady will take cold. My dear, let us go in." As they turn towards the hall-door, Lady Dedlock addresses Mr. Tulkinghorn for the first time. "You sent me a message respecting the person whose writing I happened to inquire about. It was like you to remember the circumstance; I had quite forgotten it. Your message reminded me of it again. I can't imagine what association I had with a hand like that, but I surely had some." "You had some?" Mr. Tulkinghorn repeats. "Oh, yes!" returns my Lady carelessly. "I think I must have had some. And did you really take the trouble to find out the writer of that actual thing--what is it!--affidavit?" "Yes." "How very odd!" They pass into a sombre breakfast-room on the ground floor, lighted in the day by two deep windows. It is now twilight. The fire glows brightly on the panelled wall and palely on the window-glass, where, through the cold reflection of the blaze, the colder landscape shudders in the wind and a grey mist creeps along, the only traveller besides the waste of clouds. My Lady lounges in a great chair in the chimney-corner, and Sir Leicester takes another great chair opposite. The lawyer stands before the fire with his hand out at arm's length, shading his face. He looks across his arm at my Lady. "Yes," he says, "I inquired about the man, and found him. And, what is very strange, I found him--" "Not to be any out-of-the-way person, I am afraid!" Lady Dedlock languidly anticipates. "I found him dead." "Oh, dear me!" remonstrated Sir Leicester. Not so much shocked by the fact as by the fact of the fact being mentioned. "I was directed to his lodging--a miserable, poverty-stricken place--and I found him dead." "You will excuse me, Mr. Tulkinghorn," observes Sir Leicester. "I think the less said--" "Pray, Sir Leicester, let me hear the story out" (it is my Lady speaking). "It is quite a story for twilight. How very shocking! Dead?" Mr. Tulkinghorn re-asserts it by another inclination of his head. "Whether by his own hand--" "Upon my honour!" cries Sir Leicester. "Really!" "Do let me hear the story!" says my Lady. "Whatever you desire, my dear. But, I must say--" "No, you mustn't say! Go on, Mr. Tulkinghorn." Sir Leicester's gallantry concedes the point, though he still feels that to bring this sort of squalor among the upper classes is really--really-- "I was about to say," resumes the lawyer with undisturbed calmness, "that whether he had died by his own hand or not, it was beyond my power to tell you. I should amend that phrase, however, by saying that he had unquestionably died of his own act, though whether by his own deliberate intention or by mischance can never certainly be known. The coroner's jury found that he took the poison accidentally." "And what kind of man," my Lady asks, "was this deplorable creature?" "Very difficult to say," returns the lawyer, shaking his head. "He had lived so wretchedly and was so neglected, with his gipsy colour and his wild black hair and beard, that I should have considered him the commonest of the common. The surgeon had a notion that he had once been something better, both in appearance and condition." "What did they call the wretched being?" "They called him what he had called himself, but no one knew his name." "Not even any one who had attended on him?" "No one had attended on him. He was found dead. In fact, I found him." "Without any clue to anything more?" "Without any; there was," says the lawyer meditatively, "an old portmanteau, but--No, there were no papers." During the utterance of every word of this short dialogue, Lady Dedlock and Mr. Tulkinghorn, without any other alteration in their customary deportment, have looked very steadily at one another--as was natural, perhaps, in the discussion of so unusual a subject. Sir Leicester has looked at the fire, with the general expression of the Dedlock on the staircase. The story being told, he renews his stately protest, saying that as it is quite clear that no association in my Lady's mind can possibly be traceable to this poor wretch (unless he was a begging-letter writer), he trusts to hear no more about a subject so far removed from my Lady's station. "Certainly, a collection of horrors," says my Lady, gathering up her mantles and furs, "but they interest one for the moment! Have the kindness, Mr. Tulkinghorn, to open the door for me." Mr. Tulkinghorn does so with deference and holds it open while she passes out. She passes close to him, with her usual fatigued manner and insolent grace. They meet again at dinner--again, next day--again, for many days in succession. Lady Dedlock is always the same exhausted deity, surrounded by worshippers, and terribly liable to be bored to death, even while presiding at her own shrine. Mr. Tulkinghorn is always the same speechless repository of noble confidences, so oddly out of place and yet so perfectly at home. They appear to take as little note of one another as any two people enclosed within the same walls could. But whether each evermore watches and suspects the other, evermore mistrustful of some great reservation; whether each is evermore prepared at all points for the other, and never to be taken unawares; what each would give to know how much the other knows--all this is hidden, for the time, in their own hearts.

It has left off raining down in Lincolnshire at last, and Sir Leicester and my Lady are coming home from Paris to Chesney Wold. There, according to the fashionable world, they will be entertaining a brilliant and distinguished circle of the elite. The broken arch of the bridge in the park is mended; and the water, again spanned gracefully, makes a fine view from the house. The clear, cold sunshine glances into the brittle woods and approvingly beholds the sharp wind scattering the leaves and drying the moss. It glides over the park, chasing the shadows of the clouds. It looks in at the windows and touches the ancestral portraits with patches of brightness. Across the picture of my Lady, over the great chimney-piece, it throws a broad bend-sinister of light. Through the same cold sunshine and the same sharp wind, my Lady and Sir Leicester start for home. With much jingling and whip-cracking, their carriage rattles out of the yard of the hotel and canters out of Paris. To tell the truth, they cannot go away too fast, for even here my Lady Dedlock has been bored to death. Concert, assembly, opera, theatre, drive, nothing is new to my Lady under the worn-out heavens. Only last Sunday, when poor families were playing with children among the clipped trees and the statues in the Palace Garden; or walking in the Elysian Fields, or through the gloomy Cathedral - only last Sunday, my Lady, in the desolation of Boredom and the clutch of Giant Despair, almost hated her own maid for being in spirits. She cannot, therefore, go too fast from Paris. Weariness of soul lies everywhere, but the imperfect remedy is always to fly from the last place where it has been felt. Fling Paris back into the distance, then! Sir Leicester is generally complacent, and rarely bored. When he has nothing else to do, he can always contemplate his own greatness. It is a considerable advantage to a man to have so inexhaustible a subject. After reading his letters, he leans back in his corner of the carriage and reviews his importance to society. "You have an unusual amount of correspondence this morning?" says my Lady. "Nothing in it, though." "I saw one of Mr. Tulkinghorn's long effusions, I think?" "You see everything," says Sir Leicester with admiration. "Ha!" sighs my Lady. "He is the most tiresome of men!" "He sends," says Sir Leicester, unfolding the letter, "a message to you. Our stopping to change horses drove it out of my memory. He says-" Sir Leicester adjusts his eye-glass - "he says 'In the matter of the right of way-' I beg your pardon, that's not the place. Here it is! He says, 'I beg my respectful compliments to my Lady. Will you do me the favour to mention that I have something to tell her on her return in reference to the person who copied the affidavit in the Chancery suit, which so powerfully stimulated her curiosity. I have seen him.'" My Lady looks out of her window. "I should like to walk a little," she says. "Walk?" repeats Sir Leicester in surprise. "I should like to walk a little," says my Lady distinctly. "Please stop the carriage." The carriage is stopped, and the door is opened. My Lady alights and walks away so quickly that Sir Leicester is left behind. A minute or two elapses before he catches up with her. She smiles, looks very handsome, takes his arm, lounges with him for a quarter of a mile, is very much bored, and resumes her seat in the carriage. The rattle and clatter of travel continue for three days. Their courtly politeness to each other at the hotels where they stay is the theme of general admiration. Though my Lord is a little aged for my Lady, says Madame, the hostess of the Golden Ape, one can see at a glance that they love each other. One observes my Lord help my Lady from the carriage. One observes my Lady graciously incline her head to him. It is ravishing! The sea has no appreciation of great men, but knocks them about like small fry. It is always hard upon Sir Leicester; nevertheless, his dignity gets over it, and he goes on with my Lady to Chesney Wold. Through the cold sunlight and the sharp wind, as the day declines and the Ghost's Walk resigns itself to coming night, they drive into the park. The rooks, swinging in their lofty houses in the elm-tree avenue, seem to break out into violent debate above them. The carriage rolls on to the house, where fires gleam warmly through some of the windows, though not many as yet. But the brilliant and distinguished circle will soon change that. Mrs. Rouncewell is waiting and receives Sir Leicester's handshake with a deep curtsy. "How do you do, Mrs. Rouncewell? I am glad to see you." "I hope I have the honour of welcoming you in good health, Sir Leicester?" "In excellent health, Mrs. Rouncewell." "My Lady is looking charmingly well," says Mrs. Rouncewell with another curtsy. My Lady signifies briefly that she is as wearily well as she can hope to be. But Rosa is behind the housekeeper; and my Lady asks, "Who is that girl?" "A young scholar of mine, my Lady. Rosa." "Come here, Rosa!" Lady Dedlock beckons her, with even an appearance of interest. "Why, do you know how pretty you are, child?" she says, touching her shoulder. Rosa, very much abashed, says, "No, if you please, my Lady!" and glances up, and glances down, and doesn't know where to look, but looks all the prettier. "How old are you?" "Nineteen, my Lady." "Nineteen," repeats my Lady thoughtfully. "Take care they don't spoil you by flattery." "Yes, my Lady." My Lady taps her cheek with delicate gloved fingers and goes on to the staircase. That evening, in the housekeeper's room, Rosa can do nothing but murmur Lady Dedlock's praises. She is so affable, so graceful, so beautiful, so elegant; has such a sweet voice and such a thrilling touch that Rosa can feel it yet! Mrs. Rouncewell confirms all this with some pride, being unsure only about the Lady's affability. If my Lady were not quite so cold and distant, Mrs. Rouncewell thinks she would be more affable. "'Tis almost a pity," Mrs. Rouncewell adds, "that my Lady has no family. If she had had a daughter to interest her, I think she would have had the only kind of excellence she lacks." "Might not that have made her still more proud, grandmother?" says Watt, who has come to visit again, he is such a good grandson. "She is proud, is she not?" "If she is, she has reason to be. The Dedlock family have always reason to be." "I suppose, grandmother," says Watt, "that even with the family and their guests here, there is no objection to my prolonging my stay at the Dedlock Arms for a day or two?" "Surely, none in the world, child." "I am glad of that," says Watt, "because I long to extend my knowledge of this beautiful neighbourhood." He happens to glance at Rosa, who looks down and is very shy indeed. But according to the old superstition, it should be Rosa's ears that burn, and not her fresh bright cheeks; for my Lady's maid is holding forth about her at this moment with great energy. My Lady's maid is a Frenchwoman of thirty-two, a large-eyed woman who would be handsome but for a certain feline mouth and general uncomfortable tightness of face. She has a watchful way of looking out of the corners of her eyes which could be pleasantly dispensed with, especially when she is in an ill humour and near knives. With her tasteful dress and little adornments, she seems like a very neat she-wolf imperfectly tamed. She has good English, and no lack of words to shower upon Rosa for having attracted my Lady's attention. She pours them out with grim ridicule at dinner. Ha, ha, ha! She, Hortense, has been in my Lady's service since five years and always kept at the distance, and this doll, this puppet, caressed by my Lady on the moment of her arriving at the house! Oh, how droll! In short, Mademoiselle Hortense can't forget it; but for days afterwards, shows her silent enjoyment of the joke by her tightness of face and thin compressed lips. Her sideways look is frequently reflected in my Lady's mirrors when my Lady is not there. All the mirrors in the house are brought into action now. They reflect handsome faces, simpering faces, youthful faces, faces of seventy that will not submit to be old; all the faces that have come to pass a January week or two at Chesney Wold. The place in Lincolnshire is all alive. By day guns and voices are heard ringing in the woods, horsemen and carriages enliven the park roads, servants fill the village and the Dedlock Arms. On Sunday the chill little church is almost warmed by so much gallant company. The brilliant and distinguished circle includes within it much education, sense, courage, honour, beauty, and virtue. Yet there is something a little wrong about it. What can it be? Dandyism? There is no King George the Fourth now to set the dandy fashion; no exquisites swooning in opera boxes or beaus whom it takes four men to shake into his buckskins. But some ladies and gentlemen in the distinguished circle have set up a dandyism - in religion, for instance. In want of an emotion, they have agreed upon a little dandy talk about the vulgar lacking faith in things, and would make the vulgar very picturesque and faithful by putting back the hands of time and cancelling a few hundred years of history. There are also ladies and gentlemen of another fashion, who have agreed to put a smooth glaze on the world and to keep down all its realities. For whom everything must be languid and pretty. Who are not to be disturbed by ideas. For whom even the fine arts must array themselves in the patterns of the past and be particularly careful not to be in earnest. Then there is my Lord Boodle, of considerable reputation with his political party, who tells Sir Leicester Dedlock, after dinner, that a debate is not what it used to be; the House is not what it used to be; even a Cabinet is not what it formerly was; and the country is shipwrecked, gone to pieces! Across the table, the Right Honourable William Buffy, M.P., contends that the shipwreck of the country is due entirely to the wrong people being in charge. It is perfectly clear to the brilliant and distinguished circle that Boodle and his retinue, and Buffy and his retinue, are the great actors for whom the stage is reserved. A People there are, no doubt - who are to be occasionally addressed, and relied upon for shouts and choruses; but Boodle and Buffy, and their followers and families, are the chief actors, managers, and leaders, and no others can appear upon the scene for ever and ever. Chesney Wold is so full that only one room is empty. It is a turret chamber, plainly but comfortably furnished, with an old-fashioned business air. It is Mr. Tulkinghorn's room, and is never bestowed on anybody else, for he may come at any time. He is not come yet. Every day before dinner, my Lady looks for him in the dusk of the library, but he is not there. Every day at dinner, my Lady glances down the table for the vacant place that would be set for him if he had just arrived, but there is no vacant place. Every night my Lady casually asks her maid, "Is Mr. Tulkinghorn come?" Every night the answer is, "No, my Lady, not yet." One night, while having her hair undressed, my Lady loses herself in deep thought after this reply, until she sees her own brooding face in the glass, and Hortense curiously observing her. "Be so good as to attend to your business," says my Lady. At length, one afternoon a little before sunset, when the bright groups of figures which have for the last hour or two enlivened the Ghost's Walk are all dispersed and only Sir Leicester and my Lady remain upon the terrace, Mr. Tulkinghorn appears. He comes towards them at his usual methodical pace, wearing his usual expressionless mask. "How do you do, Mr. Tulkinghorn?" says Sir Leicester, giving him his hand. Mr. Tulkinghorn is quite well. He walks at Sir Leicester's side along the terrace. My Lady walks upon the other side. "We expected you before," says Sir Leicester graciously, as if to say, "Mr. Tulkinghorn, we remember your existence. We bestow a fragment of our minds upon you, sir, you see!" Mr. Tulkinghorn says he is much obliged. "I should have come down sooner," he explains, "but I have been much engaged with those suits between yourself and Boythorn." "A man of a very ill-regulated mind," observes Sir Leicester with severity. "A dangerous person of low character." "He is obstinate," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "It is natural to such a man to be so," says Sir Leicester, looking profoundly obstinate himself. "The only question is," pursues the lawyer, "whether you will give up anything. I don't mean anything of importance. I mean any minor point." "Mr. Tulkinghorn," returns Sir Leicester, "there can be no minor point between myself and Mr. Boythorn. In fact, I cannot readily conceive how any right of mine can be a minor point." Mr. Tulkinghorn inclines his head. "Mr. Boythorn will give us a good deal of trouble-" "It is the character of such a mind," Sir Leicester interrupts him, "to give trouble. But night is coming on, and my Lady will take cold. My dear, let us go in." As they turn towards the hall-door, Lady Dedlock addresses Mr. Tulkinghorn for the first time. "You sent me a message about the person whose writing I happened to inquire about. I had quite forgotten it. Your message reminded me of it again. I can't imagine what association I had with a hand like that, but I think I must have had some. Did you really take the trouble to find out the writer of that thing - what is it! - affidavit?" "Yes." "How very odd!" They pass into a sombre breakfast-room on the ground floor, lighted in the day by two deep windows. It is now twilight. My Lady lounges in a great chair in the chimney-corner, and Sir Leicester takes another great chair opposite. The lawyer stands before the fire, shading his face. He looks at my Lady. "Yes," he says, "I inquired about the man, and found him. And, what is very strange, I found him dead." "Oh, dear me!" remonstrated Sir Leicester. Not so much shocked by the fact as by the fact of the fact being mentioned. "I was directed to his lodging - a miserable, poverty-stricken place - and I found him dead." "Excuse me, Mr. Tulkinghorn," observes Sir Leicester. "I think the less said the better." "Pray, Sir Leicester, let me hear the story out" (it is my Lady speaking). "It is quite a story for twilight. How very shocking! Dead?" Mr. Tulkinghorn nods. "Whether by his own hand-" "Really!" cries Sir Leicester. "Do let me hear the story!" says my Lady. "Go on, Mr. Tulkinghorn." Sir Leicester gallantly concedes. "I was about to say," resumes the lawyer calmly, "that whether he had died by his own hand or not, it was beyond my power to tell you. He had unquestionably died of his own act, however, though whether deliberately or by mischance can never be known. The coroner's jury found that he took the poison accidentally." "And what kind of man," my Lady asks, "was this deplorable creature?" "Very difficult to say," returns the lawyer, shaking his head. "He had lived so wretchedly and was so neglected, with his wild black hair and beard, that I should have considered him the commonest of the common. The surgeon had a notion that he had once been something better." "What did they call the wretched being?" "No one knew his name." "Not even anyone who had attended on him?" "No one had attended on him. He was found dead. In fact, I found him." "Without any clue to anything more?" "Without any; there was an old portmanteau," says the lawyer meditatively, "but there were no papers." During every word of this short dialogue, Lady Dedlock and Mr. Tulkinghorn have looked very steadily at one another. Sir Leicester has looked at the fire. He now says haughtily that he trusts to hear no more about a subject so far removed from my Lady's station. "Certainly, a collection of horrors," says my Lady, gathering up her furs, "but they interest one for the moment! Have the kindness, Mr. Tulkinghorn, to open the door for me." Mr. Tulkinghorn holds it open while she passes out, with her usual fatigued manner and insolent grace. They meet again at dinner, and again, for many days in succession. Lady Dedlock is always the same exhausted deity, surrounded by worshippers, and terribly liable to be bored to death. Mr. Tulkinghorn is always silent, oddly out of place and yet perfectly at home. They appear to take no notice of each other. But whether each evermore watches and suspects the other, mistrustful of some great secret; and what each would give to know how much the other knows - all this is hidden, for the time, in their own hearts.

Bleak House

Chapter 12: On the Watch

The term had commenced, and my guardian found an intimation from Mr. Kenge that the cause would come on in two days. As I had sufficient hopes of the will to be in a flutter about it, Allan and I agreed to go down to the court that morning. Richard was extremely agitated and was so weak and low, though his illness was still of the mind, that my dear girl indeed had sore occasion to be supported. But she looked forward--a very little way now--to the help that was to come to her, and never drooped. It was at Westminster that the cause was to come on. It had come on there, I dare say, a hundred times before, but I could not divest myself of an idea that it MIGHT lead to some result now. We left home directly after breakfast to be at Westminster Hall in good time and walked down there through the lively streets--so happily and strangely it seemed!--together. As we were going along, planning what we should do for Richard and Ada, I heard somebody calling "Esther! My dear Esther! Esther!" And there was Caddy Jellyby, with her head out of the window of a little carriage which she hired now to go about in to her pupils (she had so many), as if she wanted to embrace me at a hundred yards' distance. I had written her a note to tell her of all that my guardian had done, but had not had a moment to go and see her. Of course we turned back, and the affectionate girl was in that state of rapture, and was so overjoyed to talk about the night when she brought me the flowers, and was so determined to squeeze my face (bonnet and all) between her hands, and go on in a wild manner altogether, calling me all kinds of precious names, and telling Allan I had done I don't know what for her, that I was just obliged to get into the little carriage and calm her down by letting her say and do exactly what she liked. Allan, standing at the window, was as pleased as Caddy; and I was as pleased as either of them; and I wonder that I got away as I did, rather than that I came off laughing, and red, and anything but tidy, and looking after Caddy, who looked after us out of the coach-window as long as she could see us. This made us some quarter of an hour late, and when we came to Westminster Hall we found that the day's business was begun. Worse than that, we found such an unusual crowd in the Court of Chancery that it was full to the door, and we could neither see nor hear what was passing within. It appeared to be something droll, for occasionally there was a laugh and a cry of "Silence!" It appeared to be something interesting, for every one was pushing and striving to get nearer. It appeared to be something that made the professional gentlemen very merry, for there were several young counsellors in wigs and whiskers on the outside of the crowd, and when one of them told the others about it, they put their hands in their pockets, and quite doubled themselves up with laughter, and went stamping about the pavement of the Hall. We asked a gentleman by us if he knew what cause was on. He told us Jarndyce and Jarndyce. We asked him if he knew what was doing in it. He said really, no he did not, nobody ever did, but as well as he could make out, it was over. Over for the day? we asked him. No, he said, over for good. Over for good! When we heard this unaccountable answer, we looked at one another quite lost in amazement. Could it be possible that the will had set things right at last and that Richard and Ada were going to be rich? It seemed too good to be true. Alas it was! Our suspense was short, for a break-up soon took place in the crowd, and the people came streaming out looking flushed and hot and bringing a quantity of bad air with them. Still they were all exceedingly amused and were more like people coming out from a farce or a juggler than from a court of justice. We stood aside, watching for any countenance we knew, and presently great bundles of paper began to be carried out--bundles in bags, bundles too large to be got into any bags, immense masses of papers of all shapes and no shapes, which the bearers staggered under, and threw down for the time being, anyhow, on the Hall pavement, while they went back to bring out more. Even these clerks were laughing. We glanced at the papers, and seeing Jarndyce and Jarndyce everywhere, asked an official-looking person who was standing in the midst of them whether the cause was over. Yes, he said, it was all up with it at last, and burst out laughing too. At this juncture we perceived Mr. Kenge coming out of court with an affable dignity upon him, listening to Mr. Vholes, who was deferential and carried his own bag. Mr. Vholes was the first to see us. "Here is Miss Summerson, sir," he said. "And Mr. Woodcourt." "Oh, indeed! Yes. Truly!" said Mr. Kenge, raising his hat to me with polished politeness. "How do you do? Glad to see you. Mr. Jarndyce is not here?" No. He never came there, I reminded him. "Really," returned Mr. Kenge, "it is as well that he is NOT here to-day, for his--shall I say, in my good friend's absence, his indomitable singularity of opinion?--might have been strengthened, perhaps; not reasonably, but might have been strengthened." "Pray what has been done to-day?" asked Allan. "I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Kenge with excessive urbanity. "What has been done to-day?" "What has been done," repeated Mr. Kenge. "Quite so. Yes. Why, not much has been done; not much. We have been checked--brought up suddenly, I would say--upon the--shall I term it threshold?" "Is this will considered a genuine document, sir?" said Allan. "Will you tell us that?" "Most certainly, if I could," said Mr. Kenge; "but we have not gone into that, we have not gone into that." "We have not gone into that," repeated Mr. Vholes as if his low inward voice were an echo. "You are to reflect, Mr. Woodcourt," observed Mr. Kenge, using his silver trowel persuasively and smoothingly, "that this has been a great cause, that this has been a protracted cause, that this has been a complex cause. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has been termed, not inaptly, a monument of Chancery practice." "And patience has sat upon it a long time," said Allan. "Very well indeed, sir," returned Mr. Kenge with a certain condescending laugh he had. "Very well! You are further to reflect, Mr. Woodcourt," becoming dignified almost to severity, "that on the numerous difficulties, contingencies, masterly fictions, and forms of procedure in this great cause, there has been expended study, ability, eloquence, knowledge, intellect, Mr. Woodcourt, high intellect. For many years, the--a--I would say the flower of the bar, and the--a--I would presume to add, the matured autumnal fruits of the woolsack--have been lavished upon Jarndyce and Jarndyce. If the public have the benefit, and if the country have the adornment, of this great grasp, it must be paid for in money or money's worth, sir." "Mr. Kenge," said Allan, appearing enlightened all in a moment. "Excuse me, our time presses. Do I understand that the whole estate is found to have been absorbed in costs?" "Hem! I believe so," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes, what do YOU say?" "I believe so," said Mr. Vholes. "And that thus the suit lapses and melts away?" "Probably," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes?" "Probably," said Mr. Vholes. "My dearest life," whispered Allan, "this will break Richard's heart!" There was such a shock of apprehension in his face, and he knew Richard so perfectly, and I too had seen so much of his gradual decay, that what my dear girl had said to me in the fullness of her foreboding love sounded like a knell in my ears. "In case you should be wanting Mr. C., sir," said Mr. Vholes, coming after us, "you'll find him in court. I left him there resting himself a little. Good day, sir; good day, Miss Summerson." As he gave me that slowly devouring look of his, while twisting up the strings of his bag before he hastened with it after Mr. Kenge, the benignant shadow of whose conversational presence he seemed afraid to leave, he gave one gasp as if he had swallowed the last morsel of his client, and his black buttoned-up unwholesome figure glided away to the low door at the end of the Hall. "My dear love," said Allan, "leave to me, for a little while, the charge you gave me. Go home with this intelligence and come to Ada's by and by!" I would not let him take me to a coach, but entreated him to go to Richard without a moment's delay and leave me to do as he wished. Hurrying home, I found my guardian and told him gradually with what news I had returned. "Little woman," said he, quite unmoved for himself, "to have done with the suit on any terms is a greater blessing than I had looked for. But my poor young cousins!" We talked about them all the morning and discussed what it was possible to do. In the afternoon my guardian walked with me to Symond's Inn and left me at the door. I went upstairs. When my darling heard my footsteps, she came out into the small passage and threw her arms round my neck, but she composed herself directly and said that Richard had asked for me several times. Allan had found him sitting in the corner of the court, she told me, like a stone figure. On being roused, he had broken away and made as if he would have spoken in a fierce voice to the judge. He was stopped by his mouth being full of blood, and Allan had brought him home. He was lying on a sofa with his eyes closed when I went in. There were restoratives on the table; the room was made as airy as possible, and was darkened, and was very orderly and quiet. Allan stood behind him watching him gravely. His face appeared to me to be quite destitute of colour, and now that I saw him without his seeing me, I fully saw, for the first time, how worn away he was. But he looked handsomer than I had seen him look for many a day. I sat down by his side in silence. Opening his eyes by and by, he said in a weak voice, but with his old smile, "Dame Durden, kiss me, my dear!" It was a great comfort and surprise to me to find him in his low state cheerful and looking forward. He was happier, he said, in our intended marriage than he could find words to tell me. My husband had been a guardian angel to him and Ada, and he blessed us both and wished us all the joy that life could yield us. I almost felt as if my own heart would have broken when I saw him take my husband's hand and hold it to his breast. We spoke of the future as much as possible, and he said several times that he must be present at our marriage if he could stand upon his feet. Ada would contrive to take him, somehow, he said. "Yes, surely, dearest Richard!" But as my darling answered him thus hopefully, so serene and beautiful, with the help that was to come to her so near--I knew--I knew! It was not good for him to talk too much, and when he was silent, we were silent too. Sitting beside him, I made a pretence of working for my dear, as he had always been used to joke about my being busy. Ada leaned upon his pillow, holding his head upon her arm. He dozed often, and whenever he awoke without seeing him, said first of all, "Where is Woodcourt?" Evening had come on when I lifted up my eyes and saw my guardian standing in the little hall. "Who is that, Dame Durden?" Richard asked me. The door was behind him, but he had observed in my face that some one was there. I looked to Allan for advice, and as he nodded "Yes," bent over Richard and told him. My guardian saw what passed, came softly by me in a moment, and laid his hand on Richard's. "Oh, sir," said Richard, "you are a good man, you are a good man!" and burst into tears for the first time. My guardian, the picture of a good man, sat down in my place, keeping his hand on Richard's. "My dear Rick," said he, "the clouds have cleared away, and it is bright now. We can see now. We were all bewildered, Rick, more or less. What matters! And how are you, my dear boy?" "I am very weak, sir, but I hope I shall be stronger. I have to begin the world." "Aye, truly; well said!" cried my guardian. "I will not begin it in the old way now," said Richard with a sad smile. "I have learned a lesson now, sir. It was a hard one, but you shall be assured, indeed, that I have learned it." "Well, well," said my guardian, comforting him; "well, well, well, dear boy!" "I was thinking, sir," resumed Richard, "that there is nothing on earth I should so much like to see as their house--Dame Durden's and Woodcourt's house. If I could be removed there when I begin to recover my strength, I feel as if I should get well there sooner than anywhere." "Why, so have I been thinking too, Rick," said my guardian, "and our little woman likewise; she and I have been talking of it this very day. I dare say her husband won't object. What do you think?" Richard smiled and lifted up his arm to touch him as he stood behind the head of the couch. "I say nothing of Ada," said Richard, "but I think of her, and have thought of her very much. Look at her! See her here, sir, bending over this pillow when she has so much need to rest upon it herself, my dear love, my poor girl!" He clasped her in his arms, and none of us spoke. He gradually released her, and she looked upon us, and looked up to heaven, and moved her lips. "When I get down to Bleak House," said Richard, "I shall have much to tell you, sir, and you will have much to show me. You will go, won't you?" "Undoubtedly, dear Rick." "Thank you; like you, like you," said Richard. "But it's all like you. They have been telling me how you planned it and how you remembered all Esther's familiar tastes and ways. It will be like coming to the old Bleak House again." "And you will come there too, I hope, Rick. I am a solitary man now, you know, and it will be a charity to come to me. A charity to come to me, my love!" he repeated to Ada as he gently passed his hand over her golden hair and put a lock of it to his lips. (I think he vowed within himself to cherish her if she were left alone.) "It was a troubled dream?" said Richard, clasping both my guardian's hands eagerly. "Nothing more, Rick; nothing more." "And you, being a good man, can pass it as such, and forgive and pity the dreamer, and be lenient and encouraging when he wakes?" "Indeed I can. What am I but another dreamer, Rick?" "I will begin the world!" said Richard with a light in his eyes. My husband drew a little nearer towards Ada, and I saw him solemnly lift up his hand to warn my guardian. "When shall I go from this place to that pleasant country where the old times are, where I shall have strength to tell what Ada has been to me, where I shall be able to recall my many faults and blindnesses, where I shall prepare myself to be a guide to my unborn child?" said Richard. "When shall I go?" "Dear Rick, when you are strong enough," returned my guardian. "Ada, my darling!" He sought to raise himself a little. Allan raised him so that she could hold him on her bosom, which was what he wanted. "I have done you many wrongs, my own. I have fallen like a poor stray shadow on your way, I have married you to poverty and trouble, I have scattered your means to the winds. You will forgive me all this, my Ada, before I begin the world?" A smile irradiated his face as she bent to kiss him. He slowly laid his face down upon her bosom, drew his arms closer round her neck, and with one parting sob began the world. Not this world, oh, not this! The world that sets this right. When all was still, at a late hour, poor crazed Miss Flite came weeping to me and told me she had given her birds their liberty.

The Chancery term had commenced, and Mr. Kenge told us that the cause would come on in two days. As I had sufficient hopes of the will to be in a flutter about it, Allan and I agreed to go down to the court that morning. Richard was extremely agitated and was so weak and low that my dear girl indeed required support. But she looked forward to the child that was to come, and never drooped. The Court of Chancery was to be held at Westminster Hall. As we were walking along, planning what we should do for Richard and Ada, I heard somebody calling "Esther! My dear Esther!" And there was Caddy, with her head out of the window of a little carriage which she hired now to go about in to her pupils. I had written her a note to tell her of all that my guardian had done, but had not had a moment to go and see her. Of course we turned back, and the affectionate girl was in such rapture, and was so overjoyed to talk about the night when she brought me the flowers, and was calling me all kinds of precious names, that I was obliged to get into the little carriage and calm her down by letting her say what she liked. Allan, standing at the window, was as pleased as Caddy; and I came away laughing, and red. This made us some quarter of an hour late, and when we came to Westminster Hall the day's business was begun. Worse than that, we found such an unusual crowd in the Court of Chancery that it was full to the door, and we could neither see nor hear what was passing within. It appeared to be something droll, for occasionally there was a laugh and a cry of "Silence!" The professional gentlemen were very merry about it, for there were several young lawyers quite doubled up. We asked a gentleman nearby if he knew what cause was on. He told us Jarndyce and Jarndyce. We asked him if he knew what was happening in it. He said, no he did not, nobody ever did, but as well as he could make out, it was over. Over for the day? we asked him. No, he said, over for good. Over for good! We looked at one another lost in amazement. Could it be possible that the will had set things right at last and that Richard and Ada would be rich? It seemed too good to be true. Alas, it was! People now came streaming out looking flushed and hot and exceedingly amused, more like people coming out from a farce or a juggler than from a court of justice. We stood aside, watching, and presently great bundles of paper began to be carried out, which the bearers staggered under, and threw down anyhow, on the Hall pavement, while they went back to bring out more. Even these clerks were laughing. We glanced at the papers, and saw Jarndyce and Jarndyce everywhere. Then we perceived Mr. Kenge coming out of court with affable dignity, listening to Mr. Vholes. Mr. Vholes was the first to see us. "Here is Miss Summerson, sir," he said. "And Mr. Woodcourt." "Oh, indeed! Yes." said Mr. Kenge, raising his hat. "How do you do? Mr. Jarndyce is not here?" No. He never came there, I reminded him. "Really," returned Mr. Kenge, "it is as well that he is not here today, for his opinion might have been strengthened, perhaps." "Pray what has been done today?" asked Allan. "What has been done," repeated Mr. Kenge. "Quite so. Not much. We have been checked upon the threshold." "Is this will considered genuine, sir?" said Allan. "We have not gone into that," said Mr. Kenge. "We have not gone into that," repeated Mr. Vholes like a dull echo. "Reflect, Mr. Woodcourt," observed Mr. Kenge smoothly, "that this has been a great cause, a protracted and complex cause. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has been termed a monument of Chancery practice." "And patience has sat upon it a long time," said Allan. "Indeed, sir," returned Mr. Kenge. "Further reflect, Mr. Woodcourt, that on the numerous difficulties in this great cause, there has been expended study, ability, eloquence, knowledge, and high intellect. For many years, the flower of the bar has been lavished upon Jarndyce and Jarndyce. And this great public benefit must be paid for, sir." "Mr. Kenge," said Allan. "Do I understand that the whole estate is found to have been absorbed in costs?" "Hem! I believe so," returned Mr. Kenge. "I believe so," said Mr. Vholes. "And that thus the suit lapses and melts away?" "Probably," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes?" "My dearest life," whispered Allan, "this will break Richard's heart!" There was such a shock of apprehension in his face, and I too had seen so much of Richard's gradual decay, that what my dear girl had said to me in her foreboding love sounded like a knell in my ears. "If you should be wanting Mr. C., sir," said Mr. Vholes, "you'll find him in court. I left him there resting. Good day." He hastened after Mr. Kenge, and his black buttoned-up unwholesome figure glided away. "My dear love," said Allan, "leave him to me, for a little while. Go home, and come to Ada's by and by!" Hurrying home, I found my guardian and told him the news. "Little woman," said he, quite unmoved for himself, "to have done with the suit on any terms is a blessing. But my poor young cousins!" We talked about them all morning, discussing what it was possible to do. In the afternoon my guardian walked with me to Symond's Inn and I went upstairs. When my darling heard my footsteps, she came out and threw her arms round my neck. Composing herself, she said that Richard had asked for me. Allan had found him sitting in the corner of the court, she told me, like a stone figure. On being roused, he had broken away as if he would have spoken fiercely to the judge. He was stopped by his mouth being full of blood, and Allan had brought him home. He was lying on a sofa with his eyes closed when I went in. The room was darkened, and was very orderly and quiet. Allan stood watching him gravely. Richard's face appeared to be quite without colour, and I fully saw, for the first time, how worn away he was. But he looked handsomer than I had seen him look for many a day. I sat down by his side. Opening his eyes, he said in a weak voice, but with his old smile, "Dame Durden, kiss me, my dear!" It was a great comfort and surprise to me to find him cheerful and looking forward. He was happier, he said, in our intended marriage than he could say. My husband had been a guardian angel to him and Ada, and he blessed us both. I almost felt as if my own heart would have broken when I saw him take my husband's hand and hold it to his breast. We spoke of the future as much as possible, and he said several times that he must be present at our marriage if he could stand upon his feet. Ada would contrive to take him, somehow, he said. "Yes, surely, dearest Richard!" But as my darling answered him thus, so serene and beautiful - I knew - I knew! It was not good for him to talk too much. Sitting beside him, I made a pretence of sewing for my dear, as he always used to joke about my being busy. Ada leaned upon his pillow, holding his head upon her arm. He dozed often, and whenever he awoke, said first of all, "Where is Woodcourt?" Evening had come on when I lifted up my eyes and saw my guardian standing in the little hall. "Who is that, Dame Durden?" Richard asked me. I looked to Allan for advice, and as he nodded, bent over Richard and told him. My guardian came softly in and laid his hand on Richard's. "Oh, sir," said Richard, "you are a good man, you are a good man!" and burst into tears for the first time. My guardian sat down in my place, keeping his hand on Richard's. "My dear Rick," said he, "the clouds have cleared away, and it is bright now. We can see now. We were all bewildered, Rick, more or less. What matters! And how are you, my dear boy?" "I am very weak, sir, but I hope I shall be stronger. I have to begin the world." "Aye, truly; well said!" cried my guardian. "I will not begin it in the old way now," said Richard with a sad smile. "I have learned a lesson now, sir. It was a hard one, but I have learned it." "Well, well," said my guardian, comforting him; "well, well, dear boy!" "I was thinking, sir," resumed Richard, "that there is nothing I should so much like as to see as their house - Dame Durden's and Woodcourt's house. If I could be moved there, I feel as if I should get well there sooner than anywhere." "Why, she and I have been thinking so too, Rick," said my guardian, "and we have been talking of it this very day. I dare say her husband won't object. What do you think?" Richard smiled. "I think of Ada," he said, "and have thought of her very much. See her here, sir, bending over this pillow when she has so much need to rest upon it herself, my dear love!" He clasped her in his arms, and none of us spoke until he gradually released her. "When I get to the new Bleak House," said Richard, "I shall have much to tell you, sir. They have told me how you planned it. It will be like coming to the old Bleak House again." "And you will come there too, I hope, Rick. I am a solitary man now, you know, and it will be a kindness to visit me." "It was a troubled dream?" said Richard, clasping my guardian's hands. "Nothing more, Rick; nothing more." "And you can forgive and pity the dreamer, and be lenient when he wakes?" "Indeed I can. What am I but another dreamer, Rick?" "I will begin the world!" said Richard with a light in his eyes. My husband drew a little nearer towards Ada, and I saw him solemnly lift up his hand to warn my guardian. "When shall I go to that pleasant country where the old times are, where I shall have strength to tell what Ada has been to me, where I shall be able to recall my many faults and blindnesses, where I shall prepare myself to be a guide to my unborn child?" said Richard. "When shall I go?" "Dear Rick, when you are strong enough," returned my guardian. "Ada, my darling!" He sought to lift himself a little. Allan raised him so that she could hold him. "I have done you many wrongs, my own. I have married you to poverty and trouble, I have scattered your means to the winds. You will forgive me all this, my Ada, before I begin the world?" A smile irradiated his face as she bent to kiss him. He slowly laid his face down upon her bosom, drew his arms closer round her neck, and with one parting sob began the world. Not this world, oh, not this! The world that sets this right.

Bleak House

Chapter 65: Beginning the World

But one other day had intervened when, early in the morning as we were going to breakfast, Mr. Woodcourt came in haste with the astounding news that a terrible murder had been committed for which Mr. George had been apprehended and was in custody. When he told us that a large reward was offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock for the murderer's apprehension, I did not in my first consternation understand why; but a few more words explained to me that the murdered person was Sir Leicester's lawyer, and immediately my mother's dread of him rushed into my remembrance. This unforeseen and violent removal of one whom she had long watched and distrusted and who had long watched and distrusted her, one for whom she could have had few intervals of kindness, always dreading in him a dangerous and secret enemy, appeared so awful that my first thoughts were of her. How appalling to hear of such a death and be able to feel no pity! How dreadful to remember, perhaps, that she had sometimes even wished the old man away who was so swiftly hurried out of life! Such crowding reflections, increasing the distress and fear I always felt when the name was mentioned, made me so agitated that I could scarcely hold my place at the table. I was quite unable to follow the conversation until I had had a little time to recover. But when I came to myself and saw how shocked my guardian was and found that they were earnestly speaking of the suspected man and recalling every favourable impression we had formed of him out of the good we had known of him, my interest and my fears were so strongly aroused in his behalf that I was quite set up again. "Guardian, you don't think it possible that he is justly accused?" "My dear, I CAN'T think so. This man whom we have seen so open-hearted and compassionate, who with the might of a giant has the gentleness of a child, who looks as brave a fellow as ever lived and is so simple and quiet with it, this man justly accused of such a crime? I can't believe it. It's not that I don't or I won't. I can't!" "And I can't," said Mr. Woodcourt. "Still, whatever we believe or know of him, we had better not forget that some appearances are against him. He bore an animosity towards the deceased gentleman. He has openly mentioned it in many places. He is said to have expressed himself violently towards him, and he certainly did about him, to my knowledge. He admits that he was alone on the scene of the murder within a few minutes of its commission. I sincerely believe him to be as innocent of any participation in it as I am, but these are all reasons for suspicion falling upon him." "True," said my guardian. And he added, turning to me, "It would be doing him a very bad service, my dear, to shut our eyes to the truth in any of these respects." I felt, of course, that we must admit, not only to ourselves but to others, the full force of the circumstances against him. Yet I knew withal (I could not help saying) that their weight would not induce us to desert him in his need. "Heaven forbid!" returned my guardian. "We will stand by him, as he himself stood by the two poor creatures who are gone." He meant Mr. Gridley and the boy, to both of whom Mr. George had given shelter. Mr. Woodcourt then told us that the trooper's man had been with him before day, after wandering about the streets all night like a distracted creature. That one of the trooper's first anxieties was that we should not suppose him guilty. That he had charged his messenger to represent his perfect innocence with every solemn assurance he could send us. That Mr. Woodcourt had only quieted the man by undertaking to come to our house very early in the morning with these representations. He added that he was now upon his way to see the prisoner himself. My guardian said directly he would go too. Now, besides that I liked the retired soldier very much and that he liked me, I had that secret interest in what had happened which was only known to my guardian. I felt as if it came close and near to me. It seemed to become personally important to myself that the truth should be discovered and that no innocent people should be suspected, for suspicion, once run wild, might run wilder. In a word, I felt as if it were my duty and obligation to go with them. My guardian did not seek to dissuade me, and I went. It was a large prison with many courts and passages so like one another and so uniformly paved that I seemed to gain a new comprehension, as I passed along, of the fondness that solitary prisoners, shut up among the same staring walls from year to year, have had--as I have read--for a weed or a stray blade of grass. In an arched room by himself, like a cellar upstairs, with walls so glaringly white that they made the massive iron window-bars and iron-bound door even more profoundly black than they were, we found the trooper standing in a corner. He had been sitting on a bench there and had risen when he heard the locks and bolts turn. When he saw us, he came forward a step with his usual heavy tread, and there stopped and made a slight bow. But as I still advanced, putting out my hand to him, he understood us in a moment. "This is a load off my mind, I do assure you, miss and gentlemen," said he, saluting us with great heartiness and drawing a long breath. "And now I don't so much care how it ends." He scarcely seemed to be the prisoner. What with his coolness and his soldierly bearing, he looked far more like the prison guard. "This is even a rougher place than my gallery to receive a lady in," said Mr. George, "but I know Miss Summerson will make the best of it." As he handed me to the bench on which he had been sitting, I sat down, which seemed to give him great satisfaction. "I thank you, miss," said he. "Now, George," observed my guardian, "as we require no new assurances on your part, so I believe we need give you none on ours." "Not at all, sir. I thank you with all my heart. If I was not innocent of this crime, I couldn't look at you and keep my secret to myself under the condescension of the present visit. I feel the present visit very much. I am not one of the eloquent sort, but I feel it, Miss Summerson and gentlemen, deeply." He laid his hand for a moment on his broad chest and bent his head to us. Although he squared himself again directly, he expressed a great amount of natural emotion by these simple means. "First," said my guardian, "can we do anything for your personal comfort, George?" "For which, sir?" he inquired, clearing his throat. "For your personal comfort. Is there anything you want that would lessen the hardship of this confinement?" "Well, sir," replied George, after a little cogitation, "I am equally obliged to you, but tobacco being against the rules, I can't say that there is." "You will think of many little things perhaps, by and by. Whenever you do, George, let us know." "Thank you, sir. Howsoever," observed Mr. George with one of his sunburnt smiles, "a man who has been knocking about the world in a vagabond kind of a way as long as I have gets on well enough in a place like the present, so far as that goes." "Next, as to your case," observed my guardian. "Exactly so, sir," returned Mr. George, folding his arms upon his breast with perfect self-possession and a little curiosity. "How does it stand now?" "Why, sir, it is under remand at present. Bucket gives me to understand that he will probably apply for a series of remands from time to time until the case is more complete. How it is to be made more complete I don't myself see, but I dare say Bucket will manage it somehow." "Why, heaven save us, man," exclaimed my guardian, surprised into his old oddity and vehemence, "you talk of yourself as if you were somebody else!" "No offence, sir," said Mr. George. "I am very sensible of your kindness. But I don't see how an innocent man is to make up his mind to this kind of thing without knocking his head against the walls unless he takes it in that point of view. "That is true enough to a certain extent," returned my guardian, softened. "But my good fellow, even an innocent man must take ordinary precautions to defend himself." "Certainly, sir. And I have done so. I have stated to the magistrates, 'Gentlemen, I am as innocent of this charge as yourselves; what has been stated against me in the way of facts is perfectly true; I know no more about it.' I intend to continue stating that, sir. What more can I do? It's the truth." "But the mere truth won't do," rejoined my guardian. "Won't it indeed, sir? Rather a bad look-out for me!" Mr. George good-humouredly observed. "You must have a lawyer," pursued my guardian. "We must engage a good one for you." "I ask your pardon, sir," said Mr. George with a step backward. "I am equally obliged. But I must decidedly beg to be excused from anything of that sort." "You won't have a lawyer?" "No, sir." Mr. George shook his head in the most emphatic manner. "I thank you all the same, sir, but--no lawyer!" "Why not?" "I don't take kindly to the breed," said Mr. George. "Gridley didn't. And--if you'll excuse my saying so much--I should hardly have thought you did yourself, sir." "That's equity," my guardian explained, a little at a loss; "that's equity, George." "Is it, indeed, sir?" returned the trooper in his off-hand manner. "I am not acquainted with those shades of names myself, but in a general way I object to the breed." Unfolding his arms and changing his position, he stood with one massive hand upon the table and the other on his hip, as complete a picture of a man who was not to be moved from a fixed purpose as ever I saw. It was in vain that we all three talked to him and endeavoured to persuade him; he listened with that gentleness which went so well with his bluff bearing, but was evidently no more shaken by our representations that his place of confinement was. "Pray think, once more, Mr. George," said I. "Have you no wish in reference to your case?" "I certainly could wish it to be tried, miss," he returned, "by court-martial; but that is out of the question, as I am well aware. If you will be so good as to favour me with your attention for a couple of minutes, miss, not more, I'll endeavour to explain myself as clearly as I can." He looked at us all three in turn, shook his head a little as if he were adjusting it in the stock and collar of a tight uniform, and after a moment's reflection went on. "You see, miss, I have been handcuffed and taken into custody and brought here. I am a marked and disgraced man, and here I am. My shooting gallery is rummaged, high and low, by Bucket; such property as I have--'tis small--is turned this way and that till it don't know itself; and (as aforesaid) here I am! I don't particular complain of that. Though I am in these present quarters through no immediately preceding fault of mine, I can very well understand that if I hadn't gone into the vagabond way in my youth, this wouldn't have happened. It HAS happened. Then comes the question how to meet it." He rubbed his swarthy forehead for a moment with a good-humoured look and said apologetically, "I am such a short-winded talker that I must think a bit." Having thought a bit, he looked up again and resumed. "How to meet it. Now, the unfortunate deceased was himself a lawyer and had a pretty tight hold of me. I don't wish to rake up his ashes, but he had, what I should call if he was living, a devil of a tight hold of me. I don't like his trade the better for that. If I had kept clear of his trade, I should have kept outside this place. But that's not what I mean. Now, suppose I had killed him. Suppose I really had discharged into his body any one of those pistols recently fired off that Bucket has found at my place, and dear me, might have found there any day since it has been my place. What should I have done as soon as I was hard and fast here? Got a lawyer." He stopped on hearing some one at the locks and bolts and did not resume until the door had been opened and was shut again. For what purpose opened, I will mention presently. "I should have got a lawyer, and he would have said (as I have often read in the newspapers), 'My client says nothing, my client reserves his defence': my client this, that, and t'other. Well, 'tis not the custom of that breed to go straight, according to my opinion, or to think that other men do. Say I am innocent and I get a lawyer. He would be as likely to believe me guilty as not; perhaps more. What would he do, whether or not? Act as if I was--shut my mouth up, tell me not to commit myself, keep circumstances back, chop the evidence small, quibble, and get me off perhaps! But, Miss Summerson, do I care for getting off in that way; or would I rather be hanged in my own way--if you'll excuse my mentioning anything so disagreeable to a lady?" He had warmed into his subject now, and was under no further necessity to wait a bit. "I would rather be hanged in my own way. And I mean to be! I don't intend to say," looking round upon us with his powerful arms akimbo and his dark eyebrows raised, "that I am more partial to being hanged than another man. What I say is, I must come off clear and full or not at all. Therefore, when I hear stated against me what is true, I say it's true; and when they tell me, 'whatever you say will be used,' I tell them I don't mind that; I mean it to be used. If they can't make me innocent out of the whole truth, they are not likely to do it out of anything less, or anything else. And if they are, it's worth nothing to me." Taking a pace or two over the stone floor, he came back to the table and finished what he had to say. "I thank you, miss and gentlemen both, many times for your attention, and many times more for your interest. That's the plain state of the matter as it points itself out to a mere trooper with a blunt broadsword kind of a mind. I have never done well in life beyond my duty as a soldier, and if the worst comes after all, I shall reap pretty much as I have sown. When I got over the first crash of being seized as a murderer--it don't take a rover who has knocked about so much as myself so very long to recover from a crash--I worked my way round to what you find me now. As such I shall remain. No relations will be disgraced by me or made unhappy for me, and--and that's all I've got to say." The door had been opened to admit another soldier-looking man of less prepossessing appearance at first sight and a weather-tanned, bright-eyed wholesome woman with a basket, who, from her entrance, had been exceedingly attentive to all Mr. George had said. Mr. George had received them with a familiar nod and a friendly look, but without any more particular greeting in the midst of his address. He now shook them cordially by the hand and said, "Miss Summerson and gentlemen, this is an old comrade of mine, Matthew Bagnet. And this is his wife, Mrs. Bagnet." Mr. Bagnet made us a stiff military bow, and Mrs. Bagnet dropped us a curtsy. "Real good friends of mine, they are," sald Mr. George. "It was at their house I was taken." "With a second-hand wiolinceller," Mr. Bagnet put in, twitching his head angrily. "Of a good tone. For a friend. That money was no object to." "Mat," said Mr. George, "you have heard pretty well all I have been saying to this lady and these two gentlemen. I know it meets your approval?" Mr. Bagnet, after considering, referred the point to his wife. "Old girl," said he. "Tell him. Whether or not. It meets my approval." "Why, George," exclaimed Mrs. Bagnet, who had been unpacking her basket, in which there was a piece of cold pickled pork, a little tea and sugar, and a brown loaf, "you ought to know it don't. You ought to know it's enough to drive a person wild to hear you. You won't be got off this way, and you won't be got off that way--what do you mean by such picking and choosing? It's stuff and nonsense, George." "Don't be severe upon me in my misfortunes, Mrs. Bagnet," said the trooper lightly. "Oh! Bother your misfortunes," cried Mrs. Bagnet, "if they don't make you more reasonable than that comes to. I never was so ashamed in my life to hear a man talk folly as I have been to hear you talk this day to the present company. Lawyers? Why, what but too many cooks should hinder you from having a dozen lawyers if the gentleman recommended them to you." "This is a very sensible woman," said my guardian. "I hope you will persuade him, Mrs. Bagnet." "Persuade him, sir?" she returned. "Lord bless you, no. You don't know George. Now, there!" Mrs. Bagnet left her basket to point him out with both her bare brown hands. "There he stands! As self-willed and as determined a man, in the wrong way, as ever put a human creature under heaven out of patience! You could as soon take up and shoulder an eight and forty pounder by your own strength as turn that man when he has got a thing into his head and fixed it there. Why, don't I know him!" cried Mrs. Bagnet. "Don't I know you, George! You don't mean to set up for a new character with ME after all these years, I hope?" Her friendly indignation had an exemplary effect upon her husband, who shook his head at the trooper several times as a silent recommendation to him to yield. Between whiles, Mrs. Bagnet looked at me; and I understood from the play of her eyes that she wished me to do something, though I did not comprehend what. "But I have given up talking to you, old fellow, years and years," said Mrs. Bagnet as she blew a little dust off the pickled pork, looking at me again; "and when ladies and gentlemen know you as well as I do, they'll give up talking to you too. If you are not too headstrong to accept of a bit of dinner, here it is." "I accept it with many thanks," returned the trooper. "Do you though, indeed?" said Mrs. Bagnet, continuing to grumble on good-humouredly. "I'm sure I'm surprised at that. I wonder you don't starve in your own way also. It would only be like you. Perhaps you'll set your mind upon THAT next." Here she again looked at me, and I now perceived from her glances at the door and at me, by turns, that she wished us to retire and to await her following us outside the prison. Communicating this by similar means to my guardian and Mr. Woodcourt, I rose. "We hope you will think better of it, Mr. George," said I, "and we shall come to see you again, trusting to find you more reasonable." "More grateful, Miss Summerson, you can't find me," he returned. "But more persuadable we can, I hope," said I. "And let me entreat you to consider that the clearing up of this mystery and the discovery of the real perpetrator of this deed may be of the last importance to others besides yourself." He heard me respectfully but without much heeding these words, which I spoke a little turned from him, already on my way to the door; he was observing (this they afterwards told me) my height and figure, which seemed to catch his attention all at once. "'Tis curious," said he. "And yet I thought so at the time!" My guardian asked him what he meant. "Why, sir," he answered, "when my ill fortune took me to the dead man's staircase on the night of his murder, I saw a shape so like Miss Summerson's go by me in the dark that I had half a mind to speak to it." For an instant I felt such a shudder as I never felt before or since and hope I shall never feel again. "It came downstairs as I went up," said the trooper, "and crossed the moonlighted window with a loose black mantle on; I noticed a deep fringe to it. However, it has nothing to do with the present subject, excepting that Miss Summerson looked so like it at the moment that it came into my head." I cannot separate and define the feelings that arose in me after this; it is enough that the vague duty and obligation I had felt upon me from the first of following the investigation was, without my distinctly daring to ask myself any question, increased, and that I was indignantly sure of there being no possibility of a reason for my being afraid. We three went out of the prison and walked up and down at some short distance from the gate, which was in a retired place. We had not waited long when Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet came out too and quickly joined us. There was a tear in each of Mrs. Bagnet's eyes, and her face was flushed and hurried. "I didn't let George see what I thought about it, you know, miss," was her first remark when she came up, "but he's in a bad way, poor old fellow!" "Not with care and prudence and good help," said my guardian. "A gentleman like you ought to know best, sir," returned Mrs. Bagnet, hurriedly drying her eyes on the hem of her grey cloak, "but I am uneasy for him. He has been so careless and said so much that he never meant. The gentlemen of the juries might not understand him as Lignum and me do. And then such a number of circumstances have happened bad for him, and such a number of people will be brought forward to speak against him, and Bucket is so deep." "With a second-hand wiolinceller. And said he played the fife. When a boy," Mr. Bagnet added with great solemnity. "Now, I tell you, miss," said Mrs. Bagnet; "and when I say miss, I mean all! Just come into the corner of the wall and I'll tell you!" Mrs. Bagnet hurried us into a more secluded place and was at first too breathless to proceed, occasioning Mr. Bagnet to say, "Old girl! Tell 'em!" "Why, then, miss," the old girl proceeded, untying the strings of her bonnet for more air, "you could as soon move Dover Castle as move George on this point unless you had got a new power to move him with. And I have got it!" "You are a jewel of a woman," said my guardian. "Go on!" "Now, I tell you, miss," she proceeded, clapping her hands in her hurry and agitation a dozen times in every sentence, "that what he says concerning no relations is all bosh. They don't know of him, but he does know of them. He has said more to me at odd times than to anybody else, and it warn't for nothing that he once spoke to my Woolwich about whitening and wrinkling mothers' heads. For fifty pounds he had seen his mother that day. She's alive and must be brought here straight!" Instantly Mrs. Bagnet put some pins into her mouth and began pinning up her skirts all round a little higher than the level of her grey cloak, which she accomplished with surpassing dispatch and dexterity. "Lignum," said Mrs. Bagnet, "you take care of the children, old man, and give me the umbrella! I'm away to Lincolnshire to bring that old lady here." "But, bless the woman," cried my guardian with his hand in his pocket, "how is she going? What money has she got?" Mrs. Bagnet made another application to her skirts and brought forth a leathern purse in which she hastily counted over a few shillings and which she then shut up with perfect satisfaction. "Never you mind for me, miss. I'm a soldier's wife and accustomed to travel my own way. Lignum, old boy," kissing him, "one for yourself, three for the children. Now I'm away into Lincolnshire after George's mother!" And she actually set off while we three stood looking at one another lost in amazement. She actually trudged away in her grey cloak at a sturdy pace, and turned the corner, and was gone. "Mr. Bagnet," said my guardian. "Do you mean to let her go in that way?" "Can't help it," he returned. "Made her way home once from another quarter of the world. With the same grey cloak. And same umbrella. Whatever the old girl says, do. Do it! Whenever the old girl says, I'LL do it. She does it." "Then she is as honest and genuine as she looks," rejoined my guardian, "and it is impossible to say more for her." "She's Colour-Sergeant of the Nonpareil battalion," said Mr. Bagnet, looking at us over his shoulder as he went his way also. "And there's not such another. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained."

Only two days later, at breakfast time, Mr. Woodcourt came in haste with the astounding news that a terrible murder had been committed for which Mr. George was in custody. When he told us that a large reward was offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock for the murderer's apprehension, I did not understand why; but a few more words explained to me that the murdered person was Sir Leicester's lawyer, and immediately my mother's dread of him rushed into my remembrance. This unforeseen and violent removal of one whom she had long distrusted, dreading him as a dangerous and secret enemy, appeared so awful that my first thoughts were of her. How appalling to hear of such a death and be able to feel no pity! How dreadful to remember, perhaps, that she had sometimes even wished the old man away! Such crowding reflections made me so distressed and agitated that I could scarcely keep my place at the table. I was quite unable to follow the conversation until I had had a little time to recover. But when I came to myself and found that they were earnestly speaking of the suspected man, recalling our favourable impressions of him, my interest and my fears were strongly aroused in his behalf. "Guardian, you don't think it possible that Mr. George is guilty?" "My dear, I can't think so. This man whom we have seen so open-hearted and compassionate, who with the might of a giant has the gentleness of a child, this man guilty of such a crime? I can't believe it!" "And I can't," said Mr. Woodcourt. "Still, some appearances are against him. He bore an animosity towards the deceased gentleman. He has openly mentioned it in many places. He is said to have expressed himself violently towards him. He admits that he was alone on the scene of the murder within a few minutes of its commission. I sincerely believe him to be innocent, but these are all reasons for suspicion falling upon him." "True," said my guardian. I felt, of course, that we must admit the full force of the circumstances against him. Yet I knew (I could not help saying) that their weight would not induce us to desert him in his need. "Heaven forbid!" returned my guardian. "We will stand by him, as he himself stood by the two poor creatures who are gone." He meant Mr. Gridley and the boy, to both of whom Mr. George had given shelter. Mr. Woodcourt then told us that the trooper's man Phil Squod had been with him before day, after wandering about the streets all night like a distracted creature; and that the trooper was anxious that we should not suppose him guilty. Mr. Woodcourt had promised to come to our house very early in the morning; he added that he was now upon his way to see Mr. George in prison. My guardian said directly he would go too. Now, besides my liking for the retired soldier, I had that secret interest in what had happened. I felt as if it came near to me. It seemed to become personally important to me that the truth should be discovered and that no innocent people should be suspected. In a word, I felt as if it were my duty to go with them. My guardian did not seek to dissuade me, and I went. It was a large prison with many identical courts and passages, and with no weed or blade of grass. In an arched room by himself, like a cellar upstairs, with massive iron window-bars and a black iron-bound door, we found the trooper. When he saw us, he stepped forward with his usual heavy tread, and made a slight bow. But I advanced, putting out my hand to him. "This is a load off my mind, I do assure you, miss and gentlemen," said he, saluting us and drawing a long breath. "This is an even rougher place than my gallery to receive a lady, but I know Miss Summerson will make the best of it." I sat down on the bench, which seemed to give him great satisfaction. "Now, George," observed my guardian, "we require no new assurances on your part." "Thank you, sir, with all my heart. If I was not innocent of this crime, I couldn't look at you and keep my secret to myself. I feel your visit very deeply." He laid his hand on his broad chest and bent his head, expressing a great amount of natural emotion by these simple means. "First," said my guardian, "is there anything we can do for your personal comfort, George?" "Well, sir," replied George, thinking, "I am obliged to you, but since tobacco is against the rules, I can't say that there is." "If you think of anything, George, let us know." "Thank you, sir. Howsoever," observed Mr. George with one of his sunburnt smiles, "a man who has been knocking about the world in a vagabond way as long as I have gets on well enough in a place like this." "Next, as to your case," observed my guardian. "How does it stand now?" "Why, sir, it is under remand at present. Bucket tells me that he will probably apply for a series of remands until the case is more complete. How it is to be made more complete I don't see, but I dare say Bucket will manage it somehow." "Why, heaven save us, man," exclaimed my guardian, "you talk as if you were somebody else!" "No offence, sir," said Mr. George. "But I don't see how an innocent man is to cope with this kind of thing without knocking his head against the walls, unless he takes that point of view." "True enough," returned my guardian. "But even an innocent man must defend himself." "Certainly, sir. And I have done so. I have stated my innocence to the magistrates, and have said I know nothing about it. What more can I do? It's the truth." "But the mere truth won't do," rejoined my guardian. "You must have a lawyer. We must engage a good one for you." "I ask your pardon, sir," said Mr. George with a step backward. "I am obliged. But I must decidedly beg to be excused from anything of that sort." "You won't have a lawyer?" "No, sir." "Why not?" "I don't take kindly to the breed," said Mr. George. "Gridley didn't. I object to the breed, sir." It was in vain that we all three endeavoured to persuade him; he listened with that gentleness which went so well with his bluff bearing, but was unshaken by our arguments. "You see," he said, "I have been handcuffed and brought here. I am a marked and disgraced man. My shooting gallery is rummaged, high and low, by Bucket; such property as I have is turned this way and that; and here I am! I don't particular complain of that. Though it is through no immediate fault of mine, I can understand that if I hadn't gone into the vagabond way in my youth, this wouldn't have happened. It has happened: then comes the question how to meet it." He rubbed his forehead for a moment and thought a bit; then he resumed. "Now, the unfortunate deceased was himself a lawyer and had a pretty tight hold of me. I don't wish to rake up his ashes, but he had a devil of a tight hold of me. I don't like his trade the better for that. But suppose I had killed him. with one of those pistols that Bucket has found at my place, which have always been there. What should I have done as soon as I was here? Got a lawyer." He stopped on hearing someone at the locks and bolts and did not resume until the door had been opened and was shut again. For what purpose opened, I will mention presently. "Say I am innocent and I get a lawyer. He would be as likely to believe me guilty as not. What would he do? Act as if I was - shut my mouth, tell me not to commit myself, and get me off perhaps! But, Miss Summerson, I would rather be hanged! I must come off clear and full or not at all. If they can't make me innocent out of the whole truth, they are not likely to do it out of anything less. And if they are, it's worth nothing to me." He paced back to the table and finished his speech. "I thank you, miss and gentlemen both, for your attention. I have a blunt broadsword kind of a mind, and have never done well in life beyond my duty as a soldier; and if the worst comes after all, I shall reap pretty much as I have sown. No relations will be disgraced by me or made unhappy for me, and - and that's all I've got to say." The door had been opened to admit another soldierly-looking man and a weather-tanned, bright-eyed wholesome woman with a basket, who had been exceedingly attentive to all Mr. George had said. Mr. George had received them with a familiar nod and a friendly look. He now shook them cordially by the hand and said, "Miss Summerson and gentlemen, this is an old comrade of mine, Matthew Bagnet, and his wife, Mrs. Bagnet." Mr. Bagnet made us a stiff military bow, and Mrs. Bagnet dropped us a curtsy. "Real good friends of mine, they are," said Mr. George. "It was at their house I was taken." "With a second-hand cello," Mr. Bagnet put in, twitching his head angrily. "Mat," said Mr. George, "you have heard pretty well all I have been saying. I know it meets your approval?" "Old girl," said Mr. Bagnet, "Tell him. Whether or not. It meets my approval." "Why, George," exclaimed Mrs. Bagnet, who had been unpacking her basket, in which there was a piece of cold pickled pork, a little tea and sugar, and a brown loaf, "you ought to know it don't. You ought to know it's enough to drive a person wild to hear you. You won't be got off this way, or that way? It's stuff and nonsense, George. Why, you should have a dozen lawyers if the gentleman recommended them to you." "This is a very sensible woman," said my guardian. "I hope you will persuade him, Mrs. Bagnet." "Persuade him, sir?" she returned. "Lord bless you, no. You don't know George. As self-willed and as determined a man, in the wrong way, as ever put a human creature under heaven out of patience! Don't I know you, George! You don't mean to set up for a new character with me after all these years, I hope?" At her friendly indignation, her husband shook his head at the trooper as a silent recommendation to him to yield. Mrs. Bagnet looked at me; and I understood from the play of her eyes that she wished me to do something, though I did not comprehend what. "But I have given up talking to you, old fellow," said Mrs. Bagnet, looking at me again; "and when ladies and gentlemen know you as well as I do, they'll give up talking to you too. If you are not too headstrong to accept a bit of dinner, here it is." "I accept it with thanks," returned the trooper. "Do you indeed?" said Mrs. Bagnet. "I wonder you don't starve in your own way also. It would be like you." Here she again looked at me, and I now perceived from her glances at the door that she wished us to retire and to wait for her outside the prison. Communicating this by similar means to my guardian and Mr. Woodcourt, I rose. "We hope you will think better of it, Mr. George," said I, "and we shall come to see you again, trusting to find you more persuadable. And please to consider that the clearing up of this mystery and the discovery of the real criminal may be of great importance to others besides yourself." He heard me respectfully but without much heeding these words, which I spoke as I was already on my way to the door. He was observing my height and figure, which seemed to catch his attention. "'Tis curious," said he. "And yet I thought so at the time!" My guardian asked him what he meant. "Why, sir," he answered, "when my ill fortune took me to the dead man's staircase on the night of his murder, I saw a shape so like Miss Summerson's go by me in the dark that I had half a mind to speak to it." For an instant I felt such a shudder as I never felt before or since and hope I shall never feel again. "It came downstairs as I went up," said the trooper, "and crossed the moonlighted window with a black fringed mantle on. Miss Summerson looked so like it that it came into my head." I cannot define the feelings that arose in me after this; but my determination to follow the investigation increased, and I was indignantly sure of there being no possible reason for my being afraid. We three went out of the prison and walked up and down a short distance from the gate. Soon Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet came out and joined us. There were tears in Mrs. Bagnet's eyes, and her face was flushed. "I didn't let George see what I thought about it, you know, miss," she said when she came up, "but he's in a bad way, poor old fellow!" "Not with care and prudence and good help," said my guardian. "A gentleman like you ought to know best, sir," returned Mrs. Bagnet, hurriedly drying her eyes, "but I am uneasy for him. He has been so careless and said so much that he never meant. The gentlemen of the juries might not understand him as Lignum and me do. And then so many circumstances have happened bad for him, and so many people will be brought forward to speak against him, and Bucket is so deep. Just come into the corner and I'll tell you!" Mrs. Bagnet hurried us into a secluded corner. "You could as soon move Dover Castle as move George on this point, miss, unless you had got a new power to move him with. And I have got it!" "You are a jewel of a woman," said my guardian. "Go on!" "Now, what he says concerning no relations is all bosh. They don't know of him, but he does know of them. He once spoke to my Woolwich about whitening and wrinkling mothers' heads. For fifty pounds he had seen his mother that day. She's alive and must be brought here straight! Lignum, you take care of the children, and give me the umbrella! I'm away to Lincolnshire to bring that old lady here." "But, bless the woman," cried my guardian, "how is she going? What money has she got?" Mrs. Bagnet brought forth a leather purse in which she hastily counted a few shillings. "I'm a soldier's wife and accustomed to travel my own way. Lignum, old boy," kissing him, "one for yourself, three for the children. Now I'm away into Lincolnshire after George's mother!" And she actually set off while we three stood looking at one another in amazement. She trudged away in her grey cloak at a sturdy pace, turned the corner, and was gone. "Mr. Bagnet," said my guardian. "Do you mean to let her go in that way?" "Can't help it," he returned. "Made her way home once from another quarter of the world. With the same grey cloak. And same umbrella. Whatever the old girl says, do it! Whenever the old girl says, I'll do it, she does it." "Then she is as honest as she looks," rejoined my guardian. "She's Colour-Sergeant of the Nonpareil battalion," said Mr. Bagnet. "And there's not such another. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained."

Bleak House

Chapter 52: Obstinacy

Soon after I had that conversation 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 stage-coach 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 upon his bare head, I felt as if the brightness on him must be like the brightness of the angels. "Hear me, my love, but do not speak. It is for me to speak now. When it was that I began to doubt whether what I had done would really make you happy is no matter. Woodcourt came home, and I soon had no doubt at all." I clasped him round the neck and hung my head upon his breast and wept. "Lie lightly, confidently here, my child," said he, pressing me gently to him. "I am your guardian and your father now. Rest confidently here." Soothingly, like the gentle rustling of the leaves; and genially, like the ripening weather; and radiantly and beneficently, like the sunshine, he went on. "Understand me, my dear girl. I had no doubt of your being contented and happy with me, being so dutiful and so devoted; but I saw with whom you would be happier. That I penetrated his secret when Dame Durden was blind to it is no wonder, for I knew the good that could never change in her better far than she did. Well! I have long been in Allan Woodcourt's confidence, although he was not, until yesterday, a few hours before you came here, in mine. But I would not have my Esther's bright example lost; I would not have a jot of my dear girl's virtues unobserved and unhonoured; I would not have her admitted on sufferance into the line of Morgan ap-Kerrig, no, not for the weight in gold of all the mountains in Wales!" He stopped to kiss me on the forehead, and I sobbed and wept afresh. For I felt as if I could not bear the painful delight of his praise. "Hush, little woman! Don't cry; this is to be a day of joy. I have looked forward to it," he said exultingly, "for months on months! A few words more, Dame Trot, and I have said my say. Determined not to throw away one atom of my Esther's worth, I took Mrs. Woodcourt into a separate confidence. 'Now, madam,' said I, 'I clearly perceive--and indeed I know, to boot--that your son loves my ward. I am further very sure that my ward loves your son, but will sacrifice her love to a sense of duty and affection, and will sacrifice it so completely, so entirely, so religiously, that you should never suspect it though you watched her night and day.' Then I told her all our story--ours--yours and mine. 'Now, madam,' said I, 'come you, knowing this, and live with us. Come you, and see my child from hour to hour; set what you see against her pedigree, which is this, and this'--for I scorned to mince it--'and tell me what is the true legitimacy when you shall have quite made up your mind on that subject.' Why, honour to her old Welsh blood, my dear," cried my guardian with enthusiasm, "I believe the heart it animates beats no less warmly, no less admiringly, no less lovingly, towards Dame Durden than my own!" He tenderly raised my head, and as I clung to him, kissed me in his old fatherly way again and again. What a light, now, on the protecting manner I had thought about! "One more last word. When Allan Woodcourt spoke to you, my dear, he spoke with my knowledge and consent--but I gave him no encouragement, not I, for these surprises were my great reward, and I was too miserly to part with a scrap of it. He was to come and tell me all that passed, and he did. I have no more to say. My dearest, Allan Woodcourt stood beside your father when he lay dead--stood beside your mother. This is Bleak House. This day I give this house its little mistress; and before God, it is the brightest day in all my life!" He rose and raised me with him. We were no longer alone. My husband--I have called him by that name full seven happy years now--stood at my side. "Allan," said my guardian, "take from me a willing gift, the best wife that ever man had. What more can I say for you than that I know you deserve her! Take with her the little home she brings you. You know what she will make it, Allan; you know what she has made its namesake. Let me share its felicity sometimes, and what do I sacrifice? Nothing, nothing." He kissed me once again, and now the tears were in his eyes as he said more softly, "Esther, my dearest, after so many years, there is a kind of parting in this too. I know that my mistake has caused you some distress. Forgive your old guardian, in restoring him to his old place in your affections; and blot it out of your memory. Allan, take my dear." He moved away from under the green roof of leaves, and stopping in the sunlight outside and turning cheerfully towards us, said, "I shall be found about here somewhere. It's a west wind, little woman, due west! Let no one thank me any more, for I am going to revert to my bachelor habits, and if anybody disregards this warning, I'll run away and never come back!" What happiness was ours that day, what joy, what rest, what hope, what gratitude, what bliss! We were to be married before the month was out, but when we were to come and take possession of our own house was to depend on Richard and Ada. We all three went home together next day. As soon as we arrived in town, Allan went straight to see Richard and to carry our joyful news to him and my darling. Late as it was, I meant to go to her for a few minutes before lying down to sleep, but I went home with my guardian first to make his tea for him and to occupy the old chair by his side, for I did not like to think of its being empty so soon. When we came home we found that a young man had called three times in the course of that one day to see me and that having been told on the occasion of his third call that I was not expected to return before ten o'clock at night, he had left word that he would call about then. He had left his card three times. Mr. Guppy. As I naturally speculated on the object of these visits, and as I always associated something ludicrous with the visitor, it fell out that in laughing about Mr. Guppy I told my guardian of his old proposal and his subsequent retraction. "After that," said my guardian, "we will certainly receive this hero." So instructions were given that Mr. Guppy should be shown in when he came again, and they were scarcely given when he did come again. He was embarrassed when he found my guardian with me, but recovered himself and said, "How de do, sir?" "How do you do, sir?" returned my guardian. "Thank you, sir, I am tolerable," returned Mr. Guppy. "Will you allow me to introduce my mother, Mrs. Guppy of the Old Street Road, and my particular friend, Mr. Weevle. That is to say, my friend has gone by the name of Weevle, but his name is really and truly Jobling." My guardian begged them to be seated, and they all sat down. "Tony," said Mr. Guppy to his friend after an awkward silence. "Will you open the case?" "Do it yourself," returned the friend rather tartly. "Well, Mr. Jarndyce, sir," Mr. Guppy, after a moment's consideration, began, to the great diversion of his mother, which she displayed by nudging Mr. Jobling with her elbow and winking at me in a most remarkable manner, "I had an idea that I should see Miss Summerson by herself and was not quite prepared for your esteemed presence. But Miss Summerson has mentioned to you, perhaps, that something has passed between us on former occasions?" "Miss Summerson," returned my guardian, smiling, "has made a communication to that effect to me." "That," said Mr. Guppy, "makes matters easier. Sir, I have come out of my articles at Kenge and Carboy's, and I believe with satisfaction to all parties. I am now admitted (after undergoing an examination that's enough to badger a man blue, touching a pack of nonsense that he don't want to know) on the roll of attorneys and have taken out my certificate, if it would be any satisfaction to you to see it." "Thank you, Mr. Guppy," returned my guardian. "I am quite willing--I believe I use a legal phrase--to admit the certificate." Mr. Guppy therefore desisted from taking something out of his pocket and proceeded without it. "I have no capital myself, but my mother has a little property which takes the form of an annuity"--here Mr. Guppy's mother rolled her head as if she never could sufficiently enjoy the observation, and put her handkerchief to her mouth, and again winked at me--"and a few pounds for expenses out of pocket in conducting business will never be wanting, free of interest, which is an advantage, you know," said Mr. Guppy feelingly. "Certainly an advantage," returned my guardian. "I HAVE some connexion," pursued Mr. Guppy, "and it lays in the direction of Walcot Square, Lambeth. I have therefore taken a 'ouse in that locality, which, in the opinion of my friends, is a hollow bargain (taxes ridiculous, and use of fixtures included in the rent), and intend setting up professionally for myself there forthwith." Here Mr. Guppy's mother fell into an extraordinary passion of rolling her head and smiling waggishly at anybody who would look at her. "It's a six-roomer, exclusive of kitchens," said Mr. Guppy, "and in the opinion of my friends, a commodious tenement. When I mention my friends, I refer principally to my friend Jobling, who I believe has known me," Mr. Guppy looked at him with a sentimental air, "from boyhood's hour." Mr. Jobling confirmed this with a sliding movement of his legs. "My friend Jobling will render me his assistance in the capacity of clerk and will live in the 'ouse," said Mr. Guppy. "My mother will likewise live in the 'ouse when her present quarter in the Old Street Road shall have ceased and expired; and consequently there will be no want of society. My friend Jobling is naturally aristocratic by taste, and besides being acquainted with the movements of the upper circles, fully backs me in the intentions I am now developing." Mr. Jobling said "Certainly" and withdrew a little from the elbow of Mr Guppy's mother. "Now, I have no occasion to mention to you, sir, you being in the confidence of Miss Summerson," said Mr. Guppy, "(mother, I wish you'd be so good as to keep still), that Miss Summerson's image was formerly imprinted on my 'eart and that I made her a proposal of marriage." "That I have heard," returned my guardian. "Circumstances," pursued Mr. Guppy, "over which I had no control, but quite the contrary, weakened the impression of that image for a time. At which time Miss Summerson's conduct was highly genteel; I may even add, magnanimous." My guardian patted me on the shoulder and seemed much amused. "Now, sir," said Mr. Guppy, "I have got into that state of mind myself that I wish for a reciprocity of magnanimous behaviour. I wish to prove to Miss Summerson that I can rise to a heighth of which perhaps she hardly thought me capable. I find that the image which I did suppose had been eradicated from my 'eart is NOT eradicated. Its influence over me is still tremenjous, and yielding to it, I am willing to overlook the circumstances over which none of us have had any control and to renew those proposals to Miss Summerson which I had the honour to make at a former period. I beg to lay the 'ouse in Walcot Square, the business, and myself before Miss Summerson for her acceptance." "Very magnanimous indeed, sir," observed my guardian. "Well, sir," replied Mr. Guppy with candour, "my wish is to BE magnanimous. I do not consider that in making this offer to Miss Summerson I am by any means throwing myself away; neither is that the opinion of my friends. Still, there are circumstances which I submit may be taken into account as a set off against any little drawbacks of mine, and so a fair and equitable balance arrived at." "I take upon myself, sir," said my guardian, laughing as he rang the bell, "to reply to your proposals on behalf of Miss Summerson. She is very sensible of your handsome intentions, and wishes you good evening, and wishes you well." "Oh!" said Mr. Guppy with a blank look. "Is that tantamount, sir, to acceptance, or rejection, or consideration?" "To decided rejection, if you please," returned my guardian. Mr. Guppy looked incredulously at his friend, and at his mother, who suddenly turned very angry, and at the floor, and at the ceiling. "Indeed?" said he. "Then, Jobling, if you was the friend you represent yourself, I should think you might hand my mother out of the gangway instead of allowing her to remain where she ain't wanted." But Mrs. Guppy positively refused to come out of the gangway. She wouldn't hear of it. "Why, get along with you," said she to my guardian, "what do you mean? Ain't my son good enough for you? You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Get out with you!" "My good lady," returned my guardian, "it is hardly reasonable to ask me to get out of my own room." "I don't care for that," said Mrs. Guppy. "Get out with you. If we ain't good enough for you, go and procure somebody that is good enough. Go along and find 'em." I was quite unprepared for the rapid manner in which Mrs. Guppy's power of jocularity merged into a power of taking the profoundest offence. "Go along and find somebody that's good enough for you," repeated Mrs. Guppy. "Get out!" Nothing seemed to astonish Mr. Guppy's mother so much and to make her so very indignant as our not getting out. "Why don't you get out?" said Mrs. Guppy. "What are you stopping here for?" "Mother," interposed her son, always getting before her and pushing her back with one shoulder as she sidled at my guardian, "WILL you hold your tongue?" "No, William," she returned, "I won't! Not unless he gets out, I won't!" However, Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling together closed on Mr. Guppy's mother (who began to be quite abusive) and took her, very much against her will, downstairs, her voice rising a stair higher every time her figure got a stair lower, and insisting that we should immediately go and find somebody who was good enough for us, and above all things that we should get out.

Soon after that conversation 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 quietly to make necessary preparations, arranging my wardrobe to please my guardian's taste. I did it 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 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 tomorrow, my pet?" Perhaps 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 to when we first knew her. Of course this was not a time to neglect my guardian, nor 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, and do a little, and spend a great deal of time in staring 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 could not agree with my guardian on the subject of the will, for I had some hopes of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. Which of us was right will soon appear, but I certainly did encourage expectations. In Richard, the discovery buoyed him up for a little time, but hope seemed to make him feverish and anxious. 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 Chancery term-time; and I thought 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 up to 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 and thinking, when a letter from my guardian was brought to me. It asked me to join him in the country and mentioned by which stage-coach I should have to leave town in the morning. It added in a postscript that I would not be long away from Ada. I had not expected a journey at that time, but I set off as appointed early next morning. I travelled all day, wondering what I could be wanted for; now I thought it might be for this purpose, and now I thought it might be for that, but I was 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 (as his letter was a very short one) that he might be ill. However, when I saw his genial face at its brightest and best, I said to myself, he has been doing some great kindness. Not that there was anything unusual in that. Supper was ready at the hotel, and when we were alone at the table he said, "Full of curiosity, no doubt, little woman, to know why I have brought you here?" "Well, guardian," said I, "I am a little curious." "Then, my love," he returned gaily, "I won't wait until tomorrow to tell you. I have very much wished to express to Woodcourt, somehow, my sense of his services and value to us all. When it was decided that he should settle here, it came into my head that I might ask him to accept some suitable little place to live. I therefore caused such a house to be looked for, and one was found on very easy terms, and I have been making it habitable. However, when I walked over it the day before yesterday, 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 give me her advice. 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 this, but I could not say 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 pleasure, guardian - with a heart full of thanks." "Well, well," said he. "I am delighted that you approve. I meant it as a pleasant surprise for the little mistress of Bleak House." I kissed him and dried my eyes. "I know!" said I. "I have seen this in your face a long while." When I went to bed, I am bound to confess that I cried; but I hope it was with pleasure, though I am not quite sure it was. I repeated every word of the letter twice over. 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, 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, to the house itself - a rustic cottage of small rooms; but such a lovely place, so tranquil and so beautiful, with such a rich and smiling country spread around it; and across a meadow the cheerful town, where cricket-players were assembling in bright groups. 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 my little tastes and fancies, my odd ways everywhere. I could not say enough in admiration, but one secret doubt arose in my mind. I thought, oh, would he be the happier for it? Because although I was not what he thought me, still he loved me very dearly, and it might remind him mournfully of what he believed he had lost. I did not wish him to forget me - but my way was easier than his, and I could have reconciled myself even to that if he had been the happier for it. "And now, little woman," said my guardian, whom I had never seen so proud and joyful, "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, and showed me, written over it, Bleak House. He led me to a seat among the leaves. Sitting down beside me and taking my hand, he said, smiling, "My darling girl, I wish for your happiness. When I wrote you the letter to which you brought the answer, I had my own happiness too much in view, for I had dreamed of making you my wife; but I had yours in view too. You are following what I say, my child?" I was cold, and I trembled violently. As I sat looking at him in the sun's rays, softly shining through the leaves upon his bare head, I felt as if the brightness on him must be like the brightness of the angels. "Hear me, my love, but do not speak. When it was that I began to doubt whether what I had done would really make you happy is no matter. Woodcourt came home, and I soon had no doubt at all." I clasped him round the neck and hung my head upon his breast and wept. "Rest confidently here, my child," said he, pressing me gently to him. "I am your guardian and your father now." Soothingly, like the gentle rustling of the leaves; and radiantly, like the sunshine, he went on. "Understand me, my dear girl. I had no doubt of your being contented with me, being so dutiful and so devoted; but I saw with whom you would be happier. Well! I have long been in Allan Woodcourt's confidence, although he was not, until yesterday, in mine. But I would not have a jot of my dear girl's virtues unobserved and unhonoured; I would not have her admitted on sufferance into the line of Morgan ap-Kerrig, no, not for the weight in gold of all the mountains in Wales!" He stopped to kiss me on the forehead, and I sobbed afresh. For I felt as if I could not bear the painful delight of his praise. "Hush, little woman! Don't cry; this is to be a day of joy. I have looked forward to it," he said exultingly, "for months on months! A few words more, Dame Trot. Determined not to throw away one atom of my Esther's worth, I took Mrs. Woodcourt into a separate confidence. 'Now, madam,' said I, 'I clearly perceive that your son loves my ward. I am very sure that my ward loves your son, but will sacrifice her love to duty and affection, so completely and religiously, that you should never suspect it though you watched her night and day.' Then I told her all our story. 'Now, madam,' said I, 'come you, knowing this, and live with us. Come and see my child; set what you see against her pedigree, which is this' - for I scorned to mince words - 'and tell me what is the true legitimacy.' Why, honour to her old Welsh blood, my dear," cried my guardian with enthusiasm, "her heart beats no less warmly, no less lovingly, towards Dame Durden than my own!" He tenderly raised my head, and as I clung to him, kissed me in his old fatherly way again. "One more last word. When Allan Woodcourt spoke to you, my dear, he spoke with my knowledge and consent - but I gave him no encouragement. He was to come and tell me all that passed, and he did. I have no more to say. My dearest, Allan Woodcourt stood beside your father when he lay dead - stood beside your mother. This is Bleak House. This day I give this house its little mistress; and before God, it is the brightest day in all my life!" He rose and raised me with him. We were no longer alone. My husband - I have called him by that name seven happy years now - stood at my side. "Allan," said my guardian, "take from me a willing gift, the best wife that ever man had. I know you deserve her! Take with her the little home she brings you. You know what she will make it, Allan; you know what she has made its namesake. Let me share its happiness sometimes, and what do I sacrifice? Nothing, nothing." He kissed me once again, and now the tears were in his eyes as he said more softly, "Esther, my dearest, I know that my mistake has caused you some distress. Forgive your old guardian, in restoring him to his old place in your affections. Allan, take my dear." He moved away from under the green roof of leaves, and stopping in the sunlight outside said cheerfully, "I shall be found about here somewhere. It's a west wind, little woman! Let no one thank me any more, for I am going to revert to my bachelor habits, and if anybody disregards this warning, I'll run away and never come back!" What happiness was ours that day, what gratitude, what bliss! We were to be married before the month was out, but when we were to come and live in our own house was to depend on Richard and Ada. We all three went home together next day. As soon as we arrived in town, Allan went straight to see Richard and to carry our joyful news to him and my darling. Late as it was, I meant to go to her for a few minutes, but I went home with my guardian first to make his tea for him and to occupy the old chair by his side, for I did not like to think of its being empty so soon. At home we found that a young man had called three times in the course of that day to see me, and had left word that he would call again that evening. He had left his card three times. Mr. Guppy. As I naturally speculated on the object of these visits, I told my guardian of Mr. Guppy's old proposal and his subsequent retraction. "After that," said my guardian, "we will certainly receive this hero." So when Mr. Guppy came again, he was shown in. He was embarrassed when he found my guardian with me, but recovered himself and said, "How de do, sir?" "How do you do, sir?" returned my guardian. "Thank you, sir, I am tolerable," returned Mr. Guppy. "Will you allow me to introduce my mother, Mrs. Guppy, and my particular friend, Mr. Weevle, that is to say, Jobling." My guardian begged them to be seated, and they all sat down. "Tony," said Mr. Guppy to his friend after an awkward silence. "Will you open the case?" "Do it yourself," returned the friend rather tartly. "Well, Mr. Jarndyce, sir," Mr. Guppy began, while his mother nudged Mr. Jobling with her elbow and winked at me in a most remarkable manner, "I had an idea that I should see Miss Summerson by herself. But Miss Summerson has mentioned to you, perhaps, that something has passed between us on former occasions?" "She has," returned my guardian, smiling. "That," said Mr. Guppy, "makes matters easier. Sir, I have come out of my articles at Kenge and Carboy's, and I am now admitted on the roll of attorneys and have taken out my certificate. I have no capital myself, but my mother has a small annuity" - here his mother rolled her head and again winked at me - "and I have taken a 'ouse in the locality of Lambeth, and intend setting up professionally for myself there forthwith." Here Mr. Guppy's mother began smiling waggishly at anybody who would look at her. "It's a six-roomer, exclusive of kitchens," said Mr. Guppy, "and in the opinion of my friends, a commodious tenement. My friend Jobling will assist me in the capacity of clerk and will live in the 'ouse. Likewise my mother; and consequently there will be no want of society. My friend Jobling is naturally aristocratic by taste, and fully backs me in the intentions I am now developing." Mr. Jobling said "Certainly," and withdrew a little from Mrs. Guppy's elbow. "Now, you may know, sir," said Mr. Guppy, "that Miss Summerson's image was formerly imprinted on my 'eart and that I made her a proposal of marriage." "That I have heard," returned my guardian. "Circumstances over which I had no control weakened the impression of that image for a time. At which time Miss Summerson's conduct was highly genteel and generous." My guardian patted me on the shoulder and seemed much amused. "Now, sir," said Mr. Guppy, "I wish to prove to Miss Summerson that I can rise to a height of which perhaps she hardly thought me capable. I find that the image which I supposed had been eradicated from my 'eart is not eradicated. Yielding to it, I am willing to overlook the circumstances over which none of us have had any control and to renew my proposals to Miss Summerson." "I take upon myself, sir," said my guardian, laughing as he rang the bell, "to reply to your proposals on behalf of Miss Summerson. She is very sensible of your handsome intentions, and wishes you good evening, and wishes you well." "Oh!" said Mr. Guppy with a blank look. "Is that acceptance, or rejection, or consideration?" "Rejection, if you please," returned my guardian. Mr. Guppy looked incredulously at his friend, and at his mother, who suddenly turned very angry. "Why, get along with you," said she to my guardian, "what do you mean? Ain't my son good enough for you? Get out with you!" "My good lady," returned my guardian, "it is hardly reasonable to ask me to get out of my own room." "I don't care for that," said Mrs. Guppy. "Get out with you. If we ain't good enough for you, go and find somebody that is." I was quite unprepared for the rapid manner in which Mrs. Guppy's jocularity changed. "Why don't you get out?" she said. "What are you stopping here for?" "Mother," interposed her son, "will you hold your tongue?" "No, William, I won't!" However, Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling together closed on her and took her, very much against her will, downstairs, her voice rising as she got lower, and insisting that we should immediately get out.

Bleak House

Chapter 64: Esther's Narrative

I proceed to other passages of my narrative. From the goodness of all about me I derived such consolation as I can never think of unmoved. I have already said so much of myself, and so much still remains, that I will not dwell upon my sorrow. I had an illness, but it was not a long one; and I would avoid even this mention of it if I could quite keep down the recollection of their sympathy. I proceed to other passages of my narrative. During the time of my illness, we were still in London, where Mrs. Woodcourt had come, on my guardian's invitation, to stay with us. When my guardian thought me well and cheerful enough to talk with him in our old way--though I could have done that sooner if he would have believed me--I resumed my work and my chair beside his. He had appointed the time himself, and we were alone. "Dame Trot," said he, receiving me with a kiss, "welcome to the growlery again, my dear. I have a scheme to develop, little woman. I propose to remain here, perhaps for six months, perhaps for a longer time--as it may be. Quite to settle here for a while, in short." "And in the meanwhile leave Bleak House?" said I. "Aye, my dear? Bleak House," he returned, "must learn to take care of itself." I thought his tone sounded sorrowful, but looking at him, I saw his kind face lighted up by its pleasantest smile. "Bleak House," he repeated--and his tone did NOT sound sorrowful, I found--"must learn to take care of itself. It is a long way from Ada, my dear, and Ada stands much in need of you." "It's like you, guardian," said I, "to have been taking that into consideration for a happy surprise to both of us." "Not so disinterested either, my dear, if you mean to extol me for that virtue, since if you were generally on the road, you could be seldom with me. And besides, I wish to hear as much and as often of Ada as I can in this condition of estrangement from poor Rick. Not of her alone, but of him too, poor fellow." "Have you seen Mr. Woodcourt, this morning, guardian?" "I see Mr. Woodcourt every morning, Dame Durden." "Does he still say the same of Richard?" "Just the same. He knows of no direct bodily illness that he has; on the contrary, he believes that he has none. Yet he is not easy about him; who CAN be?" My dear girl had been to see us lately every day, some times twice in a day. But we had foreseen, all along, that this would only last until I was quite myself. We knew full well that her fervent heart was as full of affection and gratitude towards her cousin John as it had ever been, and we acquitted Richard of laying any injunctions upon her to stay away; but we knew on the other hand that she felt it a part of her duty to him to be sparing of her visits at our house. My guardian's delicacy had soon perceived this and had tried to convey to her that he thought she was right. "Dear, unfortunate, mistaken Richard," said I. "When will he awake from his delusion!" "He is not in the way to do so now, my dear," replied my guardian. "The more he suffers, the more averse he will be to me, having made me the principal representative of the great occasion of his suffering." I could not help adding, "So unreasonably!" "Ah, Dame Trot, Dame Trot," returned my guardian, "what shall we find reasonable in Jarndyce and Jarndyce! Unreason and injustice at the top, unreason and injustice at the heart and at the bottom, unreason and injustice from beginning to end--if it ever has an end--how should poor Rick, always hovering near it, pluck reason out of it? He no more gathers grapes from thorns or figs from thistles than older men did in old times." His gentleness and consideration for Richard whenever we spoke of him touched me so that I was always silent on this subject very soon. "I suppose the Lord Chancellor, and the Vice Chancellors, and the whole Chancery battery of great guns would be infinitely astonished by such unreason and injustice in one of their suitors," pursued my guardian. "When those learned gentlemen begin to raise moss-roses from the powder they sow in their wigs, I shall begin to be astonished too!" He checked himself in glancing towards the window to look where the wind was and leaned on the back of my chair instead. "Well, well, little woman! To go on, my dear. This rock we must leave to time, chance, and hopeful circumstance. We must not shipwreck Ada upon it. She cannot afford, and he cannot afford, the remotest chance of another separation from a friend. Therefore I have particularly begged of Woodcourt, and I now particularly beg of you, my dear, not to move this subject with Rick. Let it rest. Next week, next month, next year, sooner or later, he will see me with clearer eyes. I can wait." But I had already discussed it with him, I confessed; and so, I thought, had Mr. Woodcourt. "So he tells me," returned my guardian. "Very good. He has made his protest, and Dame Durden has made hers, and there is nothing more to be said about it. Now I come to Mrs. Woodcourt. How do you like her, my dear?" In answer to this question, which was oddly abrupt, I said I liked her very much and thought she was more agreeable than she used to be. "I think so too," said my guardian. "Less pedigree? Not so much of Morgan ap--what's his name?" That was what I meant, I acknowledged, though he was a very harmless person, even when we had had more of him. "Still, upon the whole, he is as well in his native mountains," said my guardian. "I agree with you. Then, little woman, can I do better for a time than retain Mrs. Woodcourt here?" No. And yet-- My guardian looked at me, waiting for what I had to say. I had nothing to say. At least I had nothing in my mind that I could say. I had an undefined impression that it might have been better if we had had some other inmate, but I could hardly have explained why even to myself. Or, if to myself, certainly not to anybody else. "You see," said my guardian, "our neighbourhood is in Woodcourt's way, and he can come here to see her as often as he likes, which is agreeable to them both; and she is familiar to us and fond of you." Yes. That was undeniable. I had nothing to say against it. I could not have suggested a better arrangement, but I was not quite easy in my mind. Esther, Esther, why not? Esther, think! "It is a very good plan indeed, dear guardian, and we could not do better." "Sure, little woman?" Quite sure. I had had a moment's time to think, since I had urged that duty on myself, and I was quite sure. "Good," said my guardian. "It shall be done. Carried unanimously." "Carried unanimously," I repeated, going on with my work. It was a cover for his book-table that I happened to be ornamenting. It had been laid by on the night preceding my sad journey and never resumed. I showed it to him now, and he admired it highly. After I had explained the pattern to him and all the great effects that were to come out by and by, I thought I would go back to our last theme. "You said, dear guardian, when we spoke of Mr. Woodcourt before Ada left us, that you thought he would give a long trial to another country. Have you been advising him since?" "Yes, little woman, pretty often." "Has he decided to do so?" "I rather think not." "Some other prospect has opened to him, perhaps?" said I. "Why--yes--perhaps," returned my guardian, beginning his answer in a very deliberate manner. "About half a year hence or so, there is a medical attendant for the poor to be appointed at a certain place in Yorkshire. It is a thriving place, pleasantly situated--streams and streets, town and country, mill and moor--and seems to present an opening for such a man. I mean a man whose hopes and aims may sometimes lie (as most men's sometimes do, I dare say) above the ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough after all if it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good service leading to no other. All generous spirits are ambitious, I suppose, but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road, instead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is of the kind I care for. It is Woodcourt's kind." "And will he get this appointment?" I asked. "Why, little woman," returned my guardian, smiling, "not being an oracle, I cannot confidently say, but I think so. His reputation stands very high; there were people from that part of the country in the shipwreck; and strange to say, I believe the best man has the best chance. You must not suppose it to be a fine endowment. It is a very, very commonplace affair, my dear, an appointment to a great amount of work and a small amount of pay; but better things will gather about it, it may be fairly hoped." "The poor of that place will have reason to bless the choice if it falls on Mr. Woodcourt, guardian." "You are right, little woman; that I am sure they will." We said no more about it, nor did he say a word about the future of Bleak House. But it was the first time I had taken my seat at his side in my mourning dress, and that accounted for it, I considered. I now began to visit my dear girl every day in the dull dark corner where she lived. The morning was my usual time, but whenever I found I had an hour or so to spare, I put on my bonnet and bustled off to Chancery Lane. They were both so glad to see me at all hours, and used to brighten up so when they heard me opening the door and coming in (being quite at home, I never knocked), that I had no fear of becoming troublesome just yet. On these occasions I frequently found Richard absent. At other times he would be writing or reading papers in the cause at that table of his, so covered with papers, which was never disturbed. Sometimes I would come upon him lingering at the door of Mr. Vholes's office. Sometimes I would meet him in the neighbourhood lounging about and biting his nails. I often met him wandering in Lincoln's Inn, near the place where I had first seen him, oh how different, how different! That the money Ada brought him was melting away with the candles I used to see burning after dark in Mr. Vholes's office I knew very well. It was not a large amount in the beginning, he had married in debt, and I could not fail to understand, by this time, what was meant by Mr. Vholes's shoulder being at the wheel--as I still heard it was. My dear made the best of housekeepers and tried hard to save, but I knew that they were getting poorer and poorer every day. She shone in the miserable corner like a beautiful star. She adorned and graced it so that it became another place. Paler than she had been at home, and a little quieter than I had thought natural when she was yet so cheerful and hopeful, her face was so unshadowed that I half believed she was blinded by her love for Richard to his ruinous career. I went one day to dine with them while I was under this impression. As I turned into Symond's Inn, I met little Miss Flite coming out. She had been to make a stately call upon the wards in Jarndyce, as she still called them, and had derived the highest gratification from that ceremony. Ada had already told me that she called every Monday at five o'clock, with one little extra white bow in her bonnet, which never appeared there at any other time, and with her largest reticule of documents on her arm. "My dear!" she began. "So delighted! How do you do! So glad to see you. And you are going to visit our interesting Jarndyce wards? TO be sure! Our beauty is at home, my dear, and will be charmed to see you." "Then Richard is not come in yet?" said I. "I am glad of that, for I was afraid of being a little late." "No, he is not come in," returned Miss Flite. "He has had a long day in court. I left him there with Vholes. You don't like Vholes, I hope? DON'T like Vholes. Dan-gerous man!" "I am afraid you see Richard oftener than ever now," said I. "My dearest," returned Miss Flite, "daily and hourly. You know what I told you of the attraction on the Chancellor's table? My dear, next to myself he is the most constant suitor in court. He begins quite to amuse our little party. Ve-ry friendly little party, are we not?" It was miserable to hear this from her poor mad lips, though it was no surprise. "In short, my valued friend," pursued Miss Flite, advancing her lips to my ear with an air of equal patronage and mystery, "I must tell you a secret. I have made him my executor. Nominated, constituted, and appointed him. In my will. Ye-es." "Indeed?" said I. "Ye-es," repeated Miss Flite in her most genteel accents, "my executor, administrator, and assign. (Our Chancery phrases, my love.) I have reflected that if I should wear out, he will be able to watch that judgment. Being so very regular in his attendance." It made me sigh to think of him. "I did at one time mean," said Miss Flite, echoing the sigh, "to nominate, constitute, and appoint poor Gridley. Also very regular, my charming girl. I assure you, most exemplary! But he wore out, poor man, so I have appointed his successor. Don't mention it. This is in confidence." She carefully opened her reticule a little way and showed me a folded piece of paper inside as the appointment of which she spoke. "Another secret, my dear. I have added to my collection of birds." "Really, Miss Flite?" said I, knowing how it pleased her to have her confidence received with an appearance of interest. She nodded several times, and her face became overcast and gloomy. "Two more. I call them the Wards in Jarndyce. They are caged up with all the others. With Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach!" The poor soul kissed me with the most troubled look I had ever seen in her and went her way. Her manner of running over the names of her birds, as if she were afraid of hearing them even from her own lips, quite chilled me. This was not a cheering preparation for my visit, and I could have dispensed with the company of Mr. Vholes, when Richard (who arrived within a minute or two after me) brought him to share our dinner. Although it was a very plain one, Ada and Richard were for some minutes both out of the room together helping to get ready what we were to eat and drink. Mr. Vholes took that opportunity of holding a little conversation in a low voice with me. He came to the window where I was sitting and began upon Symond's Inn. "A dull place, Miss Summerson, for a life that is not an official one," said Mr. Vholes, smearing the glass with his black glove to make it clearer for me. "There is not much to see here," said I. "Nor to hear, miss," returned Mr. Vholes. "A little music does occasionally stray in, but we are not musical in the law and soon eject it. I hope Mr. Jarndyce is as well as his friends could wish him?" I thanked Mr. Vholes and said he was quite well. "I have not the pleasure to be admitted among the number of his friends myself," said Mr. Vholes, "and I am aware that the gentlemen of our profession are sometimes regarded in such quarters with an unfavourable eye. Our plain course, however, under good report and evil report, and all kinds of prejudice (we are the victims of prejudice), is to have everything openly carried on. How do you find Mr. C. looking, Miss Summerson?" "He looks very ill. Dreadfully anxious." "Just so," said Mr. Vholes. He stood behind me with his long black figure reaching nearly to the ceiling of those low rooms, feeling the pimples on his face as if they were ornaments and speaking inwardly and evenly as though there were not a human passion or emotion in his nature. "Mr. Woodcourt is in attendance upon Mr. C., I believe?" he resumed. "Mr. Woodcourt is his disinterested friend," I answered. "But I mean in professional attendance, medical attendance." "That can do little for an unhappy mind," said I. "Just so," said Mr. Vholes. So slow, so eager, so bloodless and gaunt, I felt as if Richard were wasting away beneath the eyes of this adviser and there were something of the vampire in him. "Miss Summerson," said Mr. Vholes, very slowly rubbing his gloved hands, as if, to his cold sense of touch, they were much the same in black kid or out of it, "this was an ill-advised marriage of Mr. C.'s." I begged he would excuse me from discussing it. They had been engaged when they were both very young, I told him (a little indignantly) and when the prospect before them was much fairer and brighter. When Richard had not yielded himself to the unhappy influence which now darkened his life. "Just so," assented Mr. Vholes again. "Still, with a view to everything being openly carried on, I will, with your permission, Miss Summerson, observe to you that I consider this a very ill-advised marriage indeed. I owe the opinion not only to Mr. C.'s connexions, against whom I should naturally wish to protect myself, but also to my own reputation--dear to myself as a professional man aiming to keep respectable; dear to my three girls at home, for whom I am striving to realize some little independence; dear, I will even say, to my aged father, whom it is my privilege to support." "It would become a very different marriage, a much happier and better marriage, another marriage altogether, Mr. Vholes," said I, "if Richard were persuaded to turn his back on the fatal pursuit in which you are engaged with him." Mr. Vholes, with a noiseless cough--or rather gasp--into one of his black gloves, inclined his head as if he did not wholly dispute even that. "Miss Summerson," he said, "it may be so; and I freely admit that the young lady who has taken Mr. C.'s name upon herself in so ill-advised a manner--you will I am sure not quarrel with me for throwing out that remark again, as a duty I owe to Mr. C.'s connexions--is a highly genteel young lady. Business has prevented me from mixing much with general society in any but a professional character; still I trust I am competent to perceive that she is a highly genteel young lady. As to beauty, I am not a judge of that myself, and I never did give much attention to it from a boy, but I dare say the young lady is equally eligible in that point of view. She is considered so (I have heard) among the clerks in the Inn, and it is a point more in their way than in mine. In reference to Mr. C.'s pursuit of his interests--" "Oh! His interests, Mr. Vholes!" "Pardon me," returned Mr. Vholes, going on in exactly the same inward and dispassionate manner. "Mr. C. takes certain interests under certain wills disputed in the suit. It is a term we use. In reference to Mr. C,'s pursuit of his interests, I mentioned to you, Miss Summerson, the first time I had the pleasure of seeing you, in my desire that everything should be openly carried on--I used those words, for I happened afterwards to note them in my diary, which is producible at any time--I mentioned to you that Mr. C. had laid down the principle of watching his own interests, and that when a client of mine laid down a principle which was not of an immoral (that is to say, unlawful) nature, it devolved upon me to carry it out. I HAVE carried it out; I do carry it out. But I will not smooth things over to any connexion of Mr. C.'s on any account. As open as I was to Mr. Jarndyce, I am to you. I regard it in the light of a professional duty to be so, though it can be charged to no one. I openly say, unpalatable as it may be, that I consider Mr. C.'s affairs in a very bad way, that I consider Mr. C. himself in a very bad way, and that I regard this as an exceedingly ill-advised marriage. Am I here, sir? Yes, I thank you; I am here, Mr. C., and enjoying the pleasure of some agreeable conversation with Miss Summerson, for which I have to thank you very much, sir!" He broke off thus in answer to Richard, who addressed him as he came into the room. By this time I too well understood Mr. Vholes's scrupulous way of saving himself and his respectability not to feel that our worst fears did but keep pace with his client's progress. We sat down to dinner, and I had an opportunity of observing Richard, anxiously. I was not disturbed by Mr. Vholes (who took off his gloves to dine), though he sat opposite to me at the small table, for I doubt if, looking up at all, he once removed his eyes from his host's face. I found Richard thin and languid, slovenly in his dress, abstracted in his manner, forcing his spirits now and then, and at other intervals relapsing into a dull thoughtfulness. About his large bright eyes that used to be so merry there was a wanness and a restlessness that changed them altogether. I cannot use the expression that he looked old. There is a ruin of youth which is not like age, and into such a ruin Richard's youth and youthful beauty had all fallen away. He ate little and seemed indifferent what it was, showed himself to be much more impatient than he used to be, and was quick even with Ada. I thought at first that his old light-hearted manner was all gone, but it shone out of him sometimes as I had occasionally known little momentary glimpses of my own old face to look out upon me from the glass. His laugh had not quite left him either, but it was like the echo of a joyful sound, and that is always sorrowful. Yet he was as glad as ever, in his old affectionate way, to have me there, and we talked of the old times pleasantly. These did not appear to be interesting to Mr. Vholes, though he occasionally made a gasp which I believe was his smile. He rose shortly after dinner and said that with the permission of the ladies he would retire to his office. "Always devoted to business, Vholes!" cried Richard. "Yes, Mr. C.," he returned, "the interests of clients are never to be neglected, sir. They are paramount in the thoughts of a professional man like myself, who wishes to preserve a good name among his fellow-practitioners and society at large. My denying myself the pleasure of the present agreeable conversation may not be wholly irrespective of your own interests, Mr. C." Richard expressed himself quite sure of that and lighted Mr. Vholes out. On his return he told us, more than once, that Vholes was a good fellow, a safe fellow, a man who did what he pretended to do, a very good fellow indeed! He was so defiant about it that it struck me he had begun to doubt Mr. Vholes. Then he threw himself on the sofa, tired out; and Ada and I put things to rights, for they had no other servant than the woman who attended to the chambers. My dear girl had a cottage piano there and quietly sat down to sing some of Richard's favourites, the lamp being first removed into the next room, as he complained of its hurting his eyes. I sat between them, at my dear girl's side, and felt very melancholy listening to her sweet voice. I think Richard did too; I think he darkened the room for that reason. She had been singing some time, rising between whiles to bend over him and speak to him, when Mr. Woodcourt came in. Then he sat down by Richard and half playfully, half earnestly, quite naturally and easily, found out how he felt and where he had been all day. Presently he proposed to accompany him in a short walk on one of the bridges, as it was a moonlight airy night; and Richard readily consenting, they went out together. They left my dear girl still sitting at the piano and me still sitting beside her. When they were gone out, I drew my arm round her waist. She put her left hand in mine (I was sitting on that side), but kept her right upon the keys, going over and over them without striking any note. "Esther, my dearest," she said, breaking silence, "Richard is never so well and I am never so easy about him as when he is with Allan Woodcourt. We have to thank you for that." I pointed out to my darling how this could scarcely be, because Mr. Woodcourt had come to her cousin John's house and had known us all there, and because he had always liked Richard, and Richard had always liked him, and--and so forth. "All true," said Ada, "but that he is such a devoted friend to us we owe to you." I thought it best to let my dear girl have her way and to say no more about it. So I said as much. I said it lightly, because I felt her trembling. "Esther, my dearest, I want to be a good wife, a very, very good wife indeed. You shall teach me." I teach! I said no more, for I noticed the hand that was fluttering over the keys, and I knew that it was not I who ought to speak, that it was she who had something to say to me. "When I married Richard I was not insensible to what was before him. I had been perfectly happy for a long time with you, and I had never known any trouble or anxiety, so loved and cared for, but I understood the danger he was in, dear Esther." "I know, I know, my darling." "When we were married I had some little hope that I might be able to convince him of his mistake, that he might come to regard it in a new way as my husband and not pursue it all the more desperately for my sake--as he does. But if I had not had that hope, I would have married him just the same, Esther. Just the same!" In the momentary firmness of the hand that was never still--a firmness inspired by the utterance of these last words, and dying away with them--I saw the confirmation of her earnest tones. "You are not to think, my dearest Esther, that I fail to see what you see and fear what you fear. No one can understand him better than I do. The greatest wisdom that ever lived in the world could scarcely know Richard better than my love does." She spoke so modestly and softly and her trembling hand expressed such agitation as it moved to and fro upon the silent notes! My dear, dear girl! "I see him at his worst every day. I watch him in his sleep. I know every change of his face. But when I married Richard I was quite determined, Esther, if heaven would help me, never to show him that I grieved for what he did and so to make him more unhappy. I want him, when he comes home, to find no trouble in my face. I want him, when he looks at me, to see what he loved in me. I married him to do this, and this supports me." I felt her trembling more. I waited for what was yet to come, and I now thought I began to know what it was. "And something else supports me, Esther." She stopped a minute. Stopped speaking only; her hand was still in motion. "I look forward a little while, and I don't know what great aid may come to me. When Richard turns his eyes upon me then, there may be something lying on my breast more eloquent than I have been, with greater power than mine to show him his true course and win him back." Her hand stopped now. She clasped me in her arms, and I clasped her in mine. "If that little creature should fail too, Esther, I still look forward. I look forward a long while, through years and years, and think that then, when I am growing old, or when I am dead perhaps, a beautiful woman, his daughter, happily married, may be proud of him and a blessing to him. Or that a generous brave man, as handsome as he used to be, as hopeful, and far more happy, may walk in the sunshine with him, honouring his grey head and saying to himself, 'I thank God this is my father! Ruined by a fatal inheritance, and restored through me!'" Oh, my sweet girl, what a heart was that which beat so fast against me! "These hopes uphold me, my dear Esther, and I know they will. Though sometimes even they depart from me before a dread that arises when I look at Richard." I tried to cheer my darling, and asked her what it was. Sobbing and weeping, she replied, "That he may not live to see his child."

I proceed to other passages of my narrative. From the goodness of all about me I derived much consolation; and I have already said so much about myself that I will not dwell upon my sorrow. I had an illness, but it was not a long one. During this time, we were in London; Mrs. Woodcourt had come, on my guardian's invitation, to stay with us. When my guardian thought me well and cheerful enough to talk with him in our old way, I resumed my work and my chair beside his. We were alone. "Dame Trot," said he, "welcome to the growlery again, my dear. I have a scheme, little woman. I propose to remain here, perhaps for six months, perhaps more. Quite to settle here for a while, in short." "And in the meanwhile leave Bleak House?" said I. "Bleak House," he returned, "must learn to take care of itself." I thought he sounded sorrowful, but looking up I saw his kind face lighted up by its pleasantest smile. "Bleak House," he said, "is a long way from Ada, my dear, and Ada stands much in need of you. I wish to hear as often of Ada as I can while I am estranged from poor Rick. And of him too, poor fellow." "Have you seen Mr. Woodcourt this morning, guardian?" "I see Mr. Woodcourt every morning, Dame Durden." "Does he still say the same of Richard?" "Just the same. He believes he has no direct bodily illness; yet he is not easy about him. Who can be?" My dear girl had been to see us lately every day, sometimes twice a day. But we had foreseen that this would only last until I was quite myself. Her fervent heart was as full of affection and gratitude towards her cousin John as ever, but on the other hand she felt it her duty to Richard to be sparing of her visits to our house. My guardian had soon perceived this and had tried to tell her that he thought she was right. "Dear, unfortunate, mistaken Richard," said I. "When will he awake from his delusion!" "Not yet, my dear," replied my guardian. "The more he suffers, the more averse he will be to me, having made me the main cause of his suffering." "So unreasonably!" "Ah, Dame Trot," returned my guardian, "what shall we find reasonable in Jarndyce and Jarndyce! Unreason and injustice from beginning to end - if it ever has an end - how should poor Rick pluck reason out of it?" His gentleness and consideration for Richard so touched me that I fell silent. "Well, well, little woman! To go on, my dear. This rock we must leave to time and chance. We must not shipwreck Ada upon it. She cannot afford the chance of another separation from a friend. Therefore I have begged of Woodcourt, and now beg of you, not to raise this subject with Rick. Let it rest. Sooner or later, he will see me with clearer eyes. I can wait." But I had already discussed it with Rick, I confessed; and so, I thought, had Mr. Woodcourt. "So he tells me," returned my guardian. "Very good. He has made his protest, and Dame Durden has made hers; and there is nothing more to be said about it. Now I come to Mrs. Woodcourt. How do you like her, my dear?" In answer to this abrupt question, I said I liked her very much and thought she was more agreeable than she used to be. "I think so too," said my guardian. "Not so much of Morgan ap - what's his name?" That was what I meant, I acknowledged, harmless though he was. "Then, little woman, can I keep Mrs. Woodcourt here for a little while?" My guardian looked at me, waiting for what I had to say. I had nothing to say. I had an undefined impression that it might have been better if we had had some other guest, but I could hardly have explained why even to myself. "You see," said my guardian, "Woodcourt can come here to see her as often as he likes, which is agreeable to them both; and she is familiar to us and fond of you." Yes. That was undeniable. I had nothing to say against it, but I was not quite easy in my mind. "It is a very good plan, dear guardian." "Sure, little woman?" Quite sure. I urged myself to think, and I was quite sure. "Good," said my guardian. "It shall be done. Carried unanimously." "Carried unanimously," I repeated, going on with my work. It was a cover for his book-table that I happened to be embroidering. I showed it to him now, and he admired it highly. After I had explained the pattern to him, I thought I would go back to our last theme. "You said, dear guardian, when we spoke of Mr. Woodcourt earlier, that you thought he would give a long trial to another country. Has he decided to do so?" "I rather think not." "Some other prospect has opened to him, perhaps?" said I. "Why - yes - perhaps," returned my guardian, in a very deliberate manner. "In about six months, a doctor for the poor is to be appointed in Yorkshire. It is a thriving place, pleasantly situated - town and country, mill and moor - and seems to present an opening for such a man. I mean a man whose hopes and aims may sometimes lie above the ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough after all if it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good service. The ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road is the kind I care for. It is Woodcourt's kind." "And will he get this appointment?" "Why, little woman," returned my guardian, smiling, "not being an oracle, I cannot confidently say, but I think so. His reputation stands very high; there were people from that part of the country in the shipwreck. You must not suppose it to be a fine endowment. There will be a great amount of work and a small amount of pay; but better things will gather about it, it may be hoped." "The poor of that place will have reason to bless the choice if it falls on Mr. Woodcourt, guardian." "You are right, little woman." We said no more about it, nor about the future of Bleak House. I now began to visit my dear girl every day in the dull dark corner where she lived. Whenever I had an hour or so to spare, I put on my bonnet and bustled off to Chancery Lane. They were both so glad to see me at all hours, that I had no fear of becoming troublesome just yet. On these occasions I frequently found Richard absent. At other times he would be writing or reading at that table of his, always covered with papers. Sometimes I would find him lingering at the door of Mr. Vholes's office, or lounging about the neighbourhood and biting his nails. I often met him wandering in Lincoln's Inn, near the place where I had first seen him, but oh, how different! I knew that the money Ada brought him was melting away. It was not a large amount in the beginning; he had married in debt, and I heard that Mr. Vholes's shoulder was still at the wheel. My dear made the best of housekeepers and tried hard to save, but they were getting poorer every day. She shone in the miserable corner like a beautiful star. She adorned and graced it so that it became another place. Paler than she had been at home, and a little quieter than before, her face was so unshadowed that I half believed she was blinded by her love for Richard to his ruinous career. I went one day to dine with them while I was under this impression. As I turned into Symond's Inn, I met little Miss Flite coming out. She had been to make a stately call upon the wards in Jarndyce, as she still called them, and had derived the highest gratification from that ceremony. Ada had already told me that she called every Monday at five o'clock, with one little extra white bow in her bonnet, and with her bag of documents on her arm. "My dear!" she began. "How do you do! And you are going to visit our interesting Jarndyce wards? To be sure! Our beauty is at home, my dear, and will be charmed to see you." "Then Richard is not come in yet?" said I. "No, he has had a long day in court. I left him there with Vholes. You don't like Vholes, I hope? Dan-gerous man!" "I am afraid you see Richard there oftener than ever now," said I. "My dearest," returned Miss Flite, "daily and hourly. Next to myself he is the most constant suitor in court. He begins quite to amuse our little party. And I must tell you a secret. I have made him my executor. Appointed him. In my will. Ye-es." "Indeed?" said I. "Ye-es," repeated Miss Flite. "I have reflected that if I should wear out, he will be able to watch that judgment. Being so very regular in his attendance. I did at one time mean to appoint poor Gridley. Also very regular, most exemplary! But he wore out, poor man, so I have appointed his successor. This is in confidence." Her face clouded as she went on. "Another secret, my dear. I have added to my collection of birds. Two more. I call them the Wards in Jarndyce. They are caged up with all the others. With Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach!" The poor soul kissed me with the most troubled look I had ever seen in her and went her way. Her fearful manner of running over the names of her birds quite chilled me. This was not a cheering preparation for my visit, and I could have dispensed with the company of Mr. Vholes, when Richard shortly brought him to share our dinner. Although it was a very plain one, Ada and Richard were for some minutes both out of the room preparing it. Mr. Vholes took that opportunity of holding a little conversation in a low voice with me. "I hope Mr. Jarndyce is as well as his friends could wish him?" I thanked Mr. Vholes and said he was quite well. "I have not the pleasure to be admitted among the number of his friends myself," said Mr. Vholes, "and I am aware that the gentlemen of our profession are sometimes regarded in such quarters with an unfavourable eye. Our plain course, however, is to have everything openly carried on. How do you find Mr. C. looking, Miss Summerson?" "He looks very ill. Dreadfully anxious." "Just so," said Mr. Vholes. He stood feeling the pimples on his face as if they were ornaments and speaking evenly as though there were not a human passion in his nature. "Mr. Woodcourt attends on Mr. C., I believe?" he resumed. "Mr. Woodcourt is his disinterested friend," I answered. "But I mean in medical attendance." "That can do little for an unhappy mind," said I. "Just so," said Mr. Vholes. So slow, so eager, so bloodless and gaunt, I felt as if there were something of the vampire in him. "Miss Summerson," said Mr. Vholes, very slowly rubbing his gloved hands, "this was an ill-advised marriage of Mr. C.'s." I begged he would excuse me from discussing it. They had been engaged when they were both very young, I told him (a little indignantly) and when the prospect before them was much fairer and brighter. When Richard had not yielded himself to the unhappy influence which now darkened his life. "Just so," assented Mr. Vholes again. "Still, with a view to everything being openly carried on, I will observe that I consider this a very ill-advised marriage indeed." "It would become a very different marriage, a much happier and better marriage," said I, "if Richard were persuaded to turn his back on the fatal pursuit in which you are engaged with him." Mr. Vholes, with a noiseless cough - or rather gasp - into one of his black gloves, inclined his head as if he did not wholly dispute it. "Miss Summerson," he said, "it may be so; and I freely admit that the young lady is a highly genteel young lady, and is considered a beauty (I have heard) among the clerks in the Inn. In reference to Mr. C.'s pursuit of his interests-" "Oh! His interests, Mr. Vholes!" "In reference to Mr. C.'s pursuit of his interests, I mentioned to you, Miss Summerson, the first time I had the pleasure of seeing you, that Mr. C. wished to watch his own interests, and that it devolved upon me to carry out his wish. I do carry it out. But I will not smooth things over to any connexion of Mr. C.'s on any account. As open as I was to Mr. Jarndyce, I am to you. I openly say, unpalatable as it may be, that I consider Mr. C.'s affairs in a very bad way, that I consider Mr. C. himself in a very bad way, and that I regard this as an exceedingly ill-advised marriage. Thank you very much, sir!" He broke off thus in answer to Richard, who addressed him as he came into the room. We sat down to dinner, and I observed Richard anxiously. I thought him thin and languid, slovenly in his dress, abstracted in his manner, forcing his spirits up now and then, and at other times relapsing into a dull thoughtfulness. About his large bright eyes that used to be so merry there was a restlessness that changed them altogether. I cannot say that he looked old. There is a ruin of youth which is not like age, and into such a ruin Richard's youthful beauty had all fallen away. He ate little and seemed indifferent to his food, was more impatient than he used to be, and was quick even with Ada. I thought at first that his old light-hearted manner was all gone, but it shone out of him sometimes, just as occasionally little momentary glimpses of my own face looked out from the mirror. His laugh had not quite left him either, but it was like the echo of a joyful sound. Yet he was as glad as ever to have me there, and we talked of the old times pleasantly. These did not appear to be interesting to Mr. Vholes, though he occasionally made a gasp which I believe was his smile. He rose shortly after dinner and said he would retire to his office. "Always devoted to business, Vholes!" cried Richard. "Yes, Mr. C.," he returned, "the interests of clients are never to be neglected, sir." Richard saw him out. On his return he told us that Vholes was a good fellow, a very good fellow indeed! He was so defiant about it that it struck me he had begun to doubt Mr. Vholes. Then he threw himself on the sofa, tired out; and Ada and I tidied up. My dear girl had a cottage piano there and quietly sat down to sing some of Richard's favourites, the lamp being first removed, as he complained of its hurting his eyes. I sat between them, at my dear girl's side, and felt very melancholy listening to her sweet voice. I think Richard did too; I think he darkened the room for that reason. She had been singing some time when Mr. Woodcourt came in. He sat down by Richard and half playfully, half earnestly, quite naturally and easily, found out how he felt and where he had been all day. Presently he proposed to accompany him in a short walk, as it was a moonlight airy night; and they went out together. They left my dear girl sitting at the piano with me beside her. I drew my arm round her waist. She put her left hand in mine, but kept her right upon the keys, without striking any note. "Esther, my dearest," she said, "Richard is never so well as when he is with Allan Woodcourt. We have to thank you for that." I pointed out how this could scarcely be, because Mr. Woodcourt had always liked Richard, and Richard had always liked him. "True," said Ada, "but that he is such a devoted friend to us we owe to you." I thought it best to say no more about it. I felt her trembling. "Esther, my dearest, I want to be a good wife. You shall teach me." I teach! I said no more, for I noticed the hand that was fluttering over the keys, and I knew she had something more to say to me. "When I married Richard I was aware of what was before him. I had never known any trouble or anxiety, but I understood the danger he was in, dear Esther." "I know, my darling." "When we were married I hoped that I might be able to convince him of his mistake, that he might not pursue it all the more desperately for my sake. But if I had not had that hope, I would have married him just the same! My dearest Esther, I see what you see and fear what you fear. No one can understand him better than I do. The greatest wisdom that ever lived in the world could scarcely know Richard better than my love does." She spoke so modestly and softly and her trembling hand expressed such agitation as it moved to and fro upon the silent notes! My dear, dear girl! "I see him at his worst every day. I know every change of his face. But when I married Richard I was quite determined, Esther, if heaven would help me, never to show him that I grieved for what he did and so make him more unhappy. I want him to find no trouble in my face. I want him, when he looks at me, to see what he loved in me. I married him to do this, and this supports me." I felt her trembling more. I waited for what was yet to come, and I now thought I began to know what it was. "And something else supports me, Esther." She stopped a minute. "In a little while, I don't know what great aid may come to me. When Richard turns his eyes upon me then, there may be something lying on my breast with greater power than mine to show him his true course and win him back." Her hand stopped now. She clasped me in her arms, and I clasped her in mine. "I look forward through years and years, Esther, and think that a beautiful daughter may be a blessing to him. Or that a generous brave man, as handsome as he used to be, as hopeful, and far more happy, may walk in the sunshine with him, honouring his grey head!" Oh, my sweet girl, what a heart was that which beat so fast against me! "These hopes uphold me, my dear Esther - though sometimes even they depart before a dread that arises when I look at Richard." I tried to cheer my darling, and asked her what it was. Sobbing and weeping, she replied, "That he may not live to see his child."

Bleak House

Chapter 60: Perspective

From the verdant undulations and the spreading oaks of the Dedlock property, Mr. Tulkinghorn transfers himself to the stale heat and dust of London. His manner of coming and going between the two places is one of his impenetrabilities. He walks into Chesney Wold as if it were next door to his chambers and returns to his chambers as if he had never been out of Lincoln's Inn Fields. He neither changes his dress before the journey nor talks of it afterwards. He melted out of his turret-room this morning, just as now, in the late twilight, he melts into his own square. Like a dingy London bird among the birds at roost in these pleasant fields, where the sheep are all made into parchment, the goats into wigs, and the pasture into chaff, the lawyer, smoke-dried and faded, dwelling among mankind but not consorting with them, aged without experience of genial youth, and so long used to make his cramped nest in holes and corners of human nature that he has forgotten its broader and better range, comes sauntering home. In the oven made by the hot pavements and hot buildings, he has baked himself dryer than usual; and he has in his thirsty mind his mellowed port-wine half a century old. The lamplighter is skipping up and down his ladder on Mr. Tulkinghorn's side of the Fields when that high-priest of noble mysteries arrives at his own dull court-yard. He ascends the door-steps and is gliding into the dusky hall when he encounters, on the top step, a bowing and propitiatory little man. "Is that Snagsby?" "Yes, sir. I hope you are well, sir. I was just giving you up, sir, and going home." "Aye? What is it? What do you want with me?" "Well, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, holding his hat at the side of his head in his deference towards his best customer, "I was wishful to say a word to you, sir." "Can you say it here?" "Perfectly, sir." "Say it then." The lawyer turns, leans his arms on the iron railing at the top of the steps, and looks at the lamplighter lighting the court-yard. "It is relating," says Mr. Snagsby in a mysterious low voice, "it is relating--not to put too fine a point upon it--to the foreigner, sir!" Mr. Tulkinghorn eyes him with some surprise. "What foreigner?" "The foreign female, sir. French, if I don't mistake? I am not acquainted with that language myself, but I should judge from her manners and appearance that she was French; anyways, certainly foreign. Her that was upstairs, sir, when Mr. Bucket and me had the honour of waiting upon you with the sweeping-boy that night." "Oh! Yes, yes. Mademoiselle Hortense." "Indeed, sir?" Mr. Snagsby coughs his cough of submission behind his hat. "I am not acquainted myself with the names of foreigners in general, but I have no doubt it WOULD be that." Mr. Snagsby appears to have set out in this reply with some desperate design of repeating the name, but on reflection coughs again to excuse himself. "And what can you have to say, Snagsby," demands Mr. Tulkinghorn, "about her?" "Well, sir," returns the stationer, shading his communication with his hat, "it falls a little hard upon me. My domestic happiness is very great--at least, it's as great as can be expected, I'm sure--but my little woman is rather given to jealousy. Not to put too fine a point upon it, she is very much given to jealousy. And you see, a foreign female of that genteel appearance coming into the shop, and hovering--I should be the last to make use of a strong expression if I could avoid it, but hovering, sir--in the court--you know it is--now ain't it? I only put it to yourself, sir." Mr. Snagsby, having said this in a very plaintive manner, throws in a cough of general application to fill up all the blanks. "Why, what do you mean?" asks Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Just so, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby; "I was sure you would feel it yourself and would excuse the reasonableness of MY feelings when coupled with the known excitableness of my little woman. You see, the foreign female--which you mentioned her name just now, with quite a native sound I am sure--caught up the word Snagsby that night, being uncommon quick, and made inquiry, and got the direction and come at dinner-time. Now Guster, our young woman, is timid and has fits, and she, taking fright at the foreigner's looks--which are fierce--and at a grinding manner that she has of speaking--which is calculated to alarm a weak mind--gave way to it, instead of bearing up against it, and tumbled down the kitchen stairs out of one into another, such fits as I do sometimes think are never gone into, or come out of, in any house but ours. Consequently there was by good fortune ample occupation for my little woman, and only me to answer the shop. When she DID say that Mr. Tulkinghorn, being always denied to her by his employer (which I had no doubt at the time was a foreign mode of viewing a clerk), she would do herself the pleasure of continually calling at my place until she was let in here. Since then she has been, as I began by saying, hovering, hovering, sir"--Mr. Snagsby repeats the word with pathetic emphasis--"in the court. The effects of which movement it is impossible to calculate. I shouldn't wonder if it might have already given rise to the painfullest mistakes even in the neighbours' minds, not mentioning (if such a thing was possible) my little woman. Whereas, goodness knows," says Mr. Snagsby, shaking his head, "I never had an idea of a foreign female, except as being formerly connected with a bunch of brooms and a baby, or at the present time with a tambourine and earrings. I never had, I do assure you, sir!" Mr. Tulkinghorn had listened gravely to this complaint and inquires when the stationer has finished, "And that's all, is it, Snagsby?" "Why yes, sir, that's all," says Mr. Snagsby, ending with a cough that plainly adds, "and it's enough too--for me." "I don't know what Mademoiselle Hortense may want or mean, unless she is mad," says the lawyer. "Even if she was, you know, sir," Mr. Snagsby pleads, "it wouldn't be a consolation to have some weapon or another in the form of a foreign dagger planted in the family." "No," says the other. "Well, well! This shall be stopped. I am sorry you have been inconvenienced. If she comes again, send her here." Mr. Snagsby, with much bowing and short apologetic coughing, takes his leave, lightened in heart. Mr. Tulkinghorn goes upstairs, saying to himself, "These women were created to give trouble the whole earth over. The mistress not being enough to deal with, here's the maid now! But I will be short with THIS jade at least!" So saying, he unlocks his door, gropes his way into his murky rooms, lights his candles, and looks about him. It is too dark to see much of the Allegory overhead there, but that importunate Roman, who is for ever toppling out of the clouds and pointing, is at his old work pretty distinctly. Not honouring him with much attention, Mr. Tulkinghorn takes a small key from his pocket, unlocks a drawer in which there is another key, which unlocks a chest in which there is another, and so comes to the cellar-key, with which he prepares to descend to the regions of old wine. He is going towards the door with a candle in his hand when a knock comes. "Who's this? Aye, aye, mistress, it's you, is it? You appear at a good time. I have just been hearing of you. Now! What do you want?" He stands the candle on the chimney-piece in the clerk's hall and taps his dry cheek with the key as he addresses these words of welcome to Mademoiselle Hortense. That feline personage, with her lips tightly shut and her eyes looking out at him sideways, softly closes the door before replying. "I have had great deal of trouble to find you, sir." "HAVE you!" "I have been here very often, sir. It has always been said to me, he is not at home, he is engage, he is this and that, he is not for you." "Quite right, and quite true." "Not true. Lies!" At times there is a suddenness in the manner of Mademoiselle Hortense so like a bodily spring upon the subject of it that such subject involuntarily starts and fails back. It is Mr. Tulkinghorn's case at present, though Mademoiselle Hortense, with her eyes almost shut up (but still looking out sideways), is only smiling contemptuously and shaking her head. "Now, mistress," says the lawyer, tapping the key hastily upon the chimney-piece. "If you have anything to say, say it, say it." "Sir, you have not use me well. You have been mean and shabby." "Mean and shabby, eh?" returns the lawyer, rubbing his nose with the key. "Yes. What is it that I tell you? You know you have. You have attrapped me--catched me--to give you information; you have asked me to show you the dress of mine my Lady must have wore that night, you have prayed me to come in it here to meet that boy. Say! Is it not?" Mademoiselle Hortense makes another spring. "You are a vixen, a vixen!" Mr. Tulkinghorn seems to meditate as he looks distrustfully at her, then he replies, "Well, wench, well. I paid you." "You paid me!" she repeats with fierce disdain. "Two sovereign! I have not change them, I re-fuse them, I des-pise them, I throw them from me!" Which she literally does, taking them out of her bosom as she speaks and flinging them with such violence on the floor that they jerk up again into the light before they roll away into corners and slowly settle down there after spinning vehemently. "Now!" says Mademoiselle Hortense, darkening her large eyes again. "You have paid me? Eh, my God, oh yes!" Mr. Tulkinghorn rubs his head with the key while she entertains herself with a sarcastic laugh. "You must be rich, my fair friend," he composedly observes, "to throw money about in that way!" "I AM rich," she returns. "I am very rich in hate. I hate my Lady, of all my heart. You know that." "Know it? How should I know it?" "Because you have known it perfectly before you prayed me to give you that information. Because you have known perfectly that I was en-r-r-r-raged!" It appears impossible for mademoiselle to roll the letter "r" sufficiently in this word, notwithstanding that she assists her energetic delivery by clenching both her hands and setting all her teeth. "Oh! I knew that, did I?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, examining the wards of the key. "Yes, without doubt. I am not blind. You have made sure of me because you knew that. You had reason! I det-est her." Mademoiselle Hortense folds her arms and throws this last remark at him over one of her shoulders. "Having said this, have you anything else to say, mademoiselle?" "I am not yet placed. Place me well. Find me a good condition! If you cannot, or do not choose to do that, employ me to pursue her, to chase her, to disgrace and to dishonour her. I will help you well, and with a good will. It is what YOU do. Do I not know that?" "You appear to know a good deal," Mr. Tulkinghorn retorts. "Do I not? Is it that I am so weak as to believe, like a child, that I come here in that dress to rec-eive that boy only to decide a little bet, a wager? Eh, my God, oh yes!" In this reply, down to the word "wager" inclusive, mademoiselle has been ironically polite and tender, then as suddenly dashed into the bitterest and most defiant scorn, with her black eyes in one and the same moment very nearly shut and staringly wide open. "Now, let us see," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, tapping his chin with the key and looking imperturbably at her, "how this matter stands." "Ah! Let us see," mademoiselle assents, with many angry and tight nods of her head. "You come here to make a remarkably modest demand, which you have just stated, and it not being conceded, you will come again." "And again," says mademoiselle with more tight and angry nods. "And yet again. And yet again. And many times again. In effect, for ever!" "And not only here, but you will go to Mr. Snagsby's too, perhaps? That visit not succeeding either, you will go again perhaps?" "And again," repeats mademoiselle, cataleptic with determination. "And yet again. And yet again. And many times again. In effect, for ever!" "Very well. Now, Mademoiselle Hortense, let me recommend you to take the candle and pick up that money of yours. I think you will find it behind the clerk's partition in the corner yonder." She merely throws a laugh over her shoulder and stands her ground with folded arms. "You will not, eh?" "No, I will not!" "So much the poorer you; so much the richer I! Look, mistress, this is the key of my wine-cellar. It is a large key, but the keys of prisons are larger. In this city there are houses of correction (where the treadmills are, for women), the gates of which are very strong and heavy, and no doubt the keys too. I am afraid a lady of your spirit and activity would find it an inconvenience to have one of those keys turned upon her for any length of time. What do you think?" "I think," mademoiselle replies without any action and in a clear, obliging voice, "that you are a miserable wretch." "Probably," returns Mr. Tulkinghorn, quietly blowing his nose. "But I don't ask what you think of myself; I ask what you think of the prison." "Nothing. What does it matter to me?" "Why, it matters this much, mistress," says the lawyer, deliberately putting away his handkerchief and adjusting his frill; "the law is so despotic here that it interferes to prevent any of our good English citizens from being troubled, even by a lady's visits against his desire. And on his complaining that he is so troubled, it takes hold of the troublesome lady and shuts her up in prison under hard discipline. Turns the key upon her, mistress." Illustrating with the cellar-key. "Truly?" returns mademoiselle in the same pleasant voice. "That is droll! But--my faith!--still what does it matter to me?" "My fair friend," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "make another visit here, or at Mr. Snagsby's, and you shall learn." "In that case you will send me to the prison, perhaps?" "Perhaps." It would be contradictory for one in mademoiselle's state of agreeable jocularity to foam at the mouth, otherwise a tigerish expansion thereabouts might look as if a very little more would make her do it. "In a word, mistress," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "I am sorry to be unpolite, but if you ever present yourself uninvited here--or there--again, I will give you over to the police. Their gallantry is great, but they carry troublesome people through the streets in an ignominious manner, strapped down on a board, my good wench." "I will prove you," whispers mademoiselle, stretching out her hand, "I will try if you dare to do it!" "And if," pursues the lawyer without minding her, "I place you in that good condition of being locked up in jail, it will be some time before you find yourself at liberty again." "I will prove you," repeats mademoiselle in her former whisper. "And now," proceeds the lawyer, still without minding her, "you had better go. Think twice before you come here again." "Think you," she answers, "twice two hundred times!" "You were dismissed by your lady, you know," Mr. Tulkinghorn observes, following her out upon the staircase, "as the most implacable and unmanageable of women. Now turn over a new leaf and take warning by what I say to you. For what I say, I mean; and what I threaten, I will do, mistress." She goes down without answering or looking behind her. When she is gone, he goes down too, and returning with his cobweb-covered bottle, devotes himself to a leisurely enjoyment of its contents, now and then, as he throws his head back in his chair, catching sight of the pertinacious Roman pointing from the ceiling.

From the spreading oaks of the Dedlock property, Mr. Tulkinghorn transfers himself to the stale heat and dust of London. His manner of coming and going between the two places is a mystery. He walks into Chesney Wold as if it were next door to his chambers and returns to his chambers as if he had never been out of Lincoln's Inn Fields. He neither changes his dress before the journey nor talks of it afterwards. He melted out of his turret-room this morning, just as now, in the late twilight, he melts into his own square. Like a dingy London bird, the lawyer, smoke-dried and faded, dwelling among mankind but not consorting with them, aged without experience of genial youth, comes sauntering home. In the oven made by the hot pavements and hot buildings, he is dryer than usual; and he has in his thirsty mind his mellowed port-wine half a century old. The lamplighter is skipping up and down his ladder on Mr. Tulkinghorn's side of the Fields when the lawyer ascends his door-steps. Gliding into the dusky hall he encounters a bowing and propitiatory little man. "Is that Snagsby?" "Yes, sir. I hope you are well, sir. I was wishful to say a word to you, sir." "Say it then." "It is relating," says Mr. Snagsby in a mysterious low voice, "to the foreigner, sir!" Mr. Tulkinghorn eyes him with some surprise. "What foreigner?" "The foreign female, sir. French, if I don't mistake? Her that was upstairs, sir, when Mr. Bucket and me had the honour of meeting you with the sweeping-boy that night." "Oh! Yes. Mademoiselle Hortense. And what about her, Snagsby?" "Well, sir," returns the stationer, "it falls a little hard upon me. My domestic happiness is very great, but my little woman is rather given to jealousy. And you see, a foreign female of that genteel appearance coming into the shop, and hovering, sir - in the court - you know it is - now ain't it? I only put it to you, sir." Mr. Snagsby says this in a very plaintive manner. "Why, what do you mean?" asks Mr. Tulkinghorn. "You see, sir, the foreign female caught up the word Snagsby that night, and made inquiry, and got the address and come at dinner-time. Now Guster, our young woman, is timid and has fits, and she, taking fright at the foreigner's looks - which are fierce - tumbled down the kitchen stairs. Consequently there was luckily ample occupation for my little woman, and only me to answer the shop. When the foreigner said that because she was always refused admission to see Mr. Tulkinghorn, she would call continually until she was let in here. Since then she has been, as I said, hovering, sir" - Mr. Snagsby repeats the word with pathetic emphasis - "in the court. I shouldn't wonder if it might have already given rise to the painfullest mistakes in the neighbours' minds, not to mention my little woman, sir!" Mr. Tulkinghorn has listened gravely. "And that's all, is it, Snagsby?" "Why yes, sir," says Mr. Snagsby. "I don't know what Mademoiselle Hortense may want or mean, unless she is mad," says the lawyer. "Well, well! This shall be stopped. If she comes again, send her here." Mr. Snagsby, with much bowing, takes his leave, lightened in heart. Mr. Tulkinghorn goes upstairs, saying to himself, "These women were created to give trouble the whole earth over. The mistress not being enough to deal with, here's the maid now! But I will be short with this jade at least!" So saying, Mr. Tulkinghorn unlocks his door, gropes his way into his murky rooms and lights his candles. Then he takes up his cellar-key, with which he prepares to descend to the regions of old wine. He is going towards the door with a candle in his hand when a knock comes. "Who's this? Aye, aye, mistress, it's you, is it? I have just been hearing about you. Now! What do you want?" He addresses these words to Mademoiselle Hortense. That feline personage softly closes the door before replying. "I have had great deal of trouble to find you, sir. It has always been said to me, he is not at home, he is engage, he is this and that, he is not for you." "Quite right, and quite true." "Not true. Lies!" Mr. Tulkinghorn involuntarily starts and falls back, though Mademoiselle Hortense, with her eyes almost shut, is only smiling contemptuously and shaking her head. "Now, mistress," says the lawyer, "If you have anything to say, say it." "Sir, you have not use me well. You have been mean and shabby. You have attrapped me - catched me - to give you information; you have asked me to show you the dress of mine my Lady must have wore that night, you have prayed me to come in it here to meet that boy. Say! Is it not?" "You are a vixen!" Mr. Tulkinghorn looks distrustfully at her. "I paid you." "You paid me!" she repeats with fierce disdain. "Two sovereign! I refuse them, I despise them, I throw them from me!" Which she does, flinging them with such violence on the floor that they spin vehemently before rolling away into corners. Mr. Tulkinghorn rubs his head. "You must be rich, my fair friend," he composedly observes, "to throw money about in that way!" "I am rich," she returns. "I am very rich in hate. I hate my Lady, of all my heart. You know that." "Know it? How should I know it?" "Because you have known it perfectly before you prayed me to give you that information. Because you have known perfectly that I was en-r-r-r-raged!" "Have you anything else to say, mademoiselle?" "I am not yet placed in a situation. Find me a good one! If you cannot, then employ me to pursue her, to disgrace and to dishonour her. I will help you well, with a good will. It is what you do. Do I not know that?" "You appear to know a good deal," Mr. Tulkinghorn retorts. "I am not so weak as to believe, like a child, that I come here in that dress only to decide a little bet, a wager!" Mademoiselle says this with bitterest and most defiant scorn. "Now, let us see," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, tapping his chin with the cellar-key, "how this matter stands. You come here to make a remarkably modest demand, and if it is not conceded, you will come again." "And again," says mademoiselle with more tight and angry nods. "And yet again. And yet again!" "And not only here, but you will go to Mr. Snagsby's too, perhaps?" "And again," repeats mademoiselle. "And yet again. And yet again. In effect, for ever!" "Very well. Now, Mademoiselle Hortense, let me recommend you to pick up that money of yours." She merely laughs and stands her ground with folded arms. "You will not, eh?" "No, I will not!" "So much the poorer you! Look, mistress, this is the key of my wine-cellar. It is a large key, but the keys of prisons are larger, and their gates are very strong and heavy. I am afraid you would find it an inconvenience to have one of those keys turned upon you for any length of time. What do you think?" "I think," mademoiselle replies in a clear voice, "that you are a miserable wretch." "Probably," returns Mr. Tulkinghorn, "But I ask what you think of prison." "Nothing. What does it matter to me?" "Why, mistress, the law in England interferes to prevent any of our good English citizens from being troubled, even by a lady's visits. And on his complaining that he is so troubled, it takes hold of the troublesome lady and shuts her up in prison. Turns the key upon her, mistress." Illustrating with the cellar-key. "Truly?" returns mademoiselle in the same pleasant voice. "That is droll! But still, what does it matter to me?" "My fair friend," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "make another visit here, and you shall learn. If you ever present yourself uninvited here again, I will hand you over to the police. They carry troublesome people through the streets strapped down on a board, my good wench." "I will test you," whispers mademoiselle. "I will see if you dare to do it!" "And now," proceeds the lawyer, without minding her, "you had better go. Think twice before you come here again. You were dismissed by your lady, you know, as the most unmanageable of women. Turn over a new leaf and take warning. For what I say, I mean; and what I threaten, I will do." She goes out and down the stairs without answering. When she is gone, he goes down too, and returning with his cobweb-covered bottle, sits back in his chair, and devotes himself to a leisurely enjoyment of its contents.

Bleak House

Chapter 42: In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Chambers

As soon as Richard and I had held the conversation of which I have given an account, Richard communicated the state of his mind to Mr. Jarndyce. I doubt if my guardian were altogether taken by surprise when he received the representation, though it caused him much uneasiness and disappointment. He and Richard were often closeted together, late at night and early in the morning, and passed whole days in London, and had innumerable appointments with Mr. Kenge, and laboured through a quantity of disagreeable business. While they were thus employed, my guardian, though he underwent considerable inconvenience from the state of the wind and rubbed his head so constantly that not a single hair upon it ever rested in its right place, was as genial with Ada and me as at any other time, but maintained a steady reserve on these matters. And as our utmost endeavours could only elicit from Richard himself sweeping assurances that everything was going on capitally and that it really was all right at last, our anxiety was not much relieved by him. We learnt, however, as the time went on, that a new application was made to the Lord Chancellor on Richard's behalf as an infant and a ward, and I don't know what, and that there was a quantity of talking, and that the Lord Chancellor described him in open court as a vexatious and capricious infant, and that the matter was adjourned and readjourned, and referred, and reported on, and petitioned about until Richard began to doubt (as he told us) whether, if he entered the army at all, it would not be as a veteran of seventy or eighty years of age. At last an appointment was made for him to see the Lord Chancellor again in his private room, and there the Lord Chancellor very seriously reproved him for trifling with time and not knowing his mind--"a pretty good joke, I think," said Richard, "from that quarter!"--and at last it was settled that his application should be granted. His name was entered at the Horse Guards as an applicant for an ensign's commission; the purchase-money was deposited at an agent's; and Richard, in his usual characteristic way, plunged into a violent course of military study and got up at five o'clock every morning to practise the broadsword exercise. Thus, vacation succeeded term, and term succeeded vacation. We sometimes heard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce as being in the paper or out of the paper, or as being to be mentioned, or as being to be spoken to; and it came on, and it went off. Richard, who was now in a professor's house in London, was able to be with us less frequently than before; my guardian still maintained the same reserve; and so time passed until the commission was obtained and Richard received directions with it to join a regiment in Ireland. He arrived post-haste with the intelligence one evening, and had a long conference with my guardian. Upwards of an hour elapsed before my guardian put his head into the room where Ada and I were sitting and said, "Come in, my dears!" We went in and found Richard, whom we had last seen in high spirits, leaning on the chimney-piece looking mortified and angry. "Rick and I, Ada," said Mr. Jarndyce, "are not quite of one mind. Come, come, Rick, put a brighter face upon it!" "You are very hard with me, sir," said Richard. "The harder because you have been so considerate to me in all other respects and have done me kindnesses that I can never acknowledge. I never could have been set right without you, sir." "Well, well!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "I want to set you more right yet. I want to set you more right with yourself." "I hope you will excuse my saying, sir," returned Richard in a fiery way, but yet respectfully, "that I think I am the best judge about myself." "I hope you will excuse my saying, my dear Rick," observed Mr. Jarndyce with the sweetest cheerfulness and good humour, "that it's quite natural in you to think so, but I don't think so. I must do my duty, Rick, or you could never care for me in cool blood; and I hope you will always care for me, cool and hot." Ada had turned so pale that he made her sit down in his reading-chair and sat beside her. "It's nothing, my dear," he said, "it's nothing. Rick and I have only had a friendly difference, which we must state to you, for you are the theme. Now you are afraid of what's coming." "I am not indeed, cousin John," replied Ada with a smile, "if it is to come from you." "Thank you, my dear. Do you give me a minute's calm attention, without looking at Rick. And, little woman, do you likewise. My dear girl," putting his hand on hers as it lay on the side of the easy-chair, "you recollect the talk we had, we four when the little woman told me of a little love affair?" "It is not likely that either Richard or I can ever forget your kindness that day, cousin John." "I can never forget it," said Richard. "And I can never forget it," said Ada. "So much the easier what I have to say, and so much the easier for us to agree," returned my guardian, his face irradiated by the gentleness and honour of his heart. "Ada, my bird, you should know that Rick has now chosen his profession for the last time. All that he has of certainty will be expended when he is fully equipped. He has exhausted his resources and is bound henceforward to the tree he has planted." "Quite true that I have exhausted my present resources, and I am quite content to know it. But what I have of certainty, sir," said Richard, "is not all I have." "Rick, Rick!" cried my guardian with a sudden terror in his manner, and in an altered voice, and putting up his hands as if he would have stopped his ears. "For the love of God, don't found a hope or expectation on the family curse! Whatever you do on this side the grave, never give one lingering glance towards the horrible phantom that has haunted us so many years. Better to borrow, better to beg, better to die!" We were all startled by the fervour of this warning. Richard bit his lip and held his breath, and glanced at me as if he felt, and knew that I felt too, how much he needed it. "Ada, my dear," said Mr. Jarndyce, recovering his cheerfulness, "these are strong words of advice, but I live in Bleak House and have seen a sight here. Enough of that. All Richard had to start him in the race of life is ventured. I recommend to him and you, for his sake and your own, that he should depart from us with the understanding that there is no sort of contract between you. I must go further. I will be plain with you both. You were to confide freely in me, and I will confide freely in you. I ask you wholly to relinquish, for the present, any tie but your relationship." "Better to say at once, sir," returned Richard, "that you renounce all confidence in me and that you advise Ada to do the same." "Better to say nothing of the sort, Rick, because I don't mean it." "You think I have begun ill, sir," retorted Richard. "I HAVE, I know." "How I hoped you would begin, and how go on, I told you when we spoke of these things last," said Mr. Jarndyce in a cordial and encouraging manner. "You have not made that beginning yet, but there is a time for all things, and yours is not gone by; rather, it is just now fully come. Make a clear beginning altogether. You two (very young, my dears) are cousins. As yet, you are nothing more. What more may come must come of being worked out, Rick, and no sooner." "You are very hard with me, sir," said Richard. "Harder than I could have supposed you would be." "My dear boy," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I am harder with myself when I do anything that gives you pain. You have your remedy in your own hands. Ada, it is better for him that he should be free and that there should be no youthful engagement between you. Rick, it is better for her, much better; you owe it to her. Come! Each of you will do what is best for the other, if not what is best for yourselves." "Why is it best, sir?" returned Richard hastily. "It was not when we opened our hearts to you. You did not say so then." "I have had experience since. I don't blame you, Rick, but I have had experience since." "You mean of me, sir." "Well! Yes, of both of you," said Mr. Jarndyce kindly. "The time is not come for your standing pledged to one another. It is not right, and I must not recognize it. Come, come, my young cousins, begin afresh! Bygones shall be bygones, and a new page turned for you to write your lives in." Richard gave an anxious glance at Ada but said nothing. "I have avoided saying one word to either of you or to Esther," said Mr. Jarndyce, "until now, in order that we might be open as the day, and all on equal terms. I now affectionately advise, I now most earnestly entreat, you two to part as you came here. Leave all else to time, truth, and steadfastness. If you do otherwise, you will do wrong, and you will have made me do wrong in ever bringing you together." A long silence succeeded. "Cousin Richard," said Ada then, raising her blue eyes tenderly to his face, "after what our cousin John has said, I think no choice is left us. Your mind may be quite at ease about me, for you will leave me here under his care and will be sure that I can have nothing to wish for--quite sure if I guide myself by his advice. I--I don't doubt, cousin Richard," said Ada, a little confused, "that you are very fond of me, and I--I don't think you will fall in love with anybody else. But I should like you to consider well about it too, as I should like you to be in all things very happy. You may trust in me, cousin Richard. I am not at all changeable; but I am not unreasonable, and should never blame you. Even cousins may be sorry to part; and in truth I am very, very sorry, Richard, though I know it's for your welfare. I shall always think of you affectionately, and often talk of you with Esther, and--and perhaps you will sometimes think a little of me, cousin Richard. So now," said Ada, going up to him and giving him her trembling hand, "we are only cousins again, Richard--for the time perhaps--and I pray for a blessing on my dear cousin, wherever he goes!" It was strange to me that Richard should not be able to forgive my guardian for entertaining the very same opinion of him which he himself had expressed of himself in much stronger terms to me. But it was certainly the case. I observed with great regret that from this hour he never was as free and open with Mr. Jarndyce as he had been before. He had every reason given him to be so, but he was not; and solely on his side, an estrangement began to arise between them. In the business of preparation and equipment he soon lost himself, and even his grief at parting from Ada, who remained in Hertfordshire while he, Mr. Jarndyce, and I went up to London for a week. He remembered her by fits and starts, even with bursts of tears, and at such times would confide to me the heaviest self-reproaches. But in a few minutes he would recklessly conjure up some undefinable means by which they were both to be made rich and happy for ever, and would become as gay as possible. It was a busy time, and I trotted about with him all day long, buying a variety of things of which he stood in need. Of the things he would have bought if he had been left to his own ways I say nothing. He was perfectly confidential with me, and often talked so sensibly and feelingly about his faults and his vigorous resolutions, and dwelt so much upon the encouragement he derived from these conversations that I could never have been tired if I had tried. There used, in that week, to come backward and forward to our lodging to fence with Richard a person who had formerly been a cavalry soldier; he was a fine bluff-looking man, of a frank free bearing, with whom Richard had practised for some months. I heard so much about him, not only from Richard, but from my guardian too, that I was purposely in the room with my work one morning after breakfast when he came. "Good morning, Mr. George," said my guardian, who happened to be alone with me. "Mr. Carstone will be here directly. Meanwhile, Miss Summerson is very happy to see you, I know. Sit down." He sat down, a little disconcerted by my presence, I thought, and without looking at me, drew his heavy sunburnt hand across and across his upper lip. "You are as punctual as the sun," said Mr. Jarndyce. "Military time, sir," he replied. "Force of habit. A mere habit in me, sir. I am not at all business-like." "Yet you have a large establishment, too, I am told?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "Not much of a one, sir. I keep a shooting gallery, but not much of a one." "And what kind of a shot and what kind of a swordsman do you make of Mr. Carstone?" said my guardian. "Pretty good, sir," he replied, folding his arms upon his broad chest and looking very large. "If Mr. Carstone was to give his full mind to it, he would come out very good." "But he don't, I suppose?" said my guardian. "He did at first, sir, but not afterwards. Not his full mind. Perhaps he has something else upon it--some young lady, perhaps." His bright dark eyes glanced at me for the first time. "He has not me upon his mind, I assure you, Mr. George," said I, laughing, "though you seem to suspect me." He reddened a little through his brown and made me a trooper's bow. "No offence, I hope, miss. I am one of the roughs." "Not at all," said I. "I take it as a compliment." If he had not looked at me before, he looked at me now in three or four quick successive glances. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said to my guardian with a manly kind of diffidence, "but you did me the honour to mention the young lady's name--" "Miss Summerson." "Miss Summerson," he repeated, and looked at me again. "Do you know the name?" I asked. "No, miss. To my knowledge I never heard it. I thought I had seen you somewhere." "I think not," I returned, raising my head from my work to look at him; and there was something so genuine in his speech and manner that I was glad of the opportunity. "I remember faces very well." "So do I, miss!" he returned, meeting my look with the fullness of his dark eyes and broad forehead. "Humph! What set me off, now, upon that!" His once more reddening through his brown and being disconcerted by his efforts to remember the association brought my guardian to his relief. "Have you many pupils, Mr. George?" "They vary in their number, sir. Mostly they're but a small lot to live by." "And what classes of chance people come to practise at your gallery?" "All sorts, sir. Natives and foreigners. From gentlemen to 'prentices. I have had Frenchwomen come, before now, and show themselves dabs at pistol-shooting. Mad people out of number, of course, but THEY go everywhere where the doors stand open." "People don't come with grudges and schemes of finishing their practice with live targets, I hope?" said my guardian, smiling. "Not much of that, sir, though that HAS happened. Mostly they come for skill--or idleness. Six of one, and half-a-dozen of the other. I beg your pardon," said Mr. George, sitting stiffly upright and squaring an elbow on each knee, "but I believe you're a Chancery suitor, if I have heard correct?" "I am sorry to say I am." "I have had one of YOUR compatriots in my time, sir." "A Chancery suitor?" returned my guardian. "How was that?" "Why, the man was so badgered and worried and tortured by being knocked about from post to pillar, and from pillar to post," said Mr. George, "that he got out of sorts. I don't believe he had any idea of taking aim at anybody, but he was in that condition of resentment and violence that he would come and pay for fifty shots and fire away till he was red hot. One day I said to him when there was nobody by and he had been talking to me angrily about his wrongs, 'If this practice is a safety-valve, comrade, well and good; but I don't altogether like your being so bent upon it in your present state of mind; I'd rather you took to something else.' I was on my guard for a blow, he was that passionate; but he received it in very good part and left off directly. We shook hands and struck up a sort of friendship." "What was that man?" asked my guardian in a new tone of interest. "Why, he began by being a small Shropshire farmer before they made a baited bull of him," said Mr. George. "Was his name Gridley?" "It was, sir." Mr. George directed another succession of quick bright glances at me as my guardian and I exchanged a word or two of surprise at the coincidence, and I therefore explained to him how we knew the name. He made me another of his soldierly bows in acknowledgment of what he called my condescension. "I don't know," he said as he looked at me, "what it is that sets me off again--but--bosh! What's my head running against!" He passed one of his heavy hands over his crisp dark hair as if to sweep the broken thoughts out of his mind and sat a little forward, with one arm akimbo and the other resting on his leg, looking in a brown study at the ground. "I am sorry to learn that the same state of mind has got this Gridley into new troubles and that he is in hiding," said my guardian. "So I am told, sir," returned Mr. George, still musing and looking on the ground. "So I am told." "You don't know where?" "No, sir," returned the trooper, lifting up his eyes and coming out of his reverie. "I can't say anything about him. He will be worn out soon, I expect. You may file a strong man's heart away for a good many years, but it will tell all of a sudden at last." Richard's entrance stopped the conversation. Mr. George rose, made me another of his soldierly bows, wished my guardian a good day, and strode heavily out of the room. This was the morning of the day appointed for Richard's departure. We had no more purchases to make now; I had completed all his packing early in the afternoon; and our time was disengaged until night, when he was to go to Liverpool for Holyhead. Jarndyce and Jarndyce being again expected to come on that day, Richard proposed to me that we should go down to the court and hear what passed. As it was his last day, and he was eager to go, and I had never been there, I gave my consent and we walked down to Westminster, where the court was then sitting. We beguiled the way with arrangements concerning the letters that Richard was to write to me and the letters that I was to write to him and with a great many hopeful projects. My guardian knew where we were going and therefore was not with us. When we came to the court, there was the Lord Chancellor--the same whom I had seen in his private room in Lincoln's Inn--sitting in great state and gravity on the bench, with the mace and seals on a red table below him and an immense flat nosegay, like a little garden, which scented the whole court. Below the table, again, was a long row of solicitors, with bundles of papers on the matting at their feet; and then there were the gentlemen of the bar in wigs and gowns--some awake and some asleep, and one talking, and nobody paying much attention to what he said. The Lord Chancellor leaned back in his very easy chair with his elbow on the cushioned arm and his forehead resting on his hand; some of those who were present dozed; some read the newspapers; some walked about or whispered in groups: all seemed perfectly at their ease, by no means in a hurry, very unconcerned, and extremely comfortable. To see everything going on so smoothly and to think of the roughness of the suitors' lives and deaths; to see all that full dress and ceremony and to think of the waste, and want, and beggared misery it represented; to consider that while the sickness of hope deferred was raging in so many hearts this polite show went calmly on from day to day, and year to year, in such good order and composure; to behold the Lord Chancellor and the whole array of practitioners under him looking at one another and at the spectators as if nobody had ever heard that all over England the name in which they were assembled was a bitter jest, was held in universal horror, contempt, and indignation, was known for something so flagrant and bad that little short of a miracle could bring any good out of it to any one--this was so curious and self-contradictory to me, who had no experience of it, that it was at first incredible, and I could not comprehend it. I sat where Richard put me, and tried to listen, and looked about me; but there seemed to be no reality in the whole scene except poor little Miss Flite, the madwoman, standing on a bench and nodding at it. Miss Flite soon espied us and came to where we sat. She gave me a gracious welcome to her domain and indicated, with much gratification and pride, its principal attractions. Mr. Kenge also came to speak to us and did the honours of the place in much the same way, with the bland modesty of a proprietor. It was not a very good day for a visit, he said; he would have preferred the first day of term; but it was imposing, it was imposing. When we had been there half an hour or so, the case in progress--if I may use a phrase so ridiculous in such a connexion--seemed to die out of its own vapidity, without coming, or being by anybody expected to come, to any result. The Lord Chancellor then threw down a bundle of papers from his desk to the gentlemen below him, and somebody said, "Jarndyce and Jarndyce." Upon this there was a buzz, and a laugh, and a general withdrawal of the bystanders, and a bringing in of great heaps, and piles, and bags and bags full of papers. I think it came on "for further directions"--about some bill of costs, to the best of my understanding, which was confused enough. But I counted twenty-three gentlemen in wigs who said they were "in it," and none of them appeared to understand it much better than I. They chatted about it with the Lord Chancellor, and contradicted and explained among themselves, and some of them said it was this way, and some of them said it was that way, and some of them jocosely proposed to read huge volumes of affidavits, and there was more buzzing and laughing, and everybody concerned was in a state of idle entertainment, and nothing could be made of it by anybody. After an hour or so of this, and a good many speeches being begun and cut short, it was "referred back for the present," as Mr. Kenge said, and the papers were bundled up again before the clerks had finished bringing them in. I glanced at Richard on the termination of these hopeless proceedings and was shocked to see the worn look of his handsome young face. "It can't last for ever, Dame Durden. Better luck next time!" was all he said. I had seen Mr. Guppy bringing in papers and arranging them for Mr. Kenge; and he had seen me and made me a forlorn bow, which rendered me desirous to get out of the court. Richard had given me his arm and was taking me away when Mr. Guppy came up. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Carstone," said he in a whisper, "and Miss Summerson's also, but there's a lady here, a friend of mine, who knows her and wishes to have the pleasure of shaking hands." As he spoke, I saw before me, as if she had started into bodily shape from my remembrance, Mrs. Rachael of my godmother's house. "How do you do, Esther?" said she. "Do you recollect me?" I gave her my hand and told her yes and that she was very little altered. "I wonder you remember those times, Esther," she returned with her old asperity. "They are changed now. Well! I am glad to see you, and glad you are not too proud to know me." But indeed she seemed disappointed that I was not. "Proud, Mrs. Rachael!" I remonstrated. "I am married, Esther," she returned, coldly correcting me, "and am Mrs. Chadband. Well! I wish you good day, and I hope you'll do well." Mr. Guppy, who had been attentive to this short dialogue, heaved a sigh in my ear and elbowed his own and Mrs. Rachael's way through the confused little crowd of people coming in and going out, which we were in the midst of and which the change in the business had brought together. Richard and I were making our way through it, and I was yet in the first chill of the late unexpected recognition when I saw, coming towards us, but not seeing us, no less a person than Mr. George. He made nothing of the people about him as he tramped on, staring over their heads into the body of the court. "George!" said Richard as I called his attention to him. "You are well met, sir," he returned. "And you, miss. Could you point a person out for me, I want? I don't understand these places." Turning as he spoke and making an easy way for us, he stopped when we were out of the press in a corner behind a great red curtain. "There's a little cracked old woman," he began, "that--" I put up my finger, for Miss Flite was close by me, having kept beside me all the time and having called the attention of several of her legal acquaintance to me (as I had overheard to my confusion) by whispering in their ears, "Hush! Fitz Jarndyce on my left!" "Hem!" said Mr. George. "You remember, miss, that we passed some conversation on a certain man this morning? Gridley," in a low whisper behind his hand. "Yes," said I. "He is hiding at my place. I couldn't mention it. Hadn't his authority. He is on his last march, miss, and has a whim to see her. He says they can feel for one another, and she has been almost as good as a friend to him here. I came down to look for her, for when I sat by Gridley this afternoon, I seemed to hear the roll of the muffled drums." "Shall I tell her?" said I. "Would you be so good?" he returned with a glance of something like apprehension at Miss Flite. "It's a providence I met you, miss; I doubt if I should have known how to get on with that lady." And he put one hand in his breast and stood upright in a martial attitude as I informed little Miss Flite, in her ear, of the purport of his kind errand. "My angry friend from Shropshire! Almost as celebrated as myself!" she exclaimed. "Now really! My dear, I will wait upon him with the greatest pleasure." "He is living concealed at Mr. George's," said I. "Hush! This is Mr. George." "In--deed!" returned Miss Flite. "Very proud to have the honour! A military man, my dear. You know, a perfect general!" she whispered to me. Poor Miss Flite deemed it necessary to be so courtly and polite, as a mark of her respect for the army, and to curtsy so very often that it was no easy matter to get her out of the court. When this was at last done, and addressing Mr. George as "General," she gave him her arm, to the great entertainment of some idlers who were looking on, he was so discomposed and begged me so respectfully "not to desert him" that I could not make up my mind to do it, especially as Miss Flite was always tractable with me and as she too said, "Fitz Jarndyce, my dear, you will accompany us, of course." As Richard seemed quite willing, and even anxious, that we should see them safely to their destination, we agreed to do so. And as Mr. George informed us that Gridley's mind had run on Mr. Jarndyce all the afternoon after hearing of their interview in the morning, I wrote a hasty note in pencil to my guardian to say where we were gone and why. Mr. George sealed it at a coffee-house, that it might lead to no discovery, and we sent it off by a ticket-porter. We then took a hackney-coach and drove away to the neighbourhood of Leicester Square. We walked through some narrow courts, for which Mr. George apologized, and soon came to the shooting gallery, the door of which was closed. As he pulled a bell-handle which hung by a chain to the door-post, a very respectable old gentleman with grey hair, wearing spectacles, and dressed in a black spencer and gaiters and a broad-brimmed hat, and carrying a large gold-beaded cane, addressed him. "I ask your pardon, my good friend," said he, "but is this George's Shooting Gallery?" "It is, sir," returned Mr. George, glancing up at the great letters in which that inscription was painted on the whitewashed wall. "Oh! To be sure!" said the old gentleman, following his eyes. "Thank you. Have you rung the bell?" "My name is George, sir, and I have rung the bell." "Oh, indeed?" said the old gentleman. "Your name is George? Then I am here as soon as you, you see. You came for me, no doubt?" "No, sir. You have the advantage of me." "Oh, indeed?" said the old gentleman. "Then it was your young man who came for me. I am a physician and was requested--five minutes ago--to come and visit a sick man at George's Shooting Gallery." "The muffled drums," said Mr. George, turning to Richard and me and gravely shaking his head. "It's quite correct, sir. Will you please to walk in." The door being at that moment opened by a very singular-looking little man in a green-baize cap and apron, whose face and hands and dress were blackened all over, we passed along a dreary passage into a large building with bare brick walls where there were targets, and guns, and swords, and other things of that kind. When we had all arrived here, the physician stopped, and taking off his hat, appeared to vanish by magic and to leave another and quite a different man in his place. "Now lookee here, George," said the man, turning quickly round upon him and tapping him on the breast with a large forefinger. "You know me, and I know you. You're a man of the world, and I'm a man of the world. My name's Bucket, as you are aware, and I have got a peace-warrant against Gridley. You have kept him out of the way a long time, and you have been artful in it, and it does you credit." Mr. George, looking hard at him, bit his lip and shook his head. "Now, George," said the other, keeping close to him, "you're a sensible man and a well-conducted man; that's what YOU are, beyond a doubt. And mind you, I don't talk to you as a common character, because you have served your country and you know that when duty calls we must obey. Consequently you're very far from wanting to give trouble. If I required assistance, you'd assist me; that's what YOU'D do. Phil Squod, don't you go a-sidling round the gallery like that"--the dirty little man was shuffling about with his shoulder against the wall, and his eyes on the intruder, in a manner that looked threatening--"because I know you and won't have it." "Phil!" said Mr. George. "Yes, guv'ner." "Be quiet." The little man, with a low growl, stood still. "Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Bucket, "you'll excuse anything that may appear to be disagreeable in this, for my name's Inspector Bucket of the Detective, and I have a duty to perform. George, I know where my man is because I was on the roof last night and saw him through the skylight, and you along with him. He is in there, you know," pointing; "that's where HE is--on a sofy. Now I must see my man, and I must tell my man to consider himself in custody; but you know me, and you know I don't want to take any uncomfortable measures. You give me your word, as from one man to another (and an old soldier, mind you, likewise), that it's honourable between us two, and I'll accommodate you to the utmost of my power." "I give it," was the reply. "But it wasn't handsome in you, Mr. Bucket." "Gammon, George! Not handsome?" said Mr. Bucket, tapping him on his broad breast again and shaking hands with him. "I don't say it wasn't handsome in you to keep my man so close, do I? Be equally good-tempered to me, old boy! Old William Tell, Old Shaw, the Life Guardsman! Why, he's a model of the whole British army in himself, ladies and gentlemen. I'd give a fifty-pun' note to be such a figure of a man!" The affair being brought to this head, Mr. George, after a little consideration, proposed to go in first to his comrade (as he called him), taking Miss Flite with him. Mr. Bucket agreeing, they went away to the further end of the gallery, leaving us sitting and standing by a table covered with guns. Mr. Bucket took this opportunity of entering into a little light conversation, asking me if I were afraid of fire-arms, as most young ladies were; asking Richard if he were a good shot; asking Phil Squod which he considered the best of those rifles and what it might be worth first-hand, telling him in return that it was a pity he ever gave way to his temper, for he was naturally so amiable that he might have been a young woman, and making himself generally agreeable. After a time he followed us to the further end of the gallery, and Richard and I were going quietly away when Mr. George came after us. He said that if we had no objection to see his comrade, he would take a visit from us very kindly. The words had hardly passed his lips when the bell was rung and my guardian appeared, "on the chance," he slightly observed, "of being able to do any little thing for a poor fellow involved in the same misfortune as himself." We all four went back together and went into the place where Gridley was. It was a bare room, partitioned off from the gallery with unpainted wood. As the screening was not more than eight or ten feet high and only enclosed the sides, not the top, the rafters of the high gallery roof were overhead, and the skylight through which Mr. Bucket had looked down. The sun was low--near setting--and its light came redly in above, without descending to the ground. Upon a plain canvas-covered sofa lay the man from Shropshire, dressed much as we had seen him last, but so changed that at first I recognized no likeness in his colourless face to what I recollected. He had been still writing in his hiding-place, and still dwelling on his grievances, hour after hour. A table and some shelves were covered with manuscript papers and with worn pens and a medley of such tokens. Touchingly and awfully drawn together, he and the little mad woman were side by side and, as it were, alone. She sat on a chair holding his hand, and none of us went close to them. His voice had faded, with the old expression of his face, with his strength, with his anger, with his resistance to the wrongs that had at last subdued him. The faintest shadow of an object full of form and colour is such a picture of it as he was of the man from Shropshire whom we had spoken with before. He inclined his head to Richard and me and spoke to my guardian. "Mr. Jarndyce, it is very kind of you to come to see me. I am not long to be seen, I think. I am very glad to take your hand, sir. You are a good man, superior to injustice, and God knows I honour you." They shook hands earnestly, and my guardian said some words of comfort to him. "It may seem strange to you, sir," returned Gridley; "I should not have liked to see you if this had been the first time of our meeting. But you know I made a fight for it, you know I stood up with my single hand against them all, you know I told them the truth to the last, and told them what they were, and what they had done to me; so I don't mind your seeing me, this wreck." "You have been courageous with them many and many a time," returned my guardian. "Sir, I have been," with a faint smile. "I told you what would come of it when I ceased to be so, and see here! Look at us--look at us!" He drew the hand Miss Flite held through her arm and brought her something nearer to him. "This ends it. Of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits and hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul alone comes natural to me, and I am fit for. There is a tie of many suffering years between us two, and it is the only tie I ever had on earth that Chancery has not broken." "Accept my blessing, Gridley," said Miss Flite in tears. "Accept my blessing!" "I thought, boastfully, that they never could break my heart, Mr. Jarndyce. I was resolved that they should not. I did believe that I could, and would, charge them with being the mockery they were until I died of some bodily disorder. But I am worn out. How long I have been wearing out, I don't know; I seemed to break down in an hour. I hope they may never come to hear of it. I hope everybody here will lead them to believe that I died defying them, consistently and perseveringly, as I did through so many years." Here Mr. Bucket, who was sitting in a corner by the door, good-naturedly offered such consolation as he could administer. "Come, come!" he said from his corner. "Don't go on in that way, Mr. Gridley. You are only a little low. We are all of us a little low sometimes. I am. Hold up, hold up! You'll lose your temper with the whole round of 'em, again and again; and I shall take you on a score of warrants yet, if I have luck." He only shook his head. "Don't shake your head," said Mr. Bucket. "Nod it; that's what I want to see you do. Why, Lord bless your soul, what times we have had together! Haven't I seen you in the Fleet over and over again for contempt? Haven't I come into court, twenty afternoons for no other purpose than to see you pin the Chancellor like a bull-dog? Don't you remember when you first began to threaten the lawyers, and the peace was sworn against you two or three times a week? Ask the little old lady there; she has been always present. Hold up, Mr. Gridley, hold up, sir!" "What are you going to do about him?" asked George in a low voice. "I don't know yet," said Bucket in the same tone. Then resuming his encouragement, he pursued aloud: "Worn out, Mr. Gridley? After dodging me for all these weeks and forcing me to climb the roof here like a tom cat and to come to see you as a doctor? That ain't like being worn out. I should think not! Now I tell you what you want. You want excitement, you know, to keep YOU up; that's what YOU want. You're used to it, and you can't do without it. I couldn't myself. Very well, then; here's this warrant got by Mr. Tulkinghorn of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and backed into half-a-dozen counties since. What do you say to coming along with me, upon this warrant, and having a good angry argument before the magistrates? It'll do you good; it'll freshen you up and get you into training for another turn at the Chancellor. Give in? Why, I am surprised to hear a man of your energy talk of giving in. You mustn't do that. You're half the fun of the fair in the Court of Chancery. George, you lend Mr. Gridley a hand, and let's see now whether he won't be better up than down." "He is very weak," said the trooper in a low voice. "Is he?" returned Bucket anxiously. "I only want to rouse him. I don't like to see an old acquaintance giving in like this. It would cheer him up more than anything if I could make him a little waxy with me. He's welcome to drop into me, right and left, if he likes. I shall never take advantage of it." The roof rang with a scream from Miss Flite, which still rings in my ears. "Oh, no, Gridley!" she cried as he fell heavily and calmly back from before her. "Not without my blessing. After so many years!" The sun was down, the light had gradually stolen from the roof, and the shadow had crept upward. But to me the shadow of that pair, one living and one dead, fell heavier on Richard's departure than the darkness of the darkest night. And through Richard's farewell words I heard it echoed: "Of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits and hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul alone comes natural to me, and I am fit for. There is a tie of many suffering years between us two, and it is the only tie I ever had on earth that Chancery has not broken!"

As soon as Richard and I had talked together, Richard communicated the state of his mind to Mr. Jarndyce. I doubt if my guardian were taken by surprise, though the news made him uneasy and disappointed. He and Richard were often closeted together, and had innumerable appointments with Mr. Kenge, and laboured through a quantity of disagreeable business. While they were thus employed, my guardian, though he suffered from the state of the wind and rubbed his head constantly, was as genial with Ada and me as at any other time, but did not speak. And since Richard would only say that everything was going on capitally and that it really was all right at last, our anxiety was not much relieved by him. We learnt, however, as the time went on, that a new application was made to the Lord Chancellor on Richard's behalf as a ward, and that there was a quantity of talking, and that the Lord Chancellor described him in open court as a vexatious and capricious infant. The matter was adjourned and referred until Richard began to doubt whether he would enter the army before the age of seventy. At last an appointment was made for him to see the Lord Chancellor again in his private room, and there the Lord Chancellor very seriously reproved him for trifling with time and not knowing his mind; but it was settled that his application should be granted. His name was entered at the Horse Guards as an applicant for an ensign's commission; the purchase-money was paid; and Richard, in his characteristic way, plunged into a violent course of military study and got up at five o'clock every morning to practise the broadsword exercise. Thus, vacation succeeded term, and term succeeded vacation. We sometimes heard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce; the case came on, and it went off. Richard, who was now in an instructor's house in London, was able to be with us less frequently than before; and so time passed until the commission was obtained and Richard received directions to join a regiment in Ireland. He arrived with the news one evening, and had a long conference with my guardian. After an hour my guardian put his head into the room where Ada and I were sitting and said, "Come in, my dears!" We went in and found Richard, whom we had last seen in high spirits, leaning on the chimney-piece looking mortified and angry. "Rick and I," said Mr. Jarndyce, "are not quite of one mind. Come, come, Rick, put a brighter face upon it!" "You are very hard with me, sir," said Richard. "The harder, because you have been so considerate to me in all other respects. I never could have been set right without you, sir." "Well, well!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "I want to set you more right yet. I want to set you right with yourself." "I hope you will excuse my saying, sir," returned Richard, "that I think I am the best judge about myself." "I hope you will excuse my saying, my dear Rick," observed Mr. Jarndyce with good humour, "that it's quite natural in you to think so, but I don't think so. I must do my duty, Rick." Ada had turned so pale that he made her sit down beside him. "It's nothing, my dear," he said, "Rick and I have only had a friendly difference, which we must state to you, for you are the theme. Now you are afraid of what's coming." "I am not, cousin John," replied Ada with a smile, "if it is to come from you." "Thank you, my dear." Putting his hand on hers, he said, "Do you recollect the talk we had, we four, when the little woman told me of a little love affair?" "It is not likely that either Richard or I can ever forget your kindness that day, cousin John." "So much the easier for us to agree," returned my guardian gently. "Ada, my bird, you should know that Rick has now chosen his profession for the last time. He has exhausted his money and is bound henceforward to the tree he has planted." "Quite true that I have exhausted my present resources, sir," said Richard, "but that is not all I have." "Rick, Rick!" cried my guardian with a sudden terror in his manner. "For the love of God, don't found a hope on the family curse! Never give one glance towards the horrible phantom that has haunted us so many years. Better to borrow, beg, or die!" We were all startled by the fervour of this warning. Richard bit his lip and held his breath. "Ada, my dear," said Mr. Jarndyce, recovering his cheerfulness, "these are strong words of advice, but enough of that. All Richard had to start him in the race of life is ventured. I recommend, for his sake and your own, that he should depart from us with the understanding that there is no contract between you. I must go further. I ask you wholly to relinquish, for the present, any tie but your relationship as cousins." "Better to say at once, sir," returned Richard, "that you renounce all confidence in me and that you advise Ada to do the same." "Better to say nothing of the sort, Rick, because I don't mean it." "You think I have begun ill, sir," retorted Richard. "I have, I know." "You have not made that beginning yet, but there is a time for all things," said Mr. Jarndyce in an encouraging manner, "and yours is just now fully come. Make a clear beginning altogether. You two (very young, my dears) are cousins; as yet, nothing more. What more may come must come of being worked out, Rick." "You are very hard with me, sir," said Richard. "My dear boy," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I am harder with myself when I do anything that gives you pain. You have your remedy in your own hands. Ada, it is better for him that he should be free and that there should be no youthful engagement between you. Rick, it is better for her; you owe it to her. Come! Each of you will do what is best for the other, if not what is best for yourselves." "Why is it best, sir?" returned Richard. "You did not say that before." "I have had experience since. I don't blame you, Rick, but I have had experience since." "You mean of me, sir." "Well! Yes, of both of you," said Mr. Jarndyce kindly. "The time is not come for your being pledged to one another. Come, come, my young cousins, begin afresh! Bygones shall be bygones, and a new page turned for you to write your lives in." Richard gave an anxious glance at Ada but said nothing. "I now affectionately advise you two to part as you came here," said Mr. Jarndyce. "Leave all else to time, truth, and steadfastness. If you do otherwise, you will do wrong, and you will have made me do wrong in ever bringing you together." A long silence succeeded. "Cousin Richard," said Ada then, raising her blue eyes tenderly to his face, "I think no choice is left us. Your mind may be quite at ease about me, for you will leave me here under his care and will be sure that I can have nothing to wish for. I - I don't doubt, cousin Richard," said she, a little confused, "that you are very fond of me, and I - I don't think you will fall in love with anybody else. But I should like you to consider well about it, as I should like you to be happy. You may trust me, cousin Richard. I am not at all changeable; but I should never blame you. Even cousins may be sorry to part; and in truth I am very sorry, Richard, though I know it's for your welfare. I shall always think of you affectionately, and often talk of you with Esther, and - and perhaps you will sometimes think of me, cousin Richard. So now," said Ada, giving him her trembling hand, "we are only cousins again, Richard - for the time perhaps - and I pray for a blessing on my dear cousin, wherever he goes!" It was strange to me that Richard should not be able to forgive my guardian for holding the very same opinion of him which he himself had expressed. But it was certainly the case. I observed with great regret that from this hour he never was as free and open with Mr. Jarndyce as he had been before. Solely on his side, an estrangement began to arise between them. He, Mr. Jarndyce, and I went to London for a week. In the business of preparation he soon lost himself, and lost even his grief at parting from Ada, who remained in Hertfordshire. He remembered her by fits and starts, with bursts of tears and self-reproaches. But in a few minutes he would recklessly conjure up some undefinable means by which they were both to be made rich and happy for ever, and would become as gay as possible. I trotted about with him all day long, buying things which he needed. Of the things he would have bought if he had been left to himself, I say nothing. He often talked sensibly and feelingly to me about his faults and resolutions, and seemed encouraged by our conversations. In that week, there used to come to fence with Richard a former cavalry soldier; he was a fine bluff-looking man, of a frank free bearing, with whom Richard had practised for some months. I heard so much about him, that I was purposely in the room with my work one morning when he came. "Good morning, Mr. George," said my guardian. "Mr. Carstone will be here directly. Meanwhile, Miss Summerson is very happy to see you, I know. Sit down." He sat down, a little disconcerted by my presence, I thought. "You are as punctual as the sun," said Mr. Jarndyce. "Military time, sir," he replied. "Force of habit, sir. I am not at all business-like." "Yet you have a large establishment, I am told?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "I keep a shooting gallery, sir, but not much of a one." "And what kind of a shot and what kind of a swordsman do you make of Mr. Carstone?" said my guardian. "Pretty good, sir," he replied, folding his arms upon his broad chest and looking very large. "If Mr. Carstone was to give his full mind to it, he would come out very good." "But he don't, I suppose?" said my guardian. "He did at first, sir, but not afterwards. Not his full mind. Perhaps he has something else upon it - some young lady, perhaps." His bright dark eyes glanced at me for the first time. "He has not me upon his mind, I assure you, Mr. George," said I, laughing. He reddened a little and made me a trooper's bow. "No offence, I hope, miss." "Not at all," said I. "I take it as a compliment." He looked at me now in three or four quick successive glances. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said to my guardian with a manly diffidence, "but you did me the honour to mention the young lady's name-" "Miss Summerson." "Miss Summerson," he repeated, and looked at me again. "Do you know the name?" I asked. "No, miss. To my knowledge I never heard it. I thought I had seen you somewhere." "I think not," I returned, raising my head from my work to look at him; there was something so genuine in his speech and manner that I was glad of the opportunity. "I remember faces very well." "So do I, miss!" he returned, meeting my look. "Humph! What set me off, now, upon that!" My guardian came to his rescue. "Have you many pupils, Mr. George?" "They vary in their number, sir. Mostly they're a small lot to live by." "And what type of people come to practise at your gallery?" "All sorts, sir. Natives and foreigners. From gentlemen to apprentices. I have had Frenchwomen come, before now, and show themselves dabs at pistol-shooting. Mad people out of number, of course, but they go everywhere where the doors stand open." "People don't come with grudges and schemes of finding live targets, I hope?" said my guardian, smiling. "Not much, sir, though that has happened. Mostly they come for skill - or idleness. I beg your pardon," said Mr. George, sitting stiffly upright, "but I believe you're a Chancery suitor, if I have heard correct?" "I am sorry to say I am." "I have had one of your compatriots in my time, sir." "A Chancery suitor? How was that?" "Why, the man was so badgered and worried and tortured," said Mr. George, "that he got out of sorts. I don't believe he had any idea of taking aim at anybody, but he was in that condition of resentment and violence that he would come and pay for fifty shots and fire away till he was red hot. One day I said to him when there was nobody by, 'If this practice is a safety-valve, comrade, well and good; but I'd rather you took to something else.' He received it in very good part and left off directly. We shook hands and struck up a sort of friendship." "What was that man?" asked my guardian with interest. "Why, he began as a small Shropshire farmer before they made a baited bull of him," said Mr. George. "Was his name Gridley?" "It was, sir." I explained to him how we knew the name. He made me another soldierly bow. "I don't know," he said as he looked at me, "what it is that sets me off again - but - bosh!" He passed one of his heavy hands over his crisp dark hair as if to sweep the broken thoughts out of his mind. "I am sorry to learn that this Gridley has got into new troubles and is in hiding," said my guardian. "So I am told, sir," returned Mr. George. "You don't know where?" "No, sir. He will be worn out soon, I expect." Richard's entrance stopped the conversation. Mr. George rose, made me another bow, and strode heavily out of the room. This was the day appointed for Richard's departure. I had completed all his packing; and our time was free until night, when he was to go to Liverpool and on to Holyhead. Jarndyce and Jarndyce being again expected to come on that day, Richard proposed to me that we should go down to the court and hear what passed. As it was his last day, and he was eager to go, and I had never been there, I agreed. As we walked down to Westminster, we talked about the letters that Richard was to write to me and that I was to write to him. My guardian knew where we were going, and therefore was not with us. When we came to the court, there was the Lord Chancellor sitting in great state on the bench, with the mace and seals on a red table below him. Below the table was a long row of solicitors, with bundles of papers at their feet; and then there were the gentlemen of the bar in wigs and gowns - some awake and some asleep. The Lord Chancellor leaned back in his easy chair; some of those who were present dozed; some read the newspapers; all seemed perfectly at their ease, in no hurry, very unconcerned and comfortable. To see everything going on so smoothly and to think of the roughness of the suitors' lives and deaths; to see all that ceremony and to think of the waste, and want, and beggared misery it represented; to consider that while the sickness of deferred hope was raging in so many hearts, this polite show went calmly on from day to day, and year to year; to behold the Lord Chancellor and the whole array of practitioners as if nobody had ever heard that all over England the name of Chancery was a bitter jest, held in universal horror and contempt - this was so curious to me that I could not comprehend it. I sat and tried to listen, and looked about me; but there seemed to be no reality in the whole scene except poor little Miss Flite, standing on a bench. Miss Flite soon saw us and came over. She gave me a gracious welcome to her domain. Mr. Kenge also came to speak to us: it was not a very good day for a visit, he said; but it was imposing, it was imposing. When we had been there half an hour or so, the case in progress seemed to die out without coming to any result. The Lord Chancellor threw down a bundle of papers from his desk to the gentlemen below him, and somebody said, "Jarndyce and Jarndyce." Upon this there was a buzz, and a laugh, and a bringing in of great heaps and bags and bags full of papers. I think it came on "for further directions" - about some bill of costs, which I found confusing enough. But I counted twenty-three gentlemen in wigs who said they were "in it," and none of them appeared to understand it much better than I. Some of them said it was this way, and some of them said it was that way, and some of them proposed to read huge volumes of affidavits, and there was more buzzing and laughing, and everybody concerned was in a state of idle entertainment, and nothing could be made of it by anybody. After an hour or so of this, it was "referred back for the present," as Mr. Kenge said, and the papers were bundled up again. I glanced at Richard and was shocked to see the worn look of his handsome young face. "It can't last for ever, Dame Durden. Better luck next time!" was all he said. I had seen Mr. Guppy bringing in papers for Mr. Kenge; and he had seen me and bowed forlornly, which made me wish to get out of the court. Richard was taking me away when Mr. Guppy came up. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Carstone," said he in a whisper, "and Miss Summerson's, but there's a lady here, a friend of mine, who knows her." As he spoke, I saw before me Mrs. Rachael of my godmother's house. "How do you do, Esther?" said she. "Do you recollect me?" I gave her my hand and told her yes and that she was very little altered. "I wonder you remember those times, Esther," she returned with her old asperity. "They are changed now. Well! I am glad to see you, and glad you are not too proud to know me." But indeed she seemed disappointed that I was not. "Proud, Mrs. Rachael!" I remonstrated. "I am married, Esther," she returned, coldly correcting me, "and am Mrs. Chadband. Well! I wish you good day, and I hope you'll do well." Mr. Guppy heaved a sigh in my ear and elbowed his own and Mrs. Rachael's way through the confused crowd. Richard and I were making our way through it, and I was still in the first chill of the unexpected recognition when I saw, coming towards us, but not seeing us, Mr. George. "George!" said Richard. "You are well met, sir," he returned. "And you, miss. Could you point a person out for me? I don't understand these places. There's a little cracked old woman, that-" I put up my finger, for Miss Flite was close by. "Hem!" said Mr. George. "You remember, miss, that we spoke of a certain man this morning? Gridley," in a low whisper behind his hand. "Yes," said I. "He is hiding at my place. I couldn't mention it. He is on his last march, miss, and has a whim to see her. He says she has been almost as good as a friend to him here. I came down to look for her." "Shall I tell her?" said I. "Would you be so good? It's a providence I met you, miss; I doubt if I should have known how to get on with that lady." He stood upright in a martial attitude as I informed little Miss Flite of the reason for his kind errand. "My angry friend from Shropshire!" she exclaimed. "My dear, I will visit him with the greatest pleasure." "He is living concealed at Mr. George's," said I. "Hush! This is Mr. George." "In-deed!" returned Miss Flite. "Very proud to have the honour! A military man, my dear. A perfect general!" she whispered to me. Poor Miss Flite deemed it necessary to be so polite, as a mark of her respect for the army, and to curtsy so very often that it was no easy matter to get her out of the court. When this was at last done, addressing Mr. George as "General," she gave him her arm. He was so discomposed and begged me so respectfully "not to desert him" that Richard and I said we should see them safely to their destination. And as Mr. George informed us that Gridley's mind had run on Mr. Jarndyce all afternoon, I wrote a hasty note to my guardian to say where we were gone and why. Mr. George sent it off by a ticket-porter. We then took a hackney-coach to the neighbourhood of Leicester Square. We walked through some narrow courts, and soon came to the shooting gallery, the door of which was closed. As Mr. George pulled a bell-handle, a very respectable old gentleman with grey hair, wearing spectacles and a broad-brimmed hat, and carrying a large gold-headed cane, addressed him. "I ask your pardon, my good friend," said he, "but is this George's Shooting Gallery?" "It is, sir," returned Mr. George. "I am George, sir." "Oh, indeed?" said the old gentleman. "Then it was your young man who came for me. I am a physician and was requested - five minutes ago - to come and visit a sick man here." "Quite correct, sir," said Mr. George gravely. The door being at that moment opened by a very singular-looking little man in a green-baize apron, whose face and hands and dress were blackened all over, we passed along a dreary passage into a large building with bare brick walls where there were targets, and guns, and swords. The physician stopped, and taking off his hat, appeared to vanish by magic and to leave another and quite a different man in his place. "Now lookee here, George," said the man, turning quickly round upon him and tapping him on the breast with a large forefinger. "You know me, and I know you. You're a man of the world, and I'm a man of the world. My name's Bucket, as you are aware, and I have got a peace-warrant against Gridley. You have kept him out of the way a long time, and been artful in it, and it does you credit." Mr. George bit his lip and shook his head. "Now, George, you're a sensible man and a well-conducted man; that's what you are. I don't talk to you as a common character, because you have served your country and you know that when duty calls we must obey. Consequently you're very far from wanting to give trouble. Phil Squod, don't you go a-sidling round the gallery like that" - the dirty little man was shuffling about with his shoulder against the wall, and his eyes on the intruder- "because I know you and I won't have it." "Phil! Be quiet," said Mr. George. "Yes, guv'ner." "Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Bucket, "I have a duty to perform. George, I know where my man is because I was on the roof last night and saw him through the skylight. He is in there, you know," pointing; "on a sofy. Now I must see my man, and I must tell him to consider himself in custody; but you know me, and you know I don't want to take any uncomfortable measures. You give me your word that it's honourable between us two, and I'll accommodate you to the utmost of my power." "I give it," was the reply. "But it wasn't handsome in you, Mr. Bucket." "Gammon, George! Not handsome?" said Mr. Bucket. "I don't say it wasn't handsome in you to keep my man so secret, do I? Be equally good-tempered to me, old boy!" Mr. George, after a little consideration, proposed to go in first to his comrade (as he called him), taking Miss Flite with him. Mr. Bucket agreeing, they went away to the further end of the gallery, leaving us by a table covered with guns. Mr. Bucket entered into a little light conversation, asking me if I were afraid of fire-arms, as most young ladies were; asking Richard if he were a good shot; asking Phil Squod which he considered the best of those rifles, and making himself generally agreeable. After a time Mr. George came and said that if Richard and I had no objection to seeing his comrade, he would take a visit from us very kindly. The words had hardly passed his lips when the bell was rung and my guardian appeared, "on the chance," he observed, "of being able to do any little thing for the poor fellow." We all four went into the place where Gridley was. It was a bare room, partitioned off from the gallery by a high screen. Overhead were the rafters, and the skylight through which Mr. Bucket had looked down. The sun was near setting, and its light came redly in above. Upon a canvas-covered sofa lay the man from Shropshire, but so changed that at first I did not recognize his colourless face. He had been writing in his hiding-place, and still dwelling on his grievances. A table was covered with manuscripts and worn pens. He and the little mad woman were side by side; she sat on a chair holding his hand. His voice had faded, with his strength and his anger; he was the faintest shadow of the former man from Shropshire. He spoke to my guardian. "Mr. Jarndyce, it is very kind of you to come to see me. I am not long to be seen, I think. I am very glad to take your hand, sir. You are a good man, and I honour you." They shook hands earnestly, and my guardian said some words of comfort to him. "You know I made a fight for it," said Gridley, "you know I stood up against them all, you know I told them the truth to the last, and told them what they had done to me." "You have been courageous with them many and many a time," returned my guardian. "Sir, I have been," with a faint smile. "I told you what would come of it! Look at us!" He drew Miss Flite nearer to him. "This ends it. Of all my old associations, this one poor soul alone comes natural to me. There is a tie of many suffering years between us two, and it is the only tie I ever had on earth that Chancery has not broken." "Accept my blessing, Gridley," said Miss Flite in tears. "I thought, boastfully, that they never could break my heart, Mr. Jarndyce. But I am worn out. I seemed to break down in an hour. I hope they may never come to hear of it. I hope they will believe that I died defying them, as I did through so many years." Here Mr. Bucket, who was sitting in a corner by the door, good-naturedly said, "Come, come! Don't go on in that way, Mr. Gridley. You are only a little low. We are all of us a little low sometimes. I am. Hold up! You'll lose your temper with the whole round of 'em again; and I shall take you on a score of warrants yet." Gridley only shook his head. "Don't shake your head," said Mr. Bucket. "Nod it; that's what I want to see you do. Why, Lord bless your soul, what times we have had together! Haven't I seen you in the Fleet Prison over and over again for contempt? Haven't I come into court twenty afternoons to see you pin the Chancellor like a bull-dog? Hold up, Mr. Gridley, sir!" "What are you going to do about him?" asked George in a low voice. "I don't know yet," said Bucket in the same tone. Then he resumed his encouragement aloud: "Worn out, Mr. Gridley? After dodging me for all these weeks and forcing me to climb the roof here like a tom-cat? That ain't like being worn out! Now I tell you what you want. You want excitement, you know; that's what you want. You're used to it, and you can't do without it. I couldn't myself. Here's this warrant got by Mr. Tulkinghorn. What do you say to coming along with me, upon this warrant, and having a good angry argument before the magistrates? It'll do you good; it'll freshen you up. Why, I am surprised to hear a man of your energy talk of giving in. You mustn't do that. George, you lend Mr. Gridley a hand, and let's see now whether he won't be better up than down." "He is very weak," said the trooper in a low voice. "Is he?" returned Bucket anxiously. "I only want to rouse him. I don't like to see an old acquaintance giving in like this. It would cheer him up more than anything if I could make him angry with me." The roof rang with a scream from Miss Flite, which still rings in my ears. "Oh, no, Gridley!" she cried as he fell back heavily and calmly. "Not without my blessing. After so many years!" The sun was down, the light had gradually stolen from the roof, and the shadow had crept upward. But to me the shadow of that pair, one living and one dead, fell heavier on Richard's departure than the darkness of the darkest night. And through Richard's farewell words I heard it echoed: "Of all my old associations, this one poor soul alone comes natural to me. There is a tie of many suffering years between us two, and it is the only tie I ever had on earth that Chancery has not broken!"

Bleak House

Chapter 24: An Appeal Case

Chesney Wold is shut up, carpets are rolled into great scrolls in corners of comfortless rooms, bright damask does penance in brown holland, carving and gilding puts on mortification, and the Dedlock ancestors retire from the light of day again. Around and around the house the leaves fall thick, but never fast, for they come circling down with a dead lightness that is sombre and slow. Let the gardener sweep and sweep the turf as he will, and press the leaves into full barrows, and wheel them off, still they lie ankle-deep. Howls the shrill wind round Chesney Wold; the sharp rain beats, the windows rattle, and the chimneys growl. Mists hide in the avenues, veil the points of view, and move in funeral-wise across the rising grounds. On all the house there is a cold, blank smell like the smell of a little church, though something dryer, suggesting that the dead and buried Dedlocks walk there in the long nights and leave the flavour of their graves behind them. But the house in town, which is rarely in the same mind as Chesney Wold at the same time, seldom rejoicing when it rejoices or mourning when it mourns, excepting when a Dedlock dies--the house in town shines out awakened. As warm and bright as so much state may be, as delicately redolent of pleasant scents that bear no trace of winter as hothouse flowers can make it, soft and hushed so that the ticking of the clocks and the crisp burning of the fires alone disturb the stillness in the rooms, it seems to wrap those chilled bones of Sir Leicester's in rainbow-coloured wool. And Sir Leicester is glad to repose in dignified contentment before the great fire in the library, condescendingly perusing the backs of his books or honouring the fine arts with a glance of approbation. For he has his pictures, ancient and modern. Some of the Fancy Ball School in which art occasionally condescends to become a master, which would be best catalogued like the miscellaneous articles in a sale. As "Three high-backed chairs, a table and cover, long-necked bottle (containing wine), one flask, one Spanish female's costume, three-quarter face portrait of Miss Jogg the model, and a suit of armour containing Don Quixote." Or "One stone terrace (cracked), one gondola in distance, one Venetian senator's dress complete, richly embroidered white satin costume with profile portrait of Miss Jogg the model, one Scimitar superbly mounted in gold with jewelled handle, elaborate Moorish dress (very rare), and Othello." Mr. Tulkinghorn comes and goes pretty often, there being estate business to do, leases to be renewed, and so on. He sees my Lady pretty often, too; and he and she are as composed, and as indifferent, and take as little heed of one another, as ever. Yet it may be that my Lady fears this Mr. Tulkinghorn and that he knows it. It may be that he pursues her doggedly and steadily, with no touch of compunction, remorse, or pity. It may be that her beauty and all the state and brilliancy surrounding her only gives him the greater zest for what he is set upon and makes him the more inflexible in it. Whether he be cold and cruel, whether immovable in what he has made his duty, whether absorbed in love of power, whether determined to have nothing hidden from him in ground where he has burrowed among secrets all his life, whether he in his heart despises the splendour of which he is a distant beam, whether he is always treasuring up slights and offences in the affability of his gorgeous clients--whether he be any of this, or all of this, it may be that my Lady had better have five thousand pairs of fashionable eyes upon her, in distrustful vigilance, than the two eyes of this rusty lawyer with his wisp of neckcloth and his dull black breeches tied with ribbons at the knees. Sir Leicester sits in my Lady's room--that room in which Mr. Tulkinghorn read the affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce--particularly complacent. My Lady, as on that day, sits before the fire with her screen in her hand. Sir Leicester is particularly complacent because he has found in his newspaper some congenial remarks bearing directly on the floodgates and the framework of society. They apply so happily to the late case that Sir Leicester has come from the library to my Lady's room expressly to read them aloud. "The man who wrote this article," he observes by way of preface, nodding at the fire as if he were nodding down at the man from a mount, "has a well-balanced mind." The man's mind is not so well balanced but that he bores my Lady, who, after a languid effort to listen, or rather a languid resignation of herself to a show of listening, becomes distraught and falls into a contemplation of the fire as if it were her fire at Chesney Wold, and she had never left it. Sir Leicester, quite unconscious, reads on through his double eye-glass, occasionally stopping to remove his glass and express approval, as "Very true indeed," "Very properly put," "I have frequently made the same remark myself," invariably losing his place after each observation, and going up and down the column to find it again. Sir Leicester is reading with infinite gravity and state when the door opens, and the Mercury in powder makes this strange announcement, "The young man, my Lady, of the name of Guppy." Sir Leicester pauses, stares, repeats in a killing voice, "The young man of the name of Guppy?" Looking round, he beholds the young man of the name of Guppy, much discomfited and not presenting a very impressive letter of introduction in his manner and appearance. "Pray," says Sir Leicester to Mercury, "what do you mean by announcing with this abruptness a young man of the name of Guppy?" "I beg your pardon, Sir Leicester, but my Lady said she would see the young man whenever he called. I was not aware that you were here, Sir Leicester." 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 possession 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 be 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!"

Chesney Wold is shut up, carpets are rolled into great scrolls, bright damask is covered in brown dust-sheets, and the Dedlock ancestors retire from the light of day again. Around the house the leaves fall thick, but never fast, for they come circling down with a dead lightness that is sombre and slow. No matter how much the gardener sweeps up, still they lie ankle-deep. Howls the shrill wind round Chesney Wold; the sharp rain beats, and the windows rattle. Mists hide in the avenues, veil the views, and move funeral-wise across the grounds. On all the house there is the cold, blank smell of a church, suggesting that the dead and buried Dedlocks walk there in the long nights and leave the flavour of their graves behind them. But the house in town shines out awakened. As warm and bright as possible, as pleasantly scented as hothouse flowers can make it, soft and hushed so that the ticking of the clocks and the crisp burning of the fires alone disturb the stillness in the rooms, it seems to wrap Sir Leicester's chilled bones in rainbow-coloured wool. And Sir Leicester is glad to repose in dignified contentment before the great fire in the library, condescendingly perusing the backs of his books or honouring the fine arts with an approving glance. For he has his pictures, ancient and modern, of fancy Spanish or Venetian scenes. Mr. Tulkinghorn comes and goes pretty often on estate business. He sees my Lady pretty often, too; and he and she are as composed, and as indifferent to each other, as ever. Yet it may be that my Lady fears Mr. Tulkinghorn and that he knows it. It may be that he pursues her doggedly and steadily, with no touch of remorse or pity. It may be that her beauty and state only give him the greater zest for what he is set upon and make him more inflexible. Whether or no, my Lady had better have five thousand pairs of fashionable eyes upon her, than the two eyes of this rusty lawyer with his wisp of neckcloth. Sir Leicester sits in my Lady's room - that room in which Mr. Tulkinghorn read the affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce - particularly complacent. My Lady, as on that day, sits before the fire with her screen in her hand. Sir Leicester is particularly complacent because he has found in his newspaper some congenial remarks bearing directly on the floodgates and the framework of society. He has come from the library to my Lady's room expressly to read them aloud. "The man who wrote this article," he observes, "has a well-balanced mind." My Lady, after a languid effort to listen, or rather pretend to listen, becomes distracted and falls into a contemplation of the fire. Sir Leicester, quite unconscious, reads on, occasionally stopping to remark "Very true indeed," or "Very properly put," invariably losing his place after each observation, and going up and down the column to find it again. He is reading with infinite gravity when the door opens, and the footman makes this strange announcement, "The young man, my Lady, of the name of Guppy." Sir Leicester pauses, and repeats, "The young man of the name of Guppy?" "I beg your pardon, Sir Leicester, but my Lady said she would see the young man whenever he called." The young man of the name of Guppy stands there, much discomfited. "It's quite right. I gave him those directions," says my Lady. "Let the young man wait." "By no means, my Lady. I will not interrupt you." Sir Leicester gallantly retires, declining to accept a bow from the young man as he goes out and majestically supposing him to be some shoemaker. Lady Dedlock looks imperiously at her visitor when the servant has left the room. She 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 the person who has written me so many letters?" "Several, your ladyship, before your ladyship condescended to favour me with an answer." "And could you not write this time?" Mr. Guppy 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 expect that it will - you will allow me to cut you short. Say what you have to say, please." My Lady turns herself towards the fire again, sitting almost with her back to the young man. "With your ladyship's permission, then," says Mr. Guppy, "Hem! I am, as I told your ladyship in my first letter, in the law, and have learnt the habit of not committing myself in writing. The name of my 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 stills as if she were listening. "I may say at once," says Mr. Guppy, a little emboldened, "it is not about Jarndyce and Jarndyce that I wish to speak to your ladyship. If it had been about Jarndyce and Jarndyce, I should have gone to your ladyship's solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn." My Lady says, "You had better sit down." "Thank you." Mr. Guppy does so. "Now, your ladyship" - he refers to a little slip of paper - "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 this visit, I should be placed in a very disagreeable situation. Consequently, I rely upon your ladyship's honour." My Lady, with a disdainful gesture, assures him of his being worth no complaint from her. "Thank your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy; "Now - dash it! I wrote down here the points I thought of touching upon, and I can't quite make them out." He blushes, peering at the slip of paper. "C.S. What's C.S.? Oh! I know! I am not aware 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." "Now, did it strike your ladyship that she was like anybody?" asks Mr. Guppy, crossing his arms, and holding his head on one side. "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, I found, when I had the honour of going over your ladyship's mansion of Chesney Wold recently, such a resemblance between Miss Esther Summerson and your ladyship's own portrait that it completely knocked me over. And now I have the honour of beholding your ladyship near, it's really more surprising than I thought." What a deadly look those beautiful eyes give the young man of the name of Guppy! My Lady asks him again what he supposes that this 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." My Lady reclines in her chair composedly, though with a trifle less ease than usual perhaps, and never falters in her steady gaze. Mr. Guppy proceeds. "Your ladyship, there is a mystery about Miss Esther Summerson's birth and bringing up. I know that fact 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, Miss Summerson might look with more 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 dawns upon my Lady's face. "Now, by chance," says Mr. Guppy, "through one of those circumstances that fall in the way of us professional men, I have met the person who lived as servant with the lady who brought Miss Summerson up. That lady was a Miss Barbary, your ladyship." Is the dead colour on my Lady's face reflected from her green silk screen, or is it a dreadful paleness that has fallen on her? "Did your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy, "ever hear of Miss Barbary?" "I don't know. I think so." "Was she at all connected with your ladyship's family?" My Lady's lips move, but they utter nothing. She shakes her head. "Not to your ladyship's knowledge, perhaps? Ah! But might be? Very good!" says Mr. Guppy. "Now, this Miss Barbary was extremely close and secretive, and my witness never had an idea whether she possessed a single relative. On one occasion only, she confided 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 in the same attitude, with her lips a little apart, her brow a little contracted, but for the moment dead. He sees a tremor pass across her frame like a ripple over water, sees her lips shake, sees her compose them by a great effort, all in a swift breath. "Your ladyship is acquainted with the name of Hawdon?" "I have heard it before." "Name of any remote branch of your ladyship's family?" "No." "Now, your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy, "I come to the last point of the case. Your ladyship must know that there was found dead at the house of a person named Krook, near Chancery Lane, a law-writer in great distress. There was an inquest, in which this 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 in disguise went to look at the scene 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, 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. "I assure your ladyship it's very queer 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. It was supposed, your ladyship, that Hawdon left no scrap behind him by which he could be identified. But he did. He left a bundle of old letters." All this time her eyes never once release him. "They were taken and hidden. And tomorrow night, your ladyship, they will come into my possession." "Still I ask you, what is this to me?" "Your ladyship, I end with that." Mr. Guppy rises. "If you think there's enough in this chain of circumstances 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 seen them. 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 all this 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 his full object and suspicion in coming here; or if not, what do they hide? He is a match for my Lady. That witness-box face of his tells her nothing. "You may bring the letters," says my Lady, "if you choose." "Your ladyship is not very encouraging, upon my word," says Mr. Guppy, a little injured. "You may bring the letters," she repeats in the same tone, "if you please." "It shall be done. I wish your ladyship good day." On a table near her is a rich bauble of a casket. Looking at him, she unlocks it. "Oh! I assure your ladyship I couldn't accept anything of the kind," says Mr. Guppy. "I wish your ladyship good day." So the young man makes his bow and leaves. As Sir Leicester dozes over his newspaper in the library, is there no influence in the house to startle him, to make the very portraits frown, the very armour stir? No. Sobs and cries are only air, and air is so shut in throughout the house in town that no vibration is carried to Sir Leicester's ears; and yet this cry is in the house, going 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!"

Bleak House

Chapter 29: The Young Man

There is disquietude in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. Black suspicion hides in that peaceful region. The mass of Cook's Courtiers are in their usual state of mind, no better and no worse; but Mr. Snagsby is changed, and his little woman knows it. For Tom-all-Alone's and Lincoln's Inn Fields persist in harnessing themselves, a pair of ungovernable coursers, to the chariot of Mr. Snagsby's imagination; and Mr. Bucket drives; and the passengers are Jo and Mr. Tulkinghorn; and the complete equipage whirls though the law-stationery business at wild speed all round the clock. Even in the little front kitchen where the family meals are taken, it rattles away at a smoking pace from the dinner-table, when Mr. Snagsby pauses in carving the first slice of the leg of mutton baked with potatoes and stares at the kitchen wall. Mr. Snagsby cannot make out what it is that he has had to do with. Something is wrong somewhere, but what something, what may come of it, to whom, when, and from which unthought of and unheard of quarter is the puzzle of his life. His remote impressions of the robes and coronets, the stars and garters, that sparkle through the surface-dust of Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers; his veneration for the mysteries presided over by that best and closest of his customers, whom all the Inns of Court, all Chancery Lane, and all the legal neighbourhood agree to hold in awe; his remembrance of Detective Mr. Bucket with his forefinger and his confidential manner, impossible to be evaded or declined, persuade him that he is a party to some dangerous secret without knowing what it is. And it is the fearful peculiarity of this condition that, at any hour of his daily life, at any opening of the shop-door, at any pull of the bell, at any entrance of a messenger, or any delivery of a letter, the secret may take air and fire, explode, and blow up--Mr. Bucket only knows whom. For which reason, whenever a man unknown comes into the shop (as many men unknown do) and says, "Is Mr. Snagsby in?" or words to that innocent effect, Mr. Snagsby's heart knocks hard at his guilty breast. He undergoes so much from such inquiries that when they are made by boys he revenges himself by flipping at their ears over the counter and asking the young dogs what they mean by it and why they can't speak out at once? More impracticable men and boys persist in walking into Mr. Snagsby's sleep and terrifying him with unaccountable questions, so that often when the cock at the little dairy in Cursitor Street breaks out in his usual absurd way about the morning, Mr. Snagsby finds himself in a crisis of nightmare, with his little woman shaking him and saying "What's the matter with the man!" The little woman herself is not the least item in his difficulty. To know that he is always keeping a secret from her, that he has under all circumstances to conceal and hold fast a tender double tooth, which her sharpness is ever ready to twist out of his head, gives Mr. Snagsby, in her dentistical presence, much of the air of a dog who has a reservation from his master and will look anywhere rather than meet his eye. These various signs and tokens, marked by the little woman, are not lost upon her. They impel her to say, "Snagsby has something on his mind!" And thus suspicion gets into Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. From suspicion to jealousy, Mrs. Snagsby finds the road as natural and short as from Cook's Court to Chancery Lane. And thus jealousy gets into Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. Once there (and it was always lurking thereabout), it is very active and nimble in Mrs. Snagsby's breast, prompting her to nocturnal examinations of Mr. Snagsby's pockets; to secret perusals of Mr. Snagsby's letters; to private researches in the day book and ledger, till, cash-box, and iron safe; to watchings at windows, listenings behind doors, and a general putting of this and that together by the wrong end. Mrs. Snagsby is so perpetually on the alert that the house becomes ghostly with creaking boards and rustling garments. The 'prentices think somebody may have been murdered there in bygone times. Guster holds certain loose atoms of an idea (picked up at Tooting, where they were found floating among the orphans) that there is buried money underneath the cellar, guarded by an old man with a white beard, who cannot get out for seven thousand years because he said the Lord's Prayer backwards. "Who was Nimrod?" Mrs. Snagsby repeatedly inquires of herself. "Who was that lady--that creature? And who is that boy?" Now, Nimrod being as dead as the mighty hunter whose name Mrs. Snagsby has appropriated, and the lady being unproducible, she directs her mental eye, for the present, with redoubled vigilance to the boy. "And who," quoth Mrs. Snagsby for the thousand and first time, "is that boy? Who is that--!" And there Mrs. Snagsby is seized with an inspiration. He has no respect for Mr. Chadband. No, to be sure, and he wouldn't have, of course. Naturally he wouldn't, under those contagious circumstances. He was invited and appointed by Mr. Chadband--why, Mrs. Snagsby heard it herself with her own ears!--to come back, and be told where he was to go, to be addressed by Mr. Chadband; and he never came! Why did he never come? Because he was told not to come. Who told him not to come? Who? Ha, ha! Mrs. Snagsby sees it all. But happily (and Mrs. Snagsby tightly shakes her head and tightly smiles) that boy was met by Mr. Chadband yesterday in the streets; and that boy, as affording a subject which Mr. Chadband desires to improve for the spiritual delight of a select congregation, was seized by Mr. Chadband and threatened with being delivered over to the police unless he showed the reverend gentleman where he lived and unless he entered into, and fulfilled, an undertaking to appear in Cook's Court to-morrow night, "to--mor--row--night," Mrs. Snagsby repeats for mere emphasis with another tight smile and another tight shake of her head; and to-morrow night that boy will be here, and to-morrow night Mrs. Snagsby will have her eye upon him and upon some one else; and oh, you may walk a long while in your secret ways (says Mrs. Snagsby with haughtiness and scorn), but you can't blind ME! Mrs. Snagsby sounds no timbrel in anybody's ears, but holds her purpose quietly, and keeps her counsel. To-morrow comes, the savoury preparations for the Oil Trade come, the evening comes. Comes Mr. Snagsby in his black coat; come the Chadbands; come (when the gorging vessel is replete) the 'prentices and Guster, to be edified; comes at last, with his slouching head, and his shuffle backward, and his shuffle forward, and his shuffle to the right, and his shuffle to the left, and his bit of fur cap in his muddy hand, which he picks as if it were some mangy bird he had caught and was plucking before eating raw, Jo, the very, very tough subject Mr. Chadband is to improve. Mrs. Snagsby screws a watchful glance on Jo as he is brought into the little drawing-room by Guster. He looks at Mr. Snagsby the moment he comes in. Aha! Why does he look at Mr. Snagsby? Mr. Snagsby looks at him. Why should he do that, but that Mrs. Snagsby sees it all? Why else should that look pass between them, why else should Mr. Snagsby be confused and cough a signal cough behind his hand? It is as clear as crystal that Mr. Snagsby is that boy's father. "Peace, my friends," says Chadband, rising and wiping the oily exudations from his reverend visage. "Peace be with us! My friends, why with us? Because," with his fat smile, "it cannot be against us, because it must be for us; because it is not hardening, because it is softening; because it does not make war like the hawk, but comes home unto us like the dove. Therefore, my friends, peace be with us! My human boy, come forward!" Stretching forth his flabby paw, Mr. Chadband lays the same on Jo's arm and considers where to station him. Jo, very doubtful of his reverend friend's intentions and not at all clear but that something practical and painful is going to be done to him, mutters, "You let me alone. I never said nothink to you. You let me alone." "No, my young friend," says Chadband smoothly, "I will not let you alone. And why? Because I am a harvest-labourer, because I am a toiler and a moiler, because you are delivered over unto me and are become as a precious instrument in my hands. My friends, may I so employ this instrument as to use it to your advantage, to your profit, to your gain, to your welfare, to your enrichment! My young friend, sit upon this stool." Jo, apparently possessed by an impression that the reverend gentleman wants to cut his hair, shields his head with both arms and is got into the required position with great difficulty and every possible manifestation of reluctance. When he is at last adjusted like a lay-figure, Mr. Chadband, retiring behind the table, holds up his bear's-paw and says, "My friends!" This is the signal for a general settlement of the audience. The 'prentices giggle internally and nudge each other. Guster falls into a staring and vacant state, compounded of a stunned admiration of Mr. Chadband and pity for the friendless outcast whose condition touches her nearly. Mrs. Snagsby silently lays trains of gunpowder. Mrs. Chadband composes herself grimly by the fire and warms her knees, finding that sensation favourable to the reception of eloquence. It happens that Mr. Chadband has a pulpit habit of fixing some member of his congregation with his eye and fatly arguing his points with that particular person, who is understood to be expected to be moved to an occasional grunt, groan, gasp, or other audible expression of inward working, which expression of inward working, being echoed by some elderly lady in the next pew and so communicated like a game of forfeits through a circle of the more fermentable sinners present, serves the purpose of parliamentary cheering and gets Mr. Chadband's steam up. From mere force of habit, Mr. Chadband in saying "My friends!" has rested his eye on Mr. Snagsby and proceeds to make that ill-starred stationer, already sufficiently confused, the immediate recipient of his discourse. "We have here among us, my friends," says Chadband, "a Gentile and a heathen, a dweller in the tents of Tom-all-Alone's and a mover-on upon the surface of the earth. We have here among us, my friends," and Mr. Chadband, untwisting the point with his dirty thumb-nail, bestows an oily smile on Mr. Snagsby, signifying that he will throw him an argumentative back-fall presently if he be not already down, "a brother and a boy. Devoid of parents, devoid of relations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold and silver and of precious stones. Now, my friends, why do I say he is devoid of these possessions? Why? Why is he?" Mr. Chadband states the question as if he were propounding an entirely new riddle of much ingenuity and merit to Mr. Snagsby and entreating him not to give it up. Mr. Snagsby, greatly perplexed by the mysterious look he received just now from his little woman--at about the period when Mr. Chadband mentioned the word parents--is tempted into modestly remarking, "I don't know, I'm sure, sir." On which interruption Mrs. Chadband glares and Mrs. Snagsby says, "For shame!" "I hear a voice," says Chadband; "is it a still small voice, my friends? I fear not, though I fain would hope so--" "Ah--h!" from Mrs. Snagsby. "Which says, 'I don't know.' Then I will tell you why. I say this brother present here among us is devoid of parents, devoid of relations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold, of silver, and of precious stones because he is devoid of the light that shines in upon some of us. What is that light? What is it? I ask you, what is that light?" Mr. Chadband draws back his head and pauses, but Mr. Snagsby is not to be lured on to his destruction again. Mr. Chadband, leaning forward over the table, pierces what he has got to follow directly into Mr. Snagsby with the thumb-nail already mentioned. "It is," says Chadband, "the ray of rays, the sun of suns, the moon of moons, the star of stars. It is the light of Terewth." Mr. Chadband draws himself up again and looks triumphantly at Mr. Snagsby as if he would be glad to know how he feels after that. "Of Terewth," says Mr. Chadband, hitting him again. "Say not to me that it is NOT the lamp of lamps. I say to you it is. I say to you, a million of times over, it is. It is! I say to you that I will proclaim it to you, whether you like it or not; nay, that the less you like it, the more I will proclaim it to you. With a speaking-trumpet! I say to you that if you rear yourself against it, you shall fall, you shall be bruised, you shall be battered, you shall be flawed, you shall be smashed." The present effect of this flight of oratory--much admired for its general power by Mr. Chadband's followers--being not only to make Mr. Chadband unpleasantly warm, but to represent the innocent Mr. Snagsby in the light of a determined enemy to virtue, with a forehead of brass and a heart of adamant, that unfortunate tradesman becomes yet more disconcerted and is in a very advanced state of low spirits and false position when Mr. Chadband accidentally finishes him. "My friends," he resumes after dabbing his fat head for some time--and it smokes to such an extent that he seems to light his pocket-handkerchief at it, which smokes, too, after every dab--"to pursue the subject we are endeavouring with our lowly gifts to improve, let us in a spirit of love inquire what is that Terewth to which I have alluded. For, my young friends," suddenly addressing the 'prentices and Guster, to their consternation, "if I am told by the doctor that calomel or castor-oil is good for me, I may naturally ask what is calomel, and what is castor-oil. I may wish to be informed of that before I dose myself with either or with both. Now, my young friends, what is this Terewth then? Firstly (in a spirit of love), what is the common sort of Terewth--the working clothes--the every-day wear, my young friends? Is it deception?" "Ah--h!" from Mrs. Snagsby. "Is it suppression?" A shiver in the negative from Mrs. Snagsby. "Is it reservation?" A shake of the head from Mrs. Snagsby--very long and very tight. "No, my friends, it is neither of these. Neither of these names belongs to it. When this young heathen now among us--who is now, my friends, asleep, the seal of indifference and perdition being set upon his eyelids; but do not wake him, for it is right that I should have to wrestle, and to combat and to struggle, and to conquer, for his sake--when this young hardened heathen told us a story of a cock, and of a bull, and of a lady, and of a sovereign, was THAT the Terewth? No. Or if it was partly, was it wholly and entirely? No, my friends, no!" If Mr. Snagsby could withstand his little woman's look as it enters at his eyes, the windows of his soul, and searches the whole tenement, he were other than the man he is. He cowers and droops. "Or, my juvenile friends," says Chadband, descending to the level of their comprehension with a very obtrusive demonstration in his greasily meek smile of coming a long way downstairs for the purpose, "if the master of this house was to go forth into the city and there see an eel, and was to come back, and was to call unto him the mistress of this house, and was to say, 'Sarah, rejoice with me, for I have seen an elephant!' would THAT be Terewth?" Mrs. Snagsby in tears. "Or put it, my juvenile friends, that he saw an elephant, and returning said 'Lo, the city is barren, I have seen but an eel,' would THAT be Terewth?" Mrs. Snagsby sobbing loudly. "Or put it, my juvenile friends," said Chadband, stimulated by the sound, "that the unnatural parents of this slumbering heathen--for parents he had, my juvenile friends, beyond a doubt--after casting him forth to the wolves and the vultures, and the wild dogs and the young gazelles, and the serpents, went back to their dwellings and had their pipes, and their pots, and their flutings and their dancings, and their malt liquors, and their butcher's meat and poultry, would THAT be Terewth?" Mrs. Snagsby replies by delivering herself a prey to spasms, not an unresisting prey, but a crying and a tearing one, so that Cook's Court re-echoes with her shrieks. Finally, becoming cataleptic, she has to be carried up the narrow staircase like a grand piano. After unspeakable suffering, productive of the utmost consternation, she is pronounced, by expresses from the bedroom, free from pain, though much exhausted, in which state of affairs Mr. Snagsby, trampled and crushed in the piano-forte removal, and extremely timid and feeble, ventures to come out from behind the door in the drawing-room. All this time Jo has been standing on the spot where he woke up, ever picking his cap and putting bits of fur in his mouth. He spits them out with a remorseful air, for he feels that it is in his nature to be an unimprovable reprobate and that it's no good HIS trying to keep awake, for HE won't never know nothink. Though it may be, Jo, that there is a history so interesting and affecting even to minds as near the brutes as thine, recording deeds done on this earth for common men, that if the Chadbands, removing their own persons from the light, would but show it thee in simple reverence, would but leave it unimproved, would but regard it as being eloquent enough without their modest aid--it might hold thee awake, and thou might learn from it yet! Jo never heard of any such book. Its compilers and the Reverend Chadband are all one to him, except that he knows the Reverend Chadband and would rather run away from him for an hour than hear him talk for five minutes. "It an't no good my waiting here no longer," thinks Jo. "Mr. Snagsby an't a-going to say nothink to me to-night." And downstairs he shuffles. But downstairs is the charitable Guster, holding by the handrail of the kitchen stairs and warding off a fit, as yet doubtfully, the same having been induced by Mrs. Snagsby's screaming. She has her own supper of bread and cheese to hand to Jo, with whom she ventures to interchange a word or so for the first time. "Here's something to eat, poor boy," says Guster. "Thank'ee, mum," says Jo. "Are you hungry?" "Jist!" says Jo. "What's gone of your father and your mother, eh?" Jo stops in the middle of a bite and looks petrified. For this orphan charge of the Christian saint whose shrine was at Tooting has patted him on the shoulder, and it is the first time in his life that any decent hand has been so laid upon him. "I never know'd nothink about 'em," says Jo. "No more didn't I of mine," cries Guster. She is repressing symptoms favourable to the fit when she seems to take alarm at something and vanishes down the stairs. "Jo," whispers the law-stationer softly as the boy lingers on the step. "Here I am, Mr. Snagsby!" "I didn't know you were gone--there's another half-crown, Jo. It was quite right of you to say nothing about the lady the other night when we were out together. It would breed trouble. You can't be too quiet, Jo." "I am fly, master!" And so, good night. A ghostly shade, frilled and night-capped, follows the law-stationer to the room he came from and glides higher up. And henceforth he begins, go where he will, to be attended by another shadow than his own, hardly less constant than his own, hardly less quiet than his own. And into whatsoever atmosphere of secrecy his own shadow may pass, let all concerned in the secrecy beware! For the watchful Mrs. Snagsby is there too--bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, shadow of his shadow.

There is disquietude in Cook's Court. Black suspicion hides there. Mr. Snagsby is changed, and his little woman knows it. For Tom-all-Alone's and Lincoln's Inn Fields have harnessed themselves like wild horses to the chariot of Mr. Snagsby's imagination; and Mr. Bucket drives; and the passengers are Jo and Mr. Tulkinghorn; and the whole lot whirl though the law-stationery business all round the clock. Even in the little front kitchen where the family meals are taken, it rattles away when Mr. Snagsby pauses in carving the leg of mutton and stares at the kitchen wall. Mr. Snagsby cannot make out what it is all about. Something is wrong somewhere, but what something is the puzzle of his life. His veneration for Mr. Tulkinghorn, and his remembrance of Detective Bucket with his confidential manner, persuade him that he is a party to some dangerous secret without knowing what it is. At any moment, at any opening of the shop-door, at any pull of the bell, or any delivery of a letter, the secret may explode, and blow up - Mr. Bucket only knows whom. For which reason, whenever an unknown man comes into the shop (as many do) and says, "Is Mr. Snagsby in?", Mr. Snagsby's heart knocks hard at his guilty breast. Men and boys persist in walking into Mr. Snagsby's sleep and terrifying him with unaccountable questions, so that often at cock-crow Mr. Snagsby finds himself in a crisis of nightmare, with his little woman shaking him awake and saying "What's the matter with the man!" The little woman herself is not the least of his difficulties. To know that he is keeping a secret from her, like a tender tooth, which her sharpness is ever ready to twist out of his head, makes Mr. Snagsby unwilling to meet her eye. These various signs are not lost upon the little woman. They impel her to say, "Snagsby has something on his mind!" And thus suspicion gets into Cook's Court. Suspicion leads naturally to jealousy, which is very active and nimble in Mrs. Snagsby's breast, prompting her to nocturnal examinations of Mr. Snagsby's pockets; to secret perusals of Mr. Snagsby's letters; to private researches in the ledger; to watchings at windows, listenings behind doors, and a general putting of this and that together in the wrong way. Mrs. Snagsby is so perpetually on the alert that the house becomes ghostly with creaking boards and rustling garments. "Who was that lady - that creature?" Mrs. Snagsby repeatedly inquires of herself. "And who is that boy?" The lady being unproducible, she directs her mental eye with redoubled vigilance to the boy. And she is seized with an inspiration. He has no respect for Mr. Chadband. No, to be sure. He was invited by Mr. Chadband to come back, and hear Mr. Chadband; and he never came! Why did he never come? Because he was told not to come. Who told him not to come? Who? Ha, ha! Mrs. Snagsby sees it all. But happily that boy was met by Mr. Chadband yesterday in the streets; and that boy was seized by Mr. Chadband and threatened with being delivered over to the police unless he showed the reverend gentleman where he lived and promised to appear in Cook's Court tomorrow night. Mrs. Snagsby thinks with a tight smile and a tight shake of her head that tomorrow night that boy will be here, and Mrs. Snagsby will have her eye on him and on some one else; and oh, you may walk in your secret ways (says Mrs. Snagsby with scorn), but you can't blind me! Tomorrow evening comes. Comes Mr. Snagsby in his black coat; come the Chadbands; come the 'prentices and Guster, to be edified; comes at last, with his slouch and his shuffle, and his bit of fur cap in his muddy hand, Jo, the very tough subject Mr. Chadband is to improve. Mrs. Snagsby screws a watchful glance on Jo as he is brought into the little drawing-room by Guster. He looks at Mr. Snagsby the moment he comes in. Aha! Why does he look at Mr. Snagsby? Mr. Snagsby looks at him. Mrs. Snagsby sees it all - it is as clear as crystal that Mr. Snagsby is that boy's father. "Peace, my friends," says Chadband, rising and wiping the oil from his reverend face. "Peace be with us! My friends, why with us? Because," with his fat smile, "it cannot be against us, because it must be for us; because it does not make war like the hawk, but comes unto us like the dove. Therefore, my friends, peace be with us! My boy, come forward!" Stretching forth his flabby paw, Mr. Chadband lays it on Jo's arm. Jo, very doubtful of his intentions, mutters, "You let me alone. I never said nothink to you." "No, my young friend," says Chadband smoothly, "I will not let you alone. And why? Because I am a harvest-labourer, because you are delivered unto me and are become as a precious instrument in my hands. My young friend, sit upon this stool." Jo, apparently convinced that the reverend gentleman wants to cut his hair, shields his head with both arms and is got onto the stool with great difficulty. Mr. Chadband, retiring behind the table, holds up his bear's-paw and says, "My friends!" The 'prentices giggle internally and nudge each other. Guster falls into a vacant state, compounded of a stunned admiration of Mr. Chadband and pity for the friendless outcast. Mrs. Snagsby silently lays trails of gunpowder. Mrs. Chadband warms her knees grimly by the fire. Mr. Chadband has a habit of fixing some member of his congregation with his eye and arguing his points with that person, who is understood to be expected to be moved to an occasional grunt, groan, or gasp, to be echoed by some elderly lady in the next pew and so communicated through a circle of the sinners present. From mere force of habit, Mr. Chadband has rested his eye on Mr. Snagsby and proceeds to make that confused and ill-starred stationer the recipient of his speech. "We have here among us, my friends," says Chadband, "a Gentile and a heathen. Devoid of parents, devoid of relations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold and silver and of precious stones. Now, my friends, why do I say he is devoid of these possessions? Why is he?" Mr. Chadband states the question as if he were asking Mr. Snagsby an ingenious riddle. Mr. Snagsby, greatly perplexed by the mysterious look he received from his little woman when Mr. Chadband mentioned the word parents, remarks, "I don't know, I'm sure, sir." On which interruption Mrs. Chadband glares and Mrs. Snagsby says, "For shame!" "I hear a voice," says Chadband; "which says, 'I don't know.' Then I will tell you why. I say this brother present here among us is devoid of parents, devoid of relations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold, of silver, and of precious stones because he is devoid of the light that shines in upon some of us. What is that light? What is it? I ask you, what is that light?" Mr. Chadband pauses and addresses Mr. Snagsby. "It is the ray of rays, the sun of suns, the moon of moons, the star of stars. It is the light of Terewth." Mr. Chadband draws himself up and looks triumphantly at Mr. Snagsby. "Of Terewth," he says. "I say to you, a million of times over, it is! I say to you that I will proclaim it to you, whether you like it or not, with a speaking-trumpet! I say to you that if you rear yourself against it, you shall fall, you shall be bruised, you shall be battered, you shall be smashed." The effect of this oratory is not only to make Mr. Chadband unpleasantly warm, but to represent the innocent Mr. Snagsby as a determined enemy to virtue. That unfortunate tradesman becomes yet more disconcerted when Mr. Chadband accidentally finishes him. "My friends," he resumes after dabbing his fat head, "let us inquire what is that Terewth to which I have alluded. Now, my young friends," suddenly addressing the 'prentices and Guster, to their consternation, "what is this Terewth then? Is it deception?" "Ah!" from Mrs. Snagsby. "Is it suppression?" A shiver from Mrs. Snagsby. "Is it reservation?" A shake of the head from Mrs. Snagsby. "No, my friends, it is none of these. When this young heathen - who is now, my friends, asleep, the seal of indifference and perdition being set upon his eyelids - when this young hardened heathen told us a story of a lady, and of a sovereign, was that wholly the Terewth? No, my friends, no!" Mr. Snagsby, at his little woman's look, cowers and droops. "Or, my juvenile friends," says Chadband, descending to the level of their comprehension with a greasy smile, "if the master of this house was to go forth into the city and there see an eel, and was to come back, and say to the mistress of the house, 'Sarah, rejoice with me, for I have seen an elephant!' would that be Terewth?" Mrs. Snagsby sobbing. "Or, my juvenile friends," says Chadband, stimulated by the sound, "if the unnatural parents of this slumbering heathen. after casting him forth to the wolves and the vultures, and the wild dogs and the young gazelles, went back to their dwellings and had their pipes, and their pots, and their flutings and dancings, would that be Terewth?" Mrs. Snagsby replies by going into spasms, so that Cook's Court echoes with her shrieks. Finally, becoming cataleptic, she has to be carried up the narrow staircase like a grand piano. After unspeakable suffering, she is pronounced, by messages from the bedroom, to be free from pain, though much exhausted; at which Mr. Snagsby, trampled and timid, ventures to come out from behind the door in the drawing-room. By this time Jo is standing on the spot where he woke up, picking his cap and putting bits of fur in his mouth. He feels that it's no good his trying to keep awake, for he won't never know nothink. "It an't no good my waiting here no longer," thinks Jo. "Mr. Snagsby an't a-going to say nothink to me tonight." And downstairs he shuffles. But downstairs is the charitable Guster, holding the handrail of the kitchen stairs and warding off a fit induced by Mrs. Snagsby's screaming. She has her own supper of bread and cheese to hand to Jo. "Here's something to eat, poor boy," says Guster. "Thank'ee, mum," says Jo. "Are you hungry?" "Jist!" says Jo. "What's gone of your father and mother, eh?" Jo stops in the middle of a bite and looks petrified. For Guster has patted him on the shoulder, and it is the first time in his life that any decent hand has been so laid upon him. "I never know'd nothink about 'em," says Jo. "No more didn't I of mine," cries Guster. She then seems to take alarm at something and vanishes. "Jo," whispers the law-stationer softly as the boy lingers. "Here I am, Mr. Snagsby!" "There's another half-crown, Jo. It was quite right of you to say nothing about the lady the other night. It would breed trouble. You can't be too quiet, Jo." "I am fly, master!" And so, good night. A ghostly shade, frilled and night-capped, follows the law-stationer to the room he came from and then glides higher up. And henceforth, go where he will, he is attended by a shadow hardly less constant than his own. And into whatever secrecy his own shadow may pass, let all concerned in the secrecy beware! For the watchful Mrs. Snagsby is there too - bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, shadow of his shadow.

Bleak House

Chapter 25: Mrs. Snagsby Sees It All

It matters little now how much I thought of my living mother who had told me evermore to consider her dead. I could not venture to approach her or to communicate with her in writing, for my sense of the peril in which her life was passed was only to be equalled by my fears of increasing it. Knowing that my mere existence as a living creature was an unforeseen danger in her way, I could not always conquer that terror of myself which had seized me when I first knew the secret. At no time did I dare to utter her name. I felt as if I did not even dare to hear it. If the conversation anywhere, when I was present, took that direction, as it sometimes naturally did, I tried not to hear: I mentally counted, repeated something that I knew, or went out of the room. I am conscious now that I often did these things when there can have been no danger of her being spoken of, but I did them in the dread I had of hearing anything that might lead to her betrayal, and to her betrayal through me. It matters little now how often I recalled the tones of my mother's voice, wondered whether I should ever hear it again as I so longed to do, and thought how strange and desolate it was that it should be so new to me. It matters little that I watched for every public mention of my mother's name; that I passed and repassed the door of her house in town, loving it, but afraid to look at it; that I once sat in the theatre when my mother was there and saw me, and when we were so wide asunder before the great company of all degrees that any link or confidence between us seemed a dream. It is all, all over. My lot has been so blest that I can relate little of myself which is not a story of goodness and generosity in others. I may well pass that little and go on. When we were settled at home again, Ada and I had many conversations with my guardian of which Richard was the theme. My dear girl was deeply grieved that he should do their kind cousin so much wrong, but she was so faithful to Richard that she could not bear to blame him even for that. My guardian was assured of it, and never coupled his name with a word of reproof. "Rick is mistaken, my dear," he would say to her. "Well, well! We have all been mistaken over and over again. We must trust to you and time to set him right." We knew afterwards what we suspected then, that he did not trust to time until he had often tried to open Richard's eyes. That he had written to him, gone to him, talked with him, tried every gentle and persuasive art his kindness could devise. Our poor devoted Richard was deaf and blind to all. If he were wrong, he would make amends when the Chancery suit was over. If he were groping in the dark, he could not do better than do his utmost to clear away those clouds in which so much was confused and obscured. Suspicion and misunderstanding were the fault of the suit? Then let him work the suit out and come through it to his right mind. This was his unvarying reply. Jarndyce and Jarndyce had obtained such possession of his whole nature that it was impossible to place any consideration before him which he did not, with a distorted kind of reason, make a new argument in favour of his doing what he did. "So that it is even more mischievous," said my guardian once to me, "to remonstrate with the poor dear fellow than to leave him alone." I took one of these opportunities of mentioning my doubts of Mr. Skimpole as a good adviser for Richard. "Adviser!" returned my guardian, laughing, "My dear, who would advise with Skimpole?" "Encourager would perhaps have been a better word," said I. "Encourager!" returned my guardian again. "Who could be encouraged by Skimpole?" "Not Richard?" I asked. "No," he replied. "Such an unworldly, uncalculating, gossamer creature is a relief to him and an amusement. But as to advising or encouraging or occupying a serious station towards anybody or anything, it is simply not to be thought of in such a child as Skimpole." "Pray, cousin John," said Ada, who had just joined us and now looked over my shoulder, "what made him such a child?" "What made him such a child?" inquired my guardian, rubbing his head, a little at a loss. "Yes, cousin John." "Why," he slowly replied, roughening his head more and more, "he is all sentiment, and--and susceptibility, and--and sensibility, and--and imagination. And these qualities are not regulated in him, somehow. I suppose the people who admired him for them in his youth attached too much importance to them and too little to any training that would have balanced and adjusted them, and so he became what he is. Hey?" said my guardian, stopping short and looking at us hopefully. "What do you think, you two?" Ada, glancing at me, said she thought it was a pity he should be an expense to Richard. "So it is, so it is," returned my guardian hurriedly. "That must not be. We must arrange that. I must prevent it. That will never do." And I said I thought it was to be regretted that he had ever introduced Richard to Mr. Vholes for a present of five pounds. "Did he?" said my guardian with a passing shade of vexation on his face. "But there you have the man. There you have the man! There is nothing mercenary in that with him. He has no idea of the value of money. He introduces Rick, and then he is good friends with Mr. Vholes and borrows five pounds of him. He means nothing by it and thinks nothing of it. He told you himself, I'll be bound, my dear?" "Oh, yes!" said I. "Exactly!" cried my guardian, quite triumphant. "There you have the man! If he had meant any harm by it or was conscious of any harm in it, he wouldn't tell it. He tells it as he does it in mere simplicity. But you shall see him in his own home, and then you'll understand him better. We must pay a visit to Harold Skimpole and caution him on these points. Lord bless you, my dears, an infant, an infant!" In pursuance of this plan, we went into London on an early day and presented ourselves at Mr. Skimpole's door. He lived in a place called the Polygon, in Somers Town, where there were at that time a number of poor Spanish refugees walking about in cloaks, smoking little paper cigars. Whether he was a better tenant than one might have supposed, in consequence of his friend Somebody always paying his rent at last, or whether his inaptitude for business rendered it particularly difficult to turn him out, I don't know; but he had occupied the same house some years. It was in a state of dilapidation quite equal to our expectation. Two or three of the area railings were gone, the water-butt was broken, the knocker was loose, the bell-handle had been pulled off a long time to judge from the rusty state of the wire, and dirty footprints on the steps were the only signs of its being inhabited. A slatternly full-blown girl who seemed to be bursting out at the rents in her gown and the cracks in her shoes like an over-ripe berry answered our knock by opening the door a very little way and stopping up the gap with her figure. As she knew Mr. Jarndyce (indeed Ada and I both thought that she evidently associated him with the receipt of her wages), she immediately relented and allowed us to pass in. The lock of the door being in a disabled condition, she then applied herself to securing it with the chain, which was not in good action either, and said would we go upstairs? We went upstairs to the first floor, still seeing no other furniture than the dirty footprints. Mr. Jarndyce without further ceremony entered a room there, and we followed. It was dingy enough and not at all clean, but furnished with an odd kind of shabby luxury, with a large footstool, a sofa, and plenty of cushions, an easy-chair, and plenty of pillows, a piano, books, drawing materials, music, newspapers, and a few sketches and pictures. A broken pane of glass in one of the dirty windows was papered and wafered over, but there was a little plate of hothouse nectarines on the table, and there was another of grapes, and another of sponge-cakes, and there was a bottle of light wine. Mr. Skimpole himself reclined upon the sofa in a dressing-gown, drinking some fragrant coffee from an old china cup--it was then about mid-day--and looking at a collection of wallflowers in the balcony. He was not in the least disconcerted by our appearance, but rose and received us in his usual airy manner. "Here I am, you see!" he said when we were seated, not without some little difficulty, the greater part of the chairs being broken. "Here I am! This is my frugal breakfast. Some men want legs of beef and mutton for breakfast; I don't. Give me my peach, my cup of coffee, and my claret; I am content. I don't want them for themselves, but they remind me of the sun. There's nothing solar about legs of beef and mutton. Mere animal satisfaction!" "This is our friend's consulting-room (or would be, if he ever prescribed), his sanctum, his studio," said my guardian to us. "Yes," said Mr. Skimpole, turning his bright face about, "this is the bird's cage. This is where the bird lives and sings. They pluck his feathers now and then and clip his wings, but he sings, he sings!" He handed us the grapes, repeating in his radiant way, "He sings! Not an ambitious note, but still he sings." "These are very fine," said my guardian. "A present?" "No," he answered. "No! Some amiable gardener sells them. His man wanted to know, when he brought them last evening, whether he should wait for the money. 'Really, my friend,' I said, 'I think not--if your time is of any value to you.' I suppose it was, for he went away." My guardian looked at us with a smile, as though he asked us, "Is it possible to be worldly with this baby?" "This is a day," said Mr. Skimpole, gaily taking a little claret in a tumbler, "that will ever be remembered here. We shall call it Saint Clare and Saint Summerson day. You must see my daughters. I have a blue-eyed daughter who is my Beauty daughter, I have a Sentiment daughter, and I have a Comedy daughter. You must see them all. They'll be enchanted." He was going to summon them when my guardian interposed and asked him to pause a moment, as he wished to say a word to him first. "My dear Jarndyce," he cheerfully replied, going back to his sofa, "as many moments as you please. Time is no object here. We never know what o'clock it is, and we never care. Not the way to get on in life, you'll tell me? Certainly. But we DON'T get on in life. We don't pretend to do it." My guardian looked at us again, plainly saying, "You hear him?" "Now, Harold," he began, "the word I have to say relates to Rick." "The dearest friend I have!" returned Mr. Skimpole cordially. "I suppose he ought not to be my dearest friend, as he is not on terms with you. But he is, I can't help it; he is full of youthful poetry, and I love him. If you don't like it, I can't help it. I love him." The engaging frankness with which he made this declaration really had a disinterested appearance and captivated my guardian, if not, for the moment, Ada too. "You are welcome to love him as much as you like," returned Mr. Jarndyce, "but we must save his pocket, Harold." "Oh!" said Mr. Skimpole. "His pocket? Now you are coming to what I don't understand." Taking a little more claret and dipping one of the cakes in it, he shook his head and smiled at Ada and me with an ingenuous foreboding that he never could be made to understand. "If you go with him here or there," said my guardian plainly, "you must not let him pay for both." "My dear Jarndyce," returned Mr. Skimpole, his genial face irradiated by the comicality of this idea, "what am I to do? If he takes me anywhere, I must go. And how can I pay? I never have any money. If I had any money, I don't know anything about it. Suppose I say to a man, how much? Suppose the man says to me seven and sixpence? I know nothing about seven and sixpence. It is impossible for me to pursue the subject with any consideration for the man. I don't go about asking busy people what seven and sixpence is in Moorish--which I don't understand. Why should I go about asking them what seven and sixpence is in Money--which I don't understand?" "Well," said my guardian, by no means displeased with this artless reply, "if you come to any kind of journeying with Rick, you must borrow the money of me (never breathing the least allusion to that circumstance), and leave the calculation to him." "My dear Jarndyce," returned Mr. Skimpole, "I will do anything to give you pleasure, but it seems an idle form--a superstition. Besides, I give you my word, Miss Clare and my dear Miss Summerson, I thought Mr. Carstone was immensely rich. I thought he had only to make over something, or to sign a bond, or a draft, or a cheque, or a bill, or to put something on a file somewhere, to bring down a shower of money." "Indeed it is not so, sir," said Ada. "He is poor." "No, really?" returned Mr. Skimpole with his bright smile. "You surprise me. "And not being the richer for trusting in a rotten reed," said my guardian, laying his hand emphatically on the sleeve of Mr. Skimpole's dressing-gown, "be you very careful not to encourage him in that reliance, Harold." "My dear good friend," returned Mr. Skimpole, "and my dear Miss Simmerson, and my dear Miss Clare, how can I do that? It's business, and I don't know business. It is he who encourages me. He emerges from great feats of business, presents the brightest prospects before me as their result, and calls upon me to admire them. I do admire them--as bright prospects. But I know no more about them, and I tell him so." The helpless kind of candour with which he presented this before us, the light-hearted manner in which he was amused by his innocence, the fantastic way in which he took himself under his own protection and argued about that curious person, combined with the delightful ease of everything he said exactly to make out my guardian's case. The more I saw of him, the more unlikely it seemed to me, when he was present, that he could design, conceal, or influence anything; and yet the less likely that appeared when he was not present, and the less agreeable it was to think of his having anything to do with any one for whom I cared. Hearing that his examination (as he called it) was now over, Mr. Skimpole left the room with a radiant face to fetch his daughters (his sons had run away at various times), leaving my guardian quite delighted by the manner in which he had vindicated his childish character. He soon came back, bringing with him the three young ladies and Mrs. Skimpole, who had once been a beauty but was now a delicate high-nosed invalid suffering under a complication of disorders. "This," said Mr. Skimpole, "is my Beauty daughter, Arethusa--plays and sings odds and ends like her father. This is my Sentiment daughter, Laura--plays a little but don't sing. This is my Comedy daughter, Kitty--sings a little but don't play. We all draw a little and compose a little, and none of us have any idea of time or money." Mrs. Skimpole sighed, I thought, as if she would have been glad to strike out this item in the family attainments. I also thought that she rather impressed her sigh upon my guardian and that she took every opportunity of throwing in another. "It is pleasant," said Mr. Skimpole, turning his sprightly eyes from one to the other of us, "and it is whimsically interesting to trace peculiarities in families. In this family we are all children, and I am the youngest." The daughters, who appeared to be very fond of him, were amused by this droll fact, particularly the Comedy daughter. "My dears, it is true," said Mr. Skimpole, "is it not? So it is, and so it must be, because like the dogs in the hymn, 'it is our nature to.' Now, here is Miss Summerson with a fine administrative capacity and a knowledge of details perfectly surprising. It will sound very strange in Miss Summerson's ears, I dare say, that we know nothing about chops in this house. But we don't, not the least. We can't cook anything whatever. A needle and thread we don't know how to use. We admire the people who possess the practical wisdom we want, but we don't quarrel with them. Then why should they quarrel with us? Live and let live, we say to them. Live upon your practical wisdom, and let us live upon you!" He laughed, but as usual seemed quite candid and really to mean what he said. "We have sympathy, my roses," said Mr. Skimpole, "sympathy for everything. Have we not?" "Oh, yes, papa!" cried the three daughters. "In fact, that is our family department," said Mr. Skimpole, "in this hurly-burly of life. We are capable of looking on and of being interested, and we DO look on, and we ARE interested. What more can we do? Here is my Beauty daughter, married these three years. Now I dare say her marrying another child, and having two more, was all wrong in point of political economy, but it was very agreeable. We had our little festivities on those occasions and exchanged social ideas. She brought her young husband home one day, and they and their young fledglings have their nest upstairs. I dare say at some time or other Sentiment and Comedy will bring THEIR husbands home and have THEIR nests upstairs too. So we get on, we don't know how, but somehow." She looked very young indeed to be the mother of two children, and I could not help pitying both her and them. It was evident that the three daughters had grown up as they could and had had just as little haphazard instruction as qualified them to be their father's playthings in his idlest hours. His pictorial tastes were consulted, I observed, in their respective styles of wearing their hair, the Beauty daughter being in the classic manner, the Sentiment daughter luxuriant and flowing, and the Comedy daughter in the arch style, with a good deal of sprightly forehead, and vivacious little curls dotted about the corners of her eyes. They were dressed to correspond, though in a most untidy and negligent way. Ada and I conversed with these young ladies and found them wonderfully like their father. In the meanwhile Mr. Jarndyce (who had been rubbing his head to a great extent, and hinted at a change in the wind) talked with Mrs. Skimpole in a corner, where we could not help hearing the chink of money. Mr. Skimpole had previously volunteered to go home with us and had withdrawn to dress himself for the purpose. "My roses," he said when he came back, "take care of mama. She is poorly to-day. By going home with Mr. Jarndyce for a day or two, I shall hear the larks sing and preserve my amiability. It has been tried, you know, and would be tried again if I remained at home." "That bad man!" said the Comedy daughter. "At the very time when he knew papa was lying ill by his wallflowers, looking at the blue sky," Laura complained. "And when the smell of hay was in the air!" said Arethusa. "It showed a want of poetry in the man," Mr. Skimpole assented, but with perfect good humour. "It was coarse. There was an absence of the finer touches of humanity in it! My daughters have taken great offence," he explained to us, "at an honest man--" "Not honest, papa. Impossible!" they all three protested. "At a rough kind of fellow--a sort of human hedgehog rolled up," said Mr. Skimpole, "who is a baker in this neighbourhood and from whom we borrowed a couple of arm-chairs. We wanted a couple of arm-chairs, and we hadn't got them, and therefore of course we looked to a man who HAD got them, to lend them. Well! This morose person lent them, and we wore them out. When they were worn out, he wanted them back. He had them back. He was contented, you will say. Not at all. He objected to their being worn. I reasoned with him, and pointed out his mistake. I said, 'Can you, at your time of life, be so headstrong, my friend, as to persist that an arm-chair is a thing to put upon a shelf and look at? That it is an object to contemplate, to survey from a distance, to consider from a point of sight? Don't you KNOW that these arm-chairs were borrowed to be sat upon?' He was unreasonable and unpersuadable and used intemperate language. Being as patient as I am at this minute, I addressed another appeal to him. I said, 'Now, my good man, however our business capacities may vary, we are all children of one great mother, Nature. On this blooming summer morning here you see me' (I was on the sofa) 'with flowers before me, fruit upon the table, the cloudless sky above me, the air full of fragrance, contemplating Nature. I entreat you, by our common brotherhood, not to interpose between me and a subject so sublime, the absurd figure of an angry baker!' But he did," said Mr. Skimpole, raising his laughing eyes in playful astonishment; "he did interpose that ridiculous figure, and he does, and he will again. And therefore I am very glad to get out of his way and to go home with my friend Jarndyce." It seemed to escape his consideration that Mrs. Skimpole and the daughters remained behind to encounter the baker, but this was so old a story to all of them that it had become a matter of course. He took leave of his family with a tenderness as airy and graceful as any other aspect in which he showed himself and rode away with us in perfect harmony of mind. We had an opportunity of seeing through some open doors, as we went downstairs, that his own apartment was a palace to the rest of the house. I could have no anticipation, and I had none, that something very startling to me at the moment, and ever memorable to me in what ensued from it, was to happen before this day was out. Our guest was in such spirits on the way home that I could do nothing but listen to him and wonder at him; nor was I alone in this, for Ada yielded to the same fascination. As to my guardian, the wind, which had threatened to become fixed in the east when we left Somers Town, veered completely round before we were a couple of miles from it. Whether of questionable childishness or not in any other matters, Mr. Skimpole had a child's enjoyment of change and bright weather. In no way wearied by his sallies on the road, he was in the drawing-room before any of us; and I heard him at the piano while I was yet looking after my housekeeping, singing refrains of barcaroles and drinking songs, Italian and German, by the score. We were all assembled shortly before dinner, and he was still at the piano idly picking out in his luxurious way little strains of music, and talking between whiles of finishing some sketches of the ruined old Verulam wall to-morrow, which he had begun a year or two ago and had got tired of, when a card was brought in and my guardian read aloud in a surprised voice, "Sir Leicester Dedlock!" The visitor was in the room while it was yet turning round with me and before I had the power to stir. If I had had it, I should have hurried away. I had not even the presence of mind, in my giddiness, to retire to Ada in the window, or to see the window, or to know where it was. I heard my name and found that my guardian was presenting me before I could move to a chair. "Pray be seated, Sir Leicester." "Mr. Jarndyce," said Sir Leicester in reply as he bowed and seated himself, "I do myself the honour of calling here--" "You do ME the honour, Sir Leicester." "Thank you--of calling here on my road from Lincolnshire to express my regret that any cause of complaint, however strong, that I may have against a gentleman who--who is known to you and has been your host, and to whom therefore I will make no farther reference, should have prevented you, still more ladies under your escort and charge, from seeing whatever little there may be to gratify a polite and refined taste at my house, Chesney Wold." "You are exceedingly obliging, Sir Leicester, and on behalf of those ladies (who are present) and for myself, I thank you very much." "It is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that the gentleman to whom, for the reasons I have mentioned, I refrain from making further allusion--it is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that that gentleman may have done me the honour so far to misapprehend my character as to induce you to believe that you would not have been received by my local establishment in Lincolnshire with that urbanity, that courtesy, which its members are instructed to show to all ladies and gentlemen who present themselves at that house. I merely beg to observe, sir, that the fact is the reverse." My guardian delicately dismissed this remark without making any verbal answer. "It has given me pain, Mr. Jarndyce," Sir Leicester weightily proceeded. "I assure you, sir, it has given--me--pain--to learn from the housekeeper at Chesney Wold that a gentleman who was in your company in that part of the county, and who would appear to possess a cultivated taste for the fine arts, was likewise deterred by some such cause from examining the family pictures with that leisure, that attention, that care, which he might have desired to bestow upon them and which some of them might possibly have repaid." Here he produced a card and read, with much gravity and a little trouble, through his eye-glass, "Mr. Hirrold--Herald--Harold--Skampling--Skumpling--I beg your pardon--Skimpole." "This is Mr. Harold Skimpole," said my guardian, evidently surprised. "Oh!" exclaimed Sir Leicester, "I am happy to meet Mr. Skimpole and to have the opportunity of tendering my personal regrets. I hope, sir, that when you again find yourself in my part of the county, you will be under no similar sense of restraint." "You are very obliging, Sir Leicester Dedlock. So encouraged, I shall certainly give myself the pleasure and advantage of another visit to your beautiful house. The owners of such places as Chesney Wold," said Mr. Skimpole with his usual happy and easy air, "are public benefactors. They are good enough to maintain a number of delightful objects for the admiration and pleasure of us poor men; and not to reap all the admiration and pleasure that they yield is to be ungrateful to our benefactors." Sir Leicester seemed to approve of this sentiment highly. "An artist, sir?" "No," returned Mr. Skimpole. "A perfectly idle man. A mere amateur." Sir Leicester seemed to approve of this even more. He hoped he might have the good fortune to be at Chesney Wold when Mr. Skimpole next came down into Lincolnshire. Mr. Skimpole professed himself much flattered and honoured. "Mr. Skimpole mentioned," pursued Sir Leicester, addressing himself again to my guardian, "mentioned to the housekeeper, who, as he may have observed, is an old and attached retainer of the family--" ("That is, when I walked through the house the other day, on the occasion of my going down to visit Miss Summerson and Miss Clare," Mr. Skimpole airily explained to us.) "--That the friend with whom he had formerly been staying there was Mr. Jarndyce." Sir Leicester bowed to the bearer of that name. "And hence I became aware of the circumstance for which I have professed my regret. That this should have occurred to any gentleman, Mr. Jarndyce, but especially a gentleman formerly known to Lady Dedlock, and indeed claiming some distant connexion with her, and for whom (as I learn from my Lady herself) she entertains a high respect, does, I assure you, give--me--pain." "Pray say no more about it, Sir Leicester," returned my guardian. "I am very sensible, as I am sure we all are, of your consideration. Indeed the mistake was mine, and I ought to apologize for it." I had not once looked up. I had not seen the visitor and had not even appeared to myself to hear the conversation. It surprises me to find that I can recall it, for it seemed to make no impression on me as it passed. I heard them speaking, but my mind was so confused and my instinctive avoidance of this gentleman made his presence so distressing to me that I thought I understood nothing, through the rushing in my head and the beating of my heart. "I mentioned the subject to Lady Dedlock," said Sir Leicester, rising, "and my Lady informed me that she had had the pleasure of exchanging a few words with Mr. Jarndyce and his wards on the occasion of an accidental meeting during their sojourn in the vicinity. Permit me, Mr. Jarndyce, to repeat to yourself, and to these ladies, the assurance I have already tendered to Mr. Skimpole. Circumstances undoubtedly prevent my saying that it would afford me any gratification to hear that Mr. Boythorn had favoured my house with his presence, but those circumstances are confined to that gentleman himself and do not extend beyond him." "You know my old opinion of him," said Mr. Skimpole, lightly appealing to us. "An amiable bull who is determined to make every colour scarlet!" Sir Leicester Dedlock coughed as if he could not possibly hear another word in reference to such an individual and took his leave with great ceremony and politeness. I got to my own room with all possible speed and remained there until I had recovered my self-command. It had been very much disturbed, but I was thankful to find when I went downstairs again that they only rallied me for having been shy and mute before the great Lincolnshire baronet. By that time I had made up my mind that the period was come when I must tell my guardian what I knew. The possibility of my being brought into contact with my mother, of my being taken to her house, even of Mr. Skimpole's, however distantly associated with me, receiving kindnesses and obligations from her husband, was so painful that I felt I could no longer guide myself without his assistance. When we had retired for the night, and Ada and I had had our usual talk in our pretty room, I went out at my door again and sought my guardian among his books. I knew he always read at that hour, and as I drew near I saw the light shining out into the passage from his reading-lamp. "May I come in, guardian?" "Surely, little woman. What's the matter?" "Nothing is the matter. I thought I would like to take this quiet time of saying a word to you about myself." He put a chair for me, shut his book, and put it by, and turned his kind attentive face towards me. I could not help observing that it wore that curious expression I had observed in it once before--on that night when he had said that he was in no trouble which I could readily understand. "What concerns you, my dear Esther," said he, "concerns us all. You cannot be more ready to speak than I am to hear." "I know that, guardian. But I have such need of your advice and support. Oh! You don't know how much need I have to-night." He looked unprepared for my being so earnest, and even a little alarmed. "Or how anxious I have been to speak to you," said I, "ever since the visitor was here to-day." "The visitor, my dear! Sir Leicester Dedlock?" "Yes." He folded his arms and sat looking at me with an air of the profoundest astonishment, awaiting what I should say next. I did not know how to prepare him. "Why, Esther," said he, breaking into a smile, "our visitor and you are the two last persons on earth I should have thought of connecting together!" "Oh, yes, guardian, I know it. And I too, but a little while ago." The smile passed from his face, and he became graver than before. He crossed to the door to see that it was shut (but I had seen to that) and resumed his seat before me. "Guardian," said I, "do you remember, when we were overtaken by the thunder-storm, Lady Dedlock's speaking to you of her sister?" "Of course. Of course I do." "And reminding you that she and her sister had differed, had gone their several ways?" "Of course." "Why did they separate, guardian?" His face quite altered as he looked at me. "My child, what questions are these! I never knew. No one but themselves ever did know, I believe. Who could tell what the secrets of those two handsome and proud women were! You have seen Lady Dedlock. If you had ever seen her sister, you would know her to have been as resolute and haughty as she." "Oh, guardian, I have seen her many and many a time!" "Seen her?" He paused a little, biting his lip. "Then, Esther, when you spoke to me long ago of Boythorn, and when I told you that he was all but married once, and that the lady did not die, but died to him, and that that time had had its influence on his later life--did you know it all, and know who the lady was?" "No, guardian," I returned, fearful of the light that dimly broke upon me. "Nor do I know yet." "Lady Dedlock's sister." "And why," I could scarcely ask him, "why, guardian, pray tell me why were THEY parted?" "It was her act, and she kept its motives in her inflexible heart. He afterwards did conjecture (but it was mere conjecture) that some injury which her haughty spirit had received in her cause of quarrel with her sister had wounded her beyond all reason, but she wrote him that from the date of that letter she died to him--as in literal truth she did--and that the resolution was exacted from her by her knowledge of his proud temper and his strained sense of honour, which were both her nature too. In consideration for those master points in him, and even in consideration for them in herself, she made the sacrifice, she said, and would live in it and die in it. She did both, I fear; certainly he never saw her, never heard of her from that hour. Nor did any one." "Oh, guardian, what have I done!" I cried, giving way to my grief; "what sorrow have I innocently caused!" "You caused, Esther?" "Yes, guardian. Innocently, but most surely. That secluded sister is my first remembrance." "No, no!" he cried, starting. "Yes, guardian, yes! And HER sister is my mother!" I would have told him all my mother's letter, but he would not hear it then. He spoke so tenderly and wisely to me, and he put so plainly before me all I had myself imperfectly thought and hoped in my better state of mind, that, penetrated as I had been with fervent gratitude towards him through so many years, I believed I had never loved him so dearly, never thanked him in my heart so fully, as I did that night. And when he had taken me to my room and kissed me at the door, and when at last I lay down to sleep, my thought was how could I ever be busy enough, how could I ever be good enough, how in my little way could I ever hope to be forgetful enough of myself, devoted enough to him, and useful enough to others, to show him how I blessed and honoured him.

I thought much of my living mother who had told me to consider her dead. I could not venture to approach her or write to her, for my sense of her peril was only equalled by my fears of increasing it. Knowing that my mere existence was an unforeseen danger to her, I could not always conquer that terror of myself which had seized me when I first knew the secret. At no time did I dare to utter her name. I felt as if I did not even dare to hear it. If the conversation anywhere took that direction, I tried not to hear: I mentally counted, or went out of the room. Often I recalled the tones of my mother's voice, and wondered whether I should ever hear it again as I so longed to do. I passed and repassed the door of her house in town, loving it, but afraid to look at it; once I sat in the theatre when my mother was there and she saw me, when we were so wide asunder that any link between us seemed a dream. It is all, all over now. When we were settled at home again, Ada and I had many conversations with my guardian about Richard. My dear girl was deeply grieved that he should do their kind cousin so much wrong, but she was so faithful to Richard that she could not bear to blame him. My guardian was aware of it. "Rick is mistaken, my dear," he would say to her. "Well, well! We have all been mistaken over and over again. We must trust to you and time to set him right." We knew afterwards what we suspected then, that he had often tried to open Richard's eyes. That he had written to him, gone to him, talked with him, tried every gentle and persuasive art his kindness could devise. Our poor Richard was deaf and blind to all. If he were wrong, he would make amends when the Chancery suit was over. Let him work the suit out. This was his unvarying reply. Jarndyce and Jarndyce had obtained possession of his whole nature. I mentioned to my guardian my doubts of Mr. Skimpole as a good adviser for Richard. "Adviser!" returned my guardian, laughing, "My dear, who would ask advice from Skimpole?" "Encourager would perhaps have been a better word," said I. "Encourager!" returned my guardian. "Such an unworldly, uncalculating, gossamer creature is a relief, an amusement to Richard. But as to advising or encouraging anybody, it is simply not to be thought of in such a child as Skimpole." "Pray, cousin John," said Ada, "what made him such a child?" "Why," he slowly replied, rubbing his head, "he is all sentiment, and - susceptibility, and - imagination. And these qualities are not regulated in him, somehow. I suppose in his youth he was given too little training that would have balanced and adjusted them, and so he became what he is." Ada, glancing at me, said she thought it was a pity he should be an expense to Richard. "So it is," returned my guardian hurriedly. "That must not be. I must prevent it. That will never do." And I said I thought it was to be regretted that he had ever introduced Richard to Mr. Vholes for a present of five pounds. "Did he?" said my guardian with a passing shade of vexation on his face. "But there you have the man! He has no idea of the value of money. He told you himself, I'll be bound, my dear?" "Oh, yes!" said I. "Exactly!" cried my guardian, quite triumphant. "There you have the man! If he was conscious of any harm in it, he wouldn't tell it. He tells it as he does it, in mere simplicity. But you shall see him in his own home, and then you'll understand him better. We must pay a visit to Harold Skimpole and caution him on these points. Lord bless you, my dears, an infant, an infant!" So, soon afterwards, we went into London and presented ourselves at Mr. Skimpole's door. He lived in a place called the Polygon, in Somers Town, where there were at that time a number of poor Spanish refugees walking about in cloaks, smoking little cigars. Whether he was a better tenant than one might have supposed, in consequence of his friend Somebody always paying his rent, I don't know; but he had occupied the same house some years. It was in a dilapidated state. Two or three of the area railings were gone, the knocker was loose, the bell-handle had been pulled off, and dirty footprints on the steps were the only signs of its being inhabited. A slatternly girl who seemed to be bursting out at the rips in her gown like an over-ripe berry answered our knock by opening the door a very little way. As she knew Mr. Jarndyce (indeed Ada and I both thought that she evidently associated him with the receipt of her wages), she immediately relented and allowed us to pass in. We went upstairs to the first floor, still seeing no other furniture than the dirty footprints. Mr. Jarndyce entered a room, and we followed. It was dingy and not at all clean, but furnished with an odd kind of shabby luxury, with a large footstool, a sofa, and plenty of cushions, an easy-chair, a piano, books, drawing materials, music, newspapers, and a few sketches. A broken pane of glass in one of the dirty windows was papered over, but there was a little plate of hothouse nectarines on the table, and another of grapes, and another of sponge-cakes, and there was a bottle of light wine. Mr. Skimpole himself reclined upon the sofa in a dressing-gown, drinking coffee from an old china cup - it was then about mid-day - and looking at a collection of wallflowers in the balcony. He rose and received us in his usual airy manner. "Here I am, you see!" he said when we were seated, not without some difficulty, most of the chairs being broken. "Here I am! This is my frugal breakfast. Some men want legs of beef and mutton for breakfast; I don't. Give me my peach, my cup of coffee, and my claret; I am content." "This is our friend's sanctum, his studio," said my guardian to us. "Yes," said Mr. Skimpole, turning his bright face about, "this is the bird's cage. This is where the bird lives and sings. They pluck his feathers now and then and clip his wings, but he sings, he sings!" He handed us the grapes, repeating in his radiant way, "He sings!" "These are very fine," said my guardian. "A present?" "No," he answered. "Some amiable gardener sells them. His man wanted to know, when he brought them last evening, whether he should wait for the money. 'Really, my friend,' I said, 'I think not - if your time is of any value to you.' I suppose it was, for he went away." My guardian looked at us with a smile, as though he asked us, "Is it possible to be worldly with this baby?" "This is a day," said Mr. Skimpole, gaily taking a little claret, "that will ever be remembered here. We shall call it Saint Clare and Saint Summerson day. You must see my daughters. I have a blue-eyed daughter who is my Beauty daughter, I have a Sentiment daughter, and I have a Comedy daughter. You must see them all. They'll be enchanted." He was going to summon them when my guardian asked him to pause a moment, as he wished to say a word to him first. "My dear Jarndyce," he cheerfully replied, going back to his sofa, "as many moments as you please. Time is no object here." "Now, Harold," my guardian began, "the word I have to say relates to Rick." "The dearest friend I have!" returned Mr. Skimpole cordially. "I suppose he ought not to be my dearest friend, as he is not on terms with you. But I can't help it; he is full of youthful poetry, and I love him." The engaging frankness with which he declared this captivated my guardian, if not, for the moment, Ada too. "You are welcome to love him as much as you like," returned Mr. Jarndyce, "but we must save his pocket, Harold." "Oh!" said Mr. Skimpole. "His pocket? Now you are coming to what I don't understand." Dipping one of the cakes in his claret, he shook his head and smiled at us as if predicting that he never could be made to understand. "If you go with him here or there," said my guardian plainly, "you must not let him pay for you both." "My dear Jarndyce," returned Mr. Skimpole genially, "what am I to do? If he takes me anywhere, I must go. And how can I pay? I never have any money. If I had any money, I don't know anything about it. Suppose the man says to me seven and sixpence? I know nothing about seven and sixpence. I don't understand it." "Well," said my guardian, by no means displeased with this artless reply, "if you do any journeying with Rick, you must borrow the money from me (without telling him), and leave the calculation to him." "My dear Jarndyce," returned Mr. Skimpole, "I will do anything to give you pleasure, but upon my word, I thought Mr. Carstone was immensely rich. I thought he had only to sign a bond, or a draft, or a cheque, or something, to bring down a shower of money." "Indeed it is not so, sir," said Ada. "He is poor." "No, really?" returned Mr. Skimpole with his bright smile. "You surprise me." "And not being the richer for trusting in a rotten reed," said my guardian, laying his hand emphatically on the sleeve of Mr. Skimpole's dressing-gown, "be very careful not to encourage him in that reliance, Harold." "My dear good friend," returned Mr. Skimpole, "how can I do that? It's business, and I don't know business. It is he who encourages me. He emerges from great feats of business, and calls upon me to admire them. I do admire them. But I know nothing about them, and I tell him so." The helpless light-hearted candour with which he said this seemed to prove my guardian's case. When he was present, it seemed unlikely that he could design, conceal, or influence anything; and yet when he was not present, the more likely it seemed, and the less agreeable it was to think of his having anything to do with anyone for whom I cared. Mr. Skimpole then left the room with a radiant face to fetch his daughters (his sons had run away at various times). He came back bringing with him three young ladies and Mrs. Skimpole, who had once been a beauty but was now a delicate invalid suffering under a complication of disorders. "This," said Mr. Skimpole, "is my Beauty daughter, Arethusa - plays and sings odds and ends like her father. This is my Sentiment daughter, Laura - plays a little but don't sing. This is my Comedy daughter, Kitty - sings a little but don't play. We all draw a little and compose a little, and none of us have any idea of time or money." Mrs. Skimpole sighed, I thought, as if she would have been glad to strike out this item in the family attainments. "In this family," said Mr. Skimpole, "we are all children, and I am the youngest." The daughters, who appeared to be very fond of him, were amused by this droll fact, particularly the Comedy daughter. "My dears, it is true," said Mr. Skimpole, "is it not? Now, here is Miss Summerson with a knowledge of details perfectly surprising. It will sound very strange to Miss Summerson, I dare say, that we know nothing about chops in this house. But we don't, not the least. We can't cook anything whatever. A needle and thread we don't know how to use. We admire the people who possess the practical wisdom we want, but we don't quarrel with them. Then why should they quarrel with us? Live and let live, we say to them. Live upon your practical wisdom, and let us live upon you!" He laughed, but as usual seemed quite candid and really to mean what he said. "We have sympathy, my roses," said Mr. Skimpole, "sympathy for everything. Have we not?" "Oh, yes, papa!" cried the three daughters. "We are capable of looking on and of being interested," said Mr. Skimpole, "in this hurly-burly of life, and we do look on, and we are interested. What more can we do? Here is my Beauty daughter, married these three years. Now I dare say her marrying another child, and having two more, was all wrong in point of economy, but it was very agreeable. Her young husband and their young fledglings have their nest upstairs." She looked very young indeed to be the mother of two children, and I could not help pitying both her and them. It was evident that the three daughters had grown up with just as little haphazard instruction as qualified them to be their father's playthings. Ada and I conversed with these young ladies and found them wonderfully like their father. In the meanwhile Mr. Jarndyce (who had been rubbing his head to a great extent, and hinted at a change in the wind) talked with Mrs. Skimpole in a corner, where we could not help hearing the chink of money. Mr. Skimpole had volunteered to go home with us and had withdrawn to dress himself for the purpose. "My roses," he said when he came back, "take care of mama. She is poorly today. By going home with Mr. Jarndyce for a day or two, I shall hear the larks sing and preserve my amiability. It has been tried, you know, and would be tried again if I remained at home." "That bad man!" said the Comedy daughter. "At the very time when he knew papa was lying ill by his wallflowers," Laura complained. "And when the smell of hay was in the air!" said Arethusa. "It showed a want of poetry in the man," Mr. Skimpole assented, with perfect good humour. "My daughters have taken great offence," he explained to us, "at an honest man-" "Not honest, papa!" they protested. "At a rough kind of fellow," said Mr. Skimpole, "who is a baker in this neighbourhood and from whom we borrowed a couple of arm-chairs. We wanted a couple of arm-chairs, and we hadn't got them, and therefore of course we looked for a man who had got them, to lend them. Well! This morose person lent them, and we wore them out. When they were worn out, he wanted them back. He had them back, and he objected to their being worn. I reasoned with him, and pointed out his mistake. I said, 'Don't you know that these arm-chairs were borrowed to be sat upon?' He was unreasonable and used intemperate language. I patiently appealed to him. I said, 'My good man, we are all children of one great mother, Nature. I entreat you, by our brotherhood, not to stand before me in the absurd figure of an angry baker!' But he did," said Mr. Skimpole in playful astonishment. "And therefore I am very glad to get out of his way and to go home with my friend Jarndyce." It seemed to escape his consideration that Mrs. Skimpole and the daughters remained behind to encounter the baker, but this was so old a story to all of them that it had become a matter of course. He took leave of his family with an airy tenderness and rode away with us. I could have no anticipation that something very startling and memorable was to happen before this day was out. Our guest was in such spirits on the way home that I could do nothing but wonder at him; and Ada yielded to the same fascination. In no way wearied by the journey, Mr. Skimpole was in the drawing-room before any of us; and I heard him at the piano while I was looking after my housekeeping, singing refrains of barcaroles and drinking songs. We were all assembled shortly before dinner, and he was still at the piano idly picking out little strains of music, when a calling-card was brought in and my guardian read aloud in a surprised voice, "Sir Leicester Dedlock!" The visitor was in the room before I had the power to stir. I had not even the presence of mind, in my giddiness, to retire to the window with Ada, or to know where the window was. I heard my name and found that my guardian was presenting me before I could move. "Pray be seated, Sir Leicester." "Mr. Jarndyce," said Sir Leicester as he bowed and seated himself, "I do myself the honour of calling here-" "You do me the honour, Sir Leicester." "Thank you - of calling here on my way from Lincolnshire to express my regret that any cause of complaint I may have against a gentleman who has been your host, should have prevented you, and the ladies under your charge, from visiting my house, Chesney Wold." "You are exceedingly obliging, Sir Leicester, and on behalf of those ladies, I thank you." "It is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that the gentleman to whom I have referred may have led you to believe that you would not have been received at my house with courtesy. I beg to observe, sir, that the fact is the reverse. It has given me pain, Mr. Jarndyce, to learn from the housekeeper at Chesney Wold that a gentleman who was with you, and who would appear to possess a cultivated taste for the fine arts, was likewise deterred from examining the family pictures with that leisure which he might have desired to bestow upon them." Here he produced a card and read, with much gravity, through his eye-glass, "Mr. Herald - Harold - Skumpling - I beg your pardon - Skimpole." "This is Mr. Harold Skimpole," said my guardian, surprised. "Oh!" exclaimed Sir Leicester. "I am happy to meet Mr. Skimpole. I hope, sir, that when you again find yourself in my part of the county, you will be under no similar sense of restraint." "You are very obliging, Sir Leicester. I shall certainly give myself the pleasure of another visit to your beautiful house. The owners of such places as Chesney Wold," said Mr. Skimpole with his usual easy air, "are public benefactors. They are good enough to maintain a number of delightful objects for the admiration and pleasure of us poor men; and not to reap all the pleasure that they yield is to be ungrateful to our benefactors." Sir Leicester seemed to approve of this sentiment highly. "An artist, sir?" "No," returned Mr. Skimpole. "A perfectly idle man. A mere amateur." Sir Leicester seemed to approve of this even more. He hoped he might have the good fortune to be at Chesney Wold when Mr. Skimpole next came into Lincolnshire. Mr. Skimpole professed himself much honoured. "Mr. Skimpole mentioned to the housekeeper," pursued Sir Leicester, "that he had been staying with Mr. Jarndyce." "That is, when I walked through the house the other day, on the occasion of my going down to visit you," Mr. Skimpole airily explained to us. "Hence I became aware of the circumstance. That this should have happened to Mr. Jarndyce, a gentleman with some distant connexion to Lady Dedlock, and for whom she entertains a high respect, does, I assure you, give me pain." "Pray say no more about it, Sir Leicester," returned my guardian. I had not once looked up. It surprises me to find that I can recall the conversation, for my mind was so confused and the gentleman's presence so distressing that I thought I understood nothing through the rushing in my head and the beating of my heart. "I mentioned the subject to Lady Dedlock," said Sir Leicester, rising, "and she informed me that she had had the pleasure of exchanging a few words with Mr. Jarndyce and his wards on an accidental meeting. Permit me, Mr. Jarndyce, to repeat to yourself, and to these ladies, the assurance I have already given Mr. Skimpole." Sir Leicester Dedlock took his leave with great ceremony. I got to my own room with all possible speed and remained there until I had recovered my self-command. I was thankful to find when I went downstairs that they only rallied me for having been shy before the great Lincolnshire baronet. But I had made up my mind that I must tell my guardian what I knew. The possibility of my being brought into contact with my mother, of my being taken to her house, was so painful that I felt I could no longer guide myself without his assistance. When we had retired for the night, and Ada and I had had our usual talk, I went and sought my guardian among his books. I knew he always read at that hour, and as I drew near I saw the light shining out into the passage from his reading-lamp. "May I come in, guardian?" "Surely, little woman. What's the matter?" "Nothing is the matter. I thought I would like to take this quiet time of saying a word to you about myself." He shut his book, and turned his kind attentive face towards me. I could not help observing that it wore that curious expression I had seen in it once before - on that night when he had said that he was in no trouble which I could readily understand. "What concerns you, my dear Esther," said he, "concerns us all. You cannot be more ready to speak than I am to hear." "I know that, guardian. But I have such need of your advice and support tonight - ever since the visitor was here today." "Sir Leicester Dedlock?" "Yes." He sat looking at me with an air of the profoundest astonishment. "Why, Esther," said he, breaking into a smile, "our visitor and you are the two last persons on earth I should have thought of connecting together!" "Oh, yes, guardian. And I too, but a little while ago." The smile passed from his face, and he became grave. He crossed to the door to see that it was shut and resumed his seat before me. "Guardian," said I, "do you remember, when we were overtaken by the thunder-storm, Lady Dedlock's speaking to you of her sister?" "Of course." "And reminding you that she and her sister had gone their different ways?" "Yes." "Why did they separate, guardian?" His face altered as he looked at me. "My child, what questions are these! I never knew. No one but themselves ever did know, I believe. Who could tell what the secrets of those two handsome and proud women were! You have seen Lady Dedlock. If you had ever seen her sister, you would know her to have been as resolute and haughty as she." "Oh, guardian, I have seen her many a time!" "Seen her?" He paused a little, biting his lip. "Then, Esther, when you spoke to me long ago of Boythorn, and when I told you that he was all but married once - did you know it all, and know who the lady was?" "No, guardian," I returned. "It was Lady Dedlock's sister." "Guardian, pray tell me, why were they parted?" "It was her act, and she kept its motives secret. He afterwards did wonder if some quarrel with her sister had wounded her haughty spirit beyond all reason, but she wrote to tell him that from that date she died to him, and that she resolved on this through her knowledge of his proud temper and his sense of honour. In consideration for those points in him, and also in herself, she made the sacrifice, she said. He never heard of her from that hour. Nor did anyone." "Oh, guardian, what have I done!" I cried, giving way to my grief; "what sorrow have I innocently caused! Innocently, but most surely. That secluded sister is my first remembrance." "No!" he cried, starting. "Yes, guardian, yes! And her sister is my mother!" I would have told him all my mother's letter, but he would not hear it then. He spoke so tenderly and wisely to me, that, full as I had been with fervent gratitude towards him through so many years, I believed I had never loved him so dearly, never thanked him in my heart so fully, as I did that night. And when he had taken me to my room and kissed me at the door, and when at last I lay down to sleep, my thought was how could I ever be busy enough, good enough, forgetful enough of myself, devoted enough to him, and useful enough to others, to show him how I blessed and honoured him.

Bleak House

Chapter 43: Esther's Narrative

It was interesting when I dressed before daylight to peep out of window, where my candles were reflected in the black panes like two beacons, and finding all beyond still enshrouded in the indistinctness of last night, to watch how it turned out when the day came on. As the prospect gradually revealed itself and disclosed the scene over which the wind had wandered in the dark, like my memory over my life, I had a pleasure in discovering the unknown objects that had been around me in my sleep. At first they were faintly discernible in the mist, and above them the later stars still glimmered. That pale interval over, the picture began to enlarge and fill up so fast that at every new peep I could have found enough to look at for an hour. Imperceptibly my candles became the only incongruous part of the morning, the dark places in my room all melted away, and the day shone bright upon a cheerful landscape, prominent in which the old Abbey Church, with its massive tower, threw a softer train of shadow on the view than seemed compatible with its rugged character. But so from rough outsides (I hope I have learnt), serene and gentle influences often proceed. Every part of the house was in such order, and every one was so attentive to me, that I had no trouble with my two bunches of keys, though what with trying to remember the contents of each little store-room drawer and cupboard; and what with making notes on a slate about jams, and pickles, and preserves, and bottles, and glass, and china, and a great many other things; and what with being generally a methodical, old-maidish sort of foolish little person, I was so busy that I could not believe it was breakfast-time when I heard the bell ring. Away I ran, however, and made tea, as I had already been installed into the responsibility of the tea-pot; and then, as they were all rather late and nobody was down yet, I thought I would take a peep at the garden and get some knowledge of that too. I found it quite a delightful place--in front, the pretty avenue and drive by which we had approached (and where, by the by, we had cut up the gravel so terribly with our wheels that I asked the gardener to roll it); at the back, the flower-garden, with my darling at her window up there, throwing it open to smile out at me, as if she would have kissed me from that distance. Beyond the flower-garden was a kitchen-garden, and then a paddock, and then a snug little rick-yard, and then a dear little farm-yard. As to the house itself, with its three peaks in the roof; its various-shaped windows, some so large, some so small, and all so pretty; its trellis-work, against the south-front for roses and honey-suckle, and its homely, comfortable, welcoming look--it was, as Ada said when she came out to meet me with her arm through that of its master, worthy of her cousin John, a bold thing to say, though he only pinched her dear cheek for it. Mr. Skimpole was as agreeable at breakfast as he had been overnight. There was honey on the table, and it led him into a discourse about bees. He had no objection to honey, he said (and I should think he had not, for he seemed to like it), but he protested against the overweening assumptions of bees. He didn't at all see why the busy bee should be proposed as a model to him; he supposed the bee liked to make honey, or he wouldn't do it--nobody asked him. It was not necessary for the bee to make such a merit of his tastes. If every confectioner went buzzing about the world banging against everything that came in his way and egotistically calling upon everybody to take notice that he was going to his work and must not be interrupted, the world would be quite an unsupportable place. Then, after all, it was a ridiculous position to be smoked out of your fortune with brimstone as soon as you had made it. You would have a very mean opinion of a Manchester man if he spun cotton for no other purpose. He must say he thought a drone the embodiment of a pleasanter and wiser idea. The drone said unaffectedly, "You will excuse me; I really cannot attend to the shop! I find myself in a world in which there is so much to see and so short a time to see it in that I must take the liberty of looking about me and begging to be provided for by somebody who doesn't want to look about him." This appeared to Mr. Skimpole to be the drone philosophy, and he thought it a very good philosophy, always supposing the drone to be willing to be on good terms with the bee, which, so far as he knew, the easy fellow always was, if the consequential creature would only let him, and not be so conceited about his honey! He pursued this fancy with the lightest foot over a variety of ground and made us all merry, though again he seemed to have as serious a meaning in what he said as he was capable of having. I left them still listening to him when I withdrew to attend to my new duties. They had occupied me for some time, and I was passing through the passages on my return with my basket of keys on my arm when Mr. Jarndyce called me into a small room next his bed-chamber, which I found to be in part a little library of books and papers and in part quite a little museum of his boots and shoes and hat-boxes. "Sit down, my dear," said Mr. Jarndyce. "This, you must know, is the growlery. When I am out of humour, I come and growl here." "You must be here very seldom, sir," said I. "Oh, you don't know me!" he returned. "When I am deceived or disappointed in--the wind, and it's easterly, I take refuge here. The growlery is the best-used room in the house. You are not aware of half my humours yet. My dear, how you are trembling!" I could not help it; I tried very hard, but being alone with that benevolent presence, and meeting his kind eyes, and feeling so happy and so honoured there, and my heart so full--I kissed his hand. I don't know what I said, or even that I spoke. He was disconcerted and walked to the window; I almost believed with an intention of jumping out, until he turned and I was reassured by seeing in his eyes what he had gone there to hide. He gently patted me on the head, and I sat down. "There! There!" he said. "That's over. Pooh! Don't be foolish." "It shall not happen again, sir," I returned, "but at first it is difficult--" "Nonsense!" he said. "It's easy, easy. Why not? I hear of a good little orphan girl without a protector, and I take it into my head to be that protector. She grows up, and more than justifies my good opinion, and I remain her guardian and her friend. What is there in all this? So, so! Now, we have cleared off old scores, and I have before me thy pleasant, trusting, trusty face again." I said to myself, "Esther, my dear, you surprise me! This really is not what I expected of you!" And it had such a good effect that I folded my hands upon my basket and quite recovered myself. Mr. Jarndyce, expressing his approval in his face, began to talk to me as confidentially as if I had been in the habit of conversing with him every morning for I don't know how long. I almost felt as if I had. "Of course, Esther," he said, "you don't understand this Chancery business?" And of course I shook my head. "I don't know who does," he returned. "The lawyers have twisted it into such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the case have long disappeared from the face of the earth. It's about a will and the trusts under a will--or it was once. It's about nothing but costs now. We are always appearing, and disappearing, and swearing, and interrogating, and filing, and cross-filing, and arguing, and sealing, and motioning, and referring, and reporting, and revolving about the Lord Chancellor and all his satellites, and equitably waltzing ourselves off to dusty death, about costs. That's the great question. All the rest, by some extraordinary means, has melted away." "But it was, sir," said I, to bring him back, for he began to rub his head, "about a will?" "Why, yes, it was about a will when it was about anything," he returned. "A certain Jarndyce, in an evil hour, made a great fortune, and made a great will. In the question how the trusts under that will are to be administered, the fortune left by the will is squandered away; the legatees under the will are reduced to such a miserable condition that they would be sufficiently punished if they had committed an enormous crime in having money left them, and the will itself is made a dead letter. All through the deplorable cause, everything that everybody in it, except one man, knows already is referred to that only one man who don't know, it to find out--all through the deplorable cause, everybody must have copies, over and over again, of everything that has accumulated about it in the way of cartloads of papers (or must pay for them without having them, which is the usual course, for nobody wants them) and must go down the middle and up again through such an infernal country-dance of costs and fees and nonsense and corruption as was never dreamed of in the wildest visions of a witch's Sabbath. Equity sends questions to law, law sends questions back to equity; law finds it can't do this, equity finds it can't do that; neither can so much as say it can't do anything, without this solicitor instructing and this counsel appearing for A, and that solicitor instructing and that counsel appearing for B; and so on through the whole alphabet, like the history of the apple pie. And thus, through years and years, and lives and lives, everything goes on, constantly beginning over and over again, and nothing ever ends. And we can't get out of the suit on any terms, for we are made parties to it, and MUST BE parties to it, whether we like it or not. But it won't do to think of it! When my great uncle, poor Tom Jarndyce, began to think of it, it was the beginning of the end!" "The Mr. Jarndyce, sir, whose story I have heard?" He nodded gravely. "I was his heir, and this was his house, Esther. When I came here, it was bleak indeed. He had left the signs of his misery upon it." "How changed it must be now!" I said. "It had been called, before his time, the Peaks. He gave it its present name and lived here shut up, day and night poring over the wicked heaps of papers in the suit and hoping against hope to disentangle it from its mystification and bring it to a close. In the meantime, the place became dilapidated, the wind whistled through the cracked walls, the rain fell through the broken roof, the weeds choked the passage to the rotting door. When I brought what remained of him home here, the brains seemed to me to have been blown out of the house too, it was so shattered and ruined." He walked a little to and fro after saying this to himself with a shudder, and then looked at me, and brightened, and came and sat down again with his hands in his pockets. "I told you this was the growlery, my dear. Where was I?" I reminded him, at the hopeful change he had made in Bleak House. "Bleak House; true. There is, in that city of London there, some property of ours which is much at this day what Bleak House was then; I say property of ours, meaning of the suit's, but I ought to call it the property of costs, for costs is the only power on earth that will ever get anything out of it now or will ever know it for anything but an eyesore and a heartsore. It is a street of perishing blind houses, with their eyes stoned out, without a pane of glass, without so much as a window-frame, with the bare blank shutters tumbling from their hinges and falling asunder, the iron rails peeling away in flakes of rust, the chimneys sinking in, the stone steps to every door (and every door might be death's door) turning stagnant green, the very crutches on which the ruins are propped decaying. Although Bleak House was not in Chancery, its master was, and it was stamped with the same seal. These are the Great Seal's impressions, my dear, all over England--the children know them!" "How changed it is!" I said again. "Why, so it is," he answered much more cheerfully; "and it is wisdom in you to keep me to the bright side of the picture." (The idea of my wisdom!) "These are things I never talk about or even think about, excepting in the growlery here. If you consider it right to mention them to Rick and Ada," looking seriously at me, "you can. I leave it to your discretion, Esther." "I hope, sir--" said I. "I think you had better call me guardian, my dear." I felt that I was choking again--I taxed myself with it, "Esther, now, you know you are!"--when he feigned to say this slightly, as if it were a whim instead of a thoughtful tenderness. But I gave the housekeeping keys the least shake in the world as a reminder to myself, and folding my hands in a still more determined manner on the basket, looked at him quietly. "I hope, guardian," said I, "that you may not trust too much to my discretion. I hope you may not mistake me. I am afraid it will be a disappointment to you to know that I am not clever, but it really is the truth, and you would soon find it out if I had not the honesty to confess it." He did not seem at all disappointed; quite the contrary. He told me, with a smile all over his face, that he knew me very well indeed and that I was quite clever enough for him. "I hope I may turn out so," said I, "but I am much afraid of it, guardian." "You are clever enough to be the good little woman of our lives here, my dear," he returned playfully; "the little old woman of the child's (I don't mean Skimpole's) rhyme: "'Little old woman, and whither so high?' 'To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky.' "You will sweep them so neatly out of OUR sky in the course of your housekeeping, Esther, that one of these days we shall have to abandon the growlery and nail up the door." This was the beginning of my being called Old Woman, and Little Old Woman, and Cobweb, and Mrs. Shipton, and Mother Hubbard, and Dame Durden, and so many names of that sort that my own name soon became quite lost among them. "However," said Mr. Jarndyce, "to return to our gossip. Here's Rick, a fine young fellow full of promise. What's to be done with him?" Oh, my goodness, the idea of asking my advice on such a point! "Here he is, Esther," said Mr. Jarndyce, comfortably putting his hands into his pockets and stretching out his legs. "He must have a profession; he must make some choice for himself. There will be a world more wiglomeration about it, I suppose, but it must be done." "More what, guardian?" said I. "More wiglomeration," said he. "It's the only name I know for the thing. He is a ward in Chancery, my dear. Kenge and Carboy will have something to say about it; Master Somebody--a sort of ridiculous sexton, digging graves for the merits of causes in a back room at the end of Quality Court, Chancery Lane--will have something to say about it; counsel will have something to say about it; the Chancellor will have something to say about it; the satellites will have something to say about it; they will all have to be handsomely feed, all round, about it; the whole thing will be vastly ceremonious, wordy, unsatisfactory, and expensive, and I call it, in general, wiglomeration. How mankind ever came to be afflicted with wiglomeration, or for whose sins these young people ever fell into a pit of it, I don't know; so it is." He began to rub his head again and to hint that he felt the wind. But it was a delightful instance of his kindness towards me that whether he rubbed his head, or walked about, or did both, his face was sure to recover its benignant expression as it looked at mine; and he was sure to turn comfortable again and put his hands in his pockets and stretch out his legs. "Perhaps it would be best, first of all," said I, "to ask Mr. Richard what he inclines to himself." "Exactly so," he returned. "That's what I mean! You know, just accustom yourself to talk it over, with your tact and in your quiet way, with him and Ada, and see what you all make of it. We are sure to come at the heart of the matter by your means, little woman." I really was frightened at the thought of the importance I was attaining and the number of things that were being confided to me. I had not meant this at all; I had meant that he should speak to Richard. But of course I said nothing in reply except that I would do my best, though I feared (I really felt it necessary to repeat this) that he thought me much more sagacious than I was. At which my guardian only laughed the pleasantest laugh I ever heard. "Come!" he said, rising and pushing back his chair. "I think we may have done with the growlery for one day! Only a concluding word. Esther, my dear, do you wish to ask me anything?" He looked so attentively at me that I looked attentively at him and felt sure I understood him. "About myself, sir?" said I. "Yes." "Guardian," said I, venturing to put my hand, which was suddenly colder than I could have wished, in his, "nothing! I am quite sure that if there were anything I ought to know or had any need to know, I should not have to ask you to tell it to me. If my whole reliance and confidence were not placed in you, I must have a hard heart indeed. I have nothing to ask you, nothing in the world." He drew my hand through his arm and we went away to look for Ada. From that hour I felt quite easy with him, quite unreserved, quite content to know no more, quite happy. We lived, at first, rather a busy life at Bleak House, for we had to become acquainted with many residents in and out of the neighbourhood who knew Mr. Jarndyce. It seemed to Ada and me that everybody knew him who wanted to do anything with anybody else's money. It amazed us when we began to sort his letters and to answer some of them for him in the growlery of a morning to find how the great object of the lives of nearly all his correspondents appeared to be to form themselves into committees for getting in and laying out money. The ladies were as desperate as the gentlemen; indeed, I think they were even more so. They threw themselves into committees in the most impassioned manner and collected subscriptions with a vehemence quite extraordinary. It appeared to us that some of them must pass their whole lives in dealing out subscription-cards to the whole post-office directory--shilling cards, half-crown cards, half-sovereign cards, penny cards. They wanted everything. They wanted wearing apparel, they wanted linen rags, they wanted money, they wanted coals, they wanted soup, they wanted interest, they wanted autographs, they wanted flannel, they wanted whatever Mr. Jarndyce had--or had not. Their objects were as various as their demands. They were going to raise new buildings, they were going to pay off debts on old buildings, they were going to establish in a picturesque building (engraving of proposed west elevation attached) the Sisterhood of Mediaeval Marys, they were going to give a testimonial to Mrs. Jellyby, they were going to have their secretary's portrait painted and presented to his mother-in-law, whose deep devotion to him was well known, they were going to get up everything, I really believe, from five hundred thousand tracts to an annuity and from a marble monument to a silver tea-pot. They took a multitude of titles. They were the Women of England, the Daughters of Britain, the Sisters of all the cardinal virtues separately, the Females of America, the Ladies of a hundred denominations. They appeared to be always excited about canvassing and electing. They seemed to our poor wits, and according to their own accounts, to be constantly polling people by tens of thousands, yet never bringing their candidates in for anything. It made our heads ache to think, on the whole, what feverish lives they must lead. Among the ladies who were most distinguished for this rapacious benevolence (if I may use the expression) was a Mrs. Pardiggle, who seemed, as I judged from the number of her letters to Mr. Jarndyce, to be almost as powerful a correspondent as Mrs. Jellyby herself. We observed that the wind always changed when Mrs. Pardiggle became the subject of conversation and that it invariably interrupted Mr. Jarndyce and prevented his going any farther, when he had remarked that there were two classes of charitable people; one, the people who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people who did a great deal and made no noise at all. We were therefore curious to see Mrs. Pardiggle, suspecting her to be a type of the former class, and were glad when she called one day with her five young sons. She was a formidable style of lady with spectacles, a prominent nose, and a loud voice, who had the effect of wanting a great deal of room. And she really did, for she knocked down little chairs with her skirts that were quite a great way off. As only Ada and I were at home, we received her timidly, for she seemed to come in like cold weather and to make the little Pardiggles blue as they followed. "These, young ladies," said Mrs. Pardiggle with great volubility after the first salutations, "are my five boys. You may have seen their names in a printed subscription list (perhaps more than one) in the possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce. Egbert, my eldest (twelve), is the boy who sent out his pocket-money, to the amount of five and threepence, to the Tockahoopo Indians. Oswald, my second (ten and a half), is the child who contributed two and nine-pence to the Great National Smithers Testimonial. Francis, my third (nine), one and sixpence halfpenny; Felix, my fourth (seven), eightpence to the Superannuated Widows; Alfred, my youngest (five), has voluntarily enrolled himself in the Infant Bonds of Joy, and is pledged never, through life, to use tobacco in any form." We had never seen such dissatisfied children. It was not merely that they were weazened and shrivelled--though they were certainly that too--but they looked absolutely ferocious with discontent. At the mention of the Tockahoopo Indians, I could really have supposed Egbert to be one of the most baleful members of that tribe, he gave me such a savage frown. The face of each child, as the amount of his contribution was mentioned, darkened in a peculiarly vindictive manner, but his was by far the worst. I must except, however, the little recruit into the Infant Bonds of Joy, who was stolidly and evenly miserable. "You have been visiting, I understand," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "at Mrs. Jellyby's?" We said yes, we had passed one night there. "Mrs. Jellyby," pursued the lady, always speaking in the same demonstrative, loud, hard tone, so that her voice impressed my fancy as if it had a sort of spectacles on too--and I may take the opportunity of remarking that her spectacles were made the less engaging by her eyes being what Ada called "choking eyes," meaning very prominent--"Mrs. Jellyby is a benefactor to society and deserves a helping hand. My boys have contributed to the African project--Egbert, one and six, being the entire allowance of nine weeks; Oswald, one and a penny halfpenny, being the same; the rest, according to their little means. Nevertheless, I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in all things. I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in her treatment of her young family. It has been noticed. It has been observed that her young family are excluded from participation in the objects to which she is devoted. She may be right, she may be wrong; but, right or wrong, this is not my course with MY young family. I take them everywhere." I was afterwards convinced (and so was Ada) that from the ill-conditioned eldest child, these words extorted a sharp yell. He turned it off into a yawn, but it began as a yell. "They attend matins with me (very prettily done) at half-past six o'clock in the morning all the year round, including of course the depth of winter," said Mrs. Pardiggle rapidly, "and they are with me during the revolving duties of the day. I am a School lady, I am a Visiting lady, I am a Reading lady, I am a Distributing lady; I am on the local Linen Box Committee and many general committees; and my canvassing alone is very extensive--perhaps no one's more so. But they are my companions everywhere; and by these means they acquire that knowledge of the poor, and that capacity of doing charitable business in general--in short, that taste for the sort of thing--which will render them in after life a service to their neighbours and a satisfaction to themselves. My young family are not frivolous; they expend the entire amount of their allowance in subscriptions, under my direction; and they have attended as many public meetings and listened to as many lectures, orations, and discussions as generally fall to the lot of few grown people. Alfred (five), who, as I mentioned, has of his own election joined the Infant Bonds of Joy, was one of the very few children who manifested consciousness on that occasion after a fervid address of two hours from the chairman of the evening." Alfred glowered at us as if he never could, or would, forgive the injury of that night. "You may have observed, Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "in some of the lists to which I have referred, in the possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce, that the names of my young family are concluded with the name of O. A. Pardiggle, F.R.S., one pound. That is their father. We usually observe the same routine. I put down my mite first; then my young family enrol their contributions, according to their ages and their little means; and then Mr. Pardiggle brings up the rear. Mr. Pardiggle is happy to throw in his limited donation, under my direction; and thus things are made not only pleasant to ourselves, but, we trust, improving to others." Suppose Mr. Pardiggle were to dine with Mr. Jellyby, and suppose Mr. Jellyby were to relieve his mind after dinner to Mr. Pardiggle, would Mr. Pardiggle, in return, make any confidential communication to Mr. Jellyby? I was quite confused to find myself thinking this, but it came into my head. "You are very pleasantly situated here!" said Mrs. Pardiggle. We were glad to change the subject, and going to the window, pointed out the beauties of the prospect, on which the spectacles appeared to me to rest with curious indifference. "You know Mr. Gusher?" said our visitor. We were obliged to say that we had not the pleasure of Mr. Gusher's acquaintance. "The loss is yours, I assure you," said Mrs. Pardiggle with her commanding deportment. "He is a very fervid, impassioned speaker--full of fire! Stationed in a waggon on this lawn, now, which, from the shape of the land, is naturally adapted to a public meeting, he would improve almost any occasion you could mention for hours and hours! By this time, young ladies," said Mrs. Pardiggle, moving back to her chair and overturning, as if by invisible agency, a little round table at a considerable distance with my work-basket on it, "by this time you have found me out, I dare say?" This was really such a confusing question that Ada looked at me in perfect dismay. As to the guilty nature of my own consciousness after what I had been thinking, it must have been expressed in the colour of my cheeks. "Found out, I mean," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "the prominent point in my character. I am aware that it is so prominent as to be discoverable immediately. I lay myself open to detection, I know. Well! I freely admit, I am a woman of business. I love hard work; I enjoy hard work. The excitement does me good. I am so accustomed and inured to hard work that I don't know what fatigue is." We murmured that it was very astonishing and very gratifying, or something to that effect. I don't think we knew what it was either, but this is what our politeness expressed. "I do not understand what it is to be tired; you cannot tire me if you try!" said Mrs. Pardiggle. "The quantity of exertion (which is no exertion to me), the amount of business (which I regard as nothing), that I go through sometimes astonishes myself. I have seen my young family, and Mr. Pardiggle, quite worn out with witnessing it, when I may truly say I have been as fresh as a lark!" If that dark-visaged eldest boy could look more malicious than he had already looked, this was the time when he did it. I observed that he doubled his right fist and delivered a secret blow into the crown of his cap, which was under his left arm. "This gives me a great advantage when I am making my rounds," said Mrs. Pardiggle. "If I find a person unwilling to hear what I have to say, I tell that person directly, 'I am incapable of fatigue, my good friend, I am never tired, and I mean to go on until I have done.' It answers admirably! Miss Summerson, I hope I shall have your assistance in my visiting rounds immediately, and Miss Clare's very soon." At first I tried to excuse myself for the present on the general ground of having occupations to attend to which I must not neglect. But as this was an ineffectual protest, I then said, more particularly, that I was not sure of my qualifications. That I was inexperienced in the art of adapting my mind to minds very differently situated, and addressing them from suitable points of view. That I had not that delicate knowledge of the heart which must be essential to such a work. That I had much to learn, myself, before I could teach others, and that I could not confide in my good intentions alone. For these reasons I thought it best to be as useful as I could, and to render what kind services I could to those immediately about me, and to try to let that circle of duty gradually and naturally expand itself. All this I said with anything but confidence, because Mrs. Pardiggle was much older than I, and had great experience, and was so very military in her manners. "You are wrong, Miss Summerson," said she, "but perhaps you are not equal to hard work or the excitement of it, and that makes a vast difference. If you would like to see how I go through my work, I am now about--with my young family--to visit a brickmaker in the neighbourhood (a very bad character) and shall be glad to take you with me. Miss Clare also, if she will do me the favour." Ada and I interchanged looks, and as we were going out in any case, accepted the offer. When we hastily returned from putting on our bonnets, we found the young family languishing in a corner and Mrs. Pardiggle sweeping about the room, knocking down nearly all the light objects it contained. Mrs. Pardiggle took possession of Ada, and I followed with the family. Ada told me afterwards that Mrs. Pardiggle talked in the same loud tone (that, indeed, I overheard) all the way to the brickmaker's about an exciting contest which she had for two or three years waged against another lady relative to the bringing in of their rival candidates for a pension somewhere. There had been a quantity of printing, and promising, and proxying, and polling, and it appeared to have imparted great liveliness to all concerned, except the pensioners--who were not elected yet. I am very fond of being confided in by children and am happy in being usually favoured in that respect, but on this occasion it gave me great uneasiness. As soon as we were out of doors, Egbert, with the manner of a little footpad, demanded a shilling of me on the ground that his pocket-money was "boned" from him. On my pointing out the great impropriety of the word, especially in connexion with his parent (for he added sulkily "By her!"), he pinched me and said, "Oh, then! Now! Who are you! YOU wouldn't like it, I think? What does she make a sham for, and pretend to give me money, and take it away again? Why do you call it my allowance, and never let me spend it?" These exasperating questions so inflamed his mind and the minds of Oswald and Francis that they all pinched me at once, and in a dreadfully expert way--screwing up such little pieces of my arms that I could hardly forbear crying out. Felix, at the same time, stamped upon my toes. And the Bond of Joy, who on account of always having the whole of his little income anticipated stood in fact pledged to abstain from cakes as well as tobacco, so swelled with grief and rage when we passed a pastry-cook's shop that he terrified me by becoming purple. I never underwent so much, both in body and mind, in the course of a walk with young people as from these unnaturally constrained children when they paid me the compliment of being natural. I was glad when we came to the brickmaker's house, though it was one of a cluster of wretched hovels in a brick-field, with pigsties close to the broken windows and miserable little gardens before the doors growing nothing but stagnant pools. Here and there an old tub was put to catch the droppings of rain-water from a roof, or they were banked up with mud into a little pond like a large dirt-pie. At the doors and windows some men and women lounged or prowled about, and took little notice of us except to laugh to one another or to say something as we passed about gentlefolks minding their own business and not troubling their heads and muddying their shoes with coming to look after other people's. Mrs. Pardiggle, leading the way with a great show of moral determination and talking with much volubility about the untidy habits of the people (though I doubted if the best of us could have been tidy in such a place), conducted us into a cottage at the farthest corner, the ground-floor room of which we nearly filled. Besides ourselves, there were in this damp, offensive room a woman with a black eye, nursing a poor little gasping baby by the fire; a man, all stained with clay and mud and looking very dissipated, lying at full length on the ground, smoking a pipe; a powerful young man fastening a collar on a dog; and a bold girl doing some kind of washing in very dirty water. They all looked up at us as we came in, and the woman seemed to turn her face towards the fire as if to hide her bruised eye; nobody gave us any welcome. "Well, my friends," said Mrs. Pardiggle, but her voice had not a friendly sound, I thought; it was much too business-like and systematic. "How do you do, all of you? I am here again. I told you, you couldn't tire me, you know. I am fond of hard work, and am true to my word." "There an't," growled the man on the floor, whose head rested on his hand as he stared at us, "any more on you to come in, is there?" "No, my friend," said Mrs. Pardiggle, seating herself on one stool and knocking down another. "We are all here." "Because I thought there warn't enough of you, perhaps?" said the man, with his pipe between his lips as he looked round upon us. The young man and the girl both laughed. Two friends of the young man, whom we had attracted to the doorway and who stood there with their hands in their pockets, echoed the laugh noisily. "You can't tire me, good people," said Mrs. Pardiggle to these latter. "I enjoy hard work, and the harder you make mine, the better I like it." "Then make it easy for her!" growled the man upon the floor. "I wants it done, and over. I wants a end of these liberties took with my place. I wants an end of being drawed like a badger. Now you're a-going to poll-pry and question according to custom--I know what you're a-going to be up to. Well! You haven't got no occasion to be up to it. I'll save you the trouble. Is my daughter a-washin? Yes, she IS a-washin. Look at the water. Smell it! That's wot we drinks. How do you like it, and what do you think of gin instead! An't my place dirty? Yes, it is dirty--it's nat'rally dirty, and it's nat'rally onwholesome; and we've had five dirty and onwholesome children, as is all dead infants, and so much the better for them, and for us besides. Have I read the little book wot you left? No, I an't read the little book wot you left. There an't nobody here as knows how to read it; and if there wos, it wouldn't be suitable to me. It's a book fit for a babby, and I'm not a babby. If you was to leave me a doll, I shouldn't nuss it. How have I been conducting of myself? Why, I've been drunk for three days; and I'da been drunk four if I'da had the money. Don't I never mean for to go to church? No, I don't never mean for to go to church. I shouldn't be expected there, if I did; the beadle's too gen-teel for me. And how did my wife get that black eye? Why, I give it her; and if she says I didn't, she's a lie!" He had pulled his pipe out of his mouth to say all this, and he now turned over on his other side and smoked again. Mrs. Pardiggle, who had been regarding him through her spectacles with a forcible composure, calculated, I could not help thinking, to increase his antagonism, pulled out a good book as if it were a constable's staff and took the whole family into custody. I mean into religious custody, of course; but she really did it as if she were an inexorable moral policeman carrying them all off to a station-house. Ada and I were very uncomfortable. We both felt intrusive and out of place, and we both thought that Mrs. Pardiggle would have got on infinitely better if she had not had such a mechanical way of taking possession of people. The children sulked and stared; the family took no notice of us whatever, except when the young man made the dog bark, which he usually did when Mrs. Pardiggle was most emphatic. We both felt painfully sensible that between us and these people there was an iron barrier which could not be removed by our new friend. By whom or how it could be removed, we did not know, but we knew that. Even what she read and said seemed to us to be ill-chosen for such auditors, if it had been imparted ever so modestly and with ever so much tact. As to the little book to which the man on the floor had referred, we acquired a knowledge of it afterwards, and Mr. Jarndyce said he doubted if Robinson Crusoe could have read it, though he had had no other on his desolate island. We were much relieved, under these circumstances, when Mrs. Pardiggle left off. The man on the floor, then turning his head round again, said morosely, "Well! You've done, have you?" "For to-day, I have, my friend. But I am never fatigued. I shall come to you again in your regular order," returned Mrs. Pardiggle with demonstrative cheerfulness. "So long as you goes now," said he, folding his arms and shutting his eyes with an oath, "you may do wot you like!" Mrs. Pardiggle accordingly rose and made a little vortex in the confined room from which the pipe itself very narrowly escaped. Taking one of her young family in each hand, and telling the others to follow closely, and expressing her hope that the brickmaker and all his house would be improved when she saw them next, she then proceeded to another cottage. I hope it is not unkind in me to say that she certainly did make, in this as in everything else, a show that was not conciliatory of doing charity by wholesale and of dealing in it to a large extent. She supposed that we were following her, but as soon as the space was left clear, we approached the woman sitting by the fire to ask if the baby were ill. She only looked at it as it lay on her lap. We had observed before that when she looked at it she covered her discoloured eye with her hand, as though she wished to separate any association with noise and violence and ill treatment from the poor little child. Ada, whose gentle heart was moved by its appearance, bent down to touch its little face. As she did so, I saw what happened and drew her back. The child died. "Oh, Esther!" cried Ada, sinking on her knees beside it. "Look here! Oh, Esther, my love, the little thing! The suffering, quiet, pretty little thing! I am so sorry for it. I am so sorry for the mother. I never saw a sight so pitiful as this before! Oh, baby, baby!" Such compassion, such gentleness, as that with which she bent down weeping and put her hand upon the mother's might have softened any mother's heart that ever beat. The woman at first gazed at her in astonishment and then burst into tears. Presently I took the light burden from her lap, did what I could to make the baby's rest the prettier and gentler, laid it on a shelf, and covered it with my own handkerchief. We tried to comfort the mother, and we whispered to her what Our Saviour said of children. She answered nothing, but sat weeping--weeping very much. When I turned, I found that the young man had taken out the dog and was standing at the door looking in upon us with dry eyes, but quiet. The girl was quiet too and sat in a corner looking on the ground. The man had risen. He still smoked his pipe with an air of defiance, but he was silent. An ugly woman, very poorly clothed, hurried in while I was glancing at them, and coming straight up to the mother, said, "Jenny! Jenny!" The mother rose on being so addressed and fell upon the woman's neck. She also had upon her face and arms the marks of ill usage. She had no kind of grace about her, but the grace of sympathy; but when she condoled with the woman, and her own tears fell, she wanted no beauty. I say condoled, but her only words were "Jenny! Jenny!" All the rest was in the tone in which she said them. I thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and shabby and beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one another; to see how they felt for one another, how the heart of each to each was softened by the hard trials of their lives. I think the best side of such people is almost hidden from us. What the poor are to the poor is little known, excepting to themselves and God. We felt it better to withdraw and leave them uninterrupted. We stole out quietly and without notice from any one except the man. He was leaning against the wall near the door, and finding that there was scarcely room for us to pass, went out before us. He seemed to want to hide that he did this on our account, but we perceived that he did, and thanked him. He made no answer. Ada was so full of grief all the way home, and Richard, whom we found at home, was so distressed to see her in tears (though he said to me, when she was not present, how beautiful it was too!), that we arranged to return at night with some little comforts and repeat our visit at the brick-maker's house. We said as little as we could to Mr. Jarndyce, but the wind changed directly. Richard accompanied us at night to the scene of our morning expedition. On our way there, we had to pass a noisy drinking-house, where a number of men were flocking about the door. Among them, and prominent in some dispute, was the father of the little child. At a short distance, we passed the young man and the dog, in congenial company. The sister was standing laughing and talking with some other young women at the corner of the row of cottages, but she seemed ashamed and turned away as we went by. We left our escort within sight of the brickmaker's dwelling and proceeded by ourselves. When we came to the door, we found the woman who had brought such consolation with her standing there looking anxiously out. "It's you, young ladies, is it?" she said in a whisper. "I'm a-watching for my master. My heart's in my mouth. If he was to catch me away from home, he'd pretty near murder me." "Do you mean your husband?" said I. "Yes, miss, my master. Jenny's asleep, quite worn out. She's scarcely had the child off her lap, poor thing, these seven days and nights, except when I've been able to take it for a minute or two." As she gave way for us, she went softly in and put what we had brought near the miserable bed on which the mother slept. No effort had been made to clean the room--it seemed in its nature almost hopeless of being clean; but the small waxen form from which so much solemnity diffused itself had been composed afresh, and washed, and neatly dressed in some fragments of white linen; and on my handkerchief, which still covered the poor baby, a little bunch of sweet herbs had been laid by the same rough, scarred hands, so lightly, so tenderly! "May heaven reward you!" we said to her. "You are a good woman." "Me, young ladies?" she returned with surprise. "Hush! Jenny, Jenny!" The mother had moaned in her sleep and moved. The sound of the familiar voice seemed to calm her again. She was quiet once more. How little I thought, when I raised my handkerchief to look upon the tiny sleeper underneath and seemed to see a halo shine around the child through Ada's drooping hair as her pity bent her head--how little I thought in whose unquiet bosom that handkerchief would come to lie after covering the motionless and peaceful breast! I only thought that perhaps the Angel of the child might not be all unconscious of the woman who replaced it with so compassionate a hand; not all unconscious of her presently, when we had taken leave, and left her at the door, by turns looking, and listening in terror for herself, and saying in her old soothing manner, "Jenny, Jenny!"

When I dressed before daylight, it was interesting to peep out of the window at the indistinctness of night, and watch the day come. The prospect gradually revealed the scene over which the wind had wandered in the dark, like my memory over my life. The dark places in my room all melted away, and the day shone bright upon a cheerful landscape, in which the old Abbey Church, with its massive, rugged tower, threw a soft train of shadow on the view. But so from rough outsides, serene and gentle influences often come. Every part of the house was in such order, and everyone was so attentive to me, that I had no trouble with my two bunches of keys; though what with trying to remember the contents of each store-room drawer and cupboard, and making notes about jams, pickles, and china, and a great many other things; and what with being generally a methodical, old-maidish sort of foolish little person, I was so busy that I could not believe it when breakfast-time came. Away I ran, and made tea; and then, as nobody was down yet, I thought I would take a peep at the garden. I found it quite a delightful place - in front, the pretty avenue and drive by which we had approached (and where our wheels had cut up the gravel so terribly that I asked the gardener to roll it); at the back, the flower-garden, with my darling Ada at her window, smiling out at me. Beyond the flower-garden was a kitchen-garden, and then a paddock, and a snug little rick-yard, and a dear little farm-yard. As for the house itself, with its gables, its various-shaped windows, its trellis-work for roses and honey-suckle, and its homely, welcoming look - it was, as Ada said when she came out to meet me with Mr. Jarndyce, worthy of her cousin John; a bold thing to say, though he only pinched her cheek for it. Mr. Skimpole was as agreeable at breakfast as he had been overnight. There was honey on the table, and it led him into a discourse about bees. He had no objection to honey, he said, but he didn't see why the busy bee should be proposed as a model to him; he supposed the bee liked to make honey, or it wouldn't do it. He thought the drone to have a pleasanter philosophy, always supposing the drone to be willing to be on good terms with the bee, which was so conceited about its honey! He pursued this fancy lightly and made us all merry. I left them listening to him and withdrew to attend to my new duties. I was passing through the passages with my basket of keys on my arm, when Mr. Jarndyce called me into a small room next to his bedroom, which I found to be in part a little library of books and papers and in part a little museum of his shoes and hat-boxes. "Sit down, my dear," said Mr. Jarndyce. "This, you must know, is the growlery. When I am out of humour, I come and growl here." "You must be here very seldom, sir," said I. "Oh, you don't know me!" he returned. "When I am deceived or disappointed in - the wind, and it's easterly, I take refuge here. The growlery is the best-used room in the house. My dear, how you are trembling!" I could not help it; being alone with him, and meeting his kind eyes, and feeling so happy and so honoured, and my heart so full - I kissed his hand. I don't think I spoke. He was disconcerted and walked to the window; I almost believed with an intention of jumping out, until he turned and I was reassured by seeing in his eyes what he had gone there to hide. He gently patted me on the head. "There! There!" he said. "That's over. Don't be foolish." "It shall not happen again, sir," I returned, "but at first it is difficult-" "Nonsense!" he said. "It's easy, easy. Why not? I hear of a good little orphan girl without a protector, and I take it into my head to be that protector. She grows up, and justifies my good opinion, and I remain her guardian and her friend. What is there in all this? So, so! Now, we have cleared off old scores." I said to myself, "Esther, my dear, this really is not what I expected of you!" And I folded my hands upon my basket and recovered myself. Mr. Jarndyce, expressing his approval in his face, began to talk to me as confidentially as if I had been in the habit of conversing with him every morning. "Of course, Esther," he said, "you don't understand this Chancery business?" I shook my head. "I don't know who does," he returned. "The lawyers have twisted it into such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the case have long disappeared from the face of the earth. It's about a will and the trusts under a will - or it was once. It's about nothing but costs now. We are always appearing, and filing, and cross-filing, and arguing, and sealing, and referring, and revolving about the Lord Chancellor, and waltzing ourselves off to dusty death, about costs. All the rest, by some extraordinary means, has melted away." "But it was about a will, sir?" said I. "Why, yes, it was about a will when it was about anything," he returned. "A certain Jarndyce, in an evil hour, made a great fortune, and made a great will. In arguing how the trusts under that will are to be administered, the fortune left by the will is squandered away, and the will itself is made a dead letter. All through the deplorable cause, everybody must have copies, over and over again, of everything that has accumulated about it. Cartloads of papers must go up and down through such an infernal country-dance of costs and fees and nonsense and corruption as was never dreamed of. Equity sends questions to law, law sends questions back to equity; and thus, through years and years, everything is constantly beginning over and over again, and nothing ever ends. And we can't get out of the suit, for we must take part in it, whether we like it or not. But it won't do to think of it! When my great uncle, poor Tom Jarndyce, began to think of it, it was the beginning of the end!" "The Mr. Jarndyce, sir, whose story I have heard?" He nodded gravely. "I was his heir, and this was his house, Esther. When I came here, it was bleak indeed. He had left the signs of his misery upon it." "How changed it must be now!" I said. "He gave it its name and lived here shut up, day and night poring over the wicked heaps of papers in the suit and hoping against hope to disentangle it. In the meantime, the place became dilapidated, the wind whistled through the cracked walls, and the rain fell through the broken roof. When I brought his remains home here, the brains seemed to me to have been blown out of the house too, it was so shattered and ruined." He walked a little to and fro after saying this, and then looked at me, and brightened, and came and sat down again with his hands in his pockets. "I told you this was the growlery, my dear. Where was I?" I reminded him, at the change he had made in Bleak House. "Bleak House; true. There is, in that city of London there, some property of ours which is much what Bleak House was then; I say property of ours, meaning of the law-suit's. It is a street of blind houses, with their eyes stoned out, without a pane of glass, with the bare blank shutters tumbling from their hinges, the iron rails peeling away in flakes of rust, the chimneys sinking in, the very foundations decaying. Although Bleak House was not in Chancery, that street it, and is stamped with the same seal. These are the Great Seal's impressions, my dear, all over England!" "How changed this house is!" I said again. "Why, so it is," he answered much more cheerfully; "and you are wise to keep me to the bright side of the picture." (The idea of me being wise!) "These are things I never think about, except in the growlery here. If you consider it right to mention them to Rick and Ada, you can. I leave it to your discretion, Esther." "I hope, sir-" said I. "I think you had better call me guardian, my dear." I felt that I was choking again. But I gave the housekeeping keys a small shake as a reminder to myself, and looked at him quietly. "I hope, guardian," said I, "that you may not trust too much to my discretion. I am afraid it will be a disappointment to you to know that I am not clever; but it is the truth." He did not seem at all disappointed; quite the contrary. He told me, with a smile, that he knew me very well and that I was clever enough for him. "I hope I may turn out so," said I, "but I am much afraid of it, guardian." "You are clever enough," he said playfully, "to be the good little old woman of the nursery rhyme: "Little old woman, and whither so high? "To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky. "You will sweep them so neatly, Esther, that one of these days we shall have to abandon the growlery and nail up the door." This was the beginning of my being called Little Old Woman, and Cobweb, and Mrs. Shipton, and Mother Hubbard, and Dame Durden, and so many names of that sort that my own name soon became quite lost among them. "However," said Mr. Jarndyce, "to return to our gossip. Here's Rick, a fine young fellow full of promise. What's to be done with him?" Oh, my goodness, the idea of asking my advice on such a point! "He must have a profession," said Mr. Jarndyce, stretching out his legs; "he must make some choice for himself. There will be more wiglomeration about it, I suppose, but it must be done." "More what, guardian?" said I. "More wiglomeration," said he. "It's the only name I know for the thing. He is a ward in Chancery, my dear. Kenge and Carboy will have something to say about it; counsel will have something to say about it; the Chancellor will have something to say about it; the whole thing will be vastly ceremonious, wordy, unsatisfactory, and expensive, and I call it wiglomeration." He began to rub his head. But his face recovered its benign expression as he looked at me; and he put his hands in his pockets again. "Perhaps it would be best, first of all," said I, "to ask Mr. Richard what he would like to do." "Exactly so," he returned. "Talk it over, with your tact and in your quiet way, with him and Ada. We are sure to come at the heart of the matter by your means, little woman." I really was frightened at the thought of the importance I was attaining and the number of things that were being confided to me. But of course I said that I would do my best, though I feared that he thought me much wiser than I was. At which he laughed the pleasantest laugh I ever heard. "Come!" he said, rising and pushing back his chair. "I think we may have done with the growlery for one day! Esther, my dear, do you wish to ask me anything?" He looked so attentively at me that I felt sure I understood him. "About myself, sir?" said I. "Yes." "Guardian," said I, venturing to put my hand in his, "nothing! I am sure that if there were anything I ought to know, you would tell it to me. I have nothing to ask you." He drew my hand through his arm and we went away to look for Ada. From that hour I felt quite easy with him, quite content to know no more, quite happy. We lived, at first, rather a busy life at Bleak House, for we had to become acquainted with many people who knew Mr. Jarndyce. It seemed to Ada and me that everybody knew him who wanted to do anything with anybody else's money. It amazed us when we began to sort his letters to find how the great object of the lives of nearly all his correspondents appeared to be to form themselves into committees for getting in money. The ladies threw themselves into committees in the most impassioned manner and collected subscriptions with a vehemence quite extraordinary. They wanted clothes, they wanted coals, they wanted soup, they wanted flannel, they wanted whatever Mr. Jarndyce had - or had not. They were going to raise new buildings, or pay off debts on old buildings; they were going to give a testimonial to Mrs. Jellyby, they were going to have their secretary's portrait painted and presented to his mother-in-law; they were going to get up everything from a marble monument to a silver tea-pot. They took a multitude of titles. They were the Women of England, the Daughters of Britain, the Sisters of all the virtues separately. They appeared to be always canvassing and electing, polling people by tens of thousands. It made our heads ache to think what feverish lives they must lead. Among the ladies who were most distinguished for this rapacious benevolence (if I may use the expression) was a Mrs. Pardiggle, who seemed to be almost as powerful a correspondent as Mrs. Jellyby herself. We observed that the wind always changed when Mrs. Pardiggle became the subject of conversation. Mr. Jarndyce remarked that there were two classes of charitable people; one, the people who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people who did a great deal and made no noise at all. We were therefore curious to see Mrs. Pardiggle, suspecting her to be a type of the former class, and were glad when she called one day with her five young sons. She was a formidable lady with spectacles, a prominent nose, and a loud voice, who knocked down little chairs with her skirts. As only Ada and I were at home, we received her timidly. "These, young ladies," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "are my five boys. You may have seen their names in a printed subscription list sent to our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce. Egbert, my eldest (twelve), is the boy who sent his pocket-money, to the amount of five shillings and threepence, to the Tockahoopo Indians. Oswald, my second (ten and a half), contributed two and nine-pence to the Great National Smithers Testimonial. Francis, my third (nine), one and sixpence halfpenny; Felix, my fourth (seven), eightpence to the Superannuated Widows; Alfred, my youngest (five), has voluntarily enrolled himself in the Infant Bonds of Joy, and is pledged never to use tobacco in any form." We had never seen such dissatisfied children. It was not merely that they were wizened and shrivelled - though they were certainly that - but they looked absolutely ferocious with discontent. At the mention of the Tockahoopo Indians, Egbert gave me a savage frown. The face of each child, as the amount of his contribution was mentioned, darkened. "You have been visiting, I understand," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "at Mrs. Jellyby's?" We said yes, we had passed one night there. "Mrs. Jellyby," pursued the lady, in the same loud, hard tone, "is a benefactor to society. My boys have contributed to the African project - Egbert, one and six, being the entire allowance of nine weeks; Oswald, one and a penny halfpenny; the rest, according to their little means. Nevertheless, I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in all things. I do not go with her in her treatment of her young family. Her young family are excluded from participation in the objects to which she is devoted. This is not my course with my young family. I take them everywhere." At this the eldest child let out a sharp yell, which he turned into a yawn. "They attend matins with me at half-past six o'clock in the morning all the year round," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "and they are with me during the revolving duties of the day. I am a School lady, a Visiting lady, and a Distributing lady; I am on the local Linen Box Committee and many general committees; and my canvassing is very extensive. But they are my companions everywhere; and so they acquire a knowledge of the poor, and of charitable business. My young family are not frivolous; they have attended as many public meetings and lectures as most adults. Alfred (five), who, as I mentioned, has joined the Infant Bonds of Joy, heard a speech of two hours from the chairman that evening." Alfred glowered at us as if he would never forgive the injury of that night. "You know Mr. Gusher?" said our visitor. We were obliged to say that we did not. "The loss is yours, I assure you," said Mrs. Pardiggle. "He is a very fervid, impassioned speaker - full of fire! He would improve almost any occasion you could mention for hours and hours! By this time, young ladies, you have found me out, I dare say?" Ada looked at me in dismay; while I think I must have blushed in my confusion. "Well! I freely admit it, I am a woman of business," announced Mrs. Pardiggle. "I love hard work; I enjoy hard work. The excitement does me good. I don't know what fatigue is." We murmured that it was very astonishing and gratifying, or something to that effect. "I do not understand what it is to be tired; you cannot tire me if you try!" said Mrs. Pardiggle. "The exertion that I go through sometimes astonishes myself. I have seen my young family, and Mr. Pardiggle, quite worn out with witnessing it, when I may truly say I have been as fresh as a lark!" I observed that the eldest boy doubled his right fist and delivered a secret blow into the crown of his cap, which was under his left arm. "If I find a person unwilling to hear what I have to say, I tell them directly, 'I am incapable of fatigue, my good friend, I am never tired, and I mean to go on until I have done.' It answers admirably! Miss Summerson, I hope I shall have your assistance in my visiting rounds immediately." At first I tried to excuse myself on the ground of having occupations which I must not neglect. But as this was ineffectual, I then said that I was not sure of my qualifications for such work - that I had much to learn, myself, before I could teach others. For these reasons I thought it best to be as useful as I could, and to do what kind services I could for those immediately about me, and to try to let that circle of duty gradually and naturally expand itself. All this I said with anything but confidence. "You are wrong, Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "but perhaps you are not equal to hard work, and that makes a vast difference. If you would like to see how I go through my work, I am now about to visit a brickmaker in the neighbourhood (a very bad character) and shall be glad to take you with me. Miss Clare also." Ada and I exchanged looks, and as we were going out in any case, accepted the offer. Mrs. Pardiggle took possession of Ada, and I followed with her family. I am very fond of being confided in by children, but on this occasion it gave me great uneasiness. As soon as we were out of doors, Egbert demanded a shilling of me on the ground that his pocket-money was "boned" from him. On my pointing out the great impropriety of the word, he pinched me and said, "You wouldn't like it! Why does she pretend to give me money, and take it away again? Why do you call it my allowance, and never let me spend it?" These exasperating questions so inflamed his mind and the minds of Oswald and Francis that they all pinched me in a dreadfully expert way, and Felix stamped upon my toes. Little Alfred, who had pledged to abstain from cakes as well as tobacco, so swelled with grief and rage when we passed a pastry-cook's shop that he terrified me by becoming purple. I was glad when we came to the brickmaker's house, though it was one of a cluster of wretched hovels in a brick-field, with pigsties close by and miserable little gardens growing nothing but stagnant pools. At the doors and windows some men and women lounged, and took little notice of us except to laugh to one another or to say something as we passed, about gentlefolks minding their own business. Mrs. Pardiggle, leading the way with a great show of determination and talking loudly about the untidy habits of the people (though I doubted if the best of us could have been tidy in such a place), led us into a cottage. We nearly filled the damp ground-floor room. Besides ourselves, there were a woman with a black eye, nursing a poor little gasping baby; a man, all stained with clay and mud and looking very dissipated, lying at full length on the ground, smoking a pipe; a powerful young man fastening a collar on a dog; and a bold girl doing some washing in very dirty water. They all looked up as we came in, and the woman turned her face towards the fire as if to hide her bruised eye; nobody gave us any welcome. "Well, my friends," said Mrs. Pardiggle, but her voice had not a friendly sound, I thought. "How do you do, all of you? I am here again. I told you, you couldn't tire me, you know." "There an't any more on you to come in, is there?" growled the man on the floor. The young man and the girl both laughed. "You can't tire me, good people," said Mrs. Pardiggle. "I enjoy hard work, and the harder you make mine, the better I like it." "Then make it easy for her!" growled the man upon the floor. "I wants it done, and over. I wants a end of these liberties took with my place. Now you're a-going to pry and question. Well! I'll save you the trouble. Is my daughter a-washin? Yes, she is. Look at the water. Smell it! That's wot we drinks. How do you like it, and what do you think of gin instead! An't my place dirty? Yes, it is dirty - and we've had five dirty and onwholesome children, as is all dead, and so much the better for them, and for us besides. Have I read the little book wot you left? No, I an't. There an't nobody here as knows how to read it; and anyway it's a book fit for a babby. How have I been conducting of myself? Why, I've been drunk for three days; and I'da been drunk four if I'da had the money. Don't I never mean for to go to church? No, I don't, and I shouldn't be expected there, if I did. And how did my wife get that black eye? Why, I give it her!" He had pulled his pipe out of his mouth to say all this, and he now turned over and smoked again. Mrs. Pardiggle pulled out a good book as if it were a constable's staff and she were an inexorable policeman carrying them all off to the station. Ada and I were very uncomfortable. We both felt intrusive and out of place, and we both thought that Mrs. Pardiggle would have got on much better if she had not had such a mechanical way of taking possession of people. The children sulked and stared; while the family took no notice of us whatever. We both felt painfully aware that between us and these people there was an iron barrier which could not be removed by our new friend. How it could be removed, we did not know, but we knew that. Even what Mrs. Pardiggle read seemed ill-chosen for such listeners, and we were relieved when she stopped. The man on the floor said morosely, "Well! You've done, have you?" "For today, I have, my friend. But I am never fatigued. I shall come to you again," returned Mrs. Pardiggle. "So long as you goes now," said he, folding his arms and shutting his eyes with an oath, "you may do wot you like!" Mrs. Pardiggle rose, and expressing her hope that the brickmaker and his house would be improved when she saw them next, she proceeded to another cottage. She supposed that we were following her, but instead, as soon as the space was clear, we approached the woman sitting by the fire to ask if the baby were ill. She only looked at it as it lay on her lap. Ada, whose gentle heart was moved by its appearance, bent down to touch its little face. As she did so, I saw what happened and drew her back. The child died. "Oh, Esther!" cried Ada, sinking on her knees beside it. "Oh, Esther, my love, the little thing! I am so sorry for it. I am so sorry for the mother. I never saw a sight so pitiful as this before! Oh, baby, baby!" Such compassion, such gentleness, as that with which she bent down weeping and put her hand upon the mother's might have softened any mother's heart. The woman gazed at her in astonishment and then burst into tears. Presently I took the light burden from her lap, did what I could to make the baby's rest prettier and gentler, laid it on a shelf, and covered it with my own handkerchief. We tried to comfort the mother, and we whispered to her what Our Saviour said of children. She answered nothing, but sat weeping. When I turned, I found that the young man had taken out the dog and was standing at the door looking in upon us with dry eyes, but quiet. The girl was quiet too and sat in a corner looking on the ground. The man had risen. He still smoked his pipe with an air of defiance, but he was silent. An ugly woman, very poorly clothed, hurried in while I was glancing at them, and coming straight up to the mother, said, "Jenny! Jenny!" The mother rose and fell upon the woman's neck. She also bore bruises on her face and arms. She had no kind of grace about her but the grace of sympathy. Her only words were "Jenny! Jenny!" All the rest was in the tone in which she said them. I thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and shabby and beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one another; to see how they felt for one another amidst the hard trials of their lives. I think the best side of such people is almost hidden from us. We felt it better to withdraw and leave them. We stole out quietly. The man made way for us; he seemed to want to hide that he did this, but we perceived that he did, and thanked him. He made no answer. Ada was full of grief all the way home. There, Richard was so distressed to see her in tears that we arranged to return at night with some little comforts and repeat our visit at the brick-maker's house. We said as little as we could to Mr. Jarndyce, but the wind changed directly. Richard accompanied us at night to the scene. On our way there, we had to pass a noisy drinking-house, where a number of men were flocking about the door. Among them, and prominent in some dispute, was the father of the little child. The sister was standing laughing and talking with some other young women at the corner of the row of cottages, but she seemed ashamed and turned away as we went by. We left Richard within sight of the brickmaker's dwelling and proceeded by ourselves. At the door, we found the woman who had brought consolation standing there looking anxiously out. "It's you, young ladies, is it?" she said in a whisper. "I'm a-watching for my master. My heart's in my mouth. If he was to catch me away from home, he'd pretty near murder me." "Do you mean your husband?" said I. "Yes, miss, my master. Jenny's asleep, quite worn out. She's scarcely had the child off her lap, poor thing, these seven days and nights, except when I've been able to take it for a minute or two." She went softly in and put what we had brought near the miserable bed on which the mother slept. No effort had been made to clean the room; but the small waxen form had been washed, and neatly dressed in some fragments of white linen; and on my handkerchief, which still covered the poor baby, a little bunch of sweet herbs had been laid. "May heaven reward you!" we said to her. "You are a good woman." "Me, young ladies?" she returned with surprise. "Hush! Jenny, Jenny!" The mother had moaned in her sleep. The sound of the familiar voice seemed to calm her, and she was quiet once more. How little I thought, when I raised my handkerchief to look upon the tiny sleeper - how little I thought in whose unquiet bosom that handkerchief would come to lie, after covering the motionless and peaceful breast! The woman replaced it with a compassionate hand; we left her at the door, by turns looking and listening in terror for her husband, and saying in her soothing manner, "Jenny, Jenny!"

Bleak House

Chapter 8: Covering a Multitude of Sins

Mr. Bucket and his fat forefinger are much in consultation together under existing circumstances. When Mr. Bucket has a matter of this pressing interest under his consideration, the fat forefinger seems to rise, to the dignity of a familiar demon. He puts it to his ears, and it whispers information; he puts it to his lips, and it enjoins him to secrecy; he rubs it over his nose, and it sharpens his scent; he shakes it before a guilty man, and it charms him to his destruction. The Augurs of the Detective Temple invariably predict that when Mr. Bucket and that finger are in much conference, a terrible avenger will be heard of before long. Otherwise mildly studious in his observation of human nature, on the whole a benignant philosopher not disposed to be severe upon the follies of mankind, Mr. Bucket pervades a vast number of houses and strolls about an infinity of streets, to outward appearance rather languishing for want of an object. He is in the friendliest condition towards his species and will drink with most of them. He is free with his money, affable in his manners, innocent in his conversation--but through the placid stream of his life there glides an under-current of forefinger. Time and place cannot bind Mr. Bucket. Like man in the abstract, he is here to-day and gone to-morrow--but, very unlike man indeed, he is here again the next day. This evening he will be casually looking into the iron extinguishers at the door of Sir Leicester Dedlock's house in town; and to-morrow morning he will be walking on the leads at Chesney Wold, where erst the old man walked whose ghost is propitiated with a hundred guineas. Drawers, desks, pockets, all things belonging to him, Mr. Bucket examines. A few hours afterwards, he and the Roman will be alone together comparing forefingers. It is likely that these occupations are irreconcilable with home enjoyment, but it is certain that Mr. Bucket at present does not go home. Though in general he highly appreciates the society of Mrs. Bucket--a lady of a natural detective genius, which if it had been improved by professional exercise, might have done great things, but which has paused at the level of a clever amateur--he holds himself aloof from that dear solace. Mrs. Bucket is dependent on their lodger (fortunately an amiable lady in whom she takes an interest) for companionship and conversation. A great crowd assembles in Lincoln's Inn Fields on the day of the funeral. Sir Leicester Dedlock attends the ceremony in person; strictly speaking, there are only three other human followers, that is to say, Lord Doodle, William Buffy, and the debilitated cousin (thrown in as a make-weight), but the amount of inconsolable carriages is immense. The peerage contributes more four-wheeled affliction than has ever been seen in that neighbourhood. Such is the assemblage of armorial bearings on coach panels that the Herald's College might be supposed to have lost its father and mother at a blow. The Duke of Foodle sends a splendid pile of dust and ashes, with silver wheel-boxes, patent axles, all the last improvements, and three bereaved worms, six feet high, holding on behind, in a bunch of woe. All the state coachmen in London seem plunged into mourning; and if that dead old man of the rusty garb be not beyond a taste in horseflesh (which appears impossible), it must be highly gratified this day. Quiet among the undertakers and the equipages and the calves of so many legs all steeped in grief, Mr. Bucket sits concealed in one of the inconsolable carriages and at his ease surveys the crowd through the lattice blinds. He has a keen eye for a crowd--as for what not?--and looking here and there, now from this side of the carriage, now from the other, now up at the house windows, now along the people's heads, nothing escapes him. "And there you are, my partner, eh?" says Mr. Bucket to himself, apostrophizing Mrs. Bucket, stationed, by his favour, on the steps of the deceased's house. "And so you are. And so you are! And very well indeed you are looking, Mrs. Bucket!" The procession has not started yet, but is waiting for the cause of its assemblage to be brought out. Mr. Bucket, in the foremost emblazoned carriage, uses his two fat forefingers to hold the lattice a hair's breadth open while he looks. And it says a great deal for his attachment, as a husband, that he is still occupied with Mrs. B. "There you are, my partner, eh?" he murmuringly repeats. "And our lodger with you. I'm taking notice of you, Mrs. Bucket; I hope you're all right in your health, my dear!" Not another word does Mr. Bucket say, but sits with most attentive eyes until the sacked depository of noble secrets is brought down--Where are all those secrets now? Does he keep them yet? Did they fly with him on that sudden journey?--and until the procession moves, and Mr. Bucket's view is changed. After which he composes himself for an easy ride and takes note of the fittings of the carriage in case he should ever find such knowledge useful. Contrast enough between Mr. Tulkinghorn shut up in his dark carriage and Mr. Bucket shut up in HIS. Between the immeasurable track of space beyond the little wound that has thrown the one into the fixed sleep which jolts so heavily over the stones of the streets, and the narrow track of blood which keeps the other in the watchful state expressed in every hair of his head! But it is all one to both; neither is troubled about that. Mr. Bucket sits out the procession in his own easy manner and glides from the carriage when the opportunity he has settled with himself arrives. He makes for Sir Leicester Dedlock's, which is at present a sort of home to him, where he comes and goes as he likes at all hours, where he is always welcome and made much of, where he knows the whole establishment, and walks in an atmosphere of mysterious greatness. No knocking or ringing for Mr. Bucket. He has caused himself to be provided with a key and can pass in at his pleasure. As he is crossing the hall, Mercury informs him, "Here's another letter for you, Mr. Bucket, come by post," and gives it him. "Another one, eh?" says Mr. Bucket. If Mercury should chance to be possessed by any lingering curiosity as to Mr. Bucket's letters, that wary person is not the man to gratify it. Mr. Bucket looks at him as if his face were a vista of some miles in length and he were leisurely contemplating the same. "Do you happen to carry a box?" says Mr. Bucket. Unfortunately Mercury is no snuff-taker. "Could you fetch me a pinch from anywheres?" says Mr. Bucket. "Thankee. It don't matter what it is; I'm not particular as to the kind. Thankee!" Having leisurely helped himself from a canister borrowed from somebody downstairs for the purpose, and having made a considerable show of tasting it, first with one side of his nose and then with the other, Mr. Bucket, with much deliberation, pronounces it of the right sort and goes on, letter in hand. Now although Mr. Bucket walks upstairs to the little library within the larger one with the face of a man who receives some scores of letters every day, it happens that much correspondence is not incidental to his life. He is no great scribe, rather handling his pen like the pocket-staff he carries about with him always convenient to his grasp, and discourages correspondence with himself in others as being too artless and direct a way of doing delicate business. Further, he often sees damaging letters produced in evidence and has occasion to reflect that it was a green thing to write them. For these reasons he has very little to do with letters, either as sender or receiver. And yet he has received a round half-dozen within the last twenty-four hours. "And this," says Mr. Bucket, spreading it out on the table, "is in the same hand, and consists of the same two words." What two words? He turns the key in the door, ungirdles his black pocket-book (book of fate to many), lays another letter by it, and reads, boldly written in each, "Lady Dedlock." "Yes, yes," says Mr. Bucket. "But I could have made the money without this anonymous information." Having put the letters in his book of fate and girdled it up again, he unlocks the door just in time to admit his dinner, which is brought upon a goodly tray with a decanter of sherry. Mr. Bucket frequently observes, in friendly circles where there is no restraint, that he likes a toothful of your fine old brown East Inder sherry better than anything you can offer him. Consequently he fills and empties his glass with a smack of his lips and is proceeding with his refreshment when an idea enters his mind. Mr. Bucket softly opens the door of communication between that room and the next and looks in. The library is deserted, and the fire is sinking low. Mr. Bucket's eye, after taking a pigeon-flight round the room, alights upon a table where letters are usually put as they arrive. Several letters for Sir Leicester are upon it. Mr. Bucket draws near and examines the directions. "No," he says, "there's none in that hand. It's only me as is written to. I can break it to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to-morrow." With that he returns to finish his dinner with a good appetite, and after a light nap, is summoned into the drawing-room. Sir Leicester has received him there these several evenings past to know whether he has anything to report. The debilitated cousin (much exhausted by the funeral) and Volumnia are in attendance. Mr. Bucket makes three distinctly different bows to these three people. A bow of homage to Sir Leicester, a bow of gallantry to Volumnia, and a bow of recognition to the debilitated Cousin, to whom it airily says, "You are a swell about town, and you know me, and I know you." Having distributed these little specimens of his tact, Mr. Bucket rubs his hands. "Have you anything new to communicate, officer?" inquires Sir Leicester. "Do you wish to hold any conversation with me in private?" "Why--not to-night, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet." "Because my time," pursues Sir Leicester, "is wholly at your disposal with a view to the vindication of the outraged majesty of the law." Mr. Bucket coughs and glances at Volumnia, rouged and necklaced, as though he would respectfully observe, "I do assure you, you're a pretty creetur. I've seen hundreds worse looking at your time of life, I have indeed." The fair Volumnia, not quite unconscious perhaps of the humanizing influence of her charms, pauses in the writing of cocked-hat notes and meditatively adjusts the pearl necklace. Mr. Bucket prices that decoration in his mind and thinks it as likely as not that Volumnia is writing poetry. "If I have not," pursues Sir Leicester, "in the most emphatic manner, adjured you, officer, to exercise your utmost skill in this atrocious case, I particularly desire to take the present opportunity of rectifying any omission I may have made. Let no expense be a consideration. I am prepared to defray all charges. You can incur none in pursuit of the object you have undertaken that I shall hesitate for a moment to bear." Mr. Bucket made Sir Leicester's bow again as a response to this liberality. "My mind," Sir Leicester adds with a generous warmth, "has not, as may be easily supposed, recovered its tone since the late diabolical occurrence. It is not likely ever to recover its tone. But it is full of indignation to-night after undergoing the ordeal of consigning to the tomb the remains of a faithful, a zealous, a devoted adherent." Sir Leicester's voice trembles and his grey hair stirs upon his head. Tears are in his eyes; the best part of his nature is aroused. "I declare," he says, "I solemnly declare that until this crime is discovered and, in the course of justice, punished, I almost feel as if there were a stain upon my name. A gentleman who has devoted a large portion of his life to me, a gentleman who has devoted the last day of his life to me, a gentleman who has constantly sat at my table and slept under my roof, goes from my house to his own, and is struck down within an hour of his leaving my house. I cannot say but that he may have been followed from my house, watched at my house, even first marked because of his association with my house--which may have suggested his possessing greater wealth and being altogether of greater importance than his own retiring demeanour would have indicated. If I cannot with my means and influence and my position bring all the perpetrators of such a crime to light, I fail in the assertion of my respect for that gentleman's memory and of my fidelity towards one who was ever faithful to me." While he makes this protestation with great emotion and earnestness, looking round the room as if he were addressing an assembly, Mr. Bucket glances at him with an observant gravity in which there might be, but for the audacity of the thought, a touch of compassion. "The ceremony of to-day," continues Sir Leicester, "strikingly illustrative of the respect in which my deceased friend"--he lays a stress upon the word, for death levels all distinctions--"was held by the flower of the land, has, I say, aggravated the shock I have received from this most horrible and audacious crime. If it were my brother who had committed it, I would not spare him." Mr. Bucket looks very grave. Volumnia remarks of the deceased that he was the trustiest and dearest person! "You must feel it as a deprivation to you, miss," replies Mr. Bucket soothingly, "no doubt. He was calculated to BE a deprivation, I'm sure he was." Volumnia gives Mr. Bucket to understand, in reply, that her sensitive mind is fully made up never to get the better of it as long as she lives, that her nerves are unstrung for ever, and that she has not the least expectation of ever smiling again. Meanwhile she folds up a cocked hat for that redoubtable old general at Bath, descriptive of her melancholy condition. "It gives a start to a delicate female," says Mr. Bucket sympathetically, "but it'll wear off." Volumnia wishes of all things to know what is doing? Whether they are going to convict, or whatever it is, that dreadful soldier? Whether he had any accomplices, or whatever the thing is called in the law? And a great deal more to the like artless purpose. "Why you see, miss," returns Mr. Bucket, bringing the finger into persuasive action--and such is his natural gallantry that he had almost said "my dear"--"it ain't easy to answer those questions at the present moment. Not at the present moment. I've kept myself on this case, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," whom Mr. Bucket takes into the conversation in right of his importance, "morning, noon, and night. But for a glass or two of sherry, I don't think I could have had my mind so much upon the stretch as it has been. I COULD answer your questions, miss, but duty forbids it. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, will very soon be made acquainted with all that has been traced. And I hope that he may find it"--Mr. Bucket again looks grave--"to his satisfaction." The debilitated cousin only hopes some fler'll be executed--zample. Thinks more interest's wanted--get man hanged presentime--than get man place ten thousand a year. Hasn't a doubt--zample--far better hang wrong fler than no fler. "YOU know life, you know, sir," says Mr. Bucket with a complimentary twinkle of his eye and crook of his finger, "and you can confirm what I've mentioned to this lady. YOU don't want to be told that from information I have received I have gone to work. You're up to what a lady can't be expected to be up to. Lord! Especially in your elevated station of society, miss," says Mr. Bucket, quite reddening at another narrow escape from "my dear." "The officer, Volumnia," observes Sir Leicester, "is faithful to his duty, and perfectly right." Mr. Bucket murmurs, "Glad to have the honour of your approbation, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet." "In fact, Volumnia," proceeds Sir Leicester, "it is not holding up a good model for imitation to ask the officer any such questions as you have put to him. He is the best judge of his own responsibility; he acts upon his responsibility. And it does not become us, who assist in making the laws, to impede or interfere with those who carry them into execution. Or," says Sir Leicester somewhat sternly, for Volumnia was going to cut in before he had rounded his sentence, "or who vindicate their outraged majesty." Volumnia with all humility explains that she had not merely the plea of curiosity to urge (in common with the giddy youth of her sex in general) but that she is perfectly dying with regret and interest for the darling man whose loss they all deplore. "Very well, Volumnia," returns Sir Leicester. "Then you cannot be too discreet." Mr. Bucket takes the opportunity of a pause to be heard again. "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I have no objections to telling this lady, with your leave and among ourselves, that I look upon the case as pretty well complete. It is a beautiful case--a beautiful case--and what little is wanting to complete it, I expect to be able to supply in a few hours." "I am very glad indeed to hear it," says Sir Leicester. "Highly creditable to you." "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket very seriously, "I hope it may at one and the same time do me credit and prove satisfactory to all. When I depict it as a beautiful case, you see, miss," Mr. Bucket goes on, glancing gravely at Sir Leicester, "I mean from my point of view. As considered from other points of view, such cases will always involve more or less unpleasantness. Very strange things comes to our knowledge in families, miss; bless your heart, what you would think to be phenomenons, quite." Volumnia, with her innocent little scream, supposes so. "Aye, and even in gen-teel families, in high families, in great families," says Mr. Bucket, again gravely eyeing Sir Leicester aside. "I have had the honour of being employed in high families before, and you have no idea--come, I'll go so far as to say not even YOU have any idea, sir," this to the debilitated cousin, "what games goes on!" The cousin, who has been casting sofa-pillows on his head, in a prostration of boredom yawns, "Vayli," being the used-up for "very likely." Sir Leicester, deeming it time to dismiss the officer, here majestically interposes with the words, "Very good. Thank you!" and also with a wave of his hand, implying not only that there is an end of the discourse, but that if high families fall into low habits they must take the consequences. "You will not forget, officer," he adds with condescension, "that I am at your disposal when you please." Mr. Bucket (still grave) inquires if to-morrow morning, now, would suit, in case he should be as for'ard as he expects to be. Sir Leicester replies, "All times are alike to me." Mr. Bucket makes his three bows and is withdrawing when a forgotten point occurs to him. "Might I ask, by the by," he says in a low voice, cautiously returning, "who posted the reward-bill on the staircase." "I ordered it to be put up there," replies Sir Leicester. "Would it be considered a liberty, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, if I was to ask you why?" "Not at all. I chose it as a conspicuous part of the house. I think it cannot be too prominently kept before the whole establishment. I wish my people to be impressed with the enormity of the crime, the determination to punish it, and the hopelessness of escape. At the same time, officer, if you in your better knowledge of the subject see any objection--" Mr. Bucket sees none now; the bill having been put up, had better not be taken down. Repeating his three bows he withdraws, closing the door on Volumnia's little scream, which is a preliminary to her remarking that that charmingly horrible person is a perfect Blue Chamber. In his fondness for society and his adaptability to all grades, Mr. Bucket is presently standing before the hall-fire--bright and warm on the early winter night--admiring Mercury. "Why, you're six foot two, I suppose?" says Mr. Bucket. "Three," says Mercury. "Are you so much? But then, you see, you're broad in proportion and don't look it. You're not one of the weak-legged ones, you ain't. Was you ever modelled now?" Mr. Bucket asks, conveying the expression of an artist into the turn of his eye and head. Mercury never was modelled. "Then you ought to be, you know," says Mr. Bucket; "and a friend of mine that you'll hear of one day as a Royal Academy sculptor would stand something handsome to make a drawing of your proportions for the marble. My Lady's out, ain't she?" "Out to dinner." "Goes out pretty well every day, don't she?" "Yes." "Not to be wondered at!" says Mr. Bucket. "Such a fine woman as her, so handsome and so graceful and so elegant, is like a fresh lemon on a dinner-table, ornamental wherever she goes. Was your father in the same way of life as yourself?" Answer in the negative. "Mine was," says Mr. Bucket. "My father was first a page, then a footman, then a butler, then a steward, then an inn-keeper. Lived universally respected, and died lamented. Said with his last breath that he considered service the most honourable part of his career, and so it was. I've a brother in service, AND a brother-in-law. My Lady a good temper?" Mercury replies, "As good as you can expect." "Ah!" says Mr. Bucket. "A little spoilt? A little capricious? Lord! What can you anticipate when they're so handsome as that? And we like 'em all the better for it, don't we?" Mercury, with his hands in the pockets of his bright peach-blossom small-clothes, stretches his symmetrical silk legs with the air of a man of gallantry and can't deny it. Come the roll of wheels and a violent ringing at the bell. "Talk of the angels," says Mr. Bucket. "Here she is!" The doors are thrown open, and she passes through the hall. Still very pale, she is dressed in slight mourning and wears two beautiful bracelets. Either their beauty or the beauty of her arms is particularly attractive to Mr. Bucket. He looks at them with an eager eye and rattles something in his pocket--halfpence perhaps. Noticing him at his distance, she turns an inquiring look on the other Mercury who has brought her home. "Mr. Bucket, my Lady." Mr. Bucket makes a leg and comes forward, passing his familiar demon over the region of his mouth. "Are you waiting to see Sir Leicester?" "No, my Lady, I've seen him!" "Have you anything to say to me?" "Not just at present, my Lady." "Have you made any new discoveries?" "A few, my Lady." This is merely in passing. She scarcely makes a stop, and sweeps upstairs alone. Mr. Bucket, moving towards the staircase-foot, watches her as she goes up the steps the old man came down to his grave, past murderous groups of statuary repeated with their shadowy weapons on the wall, past the printed bill, which she looks at going by, out of view. "She's a lovely woman, too, she really is," says Mr. Bucket, coming back to Mercury. "Don't look quite healthy though." Is not quite healthy, Mercury informs him. Suffers much from headaches. Really? That's a pity! Walking, Mr. Bucket would recommend for that. Well, she tries walking, Mercury rejoins. Walks sometimes for two hours when she has them bad. By night, too. "Are you sure you're quite so much as six foot three?" asks Mr. Bucket. "Begging your pardon for interrupting you a moment?" Not a doubt about it. "You're so well put together that I shouldn't have thought it. But the household troops, though considered fine men, are built so straggling. Walks by night, does she? When it's moonlight, though?" Oh, yes. When it's moonlight! Of course. Oh, of course! Conversational and acquiescent on both sides. "I suppose you ain't in the habit of walking yourself?" says Mr. Bucket. "Not much time for it, I should say?" Besides which, Mercury don't like it. Prefers carriage exercise. "To be sure," says Mr. Bucket. "That makes a difference. Now I think of it," says Mr. Bucket, warming his hands and looking pleasantly at the blaze, "she went out walking the very night of this business." "To be sure she did! I let her into the garden over the way." "And left her there. Certainly you did. I saw you doing it." "I didn't see YOU," says Mercury. "I was rather in a hurry," returns Mr. Bucket, "for I was going to visit a aunt of mine that lives at Chelsea--next door but two to the old original Bun House--ninety year old the old lady is, a single woman, and got a little property. Yes, I chanced to be passing at the time. Let's see. What time might it be? It wasn't ten." "Half-past nine." "You're right. So it was. And if I don't deceive myself, my Lady was muffled in a loose black mantle, with a deep fringe to it?" "Of course she was." Of course she was. Mr. Bucket must return to a little work he has to get on with upstairs, but he must shake hands with Mercury in acknowledgment of his agreeable conversation, and will he--this is all he asks--will he, when he has a leisure half-hour, think of bestowing it on that Royal Academy sculptor, for the advantage of both parties?

Mr. Bucket and his fat forefinger are much in consultation together at present. When Mr. Bucket is considering a matter of this pressing interest, the fat forefinger is in frequent use. He puts it to his ears; he puts it to his lips; he rubs it over his nose; he shakes it before a guilty man. Mr. Bucket pervades a vast number of houses and strolls about an infinity of streets, to outward appearance rather languishing for want of an object. He is in the friendliest condition towards others and will drink with most of them. He is free with his money, affable in his manners, innocent in his conversation - but through the placid stream of his life there glides an under-current of forefinger. Mr. Bucket is here today and gone tomorrow - and then here again the next day. This evening he will be casually looking past the door of Sir Leicester Dedlock's house in town; and tomorrow morning he will be walking on the turrets at Chesney Wold, where once the deceased old man walked. Drawers, desks, pockets, all things belonging to Tulkinghorn, Mr. Bucket examines. Mr. Bucket at present does not go home. Though in general he highly appreciates the society of Mrs. Bucket - a lady of a natural detective genius, which if it had been improved by professional exercise, might have done great things, but which has paused at the level of a clever amateur - he holds himself aloof for now. Mrs. Bucket is dependent on their lodger (fortunately an amiable lady in whom she takes an interest) for companionship. A great crowd assembles in Lincoln's Inn Fields on the day of the funeral. Sir Leicester Dedlock attends; there are only three other human followers, but the amount of inconsolable carriages is immense. The peerage contributes more four-wheeled affliction than has ever been seen in that neighbourhood. All the state coachmen in London seem plunged into mourning. Quiet among the undertakers, Mr. Bucket sits concealed in one of the inconsolable carriages and at his ease surveys the crowd keenly through the blinds. He looks here and there, up and down, now at the house windows, now along the people's heads; nothing escapes him. "And there you are, my partner, eh?" says Mr. Bucket to himself, meaning Mrs. Bucket, stationed, by his favour, on the steps of the deceased's house. "And very well indeed you are looking, Mrs. Bucket!" The procession has not started yet, but is waiting for the coffin to be brought out. Mr. Bucket uses his two fat forefingers to hold the window a hair's breadth open while he looks. And it says a great deal for his attachment as a husband, that he is still occupied with Mrs. B. "There you are, my partner, eh?" he murmuringly repeats. "And our lodger with you. I see you, Mrs. Bucket; I hope you're well, my dear!" Not another word does Mr. Bucket say, but sits with most attentive eyes until the coffin is brought down and the procession moves, and his view is changed. After which he composes himself for an easy ride and takes note of the fittings of the carriage in case he should ever find such knowledge useful. Mr. Bucket glides from the carriage when the right opportunity arrives. He makes for Sir Leicester Dedlock's, which is at present a sort of home to him, where he comes and goes as he likes at all hours, where he is always welcome, and walks in an atmosphere of mysterious greatness. Mr. Bucket has a key and can pass in at his pleasure. As he is crossing the hall, a footman informs him, "Here's another letter for you, Mr. Bucket, come by post." "Another one, eh?" says Mr. Bucket. He goes on, letter in hand. Now although Mr. Bucket walks upstairs to a little room in the library with the face of a man who receives scores of letters every day, his life does not involve much correspondence. He is no great scribe, and discourages letters from others as being too artless and direct a way of doing delicate business. He often sees damaging letters produced in evidence and reflects that it was naive to write them. For these reasons he has very little to do with letters, either as sender or receiver. And yet he has received half-a-dozen within the last twenty-four hours. "And this," says Mr. Bucket, spreading it out on the table, "is in the same hand, and consists of the same two words." He locks the door, takes out his black pocket-book, lays another letter by it, and reads, boldly written in each: "Lady Dedlock." "Yes, yes," says Mr. Bucket. "But I could have made the money without this anonymous information." Having put the letters in his book, he unlocks the door just in time to admit his dinner, which is brought in with a decanter of sherry. Mr. Bucket fills and empties his glass with a smack of his lips and is proceeding with his refreshment when an idea enters his mind. Mr. Bucket softly opens the door between that room and the next and looks in. The library is deserted, and the fire is sinking low. Mr. Bucket's eye alights upon a table where letters are usually put as they arrive. Several letters for Sir Leicester are upon it. Mr. Bucket draws near and examines the directions. "No," he says, "there's none in that hand. It's only me as is written to. I can break it to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, tomorrow." With that he returns to finish his dinner with a good appetite, and after a light nap, is summoned into the drawing-room. Sir Leicester has received him there these several evenings past to know whether he has anything to report. The debilitated cousin and Volumnia are in attendance. "Have you anything new to communicate, officer?" inquires Sir Leicester. "Do you wish to hold any conversation with me in private?" "Not tonight, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet." "Because my time," pursues Sir Leicester, "is wholly at your disposal with a view to the vindication of the outraged majesty of the law." Mr. Bucket coughs and glances at Volumnia, rouged and necklaced, as though to respectfully observe, "I do assure you, you're a pretty creetur. I've seen hundreds worse looking at your time of life, I have indeed." The fair Volumnia pauses in her writing to adjust the pearl necklace. Mr. Bucket prices that decoration in his mind and thinks it as likely as not that Volumnia is writing poetry. "I am prepared to defray all costs," pursues Sir Leicester, "to enable you to exercise your utmost skill in this atrocious case. Let no expense be a consideration." Mr. Bucket makes a bow. "I declare," says Sir Leicester, his voice trembling and tears in his eyes, "I solemnly declare that until this crime is solved and punished, I almost feel as if there were a stain upon my name. A gentleman who has devoted a large portion of his life to me, who has sat at my table and slept under my roof, is struck down within an hour of his leaving my house. He may have been followed from my house, even marked because of his association with my house - which may have suggested his possessing greater wealth than his own appearance would have indicated. If I cannot with my influence bring the perpetrators of the crime to light, I fail in my respect for that gentleman's memory." While he says this with great emotion, Mr. Bucket glances at him with an observant gravity in which there might be a touch of compassion. "If it were my brother who had committed this horrible and audacious crime," continues Sir Leicester, "I would not spare him." Mr. Bucket looks very grave. Volumnia remarks of the deceased that he was the trustiest and dearest person! "You must feel it as a deprivation to you, miss," replies Mr. Bucket soothingly. Volumnia indicates that her sensitive mind is fully made up never to get over it, that her nerves are unstrung for ever, and that she does not expect ever to smile again. Are they are going to convict, or whatever it is, that dreadful soldier? Did he have any accomplices, or whatever the thing is called? "Why you see, miss," returns Mr. Bucket, bringing the finger into persuasive action, "it ain't easy to answer those questions. Not at the present moment. I've kept myself on this case, morning, noon, and night. I could answer your questions, miss, but duty forbids it. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, will very soon be made acquainted with all that has been traced. And I hope that he may find it" - Mr. Bucket again looks grave - "to his satisfaction." The debilitated cousin only hopes some fella'll be executed - zample. Far better hang wrong fella than no fella. "In fact, Volumnia," proceeds Sir Leicester, "it is not advisable to ask the officer any such questions. He is the best judge of his own responsibility. And it does not become us, who assist in making the laws, to interfere with those who carry them into execution." "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," says Mr. Bucket, "I have no objections to telling this lady, with your leave, that I look upon the case as pretty well complete. It is a beautiful case, and what little is wanting to complete it, I expect to be able to supply in a few hours." "I am very glad indeed to hear it," says Sir Leicester. "Highly creditable to you." "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket very seriously, "I hope it may do me credit and prove satisfactory to all. When I depict it as a beautiful case, you see, miss," he goes on, "I mean from my point of view. As considered from other points of view, such cases will always involve some unpleasantness. Very strange things come to our knowledge in families, miss." Volumnia, with her innocent little scream, supposes so. "Aye, even in high families, in great families," says Mr. Bucket, gravely eyeing Sir Leicester. Sir Leicester, deeming it time to dismiss the officer, here majestically interposes with, "Very good. Thank you!" and with a wave of his hand. Mr. Bucket (still grave) inquires if tomorrow morning would suit, if he is then as for'ard as he expects to be. Sir Leicester replies, "All times are alike to me." Mr. Bucket bows and is withdrawing when a forgotten point occurs to him. "Might I ask, by the by, who posted the reward-bill on the staircase?" "I ordered it to be put up there," replies Sir Leicester. "Would it be considered a liberty, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, if I was to ask you why?" "Not at all. I chose it as a conspicuous part of the house. I wish my people to be impressed with the enormity of the crime, the determination to punish it, and the hopelessness of escape." Mr. Bucket repeats his bows and withdraws. Soon he is standing before the bright hall-fire, admiring the footman. "Why, you're six foot two, I suppose?" says Mr. Bucket. "Three," says the footman. "Are you so much? But then, you see, you're broad in proportion and don't look it. A Royal Academy sculptor would pay something handsome to make a drawing of your proportions for the marble. My Lady's out, ain't she?" "Out to dinner." "Goes out pretty well every day, don't she?" "Yes." "Not to be wondered at!" says Mr. Bucket. "Such a fine woman as her. My Lady in a good temper?" "As good as you can expect." "Ah!" says Mr. Bucket. "A little spoilt? A little capricious? Lord! What can you anticipate when they're so handsome as that? And we like 'em all the better for it, don't we?" The footman, with his hands in his pockets, can't deny it. Come the roll of wheels and a violent ringing at the bell. "Talk of the angels," says Mr. Bucket. "Here she is!" The doors are thrown open, and she passes through the hall. Still very pale, she is dressed in slight mourning and wears two beautiful bracelets. Either their beauty or the beauty of her arms is particularly attractive to Mr. Bucket. He looks at them with an eager eye. Noticing him, she turns an inquiring look on the manservant. "Mr. Bucket, my Lady." Mr. Bucket bows and comes forward, passing his forefinger over his mouth. "Are you waiting to see Sir Leicester?" "No, my Lady, I've seen him!" "Have you anything to say to me?" "Not just at present, my Lady." "Have you made any new discoveries?" "A few, my Lady." This is merely in passing. She scarcely makes a stop, and sweeps upstairs alone. Mr. Bucket watches her as she goes up the steps, past the printed bill, which she looks at going by, and out of view. "She's a lovely woman, she really is," says Mr. Bucket to the footman. "Don't look quite healthy though." Suffers much from headaches, he is informed. Really? That's a pity! Walking, Mr. Bucket would recommend for that. Well, she tries walking, the footman rejoins. Walks sometimes for two hours when she has them bad. By night, too. "When it's moonlight, though?" Oh, yes. "Now I think of it," says Mr. Bucket, warming his hands at the blaze, "she went out walking the very night of this business." "To be sure she did! I let her into the garden over the way." "Certainly. I saw you doing it." "I didn't see you," says the footman. "I was rather in a hurry," returns Mr. Bucket, "for I was going to visit a aunt of mine that lives at Chelsea - ninety year old. Yes, I chanced to be passing at the time. Let's see. What time might it be? It wasn't ten." "Half-past nine." "So it was. And if I don't deceive myself, my Lady was muffled in a loose black mantle, with a deep fringe to it?" Of course she was. Of course. Mr. Bucket must return to a little work upstairs, but he shakes hands in acknowledgment of his agreeable conversation before he goes.

Bleak House

Chapter 53: The Track

If the secret I had to keep had been mine, I must have confided it to Ada before we had been long together. But it was not mine, and I did not feel that I had a right to tell it, even to my guardian, unless some great emergency arose. It was a weight to bear alone; still my present duty appeared to be plain, and blest in the attachment of my dear, I did not want an impulse and encouragement to do it. Though often when she was asleep and all was quiet, the remembrance of my mother kept me waking and made the night sorrowful, I did not yield to it at another time; and Ada found me what I used to be--except, of course, in that particular of which I have said enough and which I have no intention of mentioning any more just now, if I can help it. The difficulty that I felt in being quite composed that first evening when Ada asked me, over our work, if the family were at the house, and when I was obliged to answer yes, I believed so, for Lady Dedlock had spoken to me in the woods the day before yesterday, was great. Greater still when Ada asked me what she had said, and when I replied that she had been kind and interested, and when Ada, while admitting her beauty and elegance, remarked upon her proud manner and her imperious chilling air. But Charley helped me through, unconsciously, by telling us that Lady Dedlock had only stayed at the house two nights on her way from London to visit at some other great house in the next county and that she had left early on the morning after we had seen her at our view, as we called it. Charley verified the adage about little pitchers, I am sure, for she heard of more sayings and doings in a day than would have come to my ears in a month. We were to stay a month at Mr. Boythorn's. My pet had scarcely been there a bright week, as I recollect the time, when one evening after we had finished helping the gardener in watering his flowers, and just as the candles were lighted, Charley, appearing with a very important air behind Ada's chair, beckoned me mysteriously out of the room. "Oh! If you please, miss," said Charley in a whisper, with her eyes at their roundest and largest. "You're wanted at the Dedlock Arms." "Why, Charley," said I, "who can possibly want me at the public-house?" "I don't know, miss," returned Charley, putting her head forward and folding her hands tight upon the band of her little apron, which she always did in the enjoyment of anything mysterious or confidential, "but it's a gentleman, miss, and his compliments, and will you please to come without saying anything about it." "Whose compliments, Charley?" "His'n, miss," returned Charley, whose grammatical education was advancing, but not very rapidly. "And how do you come to be the messenger, Charley?" "I am not the messenger, if you please, miss," returned my little maid. "It was W. Grubble, miss." "And who is W. Grubble, Charley?" "Mister Grubble, miss," returned Charley. "Don't you know, miss? The Dedlock Arms, by W. Grubble," which Charley delivered as if she were slowly spelling out the sign. "Aye? The landlord, Charley?" "Yes, miss. If you please, miss, his wife is a beautiful woman, but she broke her ankle, and it never joined. And her brother's the sawyer that was put in the cage, miss, and they expect he'll drink himself to death entirely on beer," said Charley. Not knowing what might be the matter, and being easily apprehensive now, I thought it best to go to this place by myself. I bade Charley be quick with my bonnet and veil and my shawl, and having put them on, went away down the little hilly street, where I was as much at home as in Mr. Boythorn's garden. Mr. Grubble was standing in his shirt-sleeves at the door of his very clean little tavern waiting for me. He lifted off his hat with both hands when he saw me coming, and carrying it so, as if it were an iron vessel (it looked as heavy), preceded me along the sanded passage to his best parlour, a neat carpeted room with more plants in it than were quite convenient, a coloured print of Queen Caroline, several shells, a good many tea-trays, two stuffed and dried fish in glass cases, and either a curious egg or a curious pumpkin (but I don't know which, and I doubt if many people did) hanging from his ceiling. I knew Mr. Grubble very well by sight, from his often standing at his door. A pleasant-looking, stoutish, middle-aged man who never seemed to consider himself cozily dressed for his own fire-side without his hat and top-boots, but who never wore a coat except at church. He snuffed the candle, and backing away a little to see how it looked, backed out of the room--unexpectedly to me, for I was going to ask him by whom he had been sent. The door of the opposite parlour being then opened, I heard some voices, familiar in my ears I thought, which stopped. A quick light step approached the room in which I was, and who should stand before me but Richard! "My dear Esther!" he said. "My best friend!" And he really was so warm-hearted and earnest that in the first surprise and pleasure of his brotherly greeting I could scarcely find breath to tell him that Ada was well. "Answering my very thoughts--always the same dear girl!" said Richard, leading me to a chair and seating himself beside me. I put my veil up, but not quite. "Always the same dear girl!" said Richard just as heartily as before. I put up my veil altogether, and laying my hand on Richard's sleeve and looking in his face, told him how much I thanked him for his kind welcome and how greatly I rejoiced to see him, the more so because of the determination I had made in my illness, which I now conveyed to him. "My love," said Richard, "there is no one with whom I have a greater wish to talk than you, for I want you to understand me." "And I want you, Richard," said I, shaking my head, "to understand some one else." "Since you refer so immediately to John Jarndyce," said Richard, "--I suppose you mean him?" "Of course I do." "Then I may say at once that I am glad of it, because it is on that subject that I am anxious to be understood. By you, mind--you, my dear! I am not accountable to Mr. Jarndyce or Mr. Anybody." I was pained to find him taking this tone, and he observed it. "Well, well, my dear," said Richard, "we won't go into that now. I want to appear quietly in your country-house here, with you under my arm, and give my charming cousin a surprise. I suppose your loyalty to John Jarndyce will allow that?" "My dear Richard," I returned, "you know you would be heartily welcome at his house--your home, if you will but consider it so; and you are as heartily welcome here!" "Spoken like the best of little women!" cried Richard gaily. I asked him how he liked his profession. "Oh, I like it well enough!" said Richard. "It's all right. It does as well as anything else, for a time. I don't know that I shall care about it when I come to be settled, but I can sell out then and--however, never mind all that botheration at present." So young and handsome, and in all respects so perfectly the opposite of Miss Flite! And yet, in the clouded, eager, seeking look that passed over him, so dreadfully like her! "I am in town on leave just now," said Richard. "Indeed?" "Yes. I have run over to look after my--my Chancery interests before the long vacation," said Richard, forcing a careless laugh. "We are beginning to spin along with that old suit at last, I promise you." No wonder that I shook my head! "As you say, it's not a pleasant subject." Richard spoke with the same shade crossing his face as before. "Let it go to the four winds for to-night. Puff! Gone! Who do you suppose is with me?" "Was it Mr. Skimpole's voice I heard?" "That's the man! He does me more good than anybody. What a fascinating child it is!" I asked Richard if any one knew of their coming down together. He answered, no, nobody. He had been to call upon the dear old infant--so he called Mr. Skimpole--and the dear old infant had told him where we were, and he had told the dear old infant he was bent on coming to see us, and the dear old infant had directly wanted to come too; and so he had brought him. "And he is worth--not to say his sordid expenses--but thrice his weight in gold," said Richard. "He is such a cheery fellow. No worldliness about him. Fresh and green-hearted!" I certainly did not see the proof of Mr. Skimpole's worldliness in his having his expenses paid by Richard, but I made no remark about that. Indeed, he came in and turned our conversation. He was charmed to see me, said he had been shedding delicious tears of joy and sympathy at intervals for six weeks on my account, had never been so happy as in hearing of my progress, began to understand the mixture of good and evil in the world now, felt that he appreciated health the more when somebody else was ill, didn't know but what it might be in the scheme of things that A should squint to make B happier in looking straight or that C should carry a wooden leg to make D better satisfied with his flesh and blood in a silk stocking. "My dear Miss Summerson, here is our friend Richard," said Mr. Skimpole, "full of the brightest visions of the future, which he evokes out of the darkness of Chancery. Now that's delightful, that's inspiriting, that's full of poetry! In old times the woods and solitudes were made joyous to the shepherd by the imaginary piping and dancing of Pan and the nymphs. This present shepherd, our pastoral Richard, brightens the dull Inns of Court by making Fortune and her train sport through them to the melodious notes of a judgment from the bench. That's very pleasant, you know! Some ill-conditioned growling fellow may say to me, 'What's the use of these legal and equitable abuses? How do you defend them?' I reply, 'My growling friend, I DON'T defend them, but they are very agreeable to me. There is a shepherd--youth, a friend of mine, who transmutes them into something highly fascinating to my simplicity. I don't say it is for this that they exist--for I am a child among you worldly grumblers, and not called upon to account to you or myself for anything--but it may be so.'" I began seriously to think that Richard could scarcely have found a worse friend than this. It made me uneasy that at such a time when he most required some right principle and purpose he should have this captivating looseness and putting-off of everything, this airy dispensing with all principle and purpose, at his elbow. I thought I could understand how such a nature as my guardian's, experienced in the world and forced to contemplate the miserable evasions and contentions of the family misfortune, found an immense relief in Mr. Skimpole's avowal of his weaknesses and display of guileless candour; but I could not satisfy myself that it was as artless as it seemed or that it did not serve Mr. Skimpole's idle turn quite as well as any other part, and with less trouble. They both walked back with me, and Mr. Skimpole leaving us at the gate, I walked softly in with Richard and said, "Ada, my love, I have brought a gentleman to visit you." It was not difficult to read the blushing, startled face. She loved him dearly, and he knew it, and I knew it. It was a very transparent business, that meeting as cousins only. I almost mistrusted myself as growing quite wicked in my suspicions, but I was not so sure that Richard loved her dearly. He admired her very much--any one must have done that--and I dare say would have renewed their youthful engagement with great pride and ardour but that he knew how she would respect her promise to my guardian. Still I had a tormenting idea that the influence upon him extended even here, that he was postponing his best truth and earnestness in this as in all things until Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be off his mind. Ah me! What Richard would have been without that blight, I never shall know now! He told Ada, in his most ingenuous way, that he had not come to make any secret inroad on the terms she had accepted (rather too implicitly and confidingly, he thought) from Mr. Jarndyce, that he had come openly to see her and to see me and to justify himself for the present terms on which he stood with Mr. Jarndyce. As the dear old infant would be with us directly, he begged that I would make an appointment for the morning, when he might set himself right through the means of an unreserved conversation with me. I proposed to walk with him in the park at seven o'clock, and this was arranged. Mr. Skimpole soon afterwards appeared and made us merry for an hour. He particularly requested to see little Coavinses (meaning Charley) and told her, with a patriarchal air, that he had given her late father all the business in his power and that if one of her little brothers would make haste to get set up in the same profession, he hoped he should still be able to put a good deal of employment in his way. "For I am constantly being taken in these nets," said Mr. Skimpole, looking beamingly at us over a glass of wine-and-water, "and am constantly being bailed out--like a boat. Or paid off--like a ship's company. Somebody always does it for me. I can't do it, you know, for I never have any money. But somebody does it. I get out by somebody's means; I am not like the starling; I get out. If you were to ask me who somebody is, upon my word I couldn't tell you. Let us drink to somebody. God bless him!" Richard was a little late in the morning, but I had not to wait for him long, and we turned into the park. The air was bright and dewy and the sky without a cloud. The birds sang delightfully; the sparkles in the fern, the grass, and trees, were exquisite to see; the richness of the woods seemed to have increased twenty-fold since yesterday, as if, in the still night when they had looked so massively hushed in sleep, Nature, through all the minute details of every wonderful leaf, had been more wakeful than usual for the glory of that day. "This is a lovely place," said Richard, looking round. "None of the jar and discord of law-suits here!" But there was other trouble. "I tell you what, my dear girl," said Richard, "when I get affairs in general settled, I shall come down here, I think, and rest." "Would it not be better to rest now?" I asked. "Oh, as to resting NOW," said Richard, "or as to doing anything very definite NOW, that's not easy. In short, it can't be done; I can't do it at least." "Why not?" said I. "You know why not, Esther. If you were living in an unfinished house, liable to have the roof put on or taken off--to be from top to bottom pulled down or built up--to-morrow, next day, next week, next month, next year--you would find it hard to rest or settle. So do I. Now? There's no now for us suitors." I could almost have believed in the attraction on which my poor little wandering friend had expatiated when I saw again the darkened look of last night. Terrible to think it had in it also a shade of that unfortunate man who had died. "My dear Richard," said I, "this is a bad beginning of our conversation." "I knew you would tell me so, Dame Durden." "And not I alone, dear Richard. It was not I who cautioned you once never to found a hope or expectation on the family curse." "There you come back to John Jarndyce!" said Richard impatiently. "Well! We must approach him sooner or later, for he is the staple of what I have to say, and it's as well at once. My dear Esther, how can you be so blind? Don't you see that he is an interested party and that it may be very well for him to wish me to know nothing of the suit, and care nothing about it, but that it may not be quite so well for me?" "Oh, Richard," I remonstrated, "is it possible that you can ever have seen him and heard him, that you can ever have lived under his roof and known him, and can yet breathe, even to me in this solitary place where there is no one to hear us, such unworthy suspicions?" He reddened deeply, as if his natural generosity felt a pang of reproach. He was silent for a little while before he replied in a subdued voice, "Esther, I am sure you know that I am not a mean fellow and that I have some sense of suspicion and distrust being poor qualities in one of my years." "I know it very well," said I. "I am not more sure of anything." "That's a dear girl," retorted Richard, "and like you, because it gives me comfort. I had need to get some scrap of comfort out of all this business, for it's a bad one at the best, as I have no occasion to tell you." "I know perfectly," said I. "I know as well, Richard--what shall I say? as well as you do--that such misconstructions are foreign to your nature. And I know, as well as you know, what so changes it." "Come, sister, come," said Richard a little more gaily, "you will be fair with me at all events. If I have the misfortune to be under that influence, so has he. If it has a little twisted me, it may have a little twisted him too. I don't say that he is not an honourable man, out of all this complication and uncertainty; I am sure he is. But it taints everybody. You know it taints everybody. You have heard him say so fifty times. Then why should HE escape?" "Because," said I, "his is an uncommon character, and he has resolutely kept himself outside the circle, Richard." "Oh, because and because!" replied Richard in his vivacious way. "I am not sure, my dear girl, but that it may be wise and specious to preserve that outward indifference. It may cause other parties interested to become lax about their interests; and people may die off, and points may drag themselves out of memory, and many things may smoothly happen that are convenient enough." I was so touched with pity for Richard that I could not reproach him any more, even by a look. I remembered my guardian's gentleness towards his errors and with what perfect freedom from resentment he had spoken of them. "Esther," Richard resumed, "you are not to suppose that I have come here to make underhanded charges against John Jarndyce. I have only come to justify myself. What I say is, it was all very well and we got on very well while I was a boy, utterly regardless of this same suit; but as soon as I began to take an interest in it and to look into it, then it was quite another thing. Then John Jarndyce discovers that Ada and I must break off and that if I don't amend that very objectionable course, I am not fit for her. Now, Esther, I don't mean to amend that very objectionable course: I will not hold John Jarndyce's favour on those unfair terms of compromise, which he has no right to dictate. Whether it pleases him or displeases him, I must maintain my rights and Ada's. I have been thinking about it a good deal, and this is the conclusion I have come to." Poor dear Richard! He had indeed been thinking about it a good deal. His face, his voice, his manner, all showed that too plainly. "So I tell him honourably (you are to know I have written to him about all this) that we are at issue and that we had better be at issue openly than covertly. I thank him for his goodwill and his protection, and he goes his road, and I go mine. The fact is, our roads are not the same. Under one of the wills in dispute, I should take much more than he. I don't mean to say that it is the one to be established, but there it is, and it has its chance." "I have not to learn from you, my dear Richard," said I, "of your letter. I had heard of it already without an offended or angry word." "Indeed?" replied Richard, softening. "I am glad I said he was an honourable man, out of all this wretched affair. But I always say that and have never doubted it. Now, my dear Esther, I know these views of mine appear extremely harsh to you, and will to Ada when you tell her what has passed between us. But if you had gone into the case as I have, if you had only applied yourself to the papers as I did when I was at Kenge's, if you only knew what an accumulation of charges and counter-charges, and suspicions and cross-suspicions, they involve, you would think me moderate in comparison." "Perhaps so," said I. "But do you think that, among those many papers, there is much truth and justice, Richard?" "There is truth and justice somewhere in the case, Esther--" "Or was once, long ago," said I. "Is--is--must be somewhere," pursued Richard impetuously, "and must be brought out. To allow Ada to be made a bribe and hush-money of is not the way to bring it out. You say the suit is changing me; John Jarndyce says it changes, has changed, and will change everybody who has any share in it. Then the greater right I have on my side when I resolve to do all I can to bring it to an end." "All you can, Richard! Do you think that in these many years no others have done all they could? Has the difficulty grown easier because of so many failures?" "It can't last for ever," returned Richard with a fierceness kindling in him which again presented to me that last sad reminder. "I am young and earnest, and energy and determination have done wonders many a time. Others have only half thrown themselves into it. I devote myself to it. I make it the object of my life." "Oh, Richard, my dear, so much the worse, so much the worse!" "No, no, no, don't you be afraid for me," he returned affectionately. "You're a dear, good, wise, quiet, blessed girl; but you have your prepossessions. So I come round to John Jarndyce. I tell you, my good Esther, when he and I were on those terms which he found so convenient, we were not on natural terms." "Are division and animosity your natural terms, Richard?" "No, I don't say that. I mean that all this business puts us on unnatural terms, with which natural relations are incompatible. See another reason for urging it on! I may find out when it's over that I have been mistaken in John Jarndyce. My head may be clearer when I am free of it, and I may then agree with what you say to-day. Very well. Then I shall acknowledge it and make him reparation." Everything postponed to that imaginary time! Everything held in confusion and indecision until then! "Now, my best of confidantes," said Richard, "I want my cousin Ada to understand that I am not captious, fickle, and wilful about John Jarndyce, but that I have this purpose and reason at my back. I wish to represent myself to her through you, because she has a great esteem and respect for her cousin John; and I know you will soften the course I take, even though you disapprove of it; and--and in short," said Richard, who had been hesitating through these words, "I--I don't like to represent myself in this litigious, contentious, doubting character to a confiding girl like Ada." I told him that he was more like himself in those latter words than in anything he had said yet. "Why," acknowledged Richard, "that may be true enough, my love. I rather feel it to be so. But I shall be able to give myself fair-play by and by. I shall come all right again, then, don't you be afraid." I asked him if this were all he wished me to tell Ada. "Not quite," said Richard. "I am bound not to withhold from her that John Jarndyce answered my letter in his usual manner, addressing me as 'My dear Rick,' trying to argue me out of my opinions, and telling me that they should make no difference in him. (All very well of course, but not altering the case.) I also want Ada to know that if I see her seldom just now, I am looking after her interests as well as my own--we two being in the same boat exactly--and that I hope she will not suppose from any flying rumours she may hear that I am at all light-headed or imprudent; on the contrary, I am always looking forward to the termination of the suit, and always planning in that direction. Being of age now and having taken the step I have taken, I consider myself free from any accountability to John Jarndyce; but Ada being still a ward of the court, I don't yet ask her to renew our engagement. When she is free to act for herself, I shall be myself once more and we shall both be in very different worldly circumstances, I believe. If you tell her all this with the advantage of your considerate way, you will do me a very great and a very kind service, my dear Esther; and I shall knock Jarndyce and Jarndyce on the head with greater vigour. Of course I ask for no secrecy at Bleak House." "Richard," said I, "you place great confidence in me, but I fear you will not take advice from me?" "It's impossible that I can on this subject, my dear girl. On any other, readily." As if there were any other in his life! As if his whole career and character were not being dyed one colour! "But I may ask you a question, Richard?" "I think so," said he, laughing. "I don't know who may not, if you may not." "You say, yourself, you are not leading a very settled life." "How can I, my dear Esther, with nothing settled!" "Are you in debt again?" "Why, of course I am," said Richard, astonished at my simplicity. "Is it of course?" "My dear child, certainly. I can't throw myself into an object so completely without expense. You forget, or perhaps you don't know, that under either of the wills Ada and I take something. It's only a question between the larger sum and the smaller. I shall be within the mark any way. Bless your heart, my excellent girl," said Richard, quite amused with me, "I shall be all right! I shall pull through, my dear!" I felt so deeply sensible of the danger in which he stood that I tried, in Ada's name, in my guardian's, in my own, by every fervent means that I could think of, to warn him of it and to show him some of his mistakes. He received everything I said with patience and gentleness, but it all rebounded from him without taking the least effect. I could not wonder at this after the reception his preoccupied mind had given to my guardian's letter, but I determined to try Ada's influence yet. So when our walk brought us round to the village again, and I went home to breakfast, I prepared Ada for the account I was going to give her and told her exactly what reason we had to dread that Richard was losing himself and scattering his whole life to the winds. It made her very unhappy, of course, though she had a far, far greater reliance on his correcting his errors than I could have--which was so natural and loving in my dear!--and she presently wrote him this little letter: My dearest cousin, Esther has told me all you said to her this morning. I write this to repeat most earnestly for myself all that she said to you and to let you know how sure I am that you will sooner or later find our cousin John a pattern of truth, sincerity, and goodness, when you will deeply, deeply grieve to have done him (without intending it) so much wrong. I do not quite know how to write what I wish to say next, but I trust you will understand it as I mean it. I have some fears, my dearest cousin, that it may be partly for my sake you are now laying up so much unhappiness for yourself--and if for yourself, for me. In case this should be so, or in case you should entertain much thought of me in what you are doing, I most earnestly entreat and beg you to desist. You can do nothing for my sake that will make me half so happy as for ever turning your back upon the shadow in which we both were born. Do not be angry with me for saying this. Pray, pray, dear Richard, for my sake, and for your own, and in a natural repugnance for that source of trouble which had its share in making us both orphans when we were very young, pray, pray, let it go for ever. We have reason to know by this time that there is no good in it and no hope, that there is nothing to be got from it but sorrow. My dearest cousin, it is needless for me to say that you are quite free and that it is very likely you may find some one whom you will love much better than your first fancy. I am quite sure, if you will let me say so, that the object of your choice would greatly prefer to follow your fortunes far and wide, however moderate or poor, and see you happy, doing your duty and pursuing your chosen way, than to have the hope of being, or even to be, very rich with you (if such a thing were possible) at the cost of dragging years of procrastination and anxiety and of your indifference to other aims. You may wonder at my saying this so confidently with so little knowledge or experience, but I know it for a certainty from my own heart. Ever, my dearest cousin, your most affectionate Ada This note brought Richard to us very soon, but it made little change in him if any. We would fairly try, he said, who was right and who was wrong--he would show us--we should see! He was animated and glowing, as if Ada's tenderness had gratified him; but I could only hope, with a sigh, that the letter might have some stronger effect upon his mind on re-perusal than it assuredly had then. As they were to remain with us that day and had taken their places to return by the coach next morning, I sought an opportunity of speaking to Mr. Skimpole. Our out-of-door life easily threw one in my way, and I delicately said that there was a responsibility in encouraging Richard. "Responsibility, my dear Miss Summerson?" he repeated, catching at the word with the pleasantest smile. "I am the last man in the world for such a thing. I never was responsible in my life--I can't be." "I am afraid everybody is obliged to be," said I timidly enough, he being so much older and more clever than I. "No, really?" said Mr. Skimpole, receiving this new light with a most agreeable jocularity of surprise. "But every man's not obliged to be solvent? I am not. I never was. See, my dear Miss Summerson," he took a handful of loose silver and halfpence from his pocket, "there's so much money. I have not an idea how much. I have not the power of counting. Call it four and ninepence--call it four pound nine. They tell me I owe more than that. I dare say I do. I dare say I owe as much as good-natured people will let me owe. If they don't stop, why should I? There you have Harold Skimpole in little. If that's responsibility, I am responsible." The perfect ease of manner with which he put the money up again and looked at me with a smile on his refined face, as if he had been mentioning a curious little fact about somebody else, almost made me feel as if he really had nothing to do with it. "Now, when you mention responsibility," he resumed, "I am disposed to say that I never had the happiness of knowing any one whom I should consider so refreshingly responsible as yourself. You appear to me to be the very touchstone of responsibility. When I see you, my dear Miss Summerson, intent upon the perfect working of the whole little orderly system of which you are the centre, I feel inclined to say to myself--in fact I do say to myself very often--THAT'S responsibility!" It was difficult, after this, to explain what I meant; but I persisted so far as to say that we all hoped he would check and not confirm Richard in the sanguine views he entertained just then. "Most willingly," he retorted, "if I could. But, my dear Miss Summerson, I have no art, no disguise. If he takes me by the hand and leads me through Westminster Hall in an airy procession after fortune, I must go. If he says, 'Skimpole, join the dance!' I must join it. Common sense wouldn't, I know, but I have NO common sense." It was very unfortunate for Richard, I said. "Do you think so!" returned Mr. Skimpole. "Don't say that, don't say that. Let us suppose him keeping company with Common Sense--an excellent man--a good deal wrinkled--dreadfully practical--change for a ten-pound note in every pocket--ruled account-book in his hand--say, upon the whole, resembling a tax-gatherer. Our dear Richard, sanguine, ardent, overleaping obstacles, bursting with poetry like a young bud, says to this highly respectable companion, 'I see a golden prospect before me; it's very bright, it's very beautiful, it's very joyous; here I go, bounding over the landscape to come at it!' The respectable companion instantly knocks him down with the ruled account-book; tells him in a literal, prosaic way that he sees no such thing; shows him it's nothing but fees, fraud, horsehair wigs, and black gowns. Now you know that's a painful change--sensible in the last degree, I have no doubt, but disagreeable. I can't do it. I haven't got the ruled account-book, I have none of the tax-gathering elements in my composition, I am not at all respectable, and I don't want to be. Odd perhaps, but so it is!" It was idle to say more, so I proposed that we should join Ada and Richard, who were a little in advance, and I gave up Mr. Skimpole in despair. He had been over the Hall in the course of the morning and whimsically described the family pictures as we walked. There were such portentous shepherdesses among the Ladies Dedlock dead and gone, he told us, that peaceful crooks became weapons of assault in their hands. They tended their flocks severely in buckram and powder and put their sticking-plaster patches on to terrify commoners as the chiefs of some other tribes put on their war-paint. There was a Sir Somebody Dedlock, with a battle, a sprung-mine, volumes of smoke, flashes of lightning, a town on fire, and a stormed fort, all in full action between his horse's two hind legs, showing, he supposed, how little a Dedlock made of such trifles. The whole race he represented as having evidently been, in life, what he called "stuffed people"--a large collection, glassy eyed, set up in the most approved manner on their various twigs and perches, very correct, perfectly free from animation, and always in glass cases. I was not so easy now during any reference to the name but that I felt it a relief when Richard, with an exclamation of surprise, hurried away to meet a stranger whom he first descried coming slowly towards us. "Dear me!" said Mr. Skimpole. "Vholes!" We asked if that were a friend of Richard's. "Friend and legal adviser," said Mr. Skimpole. "Now, my dear Miss Summerson, if you want common sense, responsibility, and respectability, all united--if you want an exemplary man--Vholes is THE man." We had not known, we said, that Richard was assisted by any gentleman of that name. "When he emerged from legal infancy," returned Mr. Skimpole, "he parted from our conversational friend Kenge and took up, I believe, with Vholes. Indeed, I know he did, because I introduced him to Vholes." "Had you known him long?" asked Ada. "Vholes? My dear Miss Clare, I had had that kind of acquaintance with him which I have had with several gentlemen of his profession. He had done something or other in a very agreeable, civil manner--taken proceedings, I think, is the expression--which ended in the proceeding of his taking ME. Somebody was so good as to step in and pay the money--something and fourpence was the amount; I forget the pounds and shillings, but I know it ended with fourpence, because it struck me at the time as being so odd that I could owe anybody fourpence--and after that I brought them together. Vholes asked me for the introduction, and I gave it. Now I come to think of it," he looked inquiringly at us with his frankest smile as he made the discovery, "Vholes bribed me, perhaps? He gave me something and called it commission. Was it a five-pound note? Do you know, I think it MUST have been a five-pound note!" His further consideration of the point was prevented by Richard's coming back to us in an excited state and hastily representing Mr. Vholes--a sallow man with pinched lips that looked as if they were cold, a red eruption here and there upon his face, tall and thin, about fifty years of age, high-shouldered, and stooping. Dressed in black, black-gloved, and buttoned to the chin, there was nothing so remarkable in him as a lifeless manner and a slow, fixed way he had of looking at Richard. "I hope I don't disturb you, ladies," said Mr. Vholes, and now I observed that he was further remarkable for an inward manner of speaking. "I arranged with Mr. Carstone that he should always know when his cause was in the Chancellor's paper, and being informed by one of my clerks last night after post time that it stood, rather unexpectedly, in the paper for to-morrow, I put myself into the coach early this morning and came down to confer with him." "Yes," said Richard, flushed, and looking triumphantly at Ada and me, "we don't do these things in the old slow way now. We spin along now! Mr. Vholes, we must hire something to get over to the post town in, and catch the mail to-night, and go up by it!" "Anything you please, sir," returned Mr. Vholes. "I am quite at your service." "Let me see," said Richard, looking at his watch. "If I run down to the Dedlock, and get my portmanteau fastened up, and order a gig, or a chaise, or whatever's to be got, we shall have an hour then before starting. I'll come back to tea. Cousin Ada, will you and Esther take care of Mr. Vholes when I am gone?" He was away directly, in his heat and hurry, and was soon lost in the dusk of evening. We who were left walked on towards the house. "Is Mr. Carstone's presence necessary to-morrow, Sir?" said I. "Can it do any good?" "No, miss," Mr. Vholes replied. "I am not aware that it can." Both Ada and I expressed our regret that he should go, then, only to be disappointed. "Mr. Carstone has laid down the principle of watching his own interests," said Mr. Vholes, "and when a client lays down his own principle, and it is not immoral, it devolves upon me to carry it out. I wish in business to be exact and open. I am a widower with three daughters--Emma, Jane, and Caroline--and my desire is so to discharge the duties of life as to leave them a good name. This appears to be a pleasant spot, miss." The remark being made to me in consequence of my being next him as we walked, I assented and enumerated its chief attractions. "Indeed?" said Mr. Vholes. "I have the privilege of supporting an aged father in the Vale of Taunton--his native place--and I admire that country very much. I had no idea there was anything so attractive here." To keep up the conversation, I asked Mr. Vholes if he would like to live altogether in the country. "There, miss," said he, "you touch me on a tender string. My health is not good (my digestion being much impaired), and if I had only myself to consider, I should take refuge in rural habits, especially as the cares of business have prevented me from ever coming much into contact with general society, and particularly with ladies' society, which I have most wished to mix in. But with my three daughters, Emma, Jane, and Caroline--and my aged father--I cannot afford to be selfish. It is true I have no longer to maintain a dear grandmother who died in her hundred and second year, but enough remains to render it indispensable that the mill should be always going." It required some attention to hear him on account of his inward speaking and his lifeless manner. "You will excuse my having mentioned my daughters," he said. "They are my weak point. I wish to leave the poor girls some little independence, as well as a good name." We now arrived at Mr. Boythorn's house, where the tea-table, all prepared, was awaiting us. Richard came in restless and hurried shortly afterwards, and leaning over Mr. Vholes's chair, whispered something in his ear. Mr. Vholes replied aloud--or as nearly aloud I suppose as he had ever replied to anything--"You will drive me, will you, sir? It is all the same to me, sir. Anything you please. I am quite at your service." We understood from what followed that Mr. Skimpole was to be left until the morning to occupy the two places which had been already paid for. As Ada and I were both in low spirits concerning Richard and very sorry so to part with him, we made it as plain as we politely could that we should leave Mr. Skimpole to the Dedlock Arms and retire when the night-travellers were gone. Richard's high spirits carrying everything before them, we all went out together to the top of the hill above the village, where he had ordered a gig to wait and where we found a man with a lantern standing at the head of the gaunt pale horse that had been harnessed to it. I never shall forget those two seated side by side in the lantern's light, Richard all flush and fire and laughter, with the reins in his hand; Mr. Vholes quite still, black-gloved, and buttoned up, looking at him as if he were looking at his prey and charming it. I have before me the whole picture of the warm dark night, the summer lightning, the dusty track of road closed in by hedgerows and high trees, the gaunt pale horse with his ears pricked up, and the driving away at speed to Jarndyce and Jarndyce. My dear girl told me that night how Richard's being thereafter prosperous or ruined, befriended or deserted, could only make this difference to her, that the more he needed love from one unchanging heart, the more love that unchanging heart would have to give him; how he thought of her through his present errors, and she would think of him at all times--never of herself if she could devote herself to him, never of her own delights if she could minister to his. And she kept her word? I look along the road before me, where the distance already shortens and the journey's end is growing visible; and true and good above the dead sea of the Chancery suit and all the ashy fruit it cast ashore, I think I see my darling.

If the secret I had to keep had been mine, I must have confided it to Ada before long. But it was not mine, and I did not feel that I had a right to tell it, even to my guardian, unless some great emergency arose. It was a weight to bear alone; still my duty was plain; and although the remembrance of my mother kept me awake and made the night sorrowful, I did not yield to it at other times. That first evening Ada asked me, over our work, if the family were at the house, and I was obliged to answer yes, I believed so, for Lady Dedlock had spoken to me in the woods. But my difficulty in answering was great, and was greater still when Ada asked me what she had said. I replied that she had been kind and interested; and Charley helped me through, unconsciously, by telling us that Lady Dedlock had only stayed at the house two nights on her way to visit some other great house and that she had left early on the morning after we had seen her. We were to stay a month at Mr. Boythorn's. My pet had scarcely been there a bright week, when one evening, just as the candles were lighted, Charley beckoned me mysteriously out of the room. "Oh! If you please, miss," said Charley in a whisper. "You're wanted at the Dedlock Arms." "Why, Charley," said I, "who can possibly want me at the public-house?" "I don't know, miss," returned Charley, "but it's a gentleman, miss, and his compliments, and will you please to come without saying anything about it. It's a message come through the landlord Mr. Grubble, miss." Not knowing what might be the matter, I put on my bonnet, veil and shawl, and went down the little hilly street to the clean little tavern. Mr. Grubble, a pleasant-looking, middle-aged man, was standing in his shirt-sleeves at the door waiting for me. He lifted his hat when he saw me coming, and led me to his best parlour, a neat room full of plants, a coloured print of Queen Caroline, a good many tea-trays, and two stuffed fish in glass cases. Mr. Grubble snuffed the candle, and backed out of the room. The door of the opposite parlour opened, a quick light step came in, and who should stand before me but Richard! "My dear Esther!" he said. "My best friend!" And he really was so warm-hearted and earnest that in the first surprise and pleasure of his brotherly greeting I could scarcely find breath to tell him that Ada was well. "Answering my very thoughts - the same dear girl!" said Richard, leading me to a chair and sitting beside me. I put my veil up a little way. "Always the same dear girl!" said Richard just as heartily as before. I put up my veil altogether, and told him how much I thanked him for his kind welcome and how greatly I rejoiced to see him, the more so because of the determination I had made in my illness, to try to set him right. "My love," said Richard, "there is no one with whom I wish to talk more than you, for I want you to understand me." "And I want you, Richard," said I, shaking my head, "to understand some one else." "I suppose you mean John Jarndyce?" "Of course I do." "Then I may say at once that I am glad of it, because it is on that subject that I am anxious to be understood - by you, my dear! I am not accountable to Mr. Jarndyce or Mr. Anybody." I was pained to find him taking this tone, and he observed it. "Well, my dear," said Richard, "we won't go into that now. I want to appear quietly in your country-house, and give my charming cousin a surprise. I suppose your loyalty to John Jarndyce will allow that?" "My dear Richard," I returned, "you know you are heartily welcome!" Then I asked him how he liked his profession. "Oh, I like it well enough!" said Richard. "It's all right. It does as well as anything else, for a time. I don't know that I shall care about it when I come to be settled, but I can sell out then and - however, never mind all that botheration at present." So young and handsome, and in all respects so perfectly the opposite of Miss Flite! And yet, in the clouded, eager, seeking look that passed over him, so dreadfully like her! "I am in town on leave just now," he said. "Indeed?" "Yes. I have run over to look after my - my Chancery interests before the long vacation," said Richard, forcing a careless laugh. "We are beginning to spin along with that old suit at last, I promise you." No wonder that I shook my head! "As you say, it's not a pleasant subject." Richard spoke with the same shade crossing his face as before. "Let it go to the four winds for tonight. Puff! Gone! Who do you suppose is with me? Mr. Skimpole! He does me more good than anybody. What a fascinating child it is!" He said had been to call upon the dear old infant - so he called Mr. Skimpole - and the dear old infant had told him where we were, and had wanted to come and see us, so Richard had brought him. "And he is worth - not to say his sordid expenses - but thrice his weight in gold," said Richard. "He is such a cheery fellow. No worldliness about him. Fresh and green-hearted!" I certainly did not see the proof of Mr. Skimpole's unworldliness in his having his expenses paid by Richard, but I made no remark about that. Indeed, Mr. Skimpole came in and said that he was charmed to see me, and that he had been shedding delicious tears of joy and sympathy on my account, had never been so happy as in hearing of my progress, began to understand the mixture of good and evil in the world now, and felt that he appreciated health the more when somebody else was ill. "My dear Miss Summerson, here is our friend Richard," said Mr. Skimpole, "full of the brightest visions of the future, which he evokes out of the darkness of Chancery. Now that's delightful, that's inspiring, that's full of poetry! In old times the woods were made joyous to the shepherd by the imaginary piping and dancing of Pan and the nymphs. Our pastoral Richard brightens the dull Inns of Court by making Fortune and her train sport through them. That's very pleasant, you know!" I began seriously to think that Richard could scarcely have found a worse friend. It made me uneasy that at such a time when he most required some right principle and purpose he should have at his elbow this captivating looseness and airy putting-off of everything. My guardian, experienced in the world and forced to contemplate the miserable contentions of the family misfortune, found an immense relief in Mr. Skimpole's guileless candour; but I could not satisfy myself that it was as artless as it seemed. They both walked back with me. Mr. Skimpole leaving us at the gate, I walked softly in with Richard and said, "Ada, my love, I have brought a gentleman to visit you." It was not difficult to read the blushing, startled face. She loved him dearly, and he knew it, and I knew it. It was a very transparent business, that meeting as cousins only. Yet I was not so sure that Richard loved her dearly. He admired her very much - anyone must have - and I dare say he would have renewed their youthful engagement with great pride and ardour except that he knew she would respect her promise to my guardian. Still I had a tormenting idea that he was postponing his best truth and earnestness in this as in all things until Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be off his mind. Ah me! What Richard would have been without that blight, I never shall know now! He told Ada, in his most ingenuous way, that he had not come in secret, but openly to see her and to see me. As the dear old infant would be with us directly, he begged that I would arrange to meet him the next morning at seven o'clock. Mr. Skimpole soon appeared and made us merry for an hour. He requested to see little Coavinses (meaning Charley), and told her that he had given her late father all the business in his power, and that if one of her little brothers would make haste to get set up in the same profession, he hoped he should still be able to put a good deal of employment in his way. "For I am constantly being taken in these nets," said Mr. Skimpole, beaming at us over a glass of wine-and-water, "and am constantly being bailed out - like a boat. Somebody always does it for me. I can't do it, you know, for I never have any money. But somebody does it. If you were to ask me who, upon my word I couldn't tell you. Let us drink to somebody. God bless him!" Richard was a little late the next morning, but I had not to wait for him long, and we turned into the park. The air was bright and dewy and the sky cloudless. The birds sang delightfully; the richness of the woods seemed to have increased twenty-fold since yesterday, as if in the still night Nature had been more wakeful than usual for the glory of that day. "This is a lovely place," said Richard, looking round. "None of the jar and discord of law-suits here! I tell you what, my dear girl, when I get affairs settled, I shall come down here and rest." "Would it not be better to rest now?" I asked. "Resting now," said Richard, "or doing anything definite now, that's not easy. I can't do it at least." "Why not?" "You know why not, Esther. If you were living in an unfinished house, liable to have the roof put on or taken off at any time, you would find it hard to rest. So do I. Now? There's no now for us suitors." "My dear Richard," said I, "this is a bad beginning of our conversation." "I knew you would tell me so, Dame Durden." "Not I alone, dear Richard. It was not I who cautioned you once never to place hope or expectation on the family curse." "There you come back to John Jarndyce!" said Richard impatiently. "Well! We must approach him sooner or later. My dear Esther, how can you be so blind? Don't you see that he is an interested party and that it may be very well for him to wish me to know nothing of the suit, but that it may not be so well for me?" "Oh, Richard," I remonstrated, "is it possible that you can have lived under his roof and have known him, and can yet breathe such unworthy suspicions?" He reddened deeply, as if he felt a pang of reproach. He was silent for a little while before he replied in a subdued voice, "Esther, I am sure you know that I am not a mean fellow." "I know it very well," said I. "That's a dear girl;" retorted Richard, "it gives me comfort. I need to get some scrap of comfort out of all this business, for it's a bad one at best." "I know perfectly," said I. "I know too that such false suspicions are foreign to your nature. And we both know what so changes it." "Come, sister, come," said Richard a little more gaily, "be fair. If I have the misfortune to be under that influence, so has he. If it has a little twisted me, it may have a little twisted him too. I don't say that he is not an honourable man; I am sure he is. But this case taints everybody. You have heard him say so fifty times. Then why should he escape?" "Because," said I, "his is an uncommon character, and he has resolutely kept himself outside the circle, Richard." "Oh, because and because!" replied Richard in his vivacious way. "That outward indifference may be to cause other parties to become lax about their interests; and people may die off, and many things may smoothly happen that are convenient." I was so touched with pity for Richard that I could not reproach him any more. I remembered my guardian's gentleness towards his errors and his perfect freedom from resentment. "Esther," Richard resumed, "I have not come here to make underhanded charges against John Jarndyce, but only to justify myself. We got on very well while I was a boy, utterly regardless of this suit; but as soon as I began to take an interest in it, then it was quite another thing. Then John Jarndyce decides that Ada and I must break off and that if I don't amend that course, I am not fit for her. Now, Esther, I don't mean to amend that course: John Jarndyce has no right to dictate those terms. Whether it pleases him or not, I must maintain my rights and Ada's. I have been thinking about it a good deal, and this is the conclusion I have come to." Poor dear Richard! He had indeed been thinking about it a good deal. His face and manner showed that all too plainly. "So I have written to him telling him honourably that we disagree and that we had better disagree openly. I thank him for his goodwill, and he goes his road, and I go mine. The fact is, our roads are not the same. Under one of the wills in dispute, I should take much more than he." "I had already heard of your letter, my dear Richard," said I, "without an offended or angry word." "Indeed?" replied Richard, softening. "I am glad I said he was an honourable man. I have never doubted it. Now, my dear Esther, I know my views appear harsh to you, and will to Ada when you tell her. But if you had gone into the case as I have, if you had only applied yourself to the papers as I did when I was at Kenge's, if you only knew how many charges and counter-charges, and suspicions and cross-suspicions, they involve, you would think me moderate." "Perhaps so," said I. "But do you think that, among those many papers, there is much truth and justice, Richard?" "There is truth and justice somewhere in the case, Esther-" "Or was once, long ago," said I. "Is - must be, somewhere," pursued Richard impetuously, "and must be brought out. To make Ada a bribe is not the way to bring it out. You say the suit is changing me; John Jarndyce says it changes everybody who has any share in it. Then the greater right I have on my side when I resolve to do all I can to bring it to an end." "All you can, Richard! Do you think that over the years no others have done all they could?" "It can't last for ever," returned Richard with a fierceness kindling in him. "I am young and have energy and determination. Others have only half thrown themselves into it. I devote myself to it. I make it the object of my life." "Oh, Richard, my dear, so much the worse!" "No, no, don't you be afraid for me," he returned affectionately. "You're a dear, good, blessed girl; but I tell you, my good Esther, when John Jarndyce and I were on those terms which he found so convenient, we were not on natural terms." "Are division and animosity your natural terms, Richard?" "No, I don't say that. I mean that all this business puts us on unnatural terms. Another reason for urging it on! I may find out when it's over that I have been mistaken in John Jarndyce. I may then agree with what you say today. Very well. Then I shall acknowledge it." Everything postponed to that imaginary time! Everything held in confusion and indecision until then! "Now," said Richard, "I want my cousin Ada to understand that I am not fickle, and wilful about John Jarndyce, but that I have this purpose. She has a great respect for her cousin John; and I know you will soften the course I take, even though you disapprove of it; and - and in short," said Richard, hesitating, "I - I don't like to represent myself in this litigious, doubting character to a confiding girl like Ada." I told him that he was more like himself in those latter words than in anything he had said yet. "Why," acknowledged Richard, "that may be true. But I shall come all right again by and by, don't you fear." I asked him if this were all he wished me to tell Ada. "Not quite," said Richard. "I want Ada to know that if I see her seldom just now, I am looking after her interests as well as my own - we two being in the same boat - and that I hope she will not suppose from any rumours that I am light-headed or imprudent; on the contrary, I am always looking forward to the end of the suit, and always planning for it. Being of age now, I consider myself free from any accountability to John Jarndyce; but as Ada is still a ward of the court, I don't yet ask her to renew our engagement. When she is free to act for herself, I shall be myself once more and we shall both be in very different circumstances, I believe. If you tell her all this in your considerate way, you will do me a very great service, my dear Esther; and I shall knock Jarndyce and Jarndyce on the head with greater vigour. Of course I ask for no secrecy at Bleak House." "Richard," said I, "you place great confidence in me, but I fear you will not take advice from me?" "It's impossible that I can on this subject, my dear girl. On any other, readily." As if there were any other in his life! "May I ask you a question, Richard? Are you in debt again?" "Why, of course I am," said Richard, astonished at my simplicity. "I can't throw myself into an object so completely without expense. You forget that under either of the wills Ada and I take something. It's only a question between the larger sum and the smaller. I shall be within the mark any way. Bless your heart, my excellent girl," said Richard, quite amused with me, "I shall be all right!" I felt so deeply aware of the danger in which he stood that I tried, by every means that I could think of, to warn him. He took everything I said with patience, but it all rebounded from him without the least effect. I determined to try Ada's influence. So when our walk brought us round to the village again, and I went home to breakfast, I gently told Ada what reason we had to dread that Richard was losing himself and scattering his whole life to the winds. It made her very unhappy, of course, though she had a far greater reliance on his correcting his errors than I could have; and she wrote him this little letter: My dearest cousin, Esther has told me all you said to her this morning. I write this to repeat most earnestly all that she said to you and to let you know how sure I am that you will sooner or later find our cousin John a pattern of truth, sincerity, and goodness, when you will deeply grieve to have done him (without intending it) so much wrong. I do not quite know how to write what I wish to say next, but I trust you will understand. I fear, my dearest cousin, that it may be partly for my sake you are now laying up so much unhappiness for yourself - and if for yourself, for me. In case this should be so, I most earnestly beg you to desist. You can do nothing for my sake that will make me half so happy as for ever turning your back upon the shadow in which we both were born. Do not be angry with me for saying this. Pray, dear Richard, for my sake, and for your own, pray let it go for ever. We have reason to know by this time that there is no good in it and no hope, that there is nothing to be got from it but sorrow. My dearest cousin, it is needless for me to say that you are quite free and that it is very likely you may find some one whom you will love much better than your first fancy. I would greatly prefer to follow your fortunes far and wide, however moderate or poor, and see you happy, pursuing your chosen way, than to have the hope of being rich with you (if such a thing were possible) at the cost of dragging years of anxiety and of your indifference to other aims. I know this for a certainty from my own heart. Ever, my dearest cousin, your most affectionate Ada This note brought Richard to us very soon, but it made little change in him. We would see, he said, who was right and who was wrong! He was animated and glowing, as if Ada's tenderness had gratified him; but I could only hope, with a sigh, that the letter might have some stronger effect upon his mind on re-reading than it had then. Before they left next day, I sought an opportunity of speaking to Mr. Skimpole. I delicately said that there was a responsibility in encouraging Richard. "Responsibility, my dear Miss Summerson?" he repeated, with the pleasantest smile. "I am the last man in the world for such a thing. I never was responsible in my life - I can't be." "I am afraid everybody is obliged to be," said I timidly enough, he being so much older and more clever than I. "No, really?" said Mr. Skimpole, receiving this new light with most agreeable surprise. "But every man's not obliged to be solvent? I am not. I never was. See, my dear Miss Summerson," he took a handful of loose silver and halfpence from his pocket, "there's so much money. I have not an idea how much. I have not the power of counting. I dare say I owe as much as good-natured people will let me owe. If they don't stop, why should I? There you have Harold Skimpole. If that's responsibility, I am responsible." The perfect ease of manner with which he looked at me, with a smile on his refined face, almost made me feel as if we were talking about somebody else. "Now, when you mention responsibility," he resumed, "I must say that I never had the happiness of knowing any one so refreshingly responsible as yourself. When I see you, my dear Miss Summerson, intent upon the whole little orderly system of which you are the centre, I say to myself - that's responsibility!" I persisted, saying we all hoped he would not confirm Richard in the sanguine views he held just then. "Most willingly," he retorted, "if I could. But, my dear Miss Summerson, I have no art, no disguise. If he takes me by the hand and leads me in an airy procession after fortune, I must go. If he says, 'Skimpole, join the dance!' I must join it. Common sense wouldn't, I know, but I have no common sense." It was very unfortunate for Richard, I said. "Don't say that," returned Mr. Skimpole. "Let us suppose him keeping company with Common Sense - an excellent man - wrinkled - dreadfully practical - with an account book in his hand - resembling a tax-gatherer. Our dear ardent Richard says to this respectable companion, 'I see a golden prospect before me; it's very bright, it's very joyous; here I go, bounding over the landscape to come at it!' The respectable companion instantly knocks him down with the account-book; tells him that he sees no such thing; shows him it's nothing but fees, fraud, horsehair wigs, and black gowns. Now I can't do it. I haven't got the account-book, I have none of the tax-gathering elements in my composition, I am not respectable, and I don't want to be. Odd perhaps, but so it is!" It was idle to say more, so I gave up in despair, and we joined Ada and Richard, walking ahead of us. Mr. Skimpole had been over the Hall in the morning and whimsically described the family pictures as we walked. There were such portentous shepherdesses among the past Ladies Dedlock, he told us, that peaceful crooks became weapons of assault in their hands; and a Sir Somebody Dedlock had a battle, volumes of smoke, flashes of lightning and a town on fire behind him. I was uneasy now at any reference to the name of Dedlock, and felt it a relief when Richard, with an exclamation of surprise, hurried away to meet a stranger coming slowly towards us. "Dear me!" said Mr. Skimpole. "Vholes!" We asked if that were a friend of Richard's. "Friend and legal adviser," said Mr. Skimpole. "Now, my dear Miss Summerson, if you want common sense, responsibility, and respectability, all united - Vholes is the man. When Richard left our friend Kenge, he took up, I believe, with Vholes. Indeed, I know he did, because I introduced them." "Had you known him long?" asked Ada. "Vholes? My dear Miss Clare, I had the same acquaintance with him which I have had with several gentlemen of his profession. He had done something or other in a very civil manner - taken proceedings, I think is the expression, against me. Somebody was so good as to step in and pay the money - something and fourpence; I forget the pounds and shillings - and after that I brought them together. Vholes asked me for the introduction. Now I come to think of it," he said with his frankest smile, "Vholes bribed me, perhaps? He gave me something and called it commission. Was it a five-pound note? Do you know, I think it must have been!" Richard came back to us in an excited state, introducing Mr. Vholes - a sallow man with pinched lips and a red eruption here and there upon his face, tall and thin, about fifty years, high-shouldered, and stooping. Dressed in black and buttoned to the chin, he had a lifeless manner and a slow, fixed way of looking at Richard. "I hope I don't disturb you, ladies," said Mr. Vholes. "I arranged with Mr. Carstone that he should always know when his cause was in the Chancellor's paper, and being informed by one of my clerks last night that it stood, rather unexpectedly, in the paper for tomorrow, I came down in the coach to confer with him." "Yes," said Richard, flushed, and looking triumphantly at Ada and me, "we don't do these things in the old slow way. We spin along now! Mr. Vholes, we must hire something to get over to the post, and catch the mail tonight!" "Anything you please, sir," returned Mr. Vholes. "Let me see," said Richard, looking at his watch. "If I run down to the Dedlock Arms, and get my luggage, and order a gig, or a chaise, we shall have an hour before starting. I'll come back to tea. Cousin Ada, will you and Esther take care of Mr. Vholes while I am gone?" He was away directly, and was lost in the dusk of evening. We walked towards the house. "Is Mr. Carstone's presence necessary tomorrow, Sir?" said I. "Can it do any good?" "No, miss," Mr. Vholes replied. "I am not aware that it can. But Mr. Carstone has laid down the principle of watching his own interests, and when a client lays down his own principle, it devolves upon me to carry it out. I wish in business to be exact and open. I am a widower with three daughters and my desire is so to discharge the duties of life as to leave them a good name. This appears to be a pleasant spot, miss." I assented. "I have the privilege of supporting an aged father in the Vale of Taunton and I admire that country very much. I had no idea there was anything so attractive here. My health is not good (my digestion being much impaired), and if I had only myself to consider, I should take refuge in rural habits. But with my three daughters and my aged father, I cannot afford to be selfish. It is indispensable that the mill should be always going." It required some attention to hear him on account of his low voice and lifeless manner. We arrived at Mr. Boythorn's house, where the tea-table was awaiting us. Richard hurried in shortly afterwards, and leaning over Mr. Vholes's chair, whispered something. Mr. Vholes replied aloud - or as nearly aloud I suppose as he had ever replied to anything - "You will drive, sir? It is all the same to me, sir. I am quite at your service." We understood that Mr. Skimpole was to occupy the two places on the coach which had been already paid for the next morning. Both Ada and I were in low spirits and very sorry to part with Richard. But Richard's high spirits carrying everything before them, we all went out to the hill above the village, where he had ordered a gig to wait and where we found a man with a lantern standing at the head of the gaunt pale horse that had been harnessed to it. I never shall forget those two seated side by side in the lantern's light, Richard all flush and laughter, with the reins in his hand; Mr. Vholes quite still, black-gloved, and buttoned up, looking at him as if he were looking at his prey. I can see the whole picture of the warm dark night, the dusty road closed in by hedgerows and high trees, the gaunt pale horse, and the carriage driving away at speed. My dear girl told me that night how Richard's being thereafter prosperous or ruined could only make this difference to her - that the more he needed love from one unchanging heart, the more love that unchanging heart would give him. He thought of her through his present errors, and she would think of him at all times - never of herself if she could devote herself to him, never of her own delights if she could minister to his. And she kept her word? I look along the road before me, where the journey's end is growing visible; and true and good above the dead sea of the Chancery suit, I think I see my darling.

Bleak House

Chapter 37: Jarndyce and Jarndyce

A great annual occasion has come round in the establishment of Mr. Matthew Bagnet, otherwise Lignum Vitae, ex-artilleryman and present bassoon-player. An occasion of feasting and festival. The celebration of a birthday in the family. It is not Mr. Bagnet's birthday. Mr. Bagnet merely distinguishes that epoch in the musical instrument business by kissing the children with an extra smack before breakfast, smoking an additional pipe after dinner, and wondering towards evening what his poor old mother is thinking about it--a subject of infinite speculation, and rendered so by his mother having departed this life twenty years. Some men rarely revert to their father, but seem, in the bank-books of their remembrance, to have transferred all the stock of filial affection into their mother's name. Mr. Bagnet is one of these. Perhaps his exalted appreciation of the merits of the old girl causes him usually to make the noun-substantive "goodness" of the feminine gender. It is not the birthday of one of the three children. Those occasions are kept with some marks of distinction, but they rarely overleap the bounds of happy returns and a pudding. On young Woolwich's last birthday, Mr. Bagnet certainly did, after observing on his growth and general advancement, proceed, in a moment of profound reflection on the changes wrought by time, to examine him in the catechism, accomplishing with extreme accuracy the questions number one and two, "What is your name?" and "Who gave you that name?" but there failing in the exact precision of his memory and substituting for number three the question "And how do you like that name?" which he propounded with a sense of its importance, in itself so edifying and improving as to give it quite an orthodox air. This, however, was a speciality on that particular birthday, and not a general solemnity. It is the old girl's birthday, and that is the greatest holiday and reddest-letter day in Mr. Bagnet's calendar. The auspicious event is always commemorated according to certain forms settled and prescribed by Mr. Bagnet some years since. Mr. Bagnet, being deeply convinced that to have a pair of fowls for dinner is to attain the highest pitch of imperial luxury, invariably goes forth himself very early in the morning of this day to buy a pair; he is, as invariably, taken in by the vendor and installed in the possession of the oldest inhabitants of any coop in Europe. Returning with these triumphs of toughness tied up in a clean blue and white cotton handkerchief (essential to the arrangements), he in a casual manner invites Mrs. Bagnet to declare at breakfast what she would like for dinner. Mrs. Bagnet, by a coincidence never known to fail, replying fowls, Mr. Bagnet instantly produces his bundle from a place of concealment amidst general amazement and rejoicing. He further requires that the old girl shall do nothing all day long but sit in her very best gown and be served by himself and the young people. As he is not illustrious for his cookery, this may be supposed to be a matter of state rather than enjoyment on the old girl's part, but she keeps her state with all imaginable cheerfulness. On this present birthday, Mr. Bagnet has accomplished the usual preliminaries. He has bought two specimens of poultry, which, if there be any truth in adages, were certainly not caught with chaff, to be prepared for the spit; he has amazed and rejoiced the family by their unlooked-for production; he is himself directing the roasting of the poultry; and Mrs. Bagnet, with her wholesome brown fingers itching to prevent what she sees going wrong, sits in her gown of ceremony, an honoured guest. Quebec and Malta lay the cloth for dinner, while Woolwich, serving, as beseems him, under his father, keeps the fowls revolving. To these young scullions Mrs. Bagnet occasionally imparts a wink, or a shake of the head, or a crooked face, as they made mistakes. "At half after one." Says Mr. Bagnet. "To the minute. They'll be done." Mrs. Bagnet, with anguish, beholds one of them at a standstill before the fire and beginning to burn. "You shall have a dinner, old girl," says Mr. Bagnet. "Fit for a queen." Mrs. Bagnet shows her white teeth cheerfully, but to the perception of her son, betrays so much uneasiness of spirit that he is impelled by the dictates of affection to ask her, with his eyes, what is the matter, thus standing, with his eyes wide open, more oblivious of the fowls than before, and not affording the least hope of a return to consciousness. Fortunately his elder sister perceives the cause of the agitation in Mrs. Bagnet's breast and with an admonitory poke recalls him. The stopped fowls going round again, Mrs. Bagnet closes her eyes in the intensity of her relief. "George will look us up," says Mr. Bagnet. "At half after four. To the moment. How many years, old girl. Has George looked us up. This afternoon?" "Ah, Lignum, Lignum, as many as make an old woman of a young one, I begin to think. Just about that, and no less," returns Mrs. Bagnet, laughing and shaking her head. "Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "never mind. You'd be as young as ever you was. If you wasn't younger. Which you are. As everybody knows." Quebec and Malta here exclaim, with clapping of hands, that Bluffy is sure to bring mother something, and begin to speculate on what it will be. "Do you know, Lignum," says Mrs. Bagnet, casting a glance on the table-cloth, and winking "salt!" at Malta with her right eye, and shaking the pepper away from Quebec with her head, "I begin to think George is in the roving way again. "George," returns Mr. Bagnet, "will never desert. And leave his old comrade. In the lurch. Don't be afraid of it." "No, Lignum. No. I don't say he will. I don't think he will. But if he could get over this money trouble of his, I believe he would be off." Mr. Bagnet asks why. "Well," returns his wife, considering, "George seems to me to be getting not a little impatient and restless. I don't say but what he's as free as ever. Of course he must be free or he wouldn't be George, but he smarts and seems put out." "He's extra-drilled," says Mr. Bagnet. "By a lawyer. Who would put the devil out." "There's something in that," his wife assents; "but so it is, Lignum." Further conversation is prevented, for the time, by the necessity under which Mr. Bagnet finds himself of directing the whole force of his mind to the dinner, which is a little endangered by the dry humour of the fowls in not yielding any gravy, and also by the made gravy acquiring no flavour and turning out of a flaxen complexion. With a similar perverseness, the potatoes crumble off forks in the process of peeling, upheaving from their centres in every direction, as if they were subject to earthquakes. The legs of the fowls, too, are longer than could be desired, and extremely scaly. Overcoming these disadvantages to the best of his ability, Mr. Bagnet at last dishes and they sit down at table, Mrs. Bagnet occupying the guest's place at his right hand. It is well for the old girl that she has but one birthday in a year, for two such indulgences in poultry might be injurious. Every kind of finer tendon and ligament that is in the nature of poultry to possess is developed in these specimens in the singular form of guitar-strings. Their limbs appear to have struck roots into their breasts and bodies, as aged trees strike roots into the earth. Their legs are so hard as to encourage the idea that they must have devoted the greater part of their long and arduous lives to pedestrian exercises and the walking of matches. But Mr. Bagnet, unconscious of these little defects, sets his heart on Mrs. Bagnet eating a most severe quantity of the delicacies before her; and as that good old girl would not cause him a moment's disappointment on any day, least of all on such a day, for any consideration, she imperils her digestion fearfully. How young Woolwich cleans the drum-sticks without being of ostrich descent, his anxious mother is at a loss to understand. The old girl has another trial to undergo after the conclusion of the repast in sitting in state to see the room cleared, the hearth swept, and the dinner-service washed up and polished in the backyard. The great delight and energy with which the two young ladies apply themselves to these duties, turning up their skirts in imitation of their mother and skating in and out on little scaffolds of pattens, inspire the highest hopes for the future, but some anxiety for the present. The same causes lead to confusion of tongues, a clattering of crockery, a rattling of tin mugs, a whisking of brooms, and an expenditure of water, all in excess, while the saturation of the young ladies themselves is almost too moving a spectacle for Mrs. Bagnet to look upon with the calmness proper to her position. At last the various cleansing processes are triumphantly completed; Quebec and Malta appear in fresh attire, smiling and dry; pipes, tobacco, and something to drink are placed upon the table; and the old girl enjoys the first peace of mind she ever knows on the day of this delightful entertainment. When Mr. Bagnet takes his usual seat, the hands of the clock are very near to half-past four; as they mark it accurately, Mr. Bagnet announces, "George! Military time." It is George, and he has hearty congratulations for the old girl (whom he kisses on the great occasion), and for the children, and for Mr. Bagnet. "Happy returns to all!" says Mr. George. "But, George, old man!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, looking at him curiously. "What's come to you?" "Come to me?" "Ah! You are so white, George--for you--and look so shocked. Now don't he, Lignum?" "George," says Mr. Bagnet, "tell the old girl. What's the matter." "I didn't know I looked white," says the trooper, passing his hand over his brow, "and I didn't know I looked shocked, and I'm sorry I do. But the truth is, that boy who was taken in at my place died yesterday afternoon, and it has rather knocked me over." "Poor creetur!" says Mrs. Bagnet with a mother's pity. "Is he gone? Dear, dear!" "I didn't mean to say anything about it, for it's not birthday talk, but you have got it out of me, you see, before I sit down. I should have roused up in a minute," says the trooper, making himself speak more gaily, "but you're so quick, Mrs. Bagnet." "You're right. The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet. "Is as quick. As powder." "And what's more, she's the subject of the day, and we'll stick to her," cries Mr. George. "See here, I have brought a little brooch along with me. It's a poor thing, you know, but it's a keepsake. That's all the good it is, Mrs. Bagnet." Mr. George produces his present, which is greeted with admiring leapings and clappings by the young family, and with a species of reverential admiration by Mr. Bagnet. "Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet. "Tell him my opinion of it." "Why, it's a wonder, George!" Mrs. Bagnet exclaims. "It's the beautifullest thing that ever was seen!" "Good!" says Mr. Bagnet. "My opinion." "It's so pretty, George," cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning it on all sides and holding it out at arm's length, "that it seems too choice for me." "Bad!" says Mr. Bagnet. "Not my opinion." "But whatever it is, a hundred thousand thanks, old fellow," says Mrs. Bagnet, her eyes sparkling with pleasure and her hand stretched out to him; "and though I have been a crossgrained soldier's wife to you sometimes, George, we are as strong friends, I am sure, in reality, as ever can be. Now you shall fasten it on yourself, for good luck, if you will, George." The children close up to see it done, and Mr. Bagnet looks over young Woolwich's head to see it done with an interest so maturely wooden, yet pleasantly childish, that Mrs. Bagnet cannot help laughing in her airy way and saying, "Oh, Lignum, Lignum, what a precious old chap you are!" But the trooper fails to fasten the brooch. His hand shakes, he is nervous, and it falls off. "Would any one believe this?" says he, catching it as it drops and looking round. "I am so out of sorts that I bungle at an easy job like this!" Mrs. Bagnet concludes that for such a case there is no remedy like a pipe, and fastening the brooch herself in a twinkling, causes the trooper to be inducted into his usual snug place and the pipes to be got into action. "If that don't bring you round, George," says she, "just throw your eye across here at your present now and then, and the two together MUST do it." "You ought to do it of yourself," George answers; "I know that very well, Mrs. Bagnet. I'll tell you how, one way and another, the blues have got to be too many for me. Here was this poor lad. 'Twas dull work to see him dying as he did, and not be able to help him." "What do you mean, George? You did help him. You took him under your roof." "I helped him so far, but that's little. I mean, Mrs. Bagnet, there he was, dying without ever having been taught much more than to know his right hand from his left. And he was too far gone to be helped out of that." "Ah, poor creetur!" says Mrs. Bagnet. "Then," says the trooper, not yet lighting his pipe, and passing his heavy hand over his hair, "that brought up Gridley in a man's mind. His was a bad case too, in a different way. Then the two got mixed up in a man's mind with a flinty old rascal who had to do with both. And to think of that rusty carbine, stock and barrel, standing up on end in his corner, hard, indifferent, taking everything so evenly--it made flesh and blood tingle, I do assure you." "My advice to you," returns Mrs. Bagnet, "is to light your pipe and tingle that way. It's wholesomer and comfortabler, and better for the health altogether." "You're right," says the trooper, "and I'll do it." So he does it, though still with an indignant gravity that impresses the young Bagnets, and even causes Mr. Bagnet to defer the ceremony of drinking Mrs. Bagnet's health, always given by himself on these occasions in a speech of exemplary terseness. But the young ladies having composed what Mr. Bagnet is in the habit of calling "the mixtur," and George's pipe being now in a glow, Mr. Bagnet considers it his duty to proceed to the toast of the evening. He addresses the assembled company in the following terms. "George. Woolwich. Quebec. Malta. This is her birthday. Take a day's march. And you won't find such another. Here's towards her!" The toast having been drunk with enthusiasm, Mrs. Bagnet returns thanks in a neat address of corresponding brevity. This model composition is limited to the three words "And wishing yours!" which the old girl follows up with a nod at everybody in succession and a well-regulated swig of the mixture. This she again follows up, on the present occasion, by the wholly unexpected exclamation, "Here's a man!" Here IS a man, much to the astonishment of the little company, looking in at the parlour-door. He is a sharp-eyed man--a quick keen man--and he takes in everybody's look at him, all at once, individually and collectively, in a manner that stamps him a remarkable man. "George," says the man, nodding, "how do you find yourself?" "Why, it's Bucket!" cries Mr. George. "Yes," says the man, coming in and closing the door. "I was going down the street here when I happened to stop and look in at the musical instruments in the shop-window--a friend of mine is in want of a second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone--and I saw a party enjoying themselves, and I thought it was you in the corner; I thought I couldn't be mistaken. How goes the world with you, George, at the present moment? Pretty smooth? And with you, ma'am? And with you, governor? And Lord," says Mr. Bucket, opening his arms, "here's children too! You may do anything with me if you only show me children. Give us a kiss, my pets. No occasion to inquire who YOUR father and mother is. Never saw such a likeness in my life!" Mr. Bucket, not unwelcome, has sat himself down next to Mr. George and taken Quebec and Malta on his knees. "You pretty dears," says Mr. Bucket, "give us another kiss; it's the only thing I'm greedy in. Lord bless you, how healthy you look! And what may be the ages of these two, ma'am? I should put 'em down at the figures of about eight and ten." "You're very near, sir," says Mrs. Bagnet. "I generally am near," returns Mr. Bucket, "being so fond of children. A friend of mine has had nineteen of 'em, ma'am, all by one mother, and she's still as fresh and rosy as the morning. Not so much so as yourself, but, upon my soul, she comes near you! And what do you call these, my darling?" pursues Mr. Bucket, pinching Malta's cheeks. "These are peaches, these are. Bless your heart! And what do you think about father? Do you think father could recommend a second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone for Mr. Bucket's friend, my dear? My name's Bucket. Ain't that a funny name?" These blandishments have entirely won the family heart. Mrs. Bagnet forgets the day to the extent of filling a pipe and a glass for Mr. Bucket and waiting upon him hospitably. She would be glad to receive so pleasant a character under any circumstances, but she tells him that as a friend of George's she is particularly glad to see him this evening, for George has not been in his usual spirits. "Not in his usual spirits?" exclaims Mr. Bucket. "Why, I never heard of such a thing! What's the matter, George? You don't intend to tell me you've been out of spirits. What should you be out of spirits for? You haven't got anything on your mind, you know." "Nothing particular," returns the trooper. "I should think not," rejoins Mr. Bucket. "What could you have on your mind, you know! And have these pets got anything on THEIR minds, eh? Not they, but they'll be upon the minds of some of the young fellows, some of these days, and make 'em precious low-spirited. I ain't much of a prophet, but I can tell you that, ma'am." Mrs. Bagnet, quite charmed, hopes Mr. Bucket has a family of his own. "There, ma'am!" says Mr. Bucket. "Would you believe it? No, I haven't. My wife and a lodger constitute my family. Mrs. Bucket is as fond of children as myself and as wishful to have 'em, but no. So it is. Worldly goods are divided unequally, and man must not repine. What a very nice backyard, ma'am! Any way out of that yard, now?" There is no way out of that yard. "Ain't there really?" says Mr. Bucket. "I should have thought there might have been. Well, I don't know as I ever saw a backyard that took my fancy more. Would you allow me to look at it? Thank you. No, I see there's no way out. But what a very good-proportioned yard it is!" Having cast his sharp eye all about it, Mr. Bucket returns to his chair next his friend Mr. George and pats Mr. George affectionately on the shoulder. "How are your spirits now, George?" "All right now," returns the trooper. "That's your sort!" says Mr. Bucket. "Why should you ever have been otherwise? A man of your fine figure and constitution has no right to be out of spirits. That ain't a chest to be out of spirits, is it, ma'am? And you haven't got anything on your mind, you know, George; what could you have on your mind!" Somewhat harping on this phrase, considering the extent and variety of his conversational powers, Mr. Bucket twice or thrice repeats it to the pipe he lights, and with a listening face that is particularly his own. But the sun of his sociality soon recovers from this brief eclipse and shines again. "And this is brother, is it, my dears?" says Mr. Bucket, referring to Quebec and Malta for information on the subject of young Woolwich. "And a nice brother he is--half-brother I mean to say. For he's too old to be your boy, ma'am." "I can certify at all events that he is not anybody else's," returns Mrs. Bagnet, laughing. "Well, you do surprise me! Yet he's like you, there's no denying. Lord, he's wonderfully like you! But about what you may call the brow, you know, THERE his father comes out!" Mr. Bucket compares the faces with one eye shut up, while Mr. Bagnet smokes in stolid satisfaction. This is an opportunity for Mrs. Bagnet to inform him that the boy is George's godson. "George's godson, is he?" rejoins Mr. Bucket with extreme cordiality. "I must shake hands over again with George's godson. Godfather and godson do credit to one another. And what do you intend to make of him, ma'am? Does he show any turn for any musical instrument?" Mr. Bagnet suddenly interposes, "Plays the fife. Beautiful." "Would you believe it, governor," says Mr. Bucket, struck by the coincidence, "that when I was a boy I played the fife myself? Not in a scientific way, as I expect he does, but by ear. Lord bless you! 'British Grenadiers'--there's a tune to warm an Englishman up! COULD you give us 'British Grenadiers,' my fine fellow?" Nothing could be more acceptable to the little circle than this call upon young Woolwich, who immediately fetches his fife and performs the stirring melody, during which performance Mr. Bucket, much enlivened, beats time and never fails to come in sharp with the burden, "British Gra-a-anadeers!" In short, he shows so much musical taste that Mr. Bagnet actually takes his pipe from his lips to express his conviction that he is a singer. Mr. Bucket receives the harmonious impeachment so modestly, confessing how that he did once chaunt a little, for the expression of the feelings of his own bosom, and with no presumptuous idea of entertaining his friends, that he is asked to sing. Not to be behindhand in the sociality of the evening, he complies and gives them "Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms." This ballad, he informs Mrs. Bagnet, he considers to have been his most powerful ally in moving the heart of Mrs. Bucket when a maiden, and inducing her to approach the altar--Mr. Bucket's own words are "to come up to the scratch." This sparkling stranger is such a new and agreeable feature in the evening that Mr. George, who testified no great emotions of pleasure on his entrance, begins, in spite of himself, to be rather proud of him. He is so friendly, is a man of so many resources, and so easy to get on with, that it is something to have made him known there. Mr. Bagnet becomes, after another pipe, so sensible of the value of his acquaintance that he solicits the honour of his company on the old girl's next birthday. If anything can more closely cement and consolidate the esteem which Mr. Bucket has formed for the family, it is the discovery of the nature of the occasion. He drinks to Mrs. Bagnet with a warmth approaching to rapture, engages himself for that day twelvemonth more than thankfully, makes a memorandum of the day in a large black pocket-book with a girdle to it, and breathes a hope that Mrs. Bucket and Mrs. Bagnet may before then become, in a manner, sisters. As he says himself, what is public life without private ties? He is in his humble way a public man, but it is not in that sphere that he finds happiness. No, it must be sought within the confines of domestic bliss. It is natural, under these circumstances, that he, in his turn, should remember the friend to whom he is indebted for so promising an acquaintance. And he does. He keeps very close to him. Whatever the subject of the conversation, he keeps a tender eye upon him. He waits to walk home with him. He is interested in his very boots and observes even them attentively as Mr. George sits smoking cross-legged in the chimney-corner. At length Mr. George rises to depart. At the same moment Mr. Bucket, with the secret sympathy of friendship, also rises. He dotes upon the children to the last and remembers the commission he has undertaken for an absent friend. "Respecting that second-hand wiolinceller, governor--could you recommend me such a thing?" "Scores," says Mr. Bagnet. "I am obliged to you," returns Mr. Bucket, squeezing his hand. "You're a friend in need. A good tone, mind you! My friend is a regular dab at it. Ecod, he saws away at Mozart and Handel and the rest of the big-wigs like a thorough workman. And you needn't," says Mr. Bucket in a considerate and private voice, "you needn't commit yourself to too low a figure, governor. I don't want to pay too large a price for my friend, but I want you to have your proper percentage and be remunerated for your loss of time. That is but fair. Every man must live, and ought to it." Mr. Bagnet shakes his head at the old girl to the effect that they have found a jewel of price. "Suppose I was to give you a look in, say, at half arter ten to-morrow morning. Perhaps you could name the figures of a few wiolincellers of a good tone?" says Mr. Bucket. Nothing easier. Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet both engage to have the requisite information ready and even hint to each other at the practicability of having a small stock collected there for approval. "Thank you," says Mr. Bucket, "thank you. Good night, ma'am. Good night, governor. Good night, darlings. I am much obliged to you for one of the pleasantest evenings I ever spent in my life." They, on the contrary, are much obliged to him for the pleasure he has given them in his company; and so they part with many expressions of goodwill on both sides. "Now George, old boy," says Mr. Bucket, taking his arm at the shop-door, "come along!" As they go down the little street and the Bagnets pause for a minute looking after them, Mrs. Bagnet remarks to the worthy Lignum that Mr. Bucket "almost clings to George like, and seems to be really fond of him." The neighbouring streets being narrow and ill-paved, it is a little inconvenient to walk there two abreast and arm in arm. Mr. George therefore soon proposes to walk singly. But Mr. Bucket, who cannot make up his mind to relinquish his friendly hold, replies, "Wait half a minute, George. I should wish to speak to you first." Immediately afterwards, he twists him into a public-house and into a parlour, where he confronts him and claps his own back against the door. "Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, "duty is duty, and friendship is friendship. I never want the two to clash if I can help it. I have endeavoured to make things pleasant to-night, and I put it to you whether I have done it or not. You must consider yourself in custody, George." "Custody? What for?" returns the trooper, thunderstruck. "Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, urging a sensible view of the case upon him with his fat forefinger, "duty, as you know very well, is one thing, and conversation is another. It's my duty to inform you that any observations you may make will be liable to be used against you. Therefore, George, be careful what you say. You don't happen to have heard of a murder?" "Murder!" "Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, keeping his forefinger in an impressive state of action, "bear in mind what I've said to you. I ask you nothing. You've been in low spirits this afternoon. I say, you don't happen to have heard of a murder?" "No. Where has there been a murder?" "Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, "don't you go and commit yourself. I'm a-going to tell you what I want you for. There has been a murder in Lincoln's Inn Fields--gentleman of the name of Tulkinghorn. He was shot last night. I want you for that." The trooper sinks upon a seat behind him, and great drops start out upon his forehead, and a deadly pallor overspreads his face. "Bucket! It's not possible that Mr. Tulkinghorn has been killed and that you suspect ME?" "George," returns Mr. Bucket, keeping his forefinger going, "it is certainly possible, because it's the case. This deed was done last night at ten o'clock. Now, you know where you were last night at ten o'clock, and you'll be able to prove it, no doubt." "Last night! Last night?" repeats the trooper thoughtfully. Then it flashes upon him. "Why, great heaven, I was there last night!" "So I have understood, George," returns Mr. Bucket with great deliberation. "So I have understood. Likewise you've been very often there. You've been seen hanging about the place, and you've been heard more than once in a wrangle with him, and it's possible--I don't say it's certainly so, mind you, but it's possible--that he may have been heard to call you a threatening, murdering, dangerous fellow." The trooper gasps as if he would admit it all if he could speak. "Now, George," continues Mr. Bucket, putting his hat upon the table with an air of business rather in the upholstery way than otherwise, "my wish is, as it has been all the evening, to make things pleasant. I tell you plainly there's a reward out, of a hundred guineas, offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. You and me have always been pleasant together; but I have got a duty to discharge; and if that hundred guineas is to be made, it may as well be made by me as any other man. On all of which accounts, I should hope it was clear to you that I must have you, and that I'm damned if I don't have you. Am I to call in any assistance, or is the trick done?" Mr. George has recovered himself and stands up like a soldier. "Come," he says; "I am ready." "George," continues Mr. Bucket, "wait a bit!" With his upholsterer manner, as if the trooper were a window to be fitted up, he takes from his pocket a pair of handcuffs. "This is a serious charge, George, and such is my duty." The trooper flushes angrily and hesitates a moment, but holds out his two hands, clasped together, and says, "There! Put them on!" Mr. Bucket adjusts them in a moment. "How do you find them? Are they comfortable? If not, say so, for I wish to make things as pleasant as is consistent with my duty, and I've got another pair in my pocket." This remark he offers like a most respectable tradesman anxious to execute an order neatly and to the perfect satisfaction of his customer. "They'll do as they are? Very well! Now, you see, George"--he takes a cloak from a corner and begins adjusting it about the trooper's neck--"I was mindful of your feelings when I come out, and brought this on purpose. There! Who's the wiser?" "Only I," returns the trooper, "but as I know it, do me one more good turn and pull my hat over my eyes." "Really, though! Do you mean it? Ain't it a pity? It looks so." "I can't look chance men in the face with these things on," Mr. George hurriedly replies. "Do, for God's sake, pull my hat forward." So strongly entreated, Mr. Bucket complies, puts his own hat on, and conducts his prize into the streets, the trooper marching on as steadily as usual, though with his head less erect, and Mr. Bucket steering him with his elbow over the crossings and up the turnings.

A great annual occasion has come round in the house of Mr. Matthew Bagnet: the celebration of a birthday in the family. It is not Mr. Bagnet's birthday, nor the birthday of one of the three children. Those occasions are kept with some marks of distinction, but they rarely overleap the bounds of happy returns and a pudding. It is the old girl's birthday, and that is the greatest holiday and reddest-letter day in Mr. Bagnet's calendar. The auspicious event is always commemorated according to certain customs settled by Mr. Bagnet some years since. Mr. Bagnet, being deeply convinced that to have a pair of fowls for dinner is the highest pitch of imperial luxury, invariably goes forth himself very early in the morning to buy a pair. He is, as invariably, taken in by the vendor and sold the oldest inhabitants of any chicken-coop in Europe. Returning with these triumphs of toughness tied up in a handkerchief, he casually invites Mrs. Bagnet to declare at breakfast what she would like for dinner. Mrs. Bagnet, by a coincidence never known to fail, replying fowls, Mr. Bagnet instantly produces his bundle from a place of concealment amidst general amazement and rejoicing. He further requires that the old girl shall do nothing all day but sit in her very best gown and be served by himself and the young people. As he is not illustrious for his cookery, this may be supposed to be a matter of state rather than enjoyment on the old girl's part, but she keeps her state with all imaginable cheerfulness. On this present birthday, Mr. Bagnet has bought two specimens of poultry; he has amazed and rejoiced the family by their production; he is himself directing the roasting; and Mrs. Bagnet, with her fingers itching to prevent what she sees going wrong, sits in her gown of ceremony, an honoured guest. Quebec and Malta lay the cloth for dinner, while Woolwich, serving under his father, keeps the fowls revolving on the spit. To these young scullions Mrs. Bagnet occasionally imparts a wink, or a shake of the head, or a crooked face, as they make mistakes. "At half after one." Says Mr. Bagnet. "To the minute. They'll be done." Mrs. Bagnet, with anguish, beholds one of them at a standstill before the fire and beginning to burn. "You shall have a dinner, old girl," says Mr. Bagnet. "Fit for a queen." Mrs. Bagnet smiles, but to the perception of her son, betrays so much uneasiness that he stares at her, more oblivious of the fowls than before. Fortunately his elder sister perceives the cause of Mrs. Bagnet's agitation and with an poke recalls him. The fowls going round again, Mrs. Bagnet closes her eyes in relief. "George will look us up," says Mr. Bagnet. "At half after four. How many years, old girl. Has George looked us up. This afternoon?" "Ah, Lignum, Lignum, as many as make an old woman of a young one, I think," returns Mrs. Bagnet, laughing. "Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "never mind. You'd be as young as ever you was. If you wasn't younger. Which you are. As everybody knows." "Do you know, Lignum," says Mrs. Bagnet, "I begin to think George is in the roving way again." "George," returns Mr. Bagnet, "will never desert. And leave his old comrade. In the lurch. Don't be afraid of it." "No, Lignum. I don't say he will. But if he could get over this money trouble of his, I believe he would be off. He seems to be getting a little impatient and restless. He seems put out." "He's extra-drilled," says Mr. Bagnet. "By a lawyer. Who would put the devil out." "There's something in that," his wife agrees. Further conversation is prevented, as Mr. Bagnet needs to direct the whole force of his mind to the dinner, which is a little endangered by the fowls not yielding any gravy. With a similar perverseness, the potatoes crumble in the process of peeling. The legs of the fowls, too, are extremely scaly. Overcoming these disadvantages to the best of his ability, Mr. Bagnet at last serves up and they sit down at table. It is well for the old girl that she has but one birthday in a year, for two such indulgences might be harmful. Every kind of tendon and ligament that poultry possesses is developed in these specimens in the singular form of guitar-strings. Their legs are as hard as if they devoted their long and arduous lives to walking matches. But Mr. Bagnet, unconscious of these little defects, sets his heart on Mrs. Bagnet eating a severe quantity of the delicacies before her; and as that good old girl would not cause him a moment's disappointment, she imperils her digestion fearfully. How young Woolwich cleans the chicken drum-sticks, his anxious mother is at a loss to understand. The old girl has another trial to undergo after the meal, in sitting in state to see the room cleared, the hearth swept, and the dinner-service washed and polished in the backyard. The great delight and energy with which the two young ladies apply themselves to these duties inspire the highest hopes for the future, but some anxiety for the present. The saturation of the young ladies is almost too moving for Mrs. Bagnet to look upon with calmness. At last the various cleansing processes are triumphantly completed; Quebec and Malta appear in fresh attire, smiling and dry; pipes, tobacco, and something to drink are placed upon the table; and the old girl enjoys the first peace of mind she ever knows on the day of this delightful entertainment. When Mr. Bagnet takes his usual seat, the hands of the clock are very near to half-past four; and he announces, "George! Military time." George arrives, and has hearty congratulations for the old girl. "But, George, old man!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, looking at him curiously. "What's come to you? You are so white - and look so shocked. Now don't he, Lignum?" "George," says Mr. Bagnet, "tell the old girl. What's the matter." "I didn't know I looked white," says the trooper, passing his hand over his brow, "and I didn't know I looked shocked. But the truth is, that boy who was taken in at my place died yesterday afternoon, and it has rather knocked me over." "Poor creature!" says Mrs. Bagnet. "I didn't mean to say anything about it, for it's not birthday talk," says the trooper, making himself speak more gaily, "but you're so quick, Mrs. Bagnet." "You're right. The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "is as quick. As gunpowder." "She's the subject of the day, and we'll stick to her," cries Mr. George. "See here, I have brought a little brooch as a keepsake, Mrs. Bagnet." Mr. George produces his present, which is greeted with admiring clappings by the young family. "Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet. "Tell him my opinion of it." "Why, it's a wonder, George!" Mrs. Bagnet exclaims. "It's the beautifullest thing that ever was seen!" "Good!" says Mr. Bagnet. "My opinion." "It's so pretty, George," cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning it over, "that it seems too choice for me." "Bad!" says Mr. Bagnet. "Not my opinion." "A hundred thousand thanks, old fellow," says Mrs. Bagnet, her eyes sparkling with pleasure and her hand stretched out to him; "and though I have been a crossgrained soldier's wife to you sometimes, George, we are as strong friends as ever can be. Now you shall fasten it on yourself, for good luck, George." But the trooper's hand shakes, and the brooch falls off. "Would anyone believe this?" says he, catching it as it drops. "I am so out of sorts that I bungle an easy job like this!" Mrs. Bagnet concludes that for such a case there is no remedy like a pipe, and fastening the brooch herself, causes the trooper to sit in his usual snug place and the pipes to be got into action. "The blues have got too many for me," admits George. "Here was this poor lad dying, and I was not able to help him." "What do you mean, George? You did help him. You took him under your roof." "I helped him so far, but that's little. And then, it made me remember Gridley. His was a bad case too, in a different way. Then the two got mixed up in a my mind with a flinty old rascal who had to do with both. Hard, indifferent, taking everything so evenly - it made flesh and blood tingle, I do assure you." "My advice to you," returns Mrs. Bagnet, "is to light your pipe and tingle that way. It's wholesomer and comfortabler." "You're right," says the trooper, "and I'll do it." So he does it. Once George's pipe is in a glow, Mr. Bagnet proceeds to the toast of the evening. "George. Woolwich. Quebec. Malta. This is her birthday. Take a day's march. And you won't find such another. Here's to her!" The toast having been drunk with enthusiasm, Mrs. Bagnet returns thanks in a neat address of equal brevity: "And wishing yours!" which she follows up with a nod at everybody and a swig of the mixture. This she again follows up by the wholly unexpected exclamation, "Here's a man!" Here is a man, much to everyone's astonishment, looking in at the parlour-door. He is a sharp-eyed man - a quick keen man - and he takes in everybody's look at him, all at once, in a remarkable manner. "George," says the man, nodding, "how do you find yourself?" "Why, it's Bucket!" cries Mr. George. "Yes," says the man, coming in and closing the door. "I was going down the street here when I happened to stop and look in at the musical instruments in the shop-window - a friend of mine is in want of a second-hand cello - and I saw a party enjoying themselves, and I thought it was you in the corner. How goes the world with you, George? And with you, ma'am? And with you, governor? And Lord," says Mr. Bucket, opening his arms, "here's children too! Give us a kiss, my pets. No occasion to inquire who your father and mother is. Never saw such a likeness in my life!" Mr. Bucket, not unwelcome, has sat himself down next to Mr. George and taken Quebec and Malta on his knees. "Lord bless you, how healthy you look! And what may be the ages of these two, ma'am? I should put 'em at about eight and ten." "You're very near, sir," says Mrs. Bagnet. "I generally am near," returns Mr. Bucket, "being so fond of children. And what do you call these, my darling?" he pursues, pinching Malta's cheeks. "These are peaches, these are. Bless your heart! And do you think father could recommend a second-hand cello for Mr. Bucket's friend, my dear? My name's Bucket. Ain't that a funny name?" These blandishments have entirely won the family heart. Mrs. Bagnet fills a pipe and a glass for Mr. Bucket and she tells him that as a friend of George's she is particularly glad to see him this evening, for George has not been in his usual spirits. "Not in his usual spirits?" exclaims Mr. Bucket. "Why, what's the matter, George? What should you be out of spirits for? You haven't got anything on your mind, you know." "Nothing particular," returns the trooper. "I should think not," rejoins Mr. Bucket. "What could you have on your mind, you know! These pets'll be upon the minds of some of the young fellows, some of these days. I ain't much of a prophet, but I can tell you that, ma'am." Mrs. Bagnet, quite charmed, hopes Mr. Bucket has a family of his own. "There, ma'am!" says Mr. Bucket. "No, I haven't. My wife and a lodger constitute my family. Mrs. Bucket is as fond of children as myself and as wishful to have 'em, but no. So it is. Man must not repine. What a very nice backyard, ma'am! Any way out of that yard, now?" There is no way out of that yard. "Well, I don't know as I ever saw a backyard that took my fancy more," says Mr. Bucket. "Would you allow me to look at it? Thank you. No, I see there's no way out. But what a very good-proportioned yard it is!" Mr. Bucket returns to his chair and pats Mr. George affectionately on the shoulder. "How are your spirits now, George?" "All right now," returns the trooper. "That's your sort!" says Mr. Bucket. "A man of your fine figure and constitution has no right to be out of spirits. And you haven't got anything on your mind, you know, George! And this is your brother, is it, my dears?" he says to Quebec and Malta, referring to young Woolwich. "Half-brother, I mean to say. For he's too old to be your boy, ma'am." "He is not anybody else's," returns Mrs. Bagnet, laughing. "Well, you do surprise me! Yet he's like you, there's no denying!" Mrs. Bagnet informs him that the boy is George's godson. "Is he?" rejoins Mr. Bucket cordially. "I must shake hands with George's godson. And what do you intend to make of him, ma'am? Does he show any turn for any musical instrument?" Mr. Bagnet suddenly interposes, "Plays the fife. Beautiful." "Would you believe it, governor," says Mr. Bucket, struck by the coincidence, "that when I was a boy I played the fife myself? 'British Grenadiers' - there's a tune to warm an Englishman up! Could you give us 'British Grenadiers,' my fine fellow?" Nothing could be more acceptable to the little circle. Woolwich immediately fetches his fife and performs the stirring melody, while Mr. Bucket beats time and comes in sharp with the chorus, "British Gra-a-anadeers!" In short, he shows so much musical taste that Mr. Bagnet actually takes his pipe from his lips to express his conviction that he is a singer. Mr. Bucket modestly confesses, and is asked to sing. He complies and gives them "Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms." This sparkling stranger is such a new and agreeable feature in the evening that Mr. George begins, in spite of himself, to be rather proud of him. He is so friendly, is a man of so many resources, and so easy to get on with, that Mr. Bagnet asks for the honour of his company on the old girl's next birthday. On discovering the nature of the occasion, Mr. Bucket drinks to Mrs. Bagnet with warmth, makes a memorandum of the day in a large black pocket-book, and breathes a hope that Mrs. Bucket and Mrs. Bagnet may before then become, in a manner, sisters. It is natural that he, in his turn, should remember the friend to whom he is indebted for this acquaintance. And he does. He keeps very close to him. He waits to walk home with him. At length Mr. George rises to depart. At the same moment Mr. Bucket also rises. He remembers the commission he has undertaken. "Respecting that second-hand cello, governor - could you recommend me such a thing?" "Scores," says Mr. Bagnet. "I am obliged to you," returns Mr. Bucket, squeezing his hand. "A good tone, mind you! And you needn't commit yourself to too low a figure, governor. I don't want to pay too large a price for my friend, but I want you to have your proper percentage. That is only fair. Suppose I was to look in, say, at half arter ten tomorrow morning?" Nothing easier. Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet engage to have the information ready and even hint at having a small stock of instruments collected there for approval. "Thank you," says Mr. Bucket. "Good night, ma'am. Good night, governor. Good night, darlings. I am much obliged to you for one of the pleasantest evenings I ever spent in my life." So they part with many expressions of goodwill on both sides. "Now George, old boy," says Mr. Bucket, taking his arm at the shop-door, "come along!" As they go away down the little street, Mrs. Bagnet remarks that Mr. Bucket "almost clings to George, and seems to be really fond of him." The neighbouring streets being narrow and ill-paved, it is a little inconvenient to walk there two abreast. Mr. George proposes to walk singly. But Mr. Bucket, without relinquishing his friendly hold, replies, "Wait half a minute, George. I wish to speak to you first." He twists him into a public-house and into a parlour, where he confronts him and claps his own back against the door. "Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, "duty is duty, and friendship is friendship. I never want the two to clash if I can help it. I have endeavoured to make things pleasant tonight, but you must consider yourself in custody, George." "Custody? What for?" returns the trooper, thunderstruck. "Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, "it's my duty to inform you that any observations you may make will be liable to be used against you. Therefore, George, be careful what you say. You don't happen to have heard of a murder?" "Murder!" "Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, "bear in mind what I've said to you. I ask you nothing. You've been in low spirits this afternoon. I say, you don't happen to have heard of a murder?" "No. Where has there been a murder?" "Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, "don't you go and commit yourself. There has been a murder in Lincoln's Inn Fields - gentleman of the name of Tulkinghorn. He was shot last night. I want you for that." The trooper sinks upon a seat, and great drops start out upon his forehead, and a deadly pallor overspreads his face. "Bucket! It's not possible that Mr. Tulkinghorn has been killed and that you suspect me?" "George," returns Mr. Bucket, his forefinger wagging, "it is certainly possible, because it's the case. This deed was done last night at ten o'clock. Now, you know where you were last night at ten o'clock, and you'll be able to prove it, no doubt." "Last night! Last night?" repeats the trooper thoughtfully. Then it flashes upon him. "Why, great heaven, I was there last night!" "So I have understood, George," returns Mr. Bucket with great deliberation. "You've been seen hanging about the place, and you've been heard more than once in a wrangle with him, and it's possible - I don't say it's certainly so, mind you, but it's possible - that he may have been heard to call you a threatening, murdering, dangerous fellow." The trooper gasps. "Now, George," continues Mr. Bucket, putting his hat upon the table, "my wish is, as it has been all the evening, to make things pleasant. There's a reward out, of a hundred guineas, offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. You and me have always been pleasant together; but I have got a duty to discharge; and if that hundred guineas is to be made, it may as well be made by me as any other man. On all of which accounts, I hope it was clear to you that I must arrest you. Am I to call in any assistance, or is it done?" Mr. George has recovered himself and stands up like a soldier. "Come," he says; "I am ready." "Wait a bit!" Mr. Bucket takes from his pocket a pair of handcuffs. "This is a serious charge, George, and such is my duty." The trooper flushes angrily and hesitates, but holds out his two hands. "There! Put them on!" Mr. Bucket adjusts them. "Are they comfortable? If not, say so, for I wish to make things as pleasant as is consistent with my duty. They'll do? Very well! Now, you see, George" - he takes a cloak from a corner and adjusts it about the trooper's neck - "I was mindful of your feelings when I come out, and brought this on purpose. There! Who's the wiser?" "Only I," returns the trooper. "Do me one more good turn and pull my hat over my eyes." Mr. Bucket complies, puts his own hat on, and conducts his prize into the streets, the trooper marching on as steadily as usual, and Mr. Bucket steering him with his elbow over the crossings and up the turnings.

Bleak House

Chapter 49: Dutiful Friendship

As the winter wore itself away, Mr. Cheesacre, happy as he was amidst the sports of Norfolk, and prosperous as he might be with the augean spoils of Oileymead, fretted himself with an intense anxiety to bring to a close that affair which he had on his hands with the widow Greenow. There were two special dangers which disturbed him. She would give herself and all her money to that adventurer, Bellfield; or else she would spend her own money so fast before he got hold upon it, that the prize would be greatly damaged. "I'm ---- if she hasn't been and set up a carriage!" he said to himself one day, as standing on the pavement of Tombland, in Norwich, he saw Mrs. Greenow issue forth from the Close in a private brougham, accompanied by one of the Fairstairs girls. "She's been and set up her carriage as sure as my name's Cheesacre!" Whatever reason he might have to fear the former danger, we may declare that he had none whatever as to the latter. Mrs. Greenow knew what she was doing with her money as well as any lady in England. The private carriage was only a hired brougham taken by the month, and as to that boy in buttons whom she had lately established, why should she not keep a young servant, and call him a page, if it gave her any comfort to do so? If Mr. Cheesacre had also known that she had lent the Fairstairs family fifty pounds to help them through with some difficulty which Joe had encountered with the Norwich tradespeople, he would have been beside himself with dismay. He desired to obtain the prize unmutilated,--in all its fair proportions. Any such clippings he regarded as robberies against himself. But he feared Bellfield more than he feared the brougham. That all is fair in love and war was no doubt, at this period, Captain Bellfield's maxim, and we can only trust that he found in it some consolation, or ease to his conscience, in regard to the monstrous lies which he told his friend. In war, no doubt, all stratagems are fair. The one general is quite justified in making the other believe that he is far to the right, when in truth he is turning his enemy's left flank. If successful, he will be put upon a pedestal for his clever deceit, and crowned with laurels because of his lie. If Bellfield could only be successful, and achieve for himself the mastery over those forty thousand pounds, the world would forgive him and place, on his brow also, some not uncomfortable crown. In the mean time, his stratagems were as deep and his lies as profound as those of any general. It must not be supposed that Cheesacre ever believed him. In the first place, he knew that Bellfield was not a man to be believed in any way. Had he not been living on lies for the last ten years? But then a man may lie in such a way as to deceive, though no one believe him. Mr. Cheesacre was kept in an agony of doubt while Captain Bellfield occupied his lodgings in Norwich. He fee'd Jeannette liberally. He even fee'd Charlie Fairstairs,--Miss Fairstairs I mean,--with gloves, and chickens from Oileymead, so that he might know whether that kite fluttered about his dovecoat, and of what nature were the flutterings. He went even further than this, and fee'd the Captain himself,--binding him down not to flutter as value given in return for such fees. He attempted even to fee the widow,--cautioning her against the fluttering, as he tendered to her, on his knees, a brooch as big as a breast-plate. She waved aside the breast-plate, declaring that the mourning ring which contained poor Greenow's final grey lock of hair, was the last article from a jeweller's shop which should ever find a place about her person. At the same time she declared that Captain Bellfield was nothing to her; Mr. Cheesacre need have no fears in that quarter. But then, she added, neither was he to have any hope. Her affections were all buried under the cold sod. This was harassing. Nevertheless, though no absolute satisfaction was to be attained in the wooing of Mrs. Greenow, there was a pleasantness in the occupation which ought to have reconciled her suitors to their destiny. With most ladies, when a gentleman has been on his knees before one of them in the morning, with outspoken protestations of love, with clearly defined proffers of marriage, with a minute inventory of the offerer's worldly wealth,--down even to the "mahogany-furnitured" bed-chambers, as was the case with Mr. Cheesacre, and when all these overtures have been peremptorily declined,--a gentleman in such a case, I say, would generally feel some awkwardness in sitting down to tea with the lady at the close of such a performance. But with Mrs. Greenow there was no such awkwardness. After an hour's work of the nature above described she would play the hostess with a genial hospitality, that eased off all the annoyance of disappointment; and then at the end of the evening, she would accept a squeeze of the hand, a good, palpable, long-protracted squeeze, with that sort of "don't;--have done now," by which Irish young ladies allure their lovers. Mr. Cheesacre, on such occasions, would leave the Close, swearing that she should be his on the next market-day,--or at any rate, on the next Saturday. Then, on the Monday, tidings would reach him that Bellfield had passed all Sunday afternoon with his lady-love,--Bellfield, to whom he had lent five pounds on purpose that he might be enabled to spend that very Sunday with some officers of the Suffolk volunteers at Ipswich. And hearing this, he would walk out among those rich heaps, at the back of his farmyard, uttering deep curses against the falsehood of men and the fickleness of women. Driven to despair, he at last resolved to ask Bellfield to come to Oileymead for a month. That drilling at Norwich, or the part of it which was supposed to be profitable, was wearing itself out. Funds were low with the Captain,--as he did not scruple to tell his friend Cheesacre, and he accepted the invitation. "I'll mount you with the harriers, old fellow," Cheesacre had said; "and give you a little shooting. Only I won't have you go out when I'm not with you." Bellfield agreed, Each of them understood the nature of the bargain; though Bellfield, I think, had somewhat the clearer understanding in the matter. He would not be so near the widow as he had been at Norwich, but he would not be less near than his kind host. And his host would no doubt watch him closely;--but then he also could watch his host. There was a railway station not two miles from Oileymead, and the journey thence into Norwich was one of half an hour. Mr. Cheesacre would doubtless be very jealous of such journeys, but with all his jealousy he could not prevent them. And then, in regard to this arrangement, Mr. Cheesacre paid the piper, whereas Captain Bellfield paid nothing. Would it not be sweet to him if he could carry off his friend's prize from under the very eaves of his friend's house? And Mrs. Greenow also understood the arrangement. "Going to Oileymead; are you?" she said when Captain Bellfield came to tell her of his departure. Charlie Fairstairs was with her, so that the Captain could not utilize the moment in any special way. "It's quite delightful," continued the widow, "to see how fond you two gentlemen are of each other." "I think gentlemen always like to go best to gentlemen's houses where there are no ladies," said Charlie Fairstairs, whose career in life had not as yet been satisfactory to her. "As for that," said Bellfield, "I wish with all my heart that dear old Cheesy would get a wife. He wants a wife badly, if ever a man did, with all that house full of blankets and crockery. Why don't you set your cap at him, Miss Fairstairs?" "What;--at a farmer!" said Charlie who was particularly anxious that her dear friend, Mrs. Greenow, should not marry Mr. Cheesacre, and who weakly thought to belittle him accordingly. "Give him my kind love," said Mrs. Greenow, thereby resenting the impotent interference. "And look here, Captain Bellfield, suppose you both dine with me next Saturday. He always comes in on Saturday, and you might as well come too." Captain Bellfield declared that he would only be too happy. "And Charlie shall come to set her cap at Mr. Cheesacre," said the widow, turning a soft and gracious eye on the Captain. "I shall be happy to come,"--said Charlie, quite delighted; "but not with that object. Mr. Cheesacre is very respectable, I'm sure." Charlie's mother had been the daughter of a small squire who had let his land to tenants, and she was, therefore, justified by circumstances in looking down upon a farmer. The matter was so settled,--pending the consent of Mr. Cheesacre; and Bellfield went out to Oileymead. He knew the ways of the house, and was not surprised to find himself left alone till after dusk; nor was he much surprised when he learned that he was not put into one of the mahogany-furnitured chambers, but into a back room looking over the farm-yard in which there was no fire-place. The Captain had already endured some of the evils of poverty, and could have put up with this easily had nothing been said about it. As it was, Cheesacre brought the matter forward, and apologized, and made the thing difficult. "You see, old fellow," he said, "there are the rooms, and of course they're empty. But it's such a bore hauling out all the things and putting up the curtains. You'll be very snug where you are." "I shall do very well," said Bellfield rather sulkily. "Of course you'll do very well. It's the warmest room in the house in one way." He did not say in what way. Perhaps the near neighbourhood of the stables may have had a warming effect. Bellfield did not like it; but what is a poor man to do under such circumstances? So he went up-stairs and washed his hands before dinner in the room without a fire-place, flattering himself that he would yet be even with his friend Cheesacre. They dined together not in the best humour, and after dinner they sat down to enjoy themselves with pipes and brandy and water. Bellfield, having a taste for everything that was expensive, would have preferred cigars; but his friend put none upon the table. Mr. Cheesacre, though he could spend his money liberally when occasion required such spending, knew well the value of domestic economy. He wasn't going to put himself out, as he called it, for Bellfield! What was good enough for himself was good enough for Bellfield. "A beggar, you know; just a regular beggar!" as he was betrayed into saying to Mrs. Greenow on some occasion just at this period. "Poor fellow! He only wants money to make him almost perfect," Mrs. Greenow had answered;--and Mr. Cheesacre had felt that he had made a mistake. Both the men became talkative, if not good-humoured, under the effects of the brandy and water, and the Captain then communicated Mrs. Greenow's invitation to Mr. Cheesacre. He had had his doubts as to the propriety of doing so,--thinking that perhaps it might be to his advantage to forget the message. But he reflected that he was at any rate a match for Cheesacre when they were present together, and finally came to the conclusion that the message should be delivered. "I had to go and just wish her goodbye you know," he said apologetically, as he finished his little speech. "I don't see that at all," said Cheesacre. "Why, my dear fellow, how foolishly jealous you are. If I were to be downright uncivil to her, as you would have me be, it would only call attention to the thing." "I'm not a bit jealous. A man who sits upon his own ground as I do hasn't any occasion to be jealous." "I don't know what your own ground has to do with it,--but we'll let that pass." "I think it has a great deal to do with it. If a man does intend to marry he ought to have things comfortable about him; unless he wants to live on his wife, which I look upon as about the meanest thing a man can do. By George, I'd sooner break stones than that." This was hard for any captain to bear,--even for Captain Bellfield; but he did bear it,--looking forward to revenge. "There's no pleasing you, I know," said he. "But there's the fact. I went to say goodbye to her, and she asked me to give you that message. Shall we go or not?" Cheesacre sat for some time silent, blowing out huge clouds of smoke while he meditated a little plan. "I'll tell you what it is, Bellfield," he said at last. "She's nothing to you, and if you won't mind it, I'll go. Mrs. Jones shall get you anything you like for dinner,--and,--and--I'll stand you a bottle of the '34 port!" But Captain Bellfield was not going to put up with this. He had not sold himself altogether to work Mr. Cheesacre's will. "No, old fellow," said he; "that cock won't fight. She has asked me to dine with her on Saturday, and I mean to go. I don't intend that she shall think that I'm afraid of her,--or of you either." "You don't;--don't you?" "No, I don't," said the Captain stoutly. "I wish you'd pay me some of that money you owe me," said Cheesacre. "So I will,--when I've married the widow. Ha,--ha,--ha." Cheesacre longed to turn him out of the house. Words to bid him go, were, so to say, upon his tongue. But the man would only have taken himself to Norwich, and would have gone without any embargo upon his suit; all their treaties would then be at an end. "She knows a trick worth two of that," said Cheesacre at last. "I dare say she does; and if so, why shouldn't I go and dine with her next Saturday?" "I'll tell you why,--because you're in my way. The deuce is in it if I haven't made the whole thing clear enough. I've told you all my plans because I thought you were my friend, and I've paid you well to help me, too; and yet it seems to me you'd do anything in your power to throw me over,--only you can't." "What an ass you are," said the Captain after a pause; "just you listen to me. That scraggy young woman, Charlie Fairstairs, is to be there of course." "How do you know?" "I tell you that I do know. She was present when the whole thing was arranged, and I heard her asked, and heard her say that she would come;--and for the matter of that I heard her declare that she wouldn't set her cap at you, because you're a farmer." "Upon my word she's kind. Upon my word she is," said Cheesacre, getting very angry and very red. "Charlie Fairstairs, indeed! I wouldn't pick her out of a gutter with a pair of tongs. She ain't good enough for my bailiff, let alone me." "But somebody must take her in hand on Saturday, if you're to do any good," said the crafty Bellfield. "What the deuce does she have that nasty creature there for?" said Cheesacre, who thought it very hard that everything should not be arranged exactly as he would desire. "She wants a companion, of course. You can get rid of Charlie, you know, when you make her Mrs. Cheesacre." "Get rid of her! You don't suppose she'll ever put her foot in this house. Not if I know it. I've detested that woman for the last ten years." Cheesacre could forgive no word of slight respecting his social position, and the idea of Miss Fairstairs having pretended to look down upon him, galled him to the quick. "You'll have to dine with her at any rate," said Bellfield, "and I always think that four are better company than three on such occasions." Mr. Cheesacre grunted an unwilling assent, and after this it was looked upon as an arranged thing that they two should go into Norwich on the Saturday together, and that they should both dine with the widow. Indeed, Mrs. Greenow got two notes, one from each of them, accepting the invitation. Cheesacre wrote in the singular number, altogether ignoring Captain Bellfield, as he might have ignored his footman had he intended to take one. The captain condescended to use the plural pronoun. "We shall be so happy to come," said he. "Dear old Cheesy is out of his little wits with delight," he added, "and has already begun to polish off the effects of the farmyard." "Effects of the farmyard," said Mrs. Greenow aloud, in Jeannette's hearing, when she received the note. "It would be well for Captain Bellfield if he had a few such effects himself." "You can give him enough, ma'am," said Jeannette, "to make him a better man than Mr. Cheesacre any day. And for a gentleman--of course I say nothing, but if I was a lady, I know which should be the man for me."

As the winter passed, Mr. Cheesacre fretted anxiously about the widow Greenow. There were two dangers which disturbed him. She would give herself and all her money to Bellfield; or else she would spend her own money so fast before he got hold of it, that the prize would be greatly damaged. "I'm --- if she hasn't set up a carriage!" he said to himself one day in Norwich, on seeing Mrs. Greenow in a private brougham, accompanied by one of the Fairstairs girls. "She's been and set up her carriage as sure as my name's Cheesacre!" However, Mrs. Greenow knew what she was doing with her money as well as any lady in England. The private carriage was only hired by the month, and as to that boy in buttons, why should she not keep a young servant, and call him a page, if she wished? If Mr. Cheesacre had also known that she had lent the Fairstairs family fifty pounds to help them through some difficulty, he would have been beside himself with dismay. He desired to obtain the prize unmutilated. Any such clippings he regarded as robberies against himself. But he feared Bellfield more. That all is fair in love and war was no doubt Captain Bellfield's maxim; at any rate he told some monstrous lies to his friend. In war, no doubt, all stratagems are fair. If Bellfield could only be successful, and achieve mastery over those forty thousand pounds, the world would forgive him. In the meantime, his stratagems were as deep and his lies as profound as those of any general. It must not be supposed that Cheesacre ever believed him. In the first place, he knew that Bellfield was not a man to be believed. Had he not been living on lies for the last ten years? But Mr. Cheesacre was kept in an agony of doubt. He paid Jeannette liberally. He even paid Charlie Fairstairs with gloves, and chickens from Oileymead, so that he might know whether that hawk fluttered about his dovecote. He went further, and paid the Captain himself, making him promise not to flutter in return for money. He even attempted to pay the widow - cautioning her against the fluttering, as he offered her, on his knees, a brooch as big as a plate. She waved the brooch aside, declaring that her mourning ring was the only jewellery she would ever wear. She also declared that Captain Bellfield was nothing to her; Mr. Cheesacre need have no fears. But, she added, neither was he to have any hope. Her affections were all buried under the cold earth. This was harassing. Nevertheless, though they could get no satisfaction in wooing Mrs. Greenow, the pleasantness of the occupation ought to have reconciled her suitors to their destiny. When a gentleman has been on his knees before a lady, and has been peremptorily refused, he would generally feel some awkwardness in sitting down to tea with the lady afterwards. But with Mrs. Greenow there was no such awkwardness. She would play the hostess with a genial hospitality, and at the end of the evening she would accept a good long squeeze of the hand. Mr. Cheesacre, on such occasions, would leave the Close swearing that she should be his on the next market-day. Then, on the Monday, news would reach him that Bellfield had passed all Sunday afternoon with his lady-love - Bellfield, to whom he had lent five pounds to spend that very Sunday with some officers at Ipswich. Driven to despair, he at last resolved to ask Bellfield to come to Oileymead for a month. Funds were low with the Captain, and he accepted the invitation. "I'll hire you a horse, old fellow," Cheesacre had said; "and give you a little shooting. Only I won't have you go out when I'm not with you." Bellfield agreed. Each of them understood the nature of the bargain; though Bellfield, I think, understood it better. He would not be so near the widow as he had been at Norwich, but he would no further away than his kind host was. His host would no doubt watch him closely; but he could also watch his host. There was a railway station two miles from Oileymead, and the journey into Norwich was only half an hour. Mr. Cheesacre could not prevent such journeys. And then he would pay for everything, while Captain Bellfield paid nothing. Would it not be sweet if he could carry off his friend's prize from under his friend's roof? And Mrs. Greenow also understood the arrangement. "Going to Oileymead, are you?" she said when Captain Bellfield came to tell her of his departure. Charlie Fairstairs was with her, so that the Captain could not use the moment in any special way. "It's quite delightful," continued the widow, "to see how fond you two gentlemen are of each other." "I wish with all my heart that dear old Cheesy would get a wife," said Bellfield. "He needs a wife badly, with that house full of blankets and crockery. Why don't you set your cap at him, Miss Fairstairs?" "What; at a farmer!" said Charlie, who was particularly anxious that her dear friend Mrs. Greenow should not marry Mr. Cheesacre. "Give him my kind love," said Mrs. Greenow. "And, Captain Bellfield, suppose you both dine with me next Saturday. He always comes on Saturday, and you might as well come too." Captain Bellfield declared that he would only be too happy. "And Charlie shall come to set her cap at Mr. Cheesacre," said the widow. "I shall be happy to come," said Charlie, quite delighted; "but not with that object, though Mr. Cheesacre is very respectable, I'm sure." So Bellfield went to Oileymead. He was not much surprised to find himself put not into one of the mahogany-furnitured chambers, but into a back room overlooking the farm-yard, with no fire-place. Bellfield did not like it; but what is a poor man to do under such circumstances? So he washed his hands before dinner in the room without a fire-place, flattering himself that he would yet be even with his friend Cheesacre. They dined together not in the best humour, and after dinner they sat down to enjoy themselves with pipes and brandy and water. Bellfield would have preferred cigars; but they were more expensive, and his friend put none upon the table. Mr. Cheesacre wasn't going to put himself out for Bellfield! Both the men became talkative under the effects of the brandy, and the Captain then gave Mrs. Greenow's invitation to Mr. Cheesacre. He had wondered whether to forget the message, but decided that it should be delivered. "I had to go and just wish her goodbye, you know," he said apologetically. "I don't see that at all," said Cheesacre. "Why, my dear fellow, how foolishly jealous you are. If I were to be downright uncivil to her, it would only call attention to the thing." "I'm not a bit jealous. A man who sits upon his own ground as I do hasn't any occasion to be jealous." "I don't know what your own ground has to do with it." "It has a great deal to do with it. If a man intends to marry he ought to have things comfortable about him; unless he wants to live on his wife, which is about the meanest thing a man can do. By George, I'd sooner break stones than that." This was hard for any captain to bear; but Captain Bellfield did bear it - looking forward to revenge. "There's no pleasing you, I know," said he. "But I went to say goodbye to her, and she asked me to give you that message. Shall we go or not?" Cheesacre sat for some time silent and meditating a little plan. "I'll tell you what, Bellfield," he said at last. "She's nothing to you, and if you won't mind staying here, I'll go. Mrs. Jones shall get you anything you like for dinner - and - and I'll stand you a bottle of the '34 port!" But Captain Bellfield was not going to put up with this. "No, old fellow. She has asked me to dine with her on Saturday, and I mean to go." "I wish you'd pay me some of that money you owe me," said Cheesacre. "So I will - when I've married the widow." Cheesacre longed to turn him out of the house. But the man would only have taken himself to Norwich, to woo the widow; and all their treaties would be at an end. "Why shouldn't I go and dine with her next Saturday?" asked Bellfield. "Because you're in my way. I've made it clear enough. I've told you all my plans because I thought you were my friend, and I've paid you well to help me, too; and yet you do all you can to throw me over - only you can't." "What an ass you are," said the Captain. "Just you listen to me. That scraggy young woman, Charlie Fairstairs, is to be there. She was present when the whole thing was arranged, and I heard her asked, and heard her say that she would come - and she declared that she wouldn't set her cap at you, because you're a farmer." "Upon my word she's kind," said Cheesacre, getting very angry and very red. "Charlie Fairstairs, indeed! I wouldn't pick her out of a gutter with a pair of tongs." "But somebody must take her in hand on Saturday, if you're to do any good with the widow," said the crafty Bellfield. "What the deuce does she have that nasty creature there for?" said Cheesacre. "As a companion, of course. You can get rid of Charlie, you know, when you make her Mrs. Cheesacre." "Get rid of her! She'll never set foot in this house. I've detested that woman for the last ten years." Cheesacre could forgive no slighting of his social position, and the idea of Miss Fairstairs looking down upon him galled him to the quick. "You'll have to dine with her at any rate," said Bellfield, "and four are better company than three on such occasions." Mr. Cheesacre grunted an unwilling assent; and it was arranged that they should go together, and both dine with the widow. Indeed, Mrs. Greenow got two notes, one from each of them. Cheesacre wrote his acceptance, altogether ignoring Captain Bellfield. The captain wrote, "We shall be so happy to come. Dear old Cheesy is out of his little wits with delight, and has already begun to polish off the effects of the farmyard." "Effects of the farmyard," read Mrs. Greenow aloud to Jeannette. "It would be well for Captain Bellfield if he had a few such effects himself." "You can give him enough, ma'am," said Jeannette, "to make him a better man than Mr. Cheesacre any day. And for a gentleman - of course I say nothing, but if I was a lady, I know which should be the man for me."

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 39: Mr. Cheesacre's Hospitality

Of all sights in the world there is, I think, none more beautiful than that of a pack of fox-hounds seated, on a winter morning, round the huntsman, if the place of meeting has been chosen with anything of artistic skill. It should be in a grassy field, and the field should be small. It should not be absolutely away from all buildings, and the hedgerows should not have been clipped and pared, and made straight with reference to modern agricultural economy. There should be trees near, and the ground should be a little uneven, so as to mark some certain small space as the exact spot where the dogs and servants of the hunt should congregate. There are well-known grand meets in England, in the parks of noblemen, before their houses, or even on what are called their lawns; but these magnificent affairs have but little of the beauty of which I speak. Such assemblies are too grand and too ornate, and, moreover, much too far removed from true sporting proprieties. At them, equipages are shining, and ladies' dresses are gorgeous, and crowds of tradesmen from the neighbouring town have come there to look at the grand folk. To my eye there is nothing beautiful in that. The meet I speak of is arranged with a view to sport, but the accident of the locality may make it the prettiest thing in the world. Such, in a special degree, was the case at Edgehill. At Edgehill the whole village consisted of three or four cottages; but there was a small old church, with an old grey tower, and a narrow, green, almost dark, churchyard, surrounded by elm-trees. The road from Roebury to the meet passed by the church stile, and turning just beyond it came upon the gate which led into the little field in which the hounds felt themselves as much at home as in their kennels. There might be six or seven acres in the field, which was long and narrow, so that the huntsman had space to walk leisurely up and down with the pack clustering round him, when he considered that longer sitting might chill them. The church tower was close at hand, visible through the trees, and the field itself was green and soft, though never splashing with mud or heavy with holes. Edgehill was a favourite meet in that country, partly because foxes were very abundant in the great wood adjacent, partly because the whole country around is grass-land, and partly, no doubt, from the sporting propensities of the neighbouring population. As regards my own taste, I do not know that I do like beginning a day with a great wood,--and if not beginning it, certainly not ending it. It is hard to come upon the cream of hunting, as it is upon the cream of any other delight. Who can always drink Lafitte of the finest, can always talk to a woman who is both beautiful and witty, or can always find the right spirit in the poetry he reads? A man has usually to work through much mud before he gets his nugget. It is so certainly in hunting, and a big wood too frequently afflicts the sportsman, as the mud does the miner. The small gorse cover is the happy, much-envied bit of ground in which the gold is sure to show itself readily. But without the woods the gorse would not hold the foxes, and without the mud the gold would not have found its resting-place. But, as I have said, Edgehill was a popular meet, and, as regarded the meet itself, was eminently picturesque. On the present occasion the little field was full of horsemen, moving about slowly, chatting together, smoking cigars, getting off from their hacks and mounting their hunters, giving orders to their servants, and preparing for the day. There were old country gentlemen there, greeting each other from far sides of the county; sporting farmers who love to find themselves alongside their landlords, and to feel that the pleasures of the country are common to both; men down from town, like our friends of the Roebury club, who made hunting their chosen pleasure, and who formed, in number, perhaps the largest portion of the field; officers from garrisons round about; a cloud of servants, and a few nondescript stragglers who had picked up horses, hither and thither, round the country. Outside the gate on the road were drawn up a variety of vehicles, open carriages, dog-carts, gigs, and waggonettes, in some few of which were seated ladies who had come over to see the meet. But Edgehill was, essentially, not a ladies' meet. The distances to it were long, and the rides in Cranby Wood--the big wood--were not adapted for wheels. There were one or two ladies on horseback, as is always the case; but Edgehill was not a place popular, even with hunting ladies. One carriage, that of the old master of the hounds, had entered the sacred precincts of the field, and from this the old baronet was just descending, as Maxwell, Calder Jones, and Vavasor rode into the field. [Illustration: Edgehill.] "I hope I see you well, Sir William," said Maxwell, greeting the master. Calder Jones also made his little speech, and so did Vavasor. "Humph--well, yes, I'm pretty well, thank'ee. Just move on, will you? My mare can't stir here." Then some one else spoke to him, and he only grunted in answer. Having slowly been assisted up on to his horse,--for he was over seventy years of age,--he trotted off to the hounds, while all the farmers round him touched their hats to him. But his mind was laden with affairs of import, and he noticed no one. In a whispered voice he gave his instructions to his huntsman, who said, "Yes, Sir William," "No, Sir William," "No doubt, Sir William." One long-eared, long-legged fellow, in a hunting-cap and scarlet coat, hung listening by, anxious to catch something of the orders for the morning. "Who the devil's that fellow, that's all breeches and boots?" said Sir William aloud to some one near him, as the huntsman moved off with the hounds. Sir William knew the man well enough, but was minded to punish him for his discourtesy. "Where shall we find first, Sir William?" said Calder Jones, in a voice that was really very humble. "How the mischief am I to know where the foxes are?" said Sir William, with an oath; and Calder Jones retired unhappy, and for the moment altogether silenced. And yet Sir William was the most popular man in the county, and no more courteous gentleman ever sat at the bottom of his own table. A mild man he was, too, when out of his saddle, and one by no means disposed to assume special supremacy. But a master of hounds, if he have long held the country,--and Sir William had held his for more than thirty years,--obtains a power which that of no other potentate can equal. He may say and do what he pleases, and his tyranny is always respected. No conspiracy against him has a chance of success; no sedition will meet with sympathy;--that is, if he be successful in showing sport. If a man be sworn at, abused, and put down without cause, let him bear it and think that he has been a victim for the public good. And let him never be angry with the master. That rough tongue is the necessity of the master's position. They used to say that no captain could manage a ship without swearing at his men. But what are the captain's troubles in comparison with those of the master of hounds? The captain's men are under discipline, and can be locked up, flogged, or have their grog stopped. The master of hounds cannot stop the grog of any offender, and he can only stop the tongue, or horse, of such an one by very sharp words. "Well, Pollock, when did you come?" said Maxwell. "By George," said the literary gentleman, "just down from London by the 8.30 from Euston Square, and got over here from Winslow in a trap, with two fellows I never saw in my life before. We came tandem in a fly, and did the nineteen miles in an hour." "Come, Athenian, draw it mild," said Maxwell. "We did, indeed. I wonder whether they'll pay me their share of the fly. I had to leave Onslow Crescent at a quarter before eight, and I did three hours' work before I started." "Then you did it by candle-light," said Grindley. "Of course I did; and why shouldn't I? Do you suppose no one can work by candle-light except a lawyer? I suppose you fellows were playing whist, and drinking hard. I'm uncommon glad I wasn't with you, for I shall be able to ride." "I bet you a pound," said Jones, "if there's a run, I see more of it than you." "I'll take that bet with Jones," said Grindley, "and Vavasor shall be the judge." "Gentlemen, the hounds can't get out, if you will stop up the gate," said Sir William. Then the pack passed through, and they all trotted on for four miles, to Cranby Wood. Vavasor, as he rode on to the wood, was alone, or speaking, from time to time, a few words to his servant. "I'll ride the chestnut mare in the wood," he said, "and do you keep near me." "I bean't to be galloping up and down them rides, I suppose," said Bat, almost contemptuously. "I shan't gallop up and down the rides, myself; but do you mark me, to know where I am, so that I can change if a fox should go away." "You'll be here all day, sir. That's my belief." "If so, I won't ride the brown horse at all. But do you take care to let me have him if there's a chance. Do you understand?" "Oh, yes, I understand, sir. There ain't no difficulty in my understanding;--only I don't think, sir, you'll ever get a fox out of that wood to-day. Why, it stands to reason. The wind's from the north-east." Cranby Wood is very large,--there being, in truth, two or three woods together. It was nearly twelve before they found; and then for an hour there was great excitement among the men, who rode up and down the rides as the hounds drove the fox from one end to another of the enclosure. Once or twice the poor animal did try to go away, and then there was great hallooing, galloping, and jumping over unnecessary fences; but he was headed back again, or changed his mind, not liking the north-east wind of which Bat Smithers had predicted such bad things. After one the crowd of men became rather more indifferent, and clustered together in broad spots, eating their lunch, smoking cigars, and chaffing each other. It was singular to observe the amazing quantity of ham sandwiches and of sherry that had been carried into Cranby Wood on that day. Grooms appeared to have been laden with cases, and men were as well armed with flasks at their saddle-bows as they used to be with pistols. Maxwell and Pollock formed the centre of one of these crowds, and chaffed each other with the utmost industry, till, tired of having inflicted no wounds, they turned upon Grindley and drove him out of the circle. "You'll make that man cut his throat, if you go on at that," said Pollock. "Shall I?" said Maxwell. "Then I'll certainly stick to him for the sake of humanity in general." During all this time Vavasor sat apart, quite alone, and Bat Smithers grimly kept his place, about three hundred yards from him. "We shan't do any good to-day," said Grindley, coming up to Vavasor. "I'm sure I don't know," said Vavasor. "That old fellow has got to be so stupid, he doesn't know what he's about," said Grindley, meaning Sir William. "How can he make the fox break?" said Vavasor; and as his voice was by no means encouraging Grindley rode away. Lunch and cigars lasted till two, during which hour the hounds, the huntsmen, the whips, and old Sir William were hard at work, as also were some few others who persistently followed every chance of the game. From that till three there were two or three flashes in the pan, and false reports as to foxes which had gone away, which first set men galloping, and then made them very angry. After three, men began to say naughty things, to abuse Cranby Wood, to wish violently that they had remained at home or gone elsewhere, and to speak irreverently of their ancient master. "It's the cussidest place in all creation," said Maxwell. "I often said I'd not come here any more, and now I say it again." "And yet you'll be here the next meet," said Grindley, who had sneaked back to his old companions in weariness of spirit. "Grindems, you know a sight too much," said Maxwell; "you do indeed. An ordinary fellow has no chance with you." Grindley was again going to catch it, but was on this time saved by the appearance of the huntsman, who came galloping up one of the rides, with a lot of the hounds at his heels. "He isn't away, Tom, surely?" said Maxwell. "He's out of the wood somewheres," said Tom;--and off they all went. Vavasor changed his horse, getting on to the brown one, and giving up his chestnut mare to Bat Smithers, who suggested that he might as well go home to Roebury now. Vavasor gave him no answer, but, trotting on to the point where the rides met, stopped a moment and listened carefully. Then he took a path diverging away from that by which the huntsmen and the crowd of horsemen had gone, and made the best of his way through the wood. At the end of this he came upon Sir William, who, with no one near him but his servant, was standing in the pathway of a little hunting-gate. "Hold hard," said Sir William. "The hounds are not out of the wood yet." "Is the fox away, sir?" "What's the good of that if we can't get the hounds out?--Yes, he's away. He passed out where I'm standing." And then he began to blow his horn lustily, and by degrees other men and a few hounds came down the ride. Then Tom, with his horse almost blown, made his appearance outside the wood, and soon there came a rush of men, nearly on the top of one another, pushing on, not knowing whither, but keenly alive to the fact that the fox had at last consented to move his quarters. Tom touched his hat, and looked at his master, inquiringly. "He's gone for Claydon's," said the master. "Try them up that hedgerow." Tom did try them up the hedgerow, and in half a minute the hounds came upon the scent. Then you might see men settling their hats on their heads, and feeling their feet in the stirrups. The moment for which they had so long waited had come, and yet there were many who would now have preferred that the fox should be headed back into cover. Some had but little confidence in their half-blown horses;--with many the waiting, though so abused and anathematized, was in truth more to their taste than the run itself;--with others the excitement had gone by, and a gallop over a field or two was necessary before it would be restored. With most men at such a moment there is a little nervousness, some fear of making a bad start, a dread lest others should have more of the success of the hunt than falls to them. But there was a great rush and a mighty bustle as the hounds made out their game, and Sir William felt himself called upon to use the rough side of his tongue to more than one delinquent. And then certain sly old stagers might be seen turning off to the left, instead of following the course of the game as indicated by the hounds. They were men who had felt the air as they came out, and knew that the fox must soon run down wind, whatever he might do for the first half mile or so,--men who knew also which was the shortest way to Claydon's by the road. Ah, the satisfaction that there is when these men are thrown out, and their dead knowledge proved to be of no avail! If a fox will only run straight, heading from the cover on his real line, these very sagacious gentlemen seldom come to much honour and glory. In the present instance the beast seemed determined to go straight enough, for the hounds ran the scent along three or four hedgerows in a line. He had managed to get for himself full ten minutes' start, and had been able to leave the cover and all his enemies well behind him before he bethought himself as to his best way to his purposed destination. And here, from field to field, there were little hunting-gates at which men crowded lustily, poking and shoving each other's horses, and hating each other with a bitterness of hatred which is, I think, known nowhere else. No hunting man ever wants to jump if he can help it, and the hedges near the gate were not alluring. A few there were who made lines for themselves, taking the next field to the right, or scrambling through the corners of the fences while the rush was going on at the gates; and among these was George Vavasor. He never rode in a crowd, always keeping himself somewhat away from men as well as hounds. He would often be thrown out, and then men would hear no more of him for that day. On such occasions he did not show himself, as other men do, twenty minutes after the fox had been killed or run to ground,--but betook himself home by himself, going through the byeways and lanes, thus leaving no report of his failure to be spoken of by his compeers. As long as the line of gates lasted, the crowd continued as thick as ever, and the best man was he whose horse could shove the hardest. After passing some four or five fields in this way they came out upon a road, and, the scent holding strong, the dogs crossed it without any demurring. Then came doubt into the minds of men, many of whom, before they would venture away from their position on the lane, narrowly watched the leading hounds to see whether there was indication of a turn to the one side or the other. Sir William, whose seventy odd years excused him, turned sharp to the left, knowing that he could make Claydon's that way; and very many were the submissive horsemen who followed him; a few took the road to the right, having in their minds some little game of their own. The hardest riders there had already crossed from the road into the country, and were going well to the hounds, ignorant, some of them, of the brook before them, and others unheeding. Foremost among these was Burgo Fitzgerald,--Burgo Fitzgerald, whom no man had ever known to crane at a fence, or to hug a road, or to spare his own neck or his horse's. And yet poor Burgo seldom finished well,--coming to repeated grief in this matter of his hunting, as he did so constantly in other matters of his life. But almost neck and neck with Burgo was Pollock, the sporting literary gentleman. Pollock had but two horses to his stud, and was never known to give much money for them;--and he weighed without his boots, fifteen stones! No one ever knew how Pollock did it;--more especially as all the world declared that he was as ignorant of hunting as any tailor. He could ride, or when he couldn't ride he could tumble,--men said that of him,--and he would ride as long as the beast under him could go. But few knew the sad misfortunes which poor Pollock sometimes encountered;--the muddy ditches in which he was left; the despair with which he would stand by his unfortunate horse when the poor brute could no longer move across some deep-ploughed field; the miles that he would walk at night beside a tired animal, as he made his way slowly back to Roebury! Then came Tom the huntsman, with Calder Jones close to him, and Grindley intent on winning his sovereign. Vavasor had also crossed the road somewhat to the left, carrying with him one or two who knew that he was a safe man to follow. Maxwell had been ignominiously turned by the hedge, which, together with its ditch, formed a fence such as all men do not love at the beginning of a run. He had turned from it, acknowledging the cause. "By George!" said he, "that's too big for me yet awhile; and there's no end of a river at the bottom." So he had followed the master down the road. All those whom we have named managed to get over the brook, Pollock's horse barely contriving to get up his hind legs from the broken edge of the bank. Some nags refused it, and their riders thus lost all their chance of sport for that day. Such is the lot of men who hunt. A man pays five or six pounds for his day's amusement, and it is ten to one that the occurrences of the day disgust rather than gratify him! One or two got in, and scrambled out on the other side, but Tufto Pearlings, the Manchester man from Friday Street, stuck in the mud at the bottom, and could not get his mare out till seven men had come with ropes to help him. "Where the devil is my fellow?" Pearlings asked of the countrymen; but the countrymen could not tell him that "his fellow" with his second horse was riding the hunt with great satisfaction to himself. George Vavasor found that his horse went with him uncommonly well, taking his fences almost in the stride of his gallop, and giving unmistakeable signs of good condition. "I wonder what it is that's amiss with him," said George to himself, resolving, however, that he would sell him that day if he got an opportunity. Straight went the line of the fox, up from the brook, and Tom began to say that his master had been wrong about Claydon's. "Where are we now?" said Burgo, as four or five of them dashed through the open gate of a farmyard. "This is Bulby's farm," said Tom, "and we're going right away for Elmham Wood." "Elmham Wood be d----," said a stout farmer, who had come as far as that with them. "You won't see Elmham Wood to-day." "I suppose you know best," said Tom; and then they were through the yard, across another road, and down a steep ravine by the side of a little copse. "He's been through them firs, any way," said Tom. "To him, Gaylass!" Then up they went the other side of the ravine, and saw the body of the hounds almost a field before them at the top. "I say,--that took some of the wind out of a fellow," said Pollock. "You mustn't mind about wind now," said Burgo, dashing on. "Wasn't the pace awful, coming up to that farmhouse?" said Calder Jones, looking round to see if Grindley was shaken off. But Grindley, with some six or seven others, was still there. And there, also, always in the next field to the left, was George Vavasor. He had spoken no word to any one since the hunt commenced, nor had he wished to speak to any one. He desired to sell his horse,--and he desired also to succeed in the run for other reasons than that, though I think he would have found it difficult to define them. Now they had open grass land for about a mile, but with very heavy fences,--so that the hounds gained upon them a little, and Pollock's weight began to tell. The huntsman and Burgo were leading with some fortunate county gentleman whose good stars had brought him in upon them at the farmyard gate. It is the injustice of such accidents as this that breaks the heart of a man who has honestly gone through all the heat and work of the struggle! And the hounds had veered a little round to the left, making, after all, for Claydon's. "Darned if the Squire warn't right," said Tom. Sir William, though a baronet, was familiarly called the Squire throughout the hunt. "We ain't going for Claydon's now?" asked Burgo. "Them's Claydon's beeches we sees over there," said Tom. "'Tain't often the Squire's wrong." Here they came to a little double rail and a little quick-set hedge. A double rail is a nasty fence always if it has been made any way strong, and one which a man with a wife and a family is justified in avoiding. They mostly can be avoided, having gates; and this could have been avoided. But Burgo never avoided anything, and went over it beautifully. The difficulty is to be discreet when the man before one has been indiscreet. Tom went for the gate, as did Pollock, who knew that he could have no chance at the double rails. But Calder Jones came to infinite grief, striking the top bar of the second rail, and going head-foremost out of his saddle, as though thrown by a catapult. There we must leave him. Grindley, rejoicing greatly at this discomfiture, made for the gate; but the country gentleman with the fresh horse accomplished the rails, and was soon alongside of Burgo. "I didn't see you at the start," said Burgo. "And I didn't see you," said the country gentleman; "so it's even." Burgo did not see the thing in the same light, but he said no more. Grindley and Tom were soon after them, Tom doing his utmost to shake off the attorney. Pollock was coming on also; but the pace had been too much for him, and though the ground rode light his poor beast laboured and grunted sorely. The hounds were still veering somewhat to the left, and Burgo, jumping over a small fence into the same field with them, saw that there was a horseman ahead of him. This was George Vavasor, who was going well, without any symptom of distress. And now they were at Claydon's, having run over some seven miles of ground in about thirty-five minutes. To those who do not know what hunting is, this pace does not seem very extraordinary; but it had been quite quick enough, as was testified by the horses which had gone the distance. Our party entered Claydon's Park at back, through a gate in the park palings that was open on hunting days; but a much more numerous lot was there almost as soon as them, who had come in by the main entrance. This lot was headed by Sir William, and our friend Maxwell was with him. "A jolly thing so far," said Burgo to Maxwell; "about the best we've had this year." "I didn't see a yard of it," said Maxwell. "I hadn't nerve to get off the first road, and I haven't been off it ever since." Maxwell was a man who never lied about his hunting, or had the slightest shame in riding roads. "Who's been with you?" said he. "There've been Tom and I;--and Calder Jones was there for a while. I think he killed himself somewhere. And there was Pollock, and your friend Grindley, and a chap whose name I don't know who dropped out of heaven about half-way in the run; and there was another man whose back I saw just now; there he is,--by heavens, it's Vavasor! I didn't know he was here." They hung about the Claydon covers for ten minutes, and then their fox went off again,--their fox or another, as to which there was a great discussion afterwards; but he who would have suggested the idea of a new fox to Sir William would have been a bold man. A fox, however, went off, turning still to the left from Claydon's towards Roebury. Those ten minutes had brought up some fifty men; but it did not bring up Calder Jones nor Tufto Pearlings, nor some half-dozen others who had already come to serious misfortune; but Grindley was there, very triumphant in his own success, and already talking of Jones's sovereign. And Pollock was there also, thankful for the ten minutes' law, and trusting that wind might be given to his horse to finish the run triumphantly. But the pace on leaving Claydon's was better than ever. This may have come from the fact that the scent was keener, as they got out so close upon their game. But I think they must have changed their fox. Maxwell, who saw him go, swore that he was fresh and clean. Burgo said that he knew it to be the same fox, but gave no reason. "Same fox! in course it was; why shouldn't it be the same?" said Tom. The country gentleman who had dropped from heaven was quite sure that they had changed, and so were most of those who had ridden the road. Pollock confined himself to hoping that he might soon be killed, and that thus his triumph for the day might be assured. On they went, and the pace soon became too good for the poor author. His horse at last refused a little hedge, and there was not another trot to be got out of him. That night Pollock turned up at Roebury about nine o'clock, very hungry,--and it was known that his animal was alive;--but the poor horse ate not a grain of oats that night, nor on the next morning. Vavasor had again taken a line to himself, on this occasion a little to the right of the meet; but Maxwell followed him and rode close with him to the end. Burgo for a while still led the body of the field, incurring at first much condemnation from Sir William,--nominally for hurrying on among the hounds, but in truth because he got before Sir William himself. During this latter part of the run Sir William stuck to the hounds in spite of his seventy odd years. Going down into Marham Bottom, some four or five were left behind, for they feared the soft ground near the river, and did not know the pass through it. But Sir William knew it, and those who remained close to him got over that trouble. Burgo, who would still lead, nearly foundered in the bog;--but he was light, and his horse pulled him through,--leaving a fore-shoe in the mud. After that Burgo was contented to give Sir William the lead. Then they came up by Marham Pits to Cleshey Small Wood, which they passed without hanging there a minute, and over the grass lands of Cleshey Farm. Here Vavasor and Maxwell joined the others, having gained some three hundred yards in distance by their course, but having been forced to jump the Marham Stream which Sir William had forded. The pace now was as good as the horses could make it,--and perhaps something better as regarded some of them. Sir William's servant had been with him, and he had got his second horse at Claydon's; Maxwell had been equally fortunate; Tom's second horse had not come up, and his beast was in great distress; Grindley had remained behind at Marham Bottom, being contented perhaps with having beaten Calder Jones,--from whom by-the-by I may here declare that he never got his sovereign. Burgo, Vavasor, and the country gentleman still held on; but it was devoutly desired by all of them that the fox might soon come to the end of his tether. Ah! that intense longing that the fox may fail, when the failings of the horse begin to make themselves known,--and the consciousness comes on that all that one has done will go for nothing unless the thing can be brought to a close in a field or two! So far you have triumphed, leaving scores of men behind; but of what good is all that, if you also are to be left behind at the last? It was manifest now to all who knew the country that the fox was making for Thornden Deer Park, but Thornden Deer Park was still two miles ahead of them, and the hounds were so near to their game that the poor beast could hardly hope to live till he got there. He had tried a well-known drain near Cleshey Farm House; but it had been inhospitably, nay cruelly, closed against him. Soon after that he threw himself down in a ditch, and the eager hounds overran him, giving him a moment's law,--and giving also a moment's law to horses that wanted it as badly. "I'm about done for," said Burgo to Maxwell. "Luckily for you," said Maxwell, "the fox is much in the same way." But the fox had still more power left in him than poor Burgo Fitzgerald's horse. He gained a minute's check and then he started again, being viewed away by Sir William himself. The country gentleman of whom mention has been made also viewed him, and holloa'd as he did so: "Yoicks, tally; gone away!" The unfortunate man! "What the d---- are you roaring at?" said Sir William. "Do you suppose I don't know where the fox is?" Whereupon the country gentleman retreated, and became less conspicuous than he had been. Away they went again, off Cleshey and into Thornden parish, on the land of Sorrel Farm,--a spot well to be remembered by one or two ever afterwards. Here Sir William made for a gate which took him a little out of the line, but Maxwell and Burgo Fitzgerald, followed by Vavasor, went straight ahead. There was a huge ditch and boundary bank there which Sir William had known and had avoided. Maxwell, whose pluck had returned to him at last, took it well. His horse was comparatively fresh and made nothing of it. Then came poor Burgo! Oh, Burgo, hadst thou not have been a very child, thou shouldst have known that now, at this time of the day,--after all that thy gallant horse had done for thee,--it was impossible to thee or him. But when did Burgo Fitzgerald know anything? He rode at the bank as though it had been the first fence of the day, striking his poor beast with his spurs, as though muscle, strength, and new power could be imparted by their rowels. The animal rose at the bank and in some way got upon it, scrambling as he struck it with his chest, and then fell headlong into the ditch at the other side, a confused mass of head, limbs, and body. His career was at an end, and he had broken his heart! Poor noble beast, noble in vain! To his very last gasp he had done his best, and had deserved that he should have been in better hands. His master's ignorance had killed him. There are men who never know how little a horse can do,--or how much! There was to some extent a gap in the fence when Maxwell had first ridden it and Burgo had followed him; a gap, or break in the hedge at the top, indicating plainly the place at which a horse could best get over. To this spot Vavasor followed, and was on the bank at Burgo's heels before he knew what had happened. But the man had got away and only the horse lay there in the ditch. "Are you hurt?" said Vavasor; "can I do anything?" But he did not stop, "If you can find a chap just send him to me," said Burgo in a melancholy tone. Then he sat down, with his feet in the ditch, and looked at the carcase of his horse. There was no more need of jumping that day. The way was open into the next field,--a turnip field,--and there amidst the crisp breaking turnip-tops, with the breath of his enemies hot upon him, with their sharp teeth at his entrails, biting at them impotently in the agonies of his death struggle, poor Reynard finished his career. Maxwell was certainly the first there,--but Sir William and George Vavasor were close upon him. That taking of brushes of which we used to hear is a little out of fashion; but if such honour were due to any one it was due to Vavasor, for he and he only had ridden the hunt throughout. But he claimed no honour, and none was specially given to him. He and Maxwell rode homewards together, having sent assistance to poor Burgo Fitzgerald; and as they went along the road, saying but little to each other, Maxwell, in a very indifferent voice, asked him a question. "What do you want for that horse, Vavasor?" "A hundred and fifty," said Vavasor. "He's mine," said Maxwell. So the brown horse was sold for about half his value, because he had brought with him a bad character.

Of all sights in the world there is, I think, none more beautiful than that of a pack of fox-hounds round the huntsman on a winter morning. There are some well-known hunting meets in the parks of noblemen, but these are too grand and ornate, and have more to do with fashion than with sport. The meeting I am thinking of is arranged for sport, but may happen to be the prettiest thing in the world. Such was the case at Edgehill. The village consisted of three or four cottages, a small church with a grey tower, and a narrow green churchyard surrounded by elm-trees. The field by the church where the hounds gathered was green and soft, never splashing with mud or heavy with holes. Edgehill was a favourite meet in that country, partly because foxes were very abundant in the great wood nearby. On the present occasion the field was full of horsemen, chatting, smoking cigars, getting off their hacks and mounting their hunters, and giving orders to their servants. There were old country gentlemen, greeting each other from far sides of the county; sporting farmers who love to find themselves alongside their landlords; men come from town to hunt, like our friends of the Roebury club; officers from garrisons round about; a cloud of servants, and a few nondescript stragglers. Outside the gate on the road were drawn up a variety of open carriages and waggonettes, in some of which were seated ladies who had come to see the meet. There were one or two ladies on horseback; but Edgehill was not popular with hunting ladies. From one carriage, the master of the hounds was descending, just as Maxwell, Calder Jones, and Vavasor rode into the field. "I hope I see you well, Sir William," said Maxwell, greeting the master. "Humph - yes, I'm pretty well, thank'ee." Having slowly been assisted up on to his horse - for he was over seventy - he trotted off to the hounds, while all the farmers touched their hats to him. He whispered his instructions to his huntsman, who said, "Yes, Sir William," "No, Sir William," "No doubt, Sir William." "Where shall we find first, Sir William?" said Calder Jones humbly. "How the mischief am I to know where the foxes are?" said Sir William, with an oath; and Calder Jones retired unhappy and silenced. And yet Sir William was the most popular man in the county; a mild, courteous gentleman when out of his saddle. But a master of hounds of long standing obtains an unequalled power. He may say and do what he pleases, and his tyranny is always respected. "Well, Pollock, when did you come?" said Maxwell. "By George," said the literary gentleman, "just down from London by the 8.30 from Euston, and got over here from Winslow in a trap. I did three hours' work before I started." "Then you did it by candle-light," said Grindley. "Of course I did. Why shouldn't I? I suppose you fellows were playing whist, and drinking. I'm uncommon glad I wasn't with you, for I shall be able to ride." "I bet you a pound," said Jones, "if there's a run, I see more of it than you." "I'll take that bet with Jones," said Grindley, "and Vavasor shall be the judge." "Gentlemen, the hounds can't get out, if you stand in the gate," said Sir William. Then the pack of hounds passed through, and they all trotted on for four miles, to Cranby Wood. Vavasor rode alone, or speaking occasional words to his servant. "I'll ride the chestnut mare in the wood," he said, "and you stay near me, so that I can change horses if a fox should go away." "You'll be here all day, sir. That's my belief." "If so, I won't ride the brown horse at all. But let me have him if there's a chance. Do you understand?" "Oh, yes, sir. Only I don't think you'll ever get a fox out of that wood today. The wind's from the north-east." Cranby Wood is very large, and it was nearly twelve before they found a fox; and then for an hour there was great excitement as the hounds drove the fox from one end to another of the enclosure. Once or twice the poor animal did try to get away, and then there was great hallooing, galloping, and jumping over unnecessary fences; but he was headed back again. After one o'clock the crowd of men became more indifferent, and clustered together eating their lunch, smoking cigars, and chaffing each other. An amazing quantity of ham sandwiches and sherry had been carried into Cranby Wood that day. Maxwell and Pollock formed the centre of one of these crowds, and chaffed and made fun of each other with the utmost industry, and then turned upon Grindley. Meanwhile Vavasor sat apart, quite alone, and Bat Smithers grimly stood about three hundred yards away. Lunch and cigars lasted till two. From then till three there were two or three false reports of foxes which had gone away, which first set men galloping, and then made them very angry. After three, men began to abuse Cranby Wood and to wish that they had stayed at home. "It's the cussidest place in all creation," said Maxwell. "I won't come here again." "You'll be here the next meet," said Grindley. "Grindems, you know a sight too much," said Maxwell; "you do indeed." Just then the huntsman came galloping up, with several hounds at his heels. "He isn't away, Tom, surely?" said Maxwell. "He's out of the wood somewheres," said Tom - and off they all went. Vavasor changed his horse, getting on to the brown one, and giving up his chestnut mare to Bat Smithers, who suggested that he might as well go home to Roebury now. Vavasor gave him no answer, but stopped a moment and listened carefully. Then he took a path diverging away from that by which the huntsmen and the crowd of horsemen had gone, and made his way through the wood. At the end of this path he came upon Sir William, with no one near him but his servant, standing by a little hunting-gate. "Hold hard," said Sir William. "The hounds are not out of the wood yet." "Is the fox away, sir?" "What's the good of that if we can't get the hounds out? Yes, he's away. He came out here." Then he began to blow his horn, and other men and a few hounds came down the ride. Soon there came Tom the huntsman and after him a rush of men, nearly on top of one another. Tom touched his hat, and looked at his master inquiringly. "He's gone for Claydon's," said the master. "Try them up that hedgerow." Tom did try them up the hedgerow, and in half a minute the hounds found the scent. Men settled their hats on their heads, and their feet in the stirrups. The moment for which they had so long waited had come, and yet there were many who would now have preferred that the fox should be headed back into cover. Some had little confidence in their horses; and others needed a gallop over a field or two before their enthusiasm would be restored. Most men at such a moment are a little nervous. But there was a great rush and a mighty bustle as the hounds scented their game. And then certain sly old stagers might be seen turning off to the left, instead of following the hounds. They were men who had felt the air, and knew that the fox must soon run downwind, whatever he might do for the first half mile or so - men who knew also knew the shortest way to Claydon's by the road. At present the fox seemed determined to go straight, for the hounds ran the scent along three or four hedgerows in a line. He had managed to get full ten minutes' start, and had left his enemies well behind him. And here, from field to field, there were little hunting-gates at which men crowded, poking and shoving each other's horses, and hating each bitterly. No hunting man ever wants to jump if he can help it, and the hedges near the gate were not alluring. There were a few who took their own route through an adjoining field, or scrambled through the corners of the fences; and among these was George Vavasor. He never rode in a crowd. If he lost the trail he would go home by himself, leaving no report of his failure to be spoken of by his companions. After crossing some four or five fields in this way they came out upon a road, and the dogs crossed it without hesitation. Many men narrowly watched the leading hounds to see whether they showed signs of turning to one side or the other. Sir William turned sharp to the left, knowing that he could reach Claydon's that way; and very many horsemen followed him. But a few took the road to the right, having in their minds some little game of their own. The fastest riders had already crossed the road into the country, close behind the hounds, some of them ignorant of the brook before them. Foremost among these was Burgo Fitzgerald, who never spared his own neck or his horse's. Poor Burgo seldom finished well; he came repeatedly to grief in his hunting, as he did so constantly in other matters of his life. But almost neck and neck with Burgo was Pollock, the sporting literary gentleman. Pollock had only two cheap horses - and he weighed fifteen stones barefoot! No one ever knew how Pollock did it; but he would ride as long as the beast under him could go. Then came Tom the huntsman, with Calder Jones close to him, and Grindley intent on winning his sovereign. Vavasor had also crossed the road somewhat to the left, along with one or two who knew that he was a safe man to follow. Maxwell had been turned by the hedge. "By George!" said he, "that's too big for me; and there's no end of a river at the bottom." So he had followed the master down the road. All those whom we have named managed to get over the brook. Some horses refused it, and their riders thus lost all their chance of sport for that day. George Vavasor found that his horse went uncommonly well, taking his fences almost in the stride of his gallop. "I wonder what it is that's amiss with him," said George to himself, resolving, however, that he would sell him that day if he got a chance. "Where are we now?" said Burgo, as four or five of them dashed through the open gate of a farmyard. "This is Bulby's farm," said Tom, "and we're going for Elmham Wood." "Elmham Wood be d----," said a stout farmer. "You won't see Elmham Wood today." "I suppose you know best," said Tom; and then they were through the yard, across another road, and down a steep ravine by the side of a little copse. "He's been through them firs, anyway," said Tom. Then up they went the other side of the ravine, and saw the hounds almost a field ahead of them at the top. "I say, that took some of the wind out of a fellow," said Pollock. "Don't mind about that now," said Burgo, dashing on. "Wasn't the pace awful?" said Calder Jones, looking round to see if Grindley was shaken off. But Grindley, with some six or seven others, was still there. And there, also, always in the next field to the left, was George Vavasor. He had spoken no word to anyone, nor had he wished to. He desired to sell his horse - and he desired also to succeed in the hunt for other reasons, though he would have found it difficult to define them. Now they had open grass for about a mile, but with very heavy fences; and the hounds veered round to the left, making, after all, for Claydon's. "Darned if the Squire warn't right," said Tom. They came to a double rail and a quick-set hedge. A double rail is a nasty fence, and one which a man with a wife and family is justified in avoiding. They mostly can be avoided, having gates; and this one could have been avoided. But Burgo never avoided anything, and went over it beautifully. Tom went through the gate, as did Pollock, who knew that he could have no chance at the double rails. But Calder Jones came to grief, striking the top bar, and going head-first out of his saddle, as though thrown by a catapult. There we must leave him. Grindley, rejoicing greatly at this discomfiture, took the gate; but a country gentleman with a fresh horse jumped the rails, and was soon alongside Burgo. "I didn't see you at the start," said Burgo. "And I didn't see you," said the country gentleman. Burgo said no more. Grindley and Tom were soon after them, the huntsman doing his utmost to shake off the attorney. Pollock was coming on also; but the pace had been too much for him, and his poor beast laboured and grunted sorely. The hounds were still veering to the left, and Burgo, jumping over a small fence into the same field with them, saw that there was a horseman ahead of him. This was George Vavasor, who was going well. And now they were at Claydon's, having run over some seven miles of ground in about thirty-five minutes. To those who do not hunt, this pace does not seem very extraordinary; but it had been quick enough. Our party entered Claydon's Park through a back gate, but many more, including Sir William and Maxwell, had come in by the main entrance. "A jolly thing so far," said Burgo to Maxwell. "I didn't see a yard of it," said Maxwell. "I was on the road. Who's been with you?" "Tom; and Calder Jones was there for a while. I think he killed himself somewhere. And Pollock and Grindley, and a chap whose name I don't know who appeared about half-way; and another man - by heavens, it's Vavasor!" They hung about for ten minutes, and then their fox went off again, turning towards Roebury. Those ten minutes had brought up some fifty men, among them Grindley, very triumphant in his own success, and already talking of Jones's sovereign. And Pollock was there also, thankful for the ten minutes' wait. But on leaving Claydon's they went faster than ever, and the pace soon became too good for poor Pollock. His horse refused a little hedge, and there was not another trot to be got out of him. Vavasor had again taken his own route, this time to the right of the meet; but Maxwell followed him and rode close with him to the end. Burgo for a while led the body of the field, incurring condemnation from Sir William, who was behind him. Going down into Marham Bottom, some four or five were left behind, for they feared the soft ground near the river, and did not know the way through it. But Sir William knew it, and those who remained close to him got over that trouble. Burgo nearly foundered in the bog; but he was light, and his horse pulled him through, leaving a shoe in the mud. After that Burgo was content to give Sir William the lead. Then they came up by Marham Pits to Cleshey Small Wood, and over the grass lands of Cleshey Farm. Here Vavasor and Maxwell joined the others, having gained some three hundred yards, but having been forced to jump the Marham Stream. The pace now was as good as the horses could make it. Sir William's servant had been with him, and he had got his second horse at Claydon's; Maxwell had been equally fortunate. But Tom's second horse had not come up, and his beast was in great distress. Grindley had remained behind at Marham Bottom, being contented with having beaten Calder Jones (from whom, however, he never got his sovereign.) Burgo, Vavasor, and the country gentleman still held on; but it was devoutly desired by all of them that the fox might soon come to the end of his tether. Ah! that intense longing that the fox may fail, when the horse is failing - and the knowledge that all the effort will go for nothing unless the thing ends soon! So far you have triumphed, leaving scores of men behind; but of what good is that, if you also are left behind at the last? It was clear now that the fox was making for Thornden Deer Park, but that was still two miles ahead, and the hounds were so near to the poor beast that it could hardly hope to get there. "I'm about done for," said Burgo to Maxwell. "Luckily for you," said Maxwell, "the fox is much in the same way." But the fox had still more power left in him than poor Burgo Fitzgerald's horse. He started off again, and away they went, onto the land of Sorrel Farm - a spot to be well remembered by one or two ever afterwards. Here Sir William made for a gate, but Maxwell and Burgo Fitzgerald, followed by Vavasor, went straight ahead. There was a huge ditch and boundary bank there which Sir William had known and avoided. Maxwell took it well. His horse was comparatively fresh and made nothing of it. Then came poor Burgo! He rode at the bank as though it had been the first fence of the day. The animal somehow got upon the bank, and then fell headlong into the ditch at the other side, a confused mass of head, limbs, and body. Poor noble beast, he had broken his heart! To his very last gasp he had done his best, and deserved to have been in better hands. His master's ignorance had killed him. There was a small gap in the fence where Maxwell had first ridden it: to this spot Vavasor followed, and was on the bank at Burgo's heels before he knew what had happened. Burgo had dismounted and the horse lay there in the ditch. "Are you hurt?" said Vavasor; "can I do anything?" But he did not stop. "If you can find a chap just send him to me," said Burgo in a melancholy tone. Then he sat down, with his feet in the ditch, and looked at his dead horse. There was no more need of jumping that day. The way was open into the next field; and there amidst the crisp breaking turnip-tops, with the breath of his enemies hot upon him, the poor fox finished his career. Maxwell was the first there, but Sir William and George Vavasor were close behind him. If the taking of brushes were still in fashion, the honour would have been due to Vavasor. But he claimed no honour. He and Maxwell rode home together, having sent assistance to Burgo Fitzgerald; and as they went along the road, Maxwell, in a very indifferent voice, asked: "What do you want for that horse, Vavasor?" "A hundred and fifty," said Vavasor. "Done," said Maxwell. So the brown horse was sold for half his value, because he had brought with him a bad character.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 17: Edgehill

"You are in trouble, Mr. Fitzgerald, I fear," said Mr. Palliser, standing over Burgo as he lay upon the ground. They were now altogether beyond the gas-lights, and the evening was dark. Burgo, too, was lying with his face to the ground, expecting that the footsteps which he had heard would pass by him. "Who is that?" said he, turning round suddenly; but still he was not at once able to recognize Mr. Palliser, whose voice was hardly known to him. "Perhaps I have been wrong in following you," said Mr. Palliser, "but I thought you were in distress, and that probably I might help you. My name is Palliser." "Plantagenet Palliser?" said Burgo, jumping up on to his legs and looking close into the other's face. "By heavens! it is Plantagenet Palliser! Well, Mr. Palliser, what do you want of me?" "I want to be of some use to you, if I can. I and my wife saw you leave the gaming-table just now." "Is she here too?" "Yes;--she is here. We are going home, but chance brought us up to the salon. She seemed to think that you are in distress, and that I could help you. I will, if you will let me." Mr. Palliser, during the whole interview, felt that he could afford to be generous. He knew that he had no further cause for fear. He had no lingering dread of this poor creature who stood before him. All that feeling was over, though it was as yet hardly four months since he had been sent back by Mrs. Marsham to Lady Monk's house to save his wife, if saving her were yet possible. "So she is here, is she;--and saw me there when I staked my last chance? I should have had over twenty thousand francs now, if the cards had stood to me." "The cards never do stand to any one, Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never;--never,--never!" said Burgo. "At any rate, they never did to me. Nothing ever does stand to me." "If you want twenty thousand francs,--that's eight hundred pounds, I think--I can let you have it without any trouble." "The devil you can!" "Oh, yes. As I am travelling with my family--" I wonder whether Mr. Palliser considered himself to be better entitled to talk of his family than he had been some three or four weeks back--"As I am travelling with my family, I have been obliged to carry large bills with me, and I can accommodate you without any trouble." There was something pleasant in this, which made Burgo Fitzgerald laugh. Mr. Palliser, the husband of Lady Glencora M'Cluskie, and the heir of the Duke of Omnium happening to have money with him! As if Mr. Palliser could not bring down showers of money in any quarter of the globe by simply holding up his hand. And then to talk of accommodating him,--Burgo Fitzgerald, as though it were simply a little matter of convenience,--as though Mr. Palliser would of course find the money at his bankers' when he next examined his book! Burgo could not but laugh. "I was not in the least doubting your ability to raise the money," said he; "but how would you propose to get it back again?" "That would be at your convenience," said Mr. Palliser, who hardly knew how to put himself on a proper footing with his companion, so that he might offer to do something effectual for the man's aid. "I never have any such convenience," said Burgo. "Who were those women whose tubs always had holes at the bottom of them? My tub always has such a hole." "You mean the daughters of Danaus," said Mr. Palliser. "I don't know whose daughters they were, but you might just as well lend them all eight hundred pounds apiece." "There were so many of them," said Mr. Palliser, trying a little joke. "But as you are only one I shall be most happy, as I said before, to be of service." They were now walking slowly together up towards the hills, and near to them they heard a step. Upon this, Burgo turned round. "Do you see that fellow?" said he. Mr. Palliser, who was somewhat short-sighted, said that he did not see him. "I do, though. I don't know his name, but they have sent him out from the hotel with me, to see what I do with myself. I owe them six or seven hundred francs, and they want to turn me out of the house and not let me take my things with me." "That would be very uncomfortable," said Mr. Palliser. "It would be uncomfortable, but I shall be too many for them. If they keep my traps they shall keep me. They think I'm going to blow my brains out. That's what they think. The man lets me go far enough off to do that,--so long as it's nowhere about the house." "I hope you're not thinking of such a thing?" "As long as I can help it, Mr. Palliser, I never think of anything." The stranger was now standing near to them,--almost so near that he might hear their words. Burgo, perceiving this, walked up to him, and, speaking in bad French, desired him to leave them. "Don't you see that I have a friend with me?" "Oh! a friend," said the man, answering in bad English. "Perhaps de friend can advance moneys?" "Never mind what he can do," said Burgo. "You do as you are bid, and leave me." Then the gentleman from the hotel retreated down the hill, but Mr. Palliser, during the rest of the interview, frequently fancied that he heard the man's footfall at no great distance. They continued to walk on up the hill very slowly, and it was some time before Mr. Palliser knew how to repeat his offer. "So Lady Glencora is here?" Burgo said again. "Yes, she is here. It was she who asked me to come to you," Mr. Palliser answered. Then they both walked on a few steps in silence, for neither of them knew how to address the other. "By George!--isn't it odd," said Burgo, at last, "that you and I, of all men in the world, should be walking together here at Baden? It's not only that you're the richest man in London, and that I'm the poorest, but--; there are other things, you know, which make it so funny." "There have been things which make me and my wife very anxious to give you aid." "And have you considered, Mr. Palliser, that those things make you the very man in the world,--indeed, for the matter of that, the only man in the world,--from whom I can't take aid. I would have taken it all if I could have got it,--and I tried hard." "I know you have been disappointed, Mr. Fitzgerald." "Disappointed! By G----! yes. Did you ever know any man who had so much right to be disappointed as I have? I did love her, Mr. Palliser. Nay, by heavens! I do love her. Out here I will dare to say as much even to you. I shall never try to see her again. All that is over, of course. I've been a fool about her as I have been about everything. But I did love her." "I believe it, Mr. Fitzgerald." "It was not altogether her money. But think what it would have been to me, Mr. Palliser. Think what a chance I had, and what a chance I lost. I should have been at the top of everything,--as now I am at the bottom. I should not have spent that. There would have been enough of it to have saved me. And then I might have done something good instead of crawling about almost in fear of that beast who is watching us." "It has been ordered otherwise," said Mr. Palliser, not knowing what to say. "Yes; it has been ordered, with a vengeance! It seems to have been ordered that I'm to go to the devil; but I don't know who gave the orders, and I don't know why." Mr. Palliser had not time to explain to his friend that the orders had been given, in a very peremptory way, by himself, as he was anxious to bring back the conversation to his own point. He wished to give some serviceable, and, if possible, permanent aid to the poor ne'er-do-well; but he did not wish to talk more than could be helped about his own wife. "There is an old saying, which you will remember well," said he, "that the way to good manners is never too late." "That's nonsense," said Burgo. "It's too late when the man feels the knot round his neck at the Old Bailey." "Perhaps not, even then. Indeed, we may say, certainly not, if the man be still able to take the right way. But I don't want to preach to you." "It wouldn't do any good, you know." "But I do want to be of service to you. There is something of truth in what you say. You have been disappointed; and I, perhaps, of all men am the most bound to come to your assistance now that you are in need." "How can I take it from you?" said Burgo, almost crying. "You shall take it from her!" "No;--that would be worse; twenty times worse. What! take her money, when she would not give me herself!" "I do not see why you should not borrow her money,--or mine. You shall call it which you will." "No; I won't have it." "And what will you do then?" "What will I do? Ah! That's the question. I don't know what I will do. I have the key of my bedroom in my pocket, and I will go to bed to-night. It's not very often that I look forward much beyond that." "Will you let me call on you, to-morrow?" "I don't see what good it will do? I shan't get up till late, for fear they should shut the room against me. I might as well have as much out of them as I can. I think I shall say I'm ill, and keep my bed." "Will you take a few napoleons?" "No; not a rap. Not from you. You are the first man from whom I ever refused to borrow money, and I should say that you'll be about the last to offer to lend it me." "I don't know what else I can offer?" said Mr. Palliser. "You can offer nothing. If you will say to your wife from me that I bade her adieu;--that is all you can do for me. Good night, Mr. Palliser; good night." [Illustration: "Good night, Mr. Palliser."] Mr. Palliser left him and went his way, feeling that he had no further eloquence at his command. He shook Burgo's hand, and then walked quickly down the hill. As he did so he passed, or would have passed the man who had been dodging them. "Misther, Misther!" said the man in a whisper. "What do you want of me?" asked Mr. Palliser, in French. Then the man spoke in French, also. "Has he got any money? Have you given him any money?" "I have not given him any money," said Mr. Palliser, not quite knowing what he had better do or say under such circumstances. "Then he will have a bad time with it," said the man. "And he might have carried away two thousand francs just now! Dear, dear, dear! Has he got any friends, sir?" "Yes, he has friends. I do not know that I can assist him, or you." "Fitzgerald;--his name is Fitzgerald?" "Yes," said Mr. Palliser; "his name is Fitzgerald." "Ah! There are so many Fitzgeralds in England. Mr. Fitzgerald, London;--he has no other address?" "If he had, and I knew it, I should not give it you without his sanction." "But what shall we do? How shall we act? Perhaps with his own hand he will himself kill. For five weeks his pension he owes; yes, for five weeks. And for wine, oh so much! There came through Baden a my lord, and then, I think he got money. But he went and played. That was of course. But; oh my G----! he might have carried away this night two thousand francs; yes, two thousand francs!" "Are you the hotelkeeper?" "His friend, sir; only his friend. That is, I am the head Commissionaire. I look after the gentlemen who sometimes are not all--not all--" exactly what they should be, the commissioner intended to explain; and Mr. Palliser understood him although the words were not quite spoken. The interview was ended by Mr. Palliser taking the name of the hotel, and promising to call before Mr. Fitzgerald should be up in the morning--a purposed visit, which we need not regard as requiring any very early energy on Mr. Palliser's part, when we remember Burgo's own programme for the following day. Lady Glencora received her husband that night with infinite anxiety, and was by no means satisfied with what had been done. He described to her as accurately as he could the nature of his interview with Burgo, and he described to her also his other interview with the head commissioner. "He will; he will," said Lady Glencora; when she heard from her husband the man's surmise that perhaps he might destroy himself. "He will; he will; and if he does, how can you expect that I shall bear it?" Mr. Palliser tried to soothe her by telling her of his promised visit to the landlord; and Lady Glencora, accepting this as something, strove to instigate her husband to some lavish expenditure on Burgo's behalf. "There can be no reason why he should not take it," said Glencora. "None the least. Had it not been promised to him? Had he not a right to it?" The subject was one which Mr. Palliser found it very hard to discuss. He could not tell his wife that Fitzgerald ought to accept his bounty; but he assured her that his money should be forthcoming, almost to any extent, if it could be made available. On the following morning he went down to the hotel, and saw the real landlord. He found him to be a reasonable, tranquil, and very good-natured man,--who was possessed by a not irrational desire that his customers' bills should be paid; but who seemed to be much less eager on the subject than are English landlords in general. His chief anxiety seemed to arise from the great difficulty of doing anything with the gentleman who was now lying in his bed up-stairs. "Has he had any breakfast?" Mr. Palliser asked. "Breakfast! Oh yes;" and the landlord laughed. He had been very particular in the orders he had given. He had desired his cutlets to be dressed in a particular way,--with a great deal of cayenne pepper, and they had been so dressed. He had ordered a bottle of Sauterne; but the landlord had thought, or the head-waiter acting for him had thought, that a bottle of ordinary wine of the country would do as well. The bottle of ordinary wine of the country had just that moment been sent up-stairs. Then Mr. Palliser sat down in the landlord's little room, and had Burgo Fitzgerald's bill brought to him. "I think I might venture to pay it," said Mr. Palliser. "That was as monsieur pleased," said the landlord, with something like a sparkle in his eye. What was Mr. Palliser to do? He did not know whether, in accordance with the rules of the world in which he lived, he ought to pay it, or ought to leave it; and certainly the landlord could not tell him. Then he thought of his wife. He could not go back to his wife without having done something; so, as a first measure, he paid the bill. The landlord's eyes glittered, and he receipted it in the most becoming manner. "Should he now send up the bottle of Sauterne?"--but to this Mr. Palliser demurred. "And to whom should the receipted bill be given?" Mr. Palliser thought that the landlord had better keep it himself for a while. "Perhaps there is some little difficulty?" suggested the landlord. Mr. Palliser acknowledged that there was a little difficulty. He knew that he must do something more. He could not simply pay the bill and go away. That would not satisfy his wife. He knew that he must do something more; but how was he to do it? So at last he let the landlord into his confidence. He did not tell the whole of Burgo's past history. He did not tell that little episode in Burgo's life which referred to Lady Glencora. But he did make the landlord understand that he was willing to administer money to Mr. Fitzgerald, if only it could only be administered judiciously. "You can't keep him out of the gambling salon, you know, sir; that is, not if he has a franc in his pocket." As to that the landlord was very confident. It was at last arranged, that the landlord was to tell Burgo that his bill did not signify at present, and that the use of the hotel was to be at Burgo's command for the next three months. At the end of that time he was to have notice to quit. No money was to be advanced to him;--but the landlord, even in this respect, had a discretion. "When I get home, I will see what can be done with his relations there," said Mr. Palliser. Then he went home and told his wife. "But he'll have no clothes," said Lady Glencora. Mr. Palliser said that the judicious landlord would manage that also; and in that way Lady Glencora was appeased,--appeased, till something final could be done for the young man, on Mr. Palliser's return home. Poor Burgo! He must now be made to end his career as far as these pages are concerned. He soon found that something had been done for him at the hotel, and no doubt he must have made some guess near the truth. The discreet landlord told him nothing,--would tell him nothing; but that his bill did not signify as yet. Burgo, thinking about it, resolved to write about it in an indignant strain to Mr. Palliser; but the letter did not get itself written. When in England, Mr. Palliser saw Sir Cosmo Monk, and with many apologies, told him what he had done. "I regret it," said Sir Cosmo, in anger. "I regret it; not for the money's sake, but I regret it." The amount expended, was however repaid to Mr. Palliser, and an arrangement was made for remitting a weekly sum of fifteen pounds to Burgo, through a member of the diplomatic corps, as long as he should remain at a certain small German town which was indicated, and in which there was no public gambling-table. Lady Glencora expressed herself satisfied for the present; but I must doubt whether poor Burgo lived long in comfort on the allowance made to him. Here we must say farewell to Burgo Fitzgerald.

"You are in trouble, Mr. Fitzgerald, I fear," said Mr. Palliser, standing over Burgo as he lay upon the ground. They were now beyond the gas-lights, and the evening was dark. "Who is that?" said Burgo. "Perhaps I have been wrong in following you," said Mr. Palliser, "but I thought you were in distress, and that I might help you. My name is Palliser." "Plantagenet Palliser?" said Burgo, jumping to his feet and looking close into the other's face. "By heavens! it is Plantagenet Palliser! Well, Mr. Palliser, what do you want?" "I want to be of some use to you, if I can. I and my wife saw you leave the gaming-table just now." "Is she here too?" "Yes. We are going home, but chance brought us up to the salon. She seemed to think that you are in distress, and that I could help you. I will, if you will let me." Mr. Palliser felt that he could afford to be generous. He had no lingering dread of this poor creature who stood before him. All that feeling was over, though it was hardly four months since he had been sent back by Mrs. Marsham to Lady Monk's house to save his wife, if saving her were possible. "So she saw me when I staked my last chance? I should have had over twenty thousand francs now, if the cards had stood to me." "The cards never do stand to any one, Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" said Burgo. "At any rate, they never did to me." "If you want twenty thousand francs - that's eight hundred pounds, I think - I can let you have it without any trouble." "The devil you can!" "Oh, yes. As I am travelling with my family, I have been obliged to carry large bills with me, and I can accommodate you without any difficulty." There was something pleasant in this, which made Burgo Fitzgerald laugh. Mr. Palliser, the husband of Lady Glencora M'Cluskie, and the heir of the Duke of Omnium, happening to have money with him! As if Mr. Palliser could not bring down showers of money in any part of the globe by simply holding up his hand. "I do not doubt your ability to raise the money," said he; "but how would you propose to get it back again?" "That would be at your convenience," said Mr. Palliser, who hardly knew how to put himself on a proper footing with his companion. "I never have any such convenience," said Burgo. "Who were those women whose tubs always had holes at the bottom of them? My tub always has such a hole." "You mean the daughters of Danaus," said Mr. Palliser. "I don't know whose daughters they were, but you might just as well lend them all eight hundred pounds apiece." "There were too many of them," said Mr. Palliser, trying a little joke. "But as you are only one I shall be most happy, as I said before, to be of service." They were now walking slowly together up towards the hills, when they heard a step. Upon this, Burgo turned round. "Do you see that fellow?" said he. "I don't know his name, but they have sent him out from the hotel with me, to see what I do. I owe them six or seven hundred francs, and they want to turn me out of the house without my things." "That would be very uncomfortable," said Mr. Palliser. "Yes, but if they keep my things they shall keep me. They think I'm going to blow my brains out. The man lets me go far enough off to do that - so long as it's nowhere near the hotel." "I hope you're not thinking of such a thing?" "As long as I can help it, Mr. Palliser, I never think of anything." The stranger was now standing near to them, and Burgo walked up to him. In bad French, he asked him to leave. "Don't you see I have a friend with me?" "Oh! a friend," said the man, in bad English. "Perhaps de friend can advance moneys?" "Never mind what he can do," said Burgo. "You leave me." Then the gentleman from the hotel retreated, but Mr. Palliser, during the rest of the interview, fancied that he heard the man's footfall at no great distance. They continued to walk on up the hill very slowly, and Mr. Palliser repeated his offer. "So Lady Glencora is here?" Burgo said again. "Yes. It was she who asked me to come to you." They both walked on a few steps in silence. "By George! isn't it odd," said Burgo, at last, "that you and I, of all men in the world, should be walking together here at Baden? It's not only that you're the richest man in London, and that I'm the poorest, but - there are other things, you know, which make it so funny." "There have been things which make me and my wife very anxious to give you aid." "And have you considered, Mr. Palliser, that those things make you the very man in the world from whom I can't take aid? I would have taken it all if I could - and I tried hard." "I know you have been disappointed, Mr. Fitzgerald." "Disappointed! By G---! yes. I did love her, Mr. Palliser. Nay, by heavens! I do love her. I dare to say it even to you. I shall never try to see her again. All that is over, of course. I've been a fool about her as I have been about everything. But I did love her." "I believe it, Mr. Fitzgerald." "It was not altogether her money. But think what it would have been to me, Mr. Palliser. Think what a chance I had, and what a chance I lost. There would have been enough money to have saved me. And then I might have done something good instead of crawling about almost in fear of that beast who is watching us." "It has been ordered otherwise," said Mr. Palliser, not knowing what to say. "Yes; it seems to have been ordered that I'm to go to the devil; but I don't know who gave the orders, and I don't know why." Mr. Palliser did not wish to talk more than could be helped about his own wife. "There is something of truth in what you say. You have been disappointed," he said, "and I, perhaps, of all men am the most bound to come to your assistance." "How can I take it from you?" said Burgo, almost crying. "You shall take it from her!" "No; that would be twenty times worse. What! take her money, when she would not give me herself!" "I do not see why you should not borrow her money." "No; I won't have it." "Then what will you do?" "Ah! That's the question. I don't know." "Will you let me call on you tomorrow?" "I don't see what good it will do. I shan't get up till late, for fear they should shut the room against me. I think I shall say I'm ill, and keep to my bed." "Will you take a few napoleons?" "No; not from you. You are the first man from whom I ever refused to borrow money." "What else can I offer?" said Mr. Palliser. "You can offer nothing. Say to your wife from me that I bade her adieu; that is all you can do for me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." Mr. Palliser shook Burgo's hand, and then walked quickly down the hill. As he did so he passed the man who had been dodging them. "Misther, Misther!" whispered the man. "What do you want of me?" asked Mr. Palliser, in French. The man replied in French. "Have you given him any money?" "I have not," said Mr. Palliser, not quite knowing what he had better do or say. "Then he will have a bad time of it," said the man. "And he might have carried away two thousand francs just now! Dear, dear, dear! Has he got any friends, sir?" "Yes, he has friends." "But what shall we do? Perhaps with his own hand he will kill himself. For five weeks he owes; and for wine, oh so much! There came through Baden a lord, and then I think he got money. But he went and played." "Are you the hotelkeeper?" "I am the head Commissionaire. I look after the gentlemen who sometimes are not all - not all-" exactly what they should be, he intended to explain; and Mr. Palliser understood him. The interview ended with Mr. Palliser taking the name of the hotel, and promising to call before Mr. Fitzgerald should be up in the morning. Lady Glencora received her husband that night with infinite anxiety, and was by no means satisfied with what had been done. He described to her as accurately as he could his interview with Burgo, and also his other interview with the head commissioner. "He will; he will," said Lady Glencora; when she heard the man's guess that Burgo might destroy himself. "And if he does, how shall I bear it?" Mr. Palliser tried to soothe her by telling her of his promise to visit the landlord; and Lady Glencora, accepting this, strove to persuade her husband to spend lavishly on Burgo's behalf. He assured her that his money should be forthcoming, if possible. On the following morning he went down to the hotel, and saw the landlord. He found him to be a reasonable, tranquil, good-natured man, whose chief anxiety seemed to arise from the great difficulty of doing anything with the gentleman who was now lying in his bed upstairs. "Has he had any breakfast?" Mr. Palliser asked. "Oh yes;" and the landlord laughed. Burgo had desired his cutlets to be dressed in a particular way, with cayenne pepper, and had ordered a bottle of Sauterne; but the landlord had thought that an ordinary wine would do as well. It had just that moment been sent upstairs. Then Mr. Palliser sat down in the landlord's little room, and had Burgo Fitzgerald's bill brought to him. "I think I might venture to pay it," he said. "As monsieur pleases," said the landlord, but with a sparkle in his eye. Mr. Palliser did not know whether, in the eyes of the world, he ought to pay it, or leave it. Then he thought of his wife. He could not go back to her without having done something; so he paid the bill. "And to whom should the receipt be given?" asked the landlord. Mr. Palliser thought that the landlord had better keep it himself for a while. He knew that he must do something more. He could not simply pay the bill and go away. That would not satisfy his wife. At last he let the landlord into his confidence. He did not tell the whole of Burgo's past history, or that part which referred to Lady Glencora. But he did make the landlord understand that he was willing to give money to Mr. Fitzgerald, if only it could be given judiciously. "You can't keep him out of the gambling salon, you know, sir, if he has a franc in his pocket," the landlord assured him. It was at last arranged that the landlord was to tell Burgo that his bill did not signify at present, and that the use of the hotel was to be at his command for the next three months. At the end of that time he was to have notice to quit. No money was to be advanced to him; but the landlord, even in this respect, had discretion. "When I get home, I will see what can be done with his relations there," said Mr. Palliser. Then he went home and told his wife. "But he'll have no clothes," said Lady Glencora. Mr. Palliser said that the judicious landlord would manage that also; and in that way Lady Glencora was appeased, till something could be done for the young man on Mr. Palliser's return home. Poor Burgo! He must now be made to end his career as far as these pages are concerned. The discreet landlord would tell him nothing but that his bill did not signify yet, but no doubt Burgo must have guessed the truth. He resolved to write an indignant letter to Mr. Palliser; but the letter did not get written. When in England, Mr. Palliser saw Sir Cosmo Monk, and with many apologies, told him what he had done. "I regret it," said Sir Cosmo, in anger at Burgo. The amount expended was, however, repaid to Mr. Palliser, and an arrangement was made for sending a weekly sum of fifteen pounds to Burgo, as long as he should remain at a certain small German town in which there was no gambling-table. Here we must say farewell to poor Burgo Fitzgerald; although I doubt whether he lived long in comfort on his allowance.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 76: The Landlord's Bill

March came, and still the Chancellor of the Exchequer held his position. In the early days of March there was given in the House a certain parliamentary explanation on the subject, which, however, did not explain very much to any person. A statement was made which was declared by the persons making it to be altogether satisfactory, but nobody else seemed to find any satisfaction in it. The big wigs of the Cabinet had made an arrangement which, from the language used by them on this occasion, they must be supposed to have regarded as hardly less permanent than the stars; but everybody else protested that the Government was going to pieces; and Mr. Bott was heard to declare in clubs and lobbies, and wherever he could get a semi-public, political hearing, that this kind of thing wouldn't do. Lord Brock must either blow hot or cold. If he chose to lean upon Mr. Palliser, he might lean upon him, and Mr. Palliser would not be found wanting. In such case no opposition could touch Lord Brock or the Government. That was Mr. Bott's opinion. But if Lord Brock did not so choose, why, in that case, he must expect that Mr. Palliser, and Mr. Palliser's friends, would--. Mr. Bott did not say what they would do; but he was supposed by those who understood the matter to hint at an Opposition lobby, and adverse divisions, and to threaten Lord Brock with the open enmity of Mr. Palliser,--and of Mr. Palliser's great follower. "This kind of thing won't do long, you know," repeated Mr. Bott for the second or third time, as he stood upon the rug before the fire at his club, with one or two of his young friends around him. "I suppose not," said Calder Jones, the hunting Member of Parliament whom we once met at Roebury. "Planty Pall won't stand it, I should say." "What can he do?" asked another, an unfledged Member who was not as yet quite settled as to the leadership under which he intended to work. "What can he do?" said Mr. Bott, who on such an occasion as this could be very great,--who, for a moment, could almost feel that he might become a leader of a party for himself, and some day institute a Bott Ministry. "What can he do? You will very shortly see what he can do. He can make himself the master of the occasion. If Lord Brock doesn't look about him, he'll find that Mr. Palliser will be in the Cabinet without his help." "You don't mean to say that the Queen will send for Planty Pall!" said the young Member. "I mean to say that the Queen will send for any one that the House of Commons may direct her to call upon," said Mr. Bott, who conceived himself to have gauged the very depths of our glorious Constitution. "How hard it is to make any one understand that the Queen has really nothing to do with it!" "Come, Bott, draw it mild," said Calder Jones, whose loyalty was shocked by the utter Manchesterialism of his political friend. "Not if I know it," said Mr. Bott, with something of grandeur in his tone and countenance. "I never drew it mild yet, and I shan't begin now. All our political offences against civilization have come from men drawing it mild, as you call it. Why is it that Englishmen can't read and write as Americans do? Why can't they vote as they do even in Imperial France? Why are they serfs, less free than those whose chains were broken the other day in Russia? Why is the Spaniard more happy, and the Italian more contented? Because men in power have been drawing it mild!" And Mr. Bott made an action with his hand as though he were drawing up beer from a patent tap. "But you can't set aside Her Majesty like that, you know," said the young Member, who had been presented, and whose mother's old-world notions about the throne still clung to him. "I should be very sorry," said Mr. Bott; "I'm no republican." With all his constitutional love, Mr. Bott did not know what the word republican meant. "I mean no disrespect to the throne. The throne in its place is very well. But the power of governing this great nation does not rest with the throne. It is contained within the four walls of the House of Commons. That is the great truth which all young Members should learn, and take to their hearts." "And you think Planty Pall will become Prime Minister?" said Calder Jones. "I haven't said that; but there are more unlikely things. Among young men I know no man more likely. But I certainly think this,--that if Lord Brock doesn't take him into the Cabinet, Lord Brock won't long remain there himself." In the meantime the election came on in the Chelsea districts, and the whole of the south-western part of the metropolis was covered with posters bearing George Vavasor's name. "Vote for Vavasor and the River Bank." That was the cry with which he went to the electors; and though it must be presumed that it was understood by some portion of the Chelsea electors, it was perfectly unintelligible to the majority of those who read it. His special acquaintances and his general enemies called him Viscount Riverbank, and he was pestered on all sides by questions as to Father Thames. It was Mr. Scruby who invented the legend, and who gave George Vavasor an infinity of trouble by the invention. There was a question in those days as to embanking the river from the Houses of Parliament up to the remote desolations of further Pimlico, and Mr. Scruby recommended the coming Member to pledge himself that he would have the work carried on even to Battersea Bridge. "You must have a subject," pleaded Mr. Scruby. "No young Member can do anything without a subject. And it should be local;--that is to say, if you have anything of a constituency. Such a subject as that, if it's well worked, may save you thousands of pounds--thousands of pounds at future elections." "It won't save me anything at this one, I take it." "But it may secure the seat, Mr. Vavasor, and afterwards make you the most popular metropolitan Member in the House; that is, with your own constituency. Only look at the money that would be spent in the districts if that were done! It would come to millions, sir!" "But it never will be done." "What matters that?" and Mr. Scruby almost became eloquent as he explained the nature of a good parliamentary subject. "You should work it up, so as to be able to discuss it at all points. Get the figures by heart, and then, as nobody else will do so, nobody can put you down. Of course it won't be done. If it were done, that would be an end of it, and your bread would be taken out of your mouth. But you can always promise it at the hustings, and can always demand it in the House. I've known men who've walked into as much as two thousand a year, permanent place, on the strength of a worse subject than that!" Vavasor allowed Mr. Scruby to manage the matter for him, and took up the subject of the River Bank. "Vavasor and the River Bank" was carried about by an army of men with iron shoulder-straps, and huge pasteboard placards six feet high on the top of them. You would think, as you saw the long rows, that the men were being marshalled to their several routes; but they always kept together--four-and-twenty at the heels of each other. "One placard at a time would strike the eye," said Mr. Vavasor, counting the expense up to himself. "There's no doubt of it," said Mr. Scruby in reply. "One placard will do that, if it's big enough; but it takes four-and-twenty to touch the imagination." And then sides of houses were covered with that shibboleth--"Vavasor and the River Bank"--the same words repeated in columns down the whole sides of houses. Vavasor himself declared that he was ashamed to walk among his future constituents, so conspicuous had his name become. Grimes saw it, and was dismayed. At first, Grimes ridiculed the cry with all his publican's wit. "Unless he mean to drown hisself in the Reach, it's hard to say what he do mean by all that gammon about the River Bank," said Grimes, as he canvassed for the other Liberal candidate. But, after a while, Grimes was driven to confess that Mr. Scruby knew what he was about. "He is a sharp 'un, that he is," said Grimes in the inside bar of the "Handsome Man;" and he almost regretted that he had left the leadership of Mr. Scruby, although he knew that on this occasion he would not have gotten his odd money. George Vavasor, with much labour, actually did get up the subject of the River Bank. He got himself introduced to men belonging to the Metropolitan Board, and went manfully into the matter of pounds, shillings, and pence. He was able even to work himself into an apparent heat when he was told that the thing was out of the question; and soon found that he had disciples who really believed in him. If he could have brought himself to believe in the thing,--if he could have been induced himself to care whether Chelsea was to be embanked or no, the work would not have been so difficult to him. In that case it would have done good to him, if to no one else. But such belief was beyond him. He had gone too far in life to be capable of believing in, or of caring for, such things. He was ambitious of having a hand in the government of his country, but he was not capable of caring even for that. But he worked. He worked hard, and spoke vehemently, and promised the men of Chelsea, Pimlico, and Brompton that the path of London westwards had hardly commenced as yet. Sloane Street should be the new Cheapside. Squares should arise around the Chelsea barracks, with sides open to the water, for which Belgravia would be deserted. There should be palaces there for the rich, because the rich spend their riches; but no rich man's palace should interfere with the poor man's right to the River Bank. Three millions and a half should be spent on the noble street to be constructed, the grandest pathway that the world should ever yet have seen; three millions and a half to be drawn from,--to be drawn from anywhere except from Chelsea;--from the bloated money-bags of the City Corporation, Vavasor once ventured to declare, amidst the encouraging shouts of the men of Chelsea. Mr. Scruby was forced to own that his pupil worked the subject well. "Upon my word, that was uncommon good," he said, almost patting Vavasor on the back, after a speech in which he had vehemently asserted that his ambition to represent the Chelsea districts had all come of his long-fixed idea that the glory of future London would be brought about by the embankment of the river at Chelsea. But armies of men carrying big boards, and public-houses open at every corner, and placards in which the letters are three feet long, cost money. Those few modest hundreds which Mr. Scruby had already received before the work began, had been paid on the supposition that the election would not take place till September. Mr. Scruby made an early request, a very early request, that a further sum of fifteen hundred pounds should be placed in his hands; and he did this in a tone which clearly signified that not a man would be sent about through the streets, or a poster put upon a wall, till this request had been conceded. Mr. Scruby was in possession of two very distinct manners of address. In his jovial moods, when he was instigating his clients to fight their battles well, it might almost be thought that he was doing it really for the love of the thing; and some clients, so thinking, had believed for a few hours that Scruby, in his jolly, passionate eagerness, would pour out his own money like dust, trusting implicitly to future days for its return. But such clients had soon encountered Mr. Scruby's other manner, and had perceived that they were mistaken. The thing had come so suddenly upon George Vavasor that there was not time for him to carry on his further operations through his sister. Had he written to Kate,--let him have written in what language he would,--she would have first rejoined by a negative, and there would have been a correspondence before he had induced her to comply. He thought of sending for her by telegram, but even in that there would have been too much delay. He resolved, therefore, to make his application to Alice himself, and he wrote to her, explaining his condition. The election had come upon him quite suddenly, as she knew, he said. He wanted two thousand pounds instantly, and felt little scruple in asking her for it, as he was aware that the old Squire would be only too glad to saddle the property with a legacy to Alice for the repayment of this money, though he would not have advanced a shilling himself for the purpose of the election. Then he said a word or two as to his prolonged absence from Queen Anne Street. He had not been there because he had felt, from her manner when they last met, that she would for a while prefer to be left free from the unavoidable excitement of such interviews. But should he be triumphant in his present contest, he should go to her to share his triumph with her; or, should he fail, he should go to her to console him in his failure. Within three days he heard from her, saying that the money would be at once placed to his credit. She sent him also her candid good wishes for success in his enterprise, but beyond this her letter said nothing. There was no word of love,--no word of welcome,--no expression of a desire to see him. Vavasor, as he perceived all this in the reading of her note, felt a triumph in the possession of her money. She was ill-using him by her coldness, and there was comfort in revenge. "It serves her right," he said to himself. "She should have married me at once when she said she would do so, and then it would have been my own." When Mr. Tombe had communicated with John Grey on the matter of this increased demand,--this demand which Mr. Tombe began to regard as carrying a love-affair rather too far,--Grey had telegraphed back that Vavasor's demand for money, if made through Mr. John Vavasor, was to be honoured to the extent of five thousand pounds. Mr. Tombe raised his eyebrows, and reflected that some men were very foolish. But John Grey's money matters were of such a nature as to make Mr. Tombe know that he must do as he was bidden; and the money was paid to George Vavasor's account. He told Kate nothing of this. Why should he trouble himself to do so? Indeed, at this time he wrote no letters to his sister, though she twice sent to him, knowing what his exigencies would be, and made further tenders of her own money. He could not reply to these offers without telling her that money had been forthcoming from that other quarter, and so he left them unanswered. In the meantime the battle went on gloriously. Mr. Travers, the other Liberal candidate, spent his money freely,--or else some other person did so on his behalf. When Mr. Scruby mentioned this last alternative to George Vavasor, George cursed his own luck in that he had never found such backers. "I don't call a man half a Member when he's brought in like that," said Mr. Scruby, comforting him. "He can't do what he likes with his vote. He ain't independent. You never hear of those fellows getting anything good. Pay for the article yourself, Mr. Vavasor, and then it's your own. That's what I always say." Mr. Grimes went to work strenuously, almost fiercely, in the opposite interest, telling all that he knew, and perhaps more than he knew, of Vavasor's circumstances. He was at work morning, noon, and night, not only in his own neighbourhood, but among those men on the river bank of whom he had spoken so much in his interview with Vavasor in Cecil Street. The entire Vavasorian army with its placards was entirely upset on more than one occasion, and was once absolutely driven ignominiously into the river mud. And all this was done under the direction of Mr. Grimes. Vavasor himself was pelted with offal from the sinking tide, so that the very name of the River Bank became odious to him. He was a man who did not like to have his person touched, and when they hustled him he became angry. "Lord love you, Mr. Vavasor," said Scruby, "that's nothing! I've had a candidate so mauled,--it was in the Hamlets, I think,--that there wasn't a spot on him that wasn't painted with rotten eggs. The smell was something quite awful. But I brought him in, through it all." And Mr. Scruby at last did as much for George Vavasor as he had done for the hero of the Hamlets. At the close of the poll Vavasor's name stood at the head by a considerable majority, and Scruby comforted him by saying that Travers certainly wouldn't stand the expense of a petition, as the seat was to be held only for a few months. "And you've done it very cheap, Mr. Vavasor," said Scruby, "considering that the seat is metropolitan. I do say that you have done it cheap. Another thousand, or twelve hundred, will cover everything--say thirteen, perhaps, at the outside. And when you shall have fought the battle once again, you'll have paid your footing, and the fellows will let you in almost for nothing after that." A further sum of thirteen hundred pounds was wanted at once, and then the whole thing was to be repeated over again in six months' time! This was not consolatory. But, nevertheless, there was a triumph in the thing itself which George Vavasor was man enough to enjoy. It would be something to have sat in the House of Commons, though it should only have been for half a session.

March came, and still the Chancellor of the Exchequer held his position. In early March there was given in the House a parliamentary explanation on the subject, which, however, did not explain very much. Everybody but the Cabinet protested that the Government was going to pieces; and Mr. Bott declared that this kind of thing wouldn't do. Lord Brock must decide. If he chose Mr. Palliser, Mr. Palliser would not be found wanting. But if Lord Brock did not so choose, he must expect that Mr. Palliser and his friends, would - Mr. Bott did not say what they would do; but he was assumed to hint at divisions, and to threaten Lord Brock with the open enmity of Mr. Palliser - and of Mr. Bott himself. "This kind of thing won't do long, you know," repeated Mr. Bott, as he stood before the fire at his club, with one or two of his young friends around him. "I suppose not," said Calder Jones, the hunting Member of Parliament whom we met at Roebury. "Planty Pall won't stand it, I should say." "What can he do?" asked another, an unfledged Member who was not quite sure whom he should follow. "What can he do?" said Mr. Bott - who, for a moment, could almost feel that he might become a leader of a party himself. "You will very shortly see what he can do. If Lord Brock doesn't look about him, he'll find that Mr. Palliser will be in the Cabinet without his help." "You don't mean to say that the Queen will send for Planty Pall!" said the young Member. "The Queen will send for anyone that the House of Commons may direct her to call upon," said Mr. Bott. "The Queen has really nothing to do with it." "Come, Bott, tone it down," said Calder Jones, whose loyalty was shocked. "I shan't," said Mr. Bott grandly. "All our political offences against civilization have come from that. Why can't Englishmen read and write as Americans do? Why can't they vote as they do even in Imperial France? Why are they less free than serfs in Russia? Because men in power have been toning it down!" "But you can't set aside Her Majesty like that, you know," said the young Member. "I'm no republican," said Mr. Bott, although he did not know what the word meant. "I mean no disrespect to the throne. But the power of governing this great nation does not rest with the throne. It is contained within the four walls of the House of Commons." "And you think Planty Pall will become Prime Minister?" said Calder Jones. "I haven't said that; but there are more unlikely things. But I certainly think that if Lord Brock doesn't take him into the Cabinet, Lord Brock won't remain there long himself." In the meantime the election came on in the Chelsea districts, and south-western London was covered with posters bearing George Vavasor's name. "Vote for Vavasor and the River Bank." That was the cry with which he went to the electors; and it was perfectly unintelligible to most of those who read it. He was called Viscount Riverbank by all sides, and was pestered by questions about Father Thames. It was Mr. Scruby who invented the slogan. There was a call in those days to embank the river from the Houses of Parliament up to Pimlico, and Mr. Scruby recommended Vavasor to pledge that he would have the work carried out. "You must have a subject," pleaded Mr. Scruby; "and it should be local. It may save you thousands of pounds at future elections." "It won't save me anything at this one, I take it." "But it may secure the seat, Mr. Vavasor, and make you the most popular metropolitan Member in the House. Only look at the money that would be spent in the districts if the embankment were done! It would be millions, sir!" "But it never will be done." "What does that matter?" said Mr. Scruby. "Get the figures by heart, and as nobody else will do so, nobody can argue with you. Of course it won't be done. But you can always promise it at the hustings, and can demand it in the House." So Vavasor allowed Mr. Scruby to manage the matter for him, and huge placards saying "Vavasor and the River Bank" were carried about by an army of men. And sides of houses were covered with "Vavasor and the River Bank", until Vavasor declared that he was ashamed to walk down the streets, so conspicuous had his name become. Grimes the publican ridiculed the cry at first, when he canvassed for the other Liberal candidate. But, after a while, he admitted that Mr. Scruby knew what he was doing. "He's a sharp 'un, he is," said Grimes; and he almost regretted that he had left the leadership of Mr. Scruby. George Vavasor actually did study the subject of the River Bank. He got himself introduced to men on the Metropolitan Board, and went manfully into the figures. He was able even to work himself into an apparent heat when told that the thing was out of the question; and soon found that he had disciples who really believed in him. If he could have brought himself to care about the matter, the work would not have been difficult to him. But that was beyond him. He had gone too far in life to be capable of believing in, or of caring for, such things. He was ambitious of having a hand in the government of his country, but he was not capable of caring even for that. But he worked hard, and spoke vehemently, and promised the men of Chelsea that the path of London westwards had hardly commenced as yet. Squares should arise around the Chelsea barracks, while Belgravia would be deserted. Three and a half million should be spent on the noble street to be constructed; the money to be drawn from - anywhere except Chelsea. Mr. Scruby was forced to own that his pupil worked the subject well. "Upon my word, that was uncommon good," he said, almost patting Vavasor on the back after one speech about the future glory of the embankment. But armies of men carrying placards cost money. Mr. Scruby asked for a further fifteen hundred pounds; and his tone clearly signified that not a placard would be sent through the streets, or a poster put upon a wall, till he had the money. His joviality was absent. The request came so suddenly that there was no time for George to communicate with Alice through his sister. He resolved, therefore, to apply to Alice himself, and he wrote to her, explaining matters. The election had come upon him quite suddenly, as she knew, he said. He wanted two thousand pounds instantly, and felt little scruple in asking her for it, as he was aware that the old Squire would readily leave her a legacy for the repayment of this money. Then he said a word or two about his long absence from Queen Anne Street. He had not visited because he had felt that she would prefer to be left free from the excitement of such interviews. But if he should he be triumphant in the election, he should go to her to share his triumph; or, should he fail, he would go to her to console him in his failure. Within three days he heard from her, saying that the money would be at once placed to his credit. She sent him also her candid good wishes for success, but beyond this her letter said nothing. There was no word of love or welcome, no expression of a desire to see him. Vavasor, as he perceived this, felt a triumph in the possession of her money. She was ill-using him by her coldness, and there was comfort in revenge. "It serves her right," he said to himself. "She should have married me at once, and then the money would have been mine." When Mr. Tombe had communicated with John Grey about this increased demand - which Mr. Tombe regarded as going too far - Grey had telegraphed back that Vavasor's demand, if made through Mr. John Vavasor, was to be honoured to the extent of five thousand pounds. Mr. Tombe raised his eyebrows, and reflected that some men were very foolish. But he did as he was asked; and the money was paid to George Vavasor's account. George told Kate nothing of this. Why should he? He wrote no letters to his sister, though she twice wrote to him offering her own money. He could not reply to these offers without telling her that money had been obtained from Alice, and so he left them unanswered. In the meantime the battle went on gloriously. Mr. Travers, the other Liberal candidate, spent his money freely, and George cursed his own luck in having no rich backers. "I don't call a man a Member when he's elected like that," said Mr. Scruby, comforting him. "He can't do what he likes with his vote. He ain't independent. Pay for it yourself, Mr. Vavasor, and then it's your own. That's what I say." Mr. Grimes went to work strenuously in the opposite interest, telling all that he knew, and perhaps more, of Vavasor's circumstances. He was at work not only in his own neighbourhood, but among the men on the river bank. The entire Vavasorian army with its placards was entirely upset on more than one occasion, and was once driven into the river mud under the direction of Mr. Grimes. Vavasor himself was pelted with dirt from the sinking tide, and he became angry. "Lord love you, Mr. Vavasor," said Scruby, "that's nothing! I've had a candidate covered with rotten eggs. The smell was something awful. But I brought him in." And Mr. Scruby at last did as much for George. At the close of the poll, Vavasor's name stood at the head by a considerable majority. "You've done it very cheap, Mr. Vavasor," said Scruby. "Another thousand, or twelve hundred, will cover everything - say thirteen, perhaps. And when you've fought the battle once again, you'll have paid your footing, and the fellows will let you in almost for nothing after that." A further thirteen hundred pounds was wanted at once, and then the whole thing was to be repeated in six months' time! This was not a comfort. But, nevertheless, it was a triumph which George Vavasor was man enough to enjoy. It would be something to have sat in the House of Commons, even if only for half a session.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 44: The Election for the Chelsea Districts

We must go back for a few pages to scenes which happened in London during this summer, so that the reader may understand Mr. Grey's position when he reached Lucerne. He had undergone another quarrel with George Vavasor, and something of the circumstances of that quarrel must be told. It has been already said that George Vavasor lost his election for the Chelsea Districts, after all the money which he had spent,--money which he had been so ill able to spend, and on which he had laid his hands in a manner so disreputable! He had received two thousand pounds from the bills which Alice had executed on his behalf,--or rather, had received the full value of three out of the four bills, and a part of the value of the fourth, on which he had been driven to raise what immediate money he had wanted by means of a Jew bill-discounter. One thousand pounds he had paid over at once into the hands of Mr. Scruby, his Parliamentary election agent, towards the expenses of his election; and when the day of polling arrived had exactly in his hands the sum of five hundred pounds. Where he was to get more when this was gone he did not know. If he were successful,--if the enlightened constituents of the Chelsea Districts, contented with his efforts on behalf of the River Bank, should again send him to Parliament, he thought that he might still carry on the war. A sum of ready money he would have in hand; and, as to his debts, he would be grandly indifferent to any consideration of them. Then there might be pickings in the way of a Member of Parliament of his calibre. Companies,--mercantile companies,--would be glad to have him as a director, paying him a guinea a day, or perhaps more, for his hour's attendance. Railways in want of vice-chairmen might bid for his services; and in the City he might turn that "M.P." which belonged to him to good account in various ways. With such a knowledge of the City world as he possessed, he thought that he could pick up a living in London, if only he could retain his seat in Parliament. But what was he to do if he could not retain it? No sooner had Mr. Scruby got the thousand pounds into his clutches than he pressed for still more money. George Vavasor, with some show of justice on his side, pointed out to this all-devouring agent that the sum demanded had already been paid. This Mr. Scruby admitted, declaring that he was quite prepared to go on without any further immediate remittance, although by doing so might subject himself to considerable risk. But another five hundred pounds, paid at once, would add greatly to the safety of the seat; whereas eight hundred judiciously thrown in at the present moment would make the thing quite secure. But Vavasor swore to himself that he would not part with another shilling. Never had he felt such love for money as he did for that five hundred pounds which he now held in his pocket. "It's no use," he said to Mr. Scruby. "I have done what you asked, and would have done more had you asked for more at that time. As it is, I cannot make another payment before the election." Mr. Scruby shrugged his shoulders, and said that he would do his best. But George Vavasor soon knew that the man was not doing his best,--that the man had, in truth, abandoned his cause. The landlord of the "Handsome Man" jeered him when he went there canvassing. "Laws, Mr. Vavasor!" said the landlord of the "Handsome Man," "you're not at all the fellow for us chaps along the river,--you ain't. You're afraid to come down with the stumpy,--that's what you are." George put his hand upon his purse, and acknowledged to himself that he had been afraid to come down with the stumpy. For the last five days of the affair George Vavasor knew that his chance was gone. Mr. Scruby's face, manner, and words, told the result of the election as plainly as any subsequent figures could do. He would be absent when Vavasor called, or the clerk would say that he was absent. He would answer in very few words, constantly shrugging his shoulders. He would even go away and leave the anxious candidate while he was in the middle of some discussion as to his plans. It was easy to see that Mr. Scruby no longer regarded him as a successful man, and the day of the poll showed very plainly how right Mr. Scruby had been. George Vavasor was rejected, but he still had his five hundred pounds in his pocket. Of course he was subject to that mortification which a man feels when he reflects that some little additional outlay would have secured his object. Whether it might have been so, or not, who can say? But there he was, with the gateway between the lamps barred against him, ex-Member of Parliament for the Chelsea Districts, with five hundred pounds in his pocket, and little or nothing else that he could call his own. What was he to do with himself? After trying to make himself heard upon the hustings when he was rejected, and pledging himself to stand again at the next election, he went home to his lodgings in Cecil Street, and endeavoured to consider calmly his position in the world. He had lost his inheritance. He had abandoned one profession after another, and was now beyond the pale of another chance in that direction. His ambition had betrayed him, and there were no longer possible to him any hopes of political activity. He had estranged from himself every friend that he had ever possessed. He had driven from him with violence the devotion even of his sister. He had robbed the girl whom he intended to marry of her money, and had so insulted her that no feeling of amity between them was any longer possible. He had nothing now but himself and that five hundred pounds, which he still held in his pocket. What should he do with himself and his money? He thought over it all with outer calmness for awhile, as he sat there in his arm-chair. From the moment in which he had first become convinced that the election would go against him, and that he was therefore ruined on all sides, he had resolved that he would be calm amidst his ruin. Sometimes he assumed a little smile, as though he were laughing at his own position. Mr. Bott's day of rejection had come before his own, and he had written to Mr. Bott a drolling note of consolation and mock sympathy. He had shaken hands with Mr. Scruby, and had poked his fun at the agent, bidding him be sure to send in his little bill soon. To all who accosted him, he replied in a subrisive tone; and he bantered Calder Jones, whose seat was quite sure, till Calder Jones began to have fears that were quite unnecessary. And now, as he sat himself down, intending to come to some final decision as to what he would do, he maintained the same calmness. He smiled in the same way, though there was no one there to see the smile. He laughed even audibly once or twice, as he vainly endeavoured to persuade himself that he was able to regard the world and all that belonged to it as a bubble. There came to him a moment in which he laughed out very audibly. "Ha! ha!" he shouted, rising up from his chair, and he walked about the room, holding a large paper-knife in his hand. "Ha! ha!" Then he threw the knife away from him, and thrusting his hands into his trousers-pockets, laughed again--"Ha! ha!" He stood still in the centre of the room, and the laughter was very plainly visible on his face, had there been anybody there to see it. But suddenly there was a change upon his face, as he stood there all alone, and his eyes became fierce, and the cicatrice that marred his countenance grew to be red and ghastly, and he grinned with his teeth, and he clenched his fists as he still held them within his pockets. "Curse him!" he said out loud. "Curse him, now and for ever!" He had broken down in his calmness, when he thought of that old man who had opposed him during his life, and had ruined him at his death. "May all the evils which the dead can feel cling to him for ever and ever!" His laughter was all gone, and his assumed tranquillity had deserted him. Walking across the room, he struck his foot against a chair; upon this, he took the chair in his hands, and threw it across the room. But he hardly arrested the torrent of his maledictions as he did so. What good was it that he should lie to himself by that mock tranquillity, or that false laughter? He lied to himself no longer, but uttered a song of despair that was true enough. What should he do? Where should he go? From what fountain should he attempt to draw such small draughts of the water of comfort as might support him at the present moment? Unless a man have some such fountain to which he can turn, the burden of life cannot be borne. For the moment, Vavasor tried to find such fountain in a bottle of brandy which stood near him. He half filled a tumbler, and then, dashing some water on it, swallowed it greedily. "By ----!" he said, "I believe it is the best thing a man can do." But where was he to go? to whom was he to turn himself? He went to a high desk which stood in one corner of the room, and unlocking it, took out a revolving pistol, and for a while carried it about with him in his hand. He turned it up, and looked at it, and tried the lock, and snapped it without caps, to see that the barrel went round fairly. "It's a beggarly thing to do," he said, and then he turned the pistol down again; "and if I do do it, I'll use it first for another purpose." Then he poured out for himself more brandy-and-water, and having drunk it, he threw himself upon the sofa, and seemed to sleep. But he did not sleep, and by-and-by there came a slight single knock at the door, which he instantly answered. But he did not answer it in the usual way by bidding the comer to come in. "Who's there?" he said. Then the comer attempted to enter, turning the handle of the door. But the door had been locked, and the key was on Vavasor's side. "Who's there?" he asked again, speaking out loudly, but in an angry voice. "It is I," said a woman's voice. "D----ation!" said George Vavasor. The woman heard him, but she made no sign of having heard him. She simply remained standing where she was till something further should be done within. She knew the man well, and knew that she must bide his time. She was very patient,--and for the time was meek, though it might be that there would come an end to her meekness. Vavasor, when he had heard her voice, and knew who was there, had again thrown himself on the sofa. There flashed across his mind another thought or two as to his future career,--another idea about the pistol, which still lay upon the table. Why should he let the intruder in, and undergo the nuisance of a disagreeable interview, if the end of all things might come in time to save him from such trouble? There he lay for ten minutes thinking, and then the low single knock was heard again. He jumped upon his feet, and his eyes were full of fire. He knew that it was useless to bid her go and leave him. She would sit there, if it were through the whole night. Should he open the door and strangle her, and pass out over her with the pistol in his hand, so that he might make that other reckoning which he desired to accomplish, and then never come back any more? He took a turn through the room, and then walked gently up to the door, and undid the lock. He did not open the door, nor did he bid his visitor enter, but having made the way easy for her if she chose to come in, he walked back to the sofa and threw himself on it again. As he did so, he passed his hand across the table so as to bring the pistol near to himself at the place where he would be lying. She paused a moment after she had heard the sound of the key, and then she made her way into the room. He did not at first speak to her. She closed the door very gently, and then, looking around, came up to the foot of the sofa. She paused a moment, waiting for him to address her; but as he said nothing, but lay there looking at her, she was the first to speak. "George," she said, "what am I to do?" She was a woman of about thirty years of age, dressed poorly, in old garments, but still with decency, and with some attempt at feminine prettiness. There were flowers in the bonnet on her head, though the bonnet had that unmistakable look of age which is quite as distressing to bonnets as it is to women, and the flowers themselves were battered and faded. She had long black ringlets on each cheek, hanging down much below her face, and brought forward so as to hide in some degree the hollowness of her jaws. Her eyes had a peculiar brightness, but now they left on those who looked at her cursorily no special impression as to their colour. They had been blue,--that dark violet blue, which is so rare, but is sometimes so lovely. Her forehead was narrow, her mouth was small, and her lips were thin; but her nose was perfect in its shape, and, by the delicacy of its modelling, had given a peculiar grace to her face in the days when things had gone well with her, when her cheeks had been full with youth and good living, and had been dimpled by the softness of love and mirth. There were no dimples there now, and all the softness which still remained was that softness which sorrow and continual melancholy give to suffering women. On her shoulders she wore a light shawl, which was fastened to her bosom with a large clasp brooch. Her faded dress was supported by a wide crinoline, but the under garment had lost all the grace of its ancient shape, and now told that woman's tale of poverty and taste for dress which is to be read in the outward garb of so many of Eve's daughters. The whole story was told so that those who ran might read it. When she had left her home this afternoon, she had struggled hard to dress herself so that something of the charm of apparel might be left to her; but she had known of her own failure at every twist that she had given to her gown, and at every jerk with which she had settled her shawl. She had despaired at every push she had given to her old flowers, vainly striving to bring them back to their old forms; but still she had persevered. With long tedious care she had mended the old gloves which would hardly hold her fingers. She had carefully hidden the rags of her sleeves. She had washed her little shrivelled collar, and had smoothed it out painfully. It had been a separate grief to her that she could find no cuffs to put round her wrists;--and yet she knew that no cuffs could have availed her anything. Nothing could avail her now. She expected nothing from her visit; yet she had come forth anxiously, and would have waited there throughout the whole night had access to his room been debarred to her. "George," she said, standing at the bottom of the sofa, "what am I to do?" As he lay there with his face turned towards her, the windows were at her back, and he could see her very plainly. He saw and appreciated the little struggles she had made to create by her appearance some reminiscence of her former self. He saw the shining coarseness of the long ringlets which had once been softer than silk. He saw the sixpenny brooch on her bosom where he had once placed a jewel, the price of which would now have been important to him. He saw it all, and lay there for a while, silently reading it. "Don't let me stand here," she said, "without speaking a word to me." "I don't want you to stand there," he said. "That's all very well, George. I know you don't want me to stand here. I know you don't want to see me ever again." "Never." "I know it. Of course I know it. But what am I to do? Where am I to go for money? Even you would not wish that I should starve?" "That's true, too. I certainly would not wish it. I should be delighted to hear that you had plenty to eat and plenty to drink, and plenty of clothes to wear. I believe that's what you care for the most, after all." "It was only for your sake,--because you liked it." "Well;--I did like it; but that has come to an end, as have all my other likings. You know very well that I can do nothing more for you. What good do you do yourself by coming here to annoy me? Have I not told you over and over again that you were never to look for me here? Is it likely that I should give you money now, simply because you have disobeyed me!" "Where else was I to find you?" "Why should you have found me at all? I don't want you to find me. I shall give you nothing;--not a penny. You know very well that we've had all that out before. When I put you into business I told you that we were to see no more of each other." "Business!" she said. "I never could make enough out of the shop to feed a bird." "That wasn't my fault. Putting you there cost me over a hundred pounds, and you consented to take the place." "I didn't consent. I was obliged to go there because you took my other home away from me." "Have it as you like, my dear. That was all I could do for you;--and more than most men would have done, when all things are considered." Then he got up from the sofa, and stood himself on the hearthrug, with his back to the fireplace. "At any rate, you may be sure of this, Jane;--that I shall do nothing more. You have come here to torment me, but you shall get nothing by it." "I have come here because I am starving." "I have nothing for you. Now go;" and he pointed to the door. Nevertheless, for more than three years of his life this woman had been his closest companion, his nearest friend, the being with whom he was most familiar. He had loved her according to his fashion of loving, and certainly she had loved him. "Go," he said repeating the word very angrily. "Do as I bid you, or it will be the worse for you." "Will you give me a sovereign?" "No;--I will give you nothing. I have desired you not to come to me here, and I will not pay for you coming." "Then I will not go;" and the woman sat down upon a chair at the foot of the table. "I will not go till you have given me something to buy food. You may put me out of the room if you can, but I will lie at the door of the stairs. And if you get me out of the house, I will sit upon the door-step." "If you play that game, my poor girl, the police will take you." "Let them. It has come to that with me, that I care for nothing. Out of this I will not go till you give me money--unless I am put out." And for this she had dressed herself with so much care, mending her gloves, and darning her little fragments of finery! He stood looking at her, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets,--looking at her and thinking what he had better do to rid himself of her presence. If he even quite resolved to take that little final journey of which we have spoken, with the pistol in his hand, why should he not go and leave her there? Or, for the matter of that, why should he not make her his heir to all remainder of his wealth? What he still had left was sufficient to place her in a seventh heaven of the earth. He cared but little for her, and was at this moment angry with her; but there was no one for whom he cared more, and no friend with whom he was less angry. But then his mind was not quite made up as to that final journey. Therefore he desired to rid himself and his room of the nuisance of her presence. "Jane," he said, looking at her again with that assumed tranquillity of which I have spoken, "you talk of starving and of being ruined,--" "I am starving. I have not a shilling in the world." "Perhaps it may be a comfort to you in your troubles to know that I am, at any rate, as badly off as you are? I won't say that I am starving, because I could get food to eat at this moment if I wanted it; but I am utterly ruined. My property,--what should have been mine,--has been left away from me. I have lost the trumpery seat in Parliament for which I have paid so much. All my relations have turned their backs upon me--" "Are you not going to be married?" she said, rising quickly from her chair and coming close to him. "Married! No;--but I am going to blow my brains out. Look at that pistol, my girl. Of course you won't think that I am in earnest,--but I am." She looked up into his face piteously. "Oh! George," she said, "you won't do that?" [Illustration: "Oh! George," she said, "you won't do that?"] "But I shall do that. There is nothing else left for me to do. You talk to me about starving. I tell you that I should have no objection to be starved, and so be put an end to in that way. It's not so bad as some other ways when it comes gradually. You and I, Jane, have not played our cards very well. We have staked all that we had, and we've been beaten. It's no good whimpering after what's lost. We'd better go somewhere else and begin a new game." "Go where?" said she. "Ah!--that's just what I can't tell you." "George," she said, "I'll go anywhere with you. If what you say is true,--if you're not going to be married, and will let me come to you, I will work for you like a slave. I will indeed. I know I'm poorly looking now--" "My girl, where I'm going, I shall not want any slave; and as for your looks--when you go there too,--they'll be of no matter, as far as I am able to judge." "But, George, where are you going?" "Wherever people do go when their brains are knocked out of them; or, rather, when they have knocked out their own brains,--if that makes any difference." "George,"--she came up to him now, and took hold of him by the front of his coat, and for the moment he allowed her to do so,--"George, you frighten me. Do not do that. Say that you will not do that!" "But I am just saying that I shall." "Are you not afraid of God's anger? You and I have been very wicked." "I have, my poor girl. I don't know much about your wickedness. I've been like Topsy;--indeed I am a kind of second Topsy myself. But what's the good of whimpering when it's over?" "It isn't over; it isn't over,--at any rate for you." "I wish I knew how I could begin again. But all this is nonsense, Jane, and you must go." "You must tell me, first, that you are not going to--kill yourself." "I don't suppose I shall do it to-night,--or, perhaps, not to-morrow. Very probably I may allow myself a week, so that your staying here can do no good. I merely wanted to make you understand that you are not the only person who has come to grief." "And you are not going to be married?" "No; I'm not going to be married, certainly." "And I must go now?" "Yes; I think you'd better go now." Then she rose and went, and he let her leave the room without giving her a shilling! His bantering tone, in speaking of his own position, had been successful. It had caused her to take herself off quietly. She knew enough of his usual manner to be aware that his threats of self destruction were probably unreal; but, nevertheless, what he had said had created some feeling in her heart which had induced her to yield to him, and go away in peace.

We must go back for a few pages to scenes which happened in London during the summer, before Mr. Grey went to Lucerne. He had another quarrel with George Vavasor. Vavasor lost his election for the Chelsea Districts despite all the money he had spent. Out of the bills which Alice had signed, he had paid one thousand pounds at once to Mr. Scruby, towards the expenses of his election; and when the polling day arrived he had in his hands five hundred pounds. Where he was to get more when this was gone, he did not know. If he were successful, then he would be grandly indifferent to any debts. There might be pickings in the way of a Member of Parliament of his calibre. Companies would be glad to have him as a director, paying a guinea a day, or perhaps more, for his hour's attendance; and in the City he might turn that "M.P." to good account in various ways. But what was he to do if he lost the election? No sooner had Mr. Scruby got the thousand pounds than he pressed for still more money, insisting that eight hundred would make the thing quite secure. But Vavasor swore to himself that he would not part with another shilling. "It's no use," he said to Mr. Scruby. "I cannot make another payment before the election." Mr. Scruby shrugged his shoulders, and said that he would do his best. But George Vavasor soon knew that the man was not doing his best - that the man had, in truth, abandoned his cause. The landlord of the Handsome Man jeered when he went there canvassing, and Vavasor knew that his chance was gone. Mr. Scruby would be absent when he called. It was easy to see that Mr. Scruby no longer regarded him as a successful man, and the day of the poll showed very plainly how right Mr. Scruby had been. George Vavasor was rejected, but he still had his five hundred pounds in his pocket, if little or nothing else that he could call his own. What was he to do with himself? After pledging to stand again at the next election, he went home to his lodgings in Cecil Street, and tried to consider calmly his position in the world. He had lost his inheritance. He had abandoned one profession after another. His ambition had betrayed him, and he had no more hopes of politics. He had estranged from himself every friend that he possessed. He had driven from him with violence even his devoted sister. He had robbed the girl whom he intended to marry, and had so insulted her that affection between them was impossible. He thought over it all with outer calmness, as he sat there in his arm-chair. From the moment in which he had first realised that the election would go against him, he had resolved that he would be calm amidst his ruin. Sometimes he assumed a little smile, as though he were laughing at his own position. Mr. Bott's day of rejection had come before his own, and he had written Mr. Bott a droll note of consolation and mock sympathy. To all who accosted him, he replied in a bantering tone. And now, as he sat down to consider his future, he smiled in the same way, though there was no one there to see the smile. He even jumped up and laughed audibly, as he tried to persuade himself that he regarded the world and all that belonged to it as a bubble. But suddenly there was a change, and his eyes became fierce, and the scar that marred his face grew red and ghastly. He showed his teeth and clenched his fists within his pockets. "Curse him!" he said out loud. "Curse him, now and for ever!" He was thinking of that old man who had opposed him during his life, and had ruined him at his death. His assumed tranquillity deserted him. He kicked a chair; then he took the chair in his hands, and threw it across the room. What should he do? Where should he go? From where might he find comfort to support him? Vavasor turned to a bottle of brandy which stood near, half filled a tumbler, and swallowed it greedily. "By --!" he said, "I believe it is the best thing a man can do." Then he went to a high desk in one corner of the room, and unlocking it, took out a revolver. He turned it over, and tried the lock, and snapped it without caps, to see that the barrel went round fairly. "It's a beggarly thing to do," he said, and put the pistol down again. "If I do it, I'll use it first for another purpose." Then he poured himself more brandy-and-water, and having drunk it, he threw himself upon the sofa, and seemed to sleep. But he did not sleep, and by-and-by there came a slight knock at the door. "Who's there?" he said. Then the door handle turned. But the door had been locked. "Who's there?" he asked again, in a loud, angry voice. "It is I," said a woman's voice. "D--ation!" said George Vavasor. The woman heard him, but she simply remained standing where she was. She knew the man well, and knew that she must wait. She was very patient - and for the time was meek, though it might be that there would come an end to her meekness. Vavasor, lying on the sofa, had another idea flash across his mind about the pistol. Why should he let the intruder in, and have a disagreeable interview, if the end of all things might save him from such trouble? There he lay for ten minutes thinking, and then the low single knock was heard again. He jumped to his feet, with his eyes full of fire. He knew that it was useless to bid her go. She would sit there all night. Should he open the door and strangle her, and go out with the pistol and never come back any more? He walked gently up to the door, and undid the lock. Then he walked back to the sofa and threw himself on it again. As he did so, he passed his hand across the table to pull the pistol nearer. The woman paused a moment, and then she made her way into the room. He did not speak. She closed the door very gently, and came up to the foot of the sofa. As he still said nothing, but lay there looking at her, she was the first to speak. "George," she said, "what am I to do?" She was a woman of about thirty, dressed poorly in old garments, but still with decency, and with some attempt at prettiness. There were faded flowers in her bonnet. She had long black ringlets on each cheek, which to some degree hid the hollowness of her jaws. Her eyes had a peculiar brightness, and her face was delicate; and in the days when things had gone well with her, she had possessed a soft and mirthful grace. All the softness which remained was that softness which continual sadness gives to suffering women. She wore a light shawl over her shabby dress. When she had left her home this afternoon, she had struggled hard to dress herself so that some charm might be left to her; but she had known her own failure at every point. With long tedious care she had mended her old gloves. She had carefully hidden the rags of her sleeves. She had washed her little shrivelled collar, and had smoothed it out painfully. It had been a grief to her that she could find no cuffs to put round her wrists; and yet she knew that cuffs could not have helped her. Nothing could help her now. She expected nothing from her visit; yet she had come forth anxiously. "George," she said, "what am I to do?" As he lay there, he saw and appreciated the little struggles she had made to create some reminiscence of her former self. He saw the shining coarseness of the long ringlets which had once been softer than silk. He saw the sixpenny brooch on her bosom where he had once placed a jewel. He saw it all and lay there for a while, silently reading it. "Don't let me stand here," she said, "without speaking a word to me." "I don't want you to stand there," he said. "I know that. I know you don't want to see me ever again." "Never." "Of course I know it. But what am I to do? Where am I to go for money? Even you would not wish that I should starve?" "I would not wish it. I should be delighted to hear that you had plenty to eat and drink, and plenty of clothes to wear. I believe that's what you care for the most, after all." "It was only for your sake - because you liked it." "Well; I did like it; but that has come to an end, as have all my other likings. You know very well that I can do nothing more for you. What good do you do by coming here to annoy me? Have I not told you over and over again never to come here?" "Where else was I to find you?" "I don't want you to find me. I shall not give you a penny. When I put you into business I told you that we were to see no more of each other." "Business!" she said. "I could never make enough out of the shop to feed a bird." "That wasn't my fault. Putting you there cost me over a hundred pounds, and you consented to it." "I didn't consent. I was obliged to go there because you took my home away from me." "Have it as you like, my dear. That was all I could do for you; and more than most men would have done." Then he got up from the sofa, and stood on the hearthrug. "At any rate, Jane, I shall do nothing more. You shall get nothing by coming here." "I have come here because I am starving." "I have nothing for you. Now go." He pointed to the door. For more than three years of his life this woman had been his closest companion and his nearest friend. He had loved her according to his fashion, and certainly she had loved him. "Go," he repeated angrily, "or it will be the worse for you." "Will you give me a sovereign?" "I will give you nothing." "Then I will not go." She down upon a chair. "I will not go till you have given me something to buy food. If you put me out of the room, I will lie at the top of the stairs. And if you put me out of the house, I will sit upon the door-step." "If you play that game, my poor girl, the police will take you." "Let them. I care nothing for that. I will not go till you give me money." And for this she had dressed herself with so much care, mending her gloves, and darning her little fragments of finery! He stood looking at her, and thinking what he had better do to rid himself of her presence. If he quite resolved to take his final journey with the pistol's aid, why should he not go out and leave her here? Or, for that matter, why not give her the remainder of his wealth? What he still had left was enough to place her in a seventh heaven. He cared little for her, and was angry with her; but there was no one for whom he cared more, and no friend with whom he was less angry. But his mind was not quite made up as to that final journey. So he wanted to get rid of her. "Jane," he said, with that assumed tranquillity, "you talk of starving and of being ruined." "I am starving. I have not a shilling in the world." "I am as badly off as you are. I won't say that I am starving; but I am utterly ruined. My property - what should have been mine - has been left away from me. I have lost the trumpery seat in Parliament for which I paid so much. All my relations have turned their backs upon me-" "Are you not going to be married?" she said. "Married! No - but I am going to blow my brains out. Look at that pistol, my girl. I am in earnest." "Oh! George, you won't do that?" "There is nothing else left for me to do. You and I, Jane, have not played our cards very well. We have staked all that we had, and we've been beaten. It's no good whimpering after what's lost. We'd better go somewhere else and begin a new game." "Go where?" "Ah! - I can't tell you." "George," she said, "I'll go anywhere with you. If you're not going to be married, and will let me come to you, I will work for you like a slave. I will indeed. I know I'm poorly looking now-" "My girl, where I'm going, I shall not want any slave." "But, George, where are you going?" "Wherever people go when they have knocked out their own brains." "George," - she came up to him, and took hold of the front of his coat - "George, say that you will not do that!" "But I am saying that I shall." "Are you not afraid of God's anger? You and I have been very wicked." "I have, my poor girl. I don't know much about your wickedness. But what's the good of whimpering when it's over?" "It isn't over; at any rate for you." "I wish I knew how I could begin again. But all this is nonsense, Jane, and you must go." "You must tell me, first, that you are not going to kill yourself." "I don't suppose I shall do it tonight. I may allow myself a week, so your staying here can do no good." "And you are not going to be married?" "No." "And I must go now?" "Yes." Then she rose and went. His bantering manner had worked. She felt that his threats of self-destruction were probably unreal; and she was persuaded to go away in peace.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 71: Showing How George Vavasor Received a Visit

As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however, she quickly put aside, and made her way up to Alice. "The last morning has come, then," she said. "Yes, indeed," said Alice. "Mr. Palliser must have thought that I was never going." "On the other hand," said he, "I have felt much obliged to you for staying." But he said it coldly; and Alice began to wish that she had never seen Matching Priory. "Obliged!" exclaimed Lady Glencora. "I can't tell you how much obliged I am. Oh, Alice, I wish you were going to stay with us!" "We are leaving this in a week's time," said Mr. Palliser. "Of course we are," said Lady Glencora. "With all my heart I wish we were not. Dear Alice! I suppose we shall not meet till we are all in town." "You will let me know when you come up," said Alice. "I will send to you instantly; and, Alice, I will write to you from Gatherum,--or from Monkshade." Alice could not help looking around and catching Miss Palliser's eye. Miss Palliser was standing with her foot on the fender, but was so placed that she could see Alice. She made a slight sign with her head, as much as to say that Lady Glencora must have no opportunity of writing from the latter place; but she said nothing. Then the carriage was announced, and Mr. Palliser took Alice out on his arm. "Don't come to the door, Glencora," he said. "I especially wish you not to do so." The two cousins then kissed each other, and Alice went away to the carriage. "Good-bye, Miss Vavasor," said Mr. Palliser; but he expressed no wish that he might see her again as his guest at Matching Priory. Alice, as she was driven in solitary grandeur to the railway station, could not but wish that she had never gone there.

As they came in, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora. "No, indeed," said Glencora; but her teeth were chattering. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser led his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood: it told her that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. Therefore Mr. Palliser did not ask whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. Although Alice knew that she had not deserved such severity, she did not resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, handing her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No; but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away tomorrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but she did not draw it away suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there. There can be no possible reason why you should call me other than Miss Vavasor." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night; and good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room, where she was very glad to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, cold to her bones, and her feet were numbed with the damp. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what she ought to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband for Burgo Fitzgerald. Alice knew that the poor unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give her husband an chance to seek another wife to give him an heir. Alice, who was perfectly clear-sighted about her cousin, however impaired her vision might have been about herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin in Lady Glencora's plan. To her it was black as the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do? Mr. Palliser had quarrelled with her in his silent way. But if she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen; and then he would surely act in some way that would save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared little. But then there came to her the feminine idea that she had no right to betray her friend. If Lady Glencora had told Alice that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale. But now she hesitated. After all, was Glencora really intending to carry out a threat, the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As Alice was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown by the fire, there came a loud knock at the door. It was Iphigenia Palliser, Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come in for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter. Alice Vavasor had formed very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to her as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. Alice's friendship with Lady Glencora had marked her out as somehow separated from them. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "You are going tomorrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile. "Oh, no. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well; no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that. He was a little vexed, but it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "Why should he think that I can manage his wife? Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party about Glencora's foibles. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. But when I say that Glencora is young-" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But he does not complain, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain what I wish to say, or whether you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her; and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing - that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald connected with Glencora's before her marriage?" Alice paused a moment. "Yes, I had," she said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter to any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her distant cousin, I do not even know her nearest relations. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "She was often with me," said Alice, "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then, that he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend; but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. Is there any real reason why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, please tell me - even if in doing so you must cast deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly." "I think - nay, Miss Palliser, I know - that there is great reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you can." "I can only do it by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him." "Yes - yes, Miss Vavasor. But I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf-" "On hers - and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not need to tell you what she said. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to help her?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, she left the room. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not. Nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and she felt immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting, and she had said nothing about which Lady Glencora could feel aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and in a few minutes Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter to ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately." Alice inquired about the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and Mr. Bott and Mrs. Marsham, and all of them inquired after Lady Glencora, as though she might be in a perilous state. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said Mr. Bott, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered eager inquiries. These, however, she quickly put aside, and made her way to Alice. "The last morning has come, then," she said. "Yes, indeed," said Alice. "Mr. Palliser must have thought that I was never going." "On the other hand," said he, "I have felt much obliged to you for staying." But he said it coldly. "Obliged!" exclaimed Lady Glencora. "I can't tell you how much obliged I am. Oh, Alice, I wish you were going to stay with us!" "We are leaving in a week's time," said Mr. Palliser. "Of course we are," said Lady Glencora. "With all my heart I wish we were not. Dear Alice! I suppose we shall not meet till we are all in town." "You will let me know when you are there," said Alice. "I will write to you instantly; and, Alice, I will write to you from Gatherum - or from Monkshade." Alice could not help looking around and catching Miss Palliser's eye. Miss Palliser made a slight sign with her head; but she said nothing. Then the carriage was announced, and Mr. Palliser took Alice to it. "Don't come to the door, Glencora," he said. The two cousins kissed each other, and Alice went. "Good-bye, Miss Vavasor," said Mr. Palliser; but he expressed no wish that he might see her again as his guest at Matching. Alice, as she was driven away in solitary grandeur, could only wish that she had never gone there.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 28: Alice Leaves the Priory

When George Vavasor left Mr. Scruby's office--the attentive reader will remember that he did call upon Mr. Scruby, the Parliamentary lawyer, and there recognised the necessity of putting himself in possession of a small sum of money with as little delay as possible;--when he left the attorney's office, he was well aware that the work to be done was still before him. And he knew also that the job to be undertaken was a very disagreeable job. He did not like the task of borrowing his cousin Alice's money. We all of us know that swindlers and rogues do very dirty tricks, and we are apt to picture to ourselves a certain amount of gusto and delight on the part of the swindlers in the doing of them. In this, I think we are wrong. The poor, broken, semi-genteel beggar, who borrows half-sovereigns apiece from all his old acquaintances, knowing that they know that he will never repay them, suffers a separate little agony with each petition that he makes. He does not enjoy pleasant sailing in this journey which he is making. To be refused is painful to him. To get his half sovereign with scorn is painful. To get it with apparent confidence in his honour is almost more painful. "D---- it," he says to himself on such rare occasions, "I will pay that fellow;" and yet, as he says it, he knows that he never will pay even that fellow. It is a comfortless unsatisfying trade, that of living upon other people's money. How was George Vavasor to make his first step towards getting his hand into his cousin's purse? He had gone to her asking for her love, and she had shuddered when he asked her. That had been the commencement of their life under their new engagement. He knew very well that the money would be forthcoming when he demanded it,--but under their present joint circumstances, how was he to make the demand? If he wrote to her, should he simply ask for money, and make no allusion to his love? If he went to her in person, should he make his visit a mere visit of business,--as he might call on his banker? He resolved at last that Kate should do the work for him. Indeed, he had felt all along that it would be well that Kate should act as ambassador between him and Alice in money matters, as she had long done in other things. He could talk to Kate as he could not talk to Alice;--and then, between the women, those hard money necessities would be softened down by a romantic phraseology which he would not himself know how to use with any effect. He made up his mind to see Kate, and with this view he went down to Westmoreland; and took himself to a small wayside inn at Shap among the fells, which had been known to him of old. He gave his sister notice that he would be there, and begged her to come over to him as early as she might find it possible on the morning after his arrival. He himself reached the place late in the evening by train from London. There is a station at Shap, by which the railway company no doubt conceives that it has conferred on that somewhat rough and remote locality all the advantages of a refined civilization; but I doubt whether the Shappites have been thankful for the favour. The landlord at the inn, for one, is not thankful. Shap had been a place owing all such life as it had possessed to coaching and posting. It had been a stage on the high road from Lancaster to Carlisle, and though it lay high and bleak among the fells, and was a cold, windy, thinly-populated place,--filling all travellers with thankfulness that they had not been made Shappites, nevertheless, it had had its glory in its coaching and posting. I have no doubt that there are men and women who look back with a fond regret to the palmy days of Shap. Vavasor reached the little inn about nine in the evening on a night that was pitchy dark, and in a wind which made it necessary for him to hold his hat on to his head. "What a beastly country to live in," he said to himself, resolving that he would certainly sell Vavasor Hall in spite of all family associations, if ever the power to do so should be his. "What trash it is," he said, "hanging on to such a place as that without the means of living like a gentleman, simply because one's ancestors have done so." And then he expressed a doubt to himself whether all the world contained a more ignorant, opinionated, useless old man than his grandfather,--or, in short, a greater fool. "Well, Mr. George," said the landlord as soon as he saw him, "a sight of you's guid for sair een. It's o'er lang since you've been doon amang the fells." But George did not want to converse with the innkeeper, or to explain how it was that he did not visit Vavasor Hall. The innkeeper, no doubt, knew all about it,--knew that the grandfather had quarrelled with his grandson, and knew the reason why; but George, if he suspected such knowledge, did not choose to refer to it. So he simply grunted something in reply, and getting himself in before a spark of fire which hardly was burning in a public room with a sandy floor, begged that the little sitting-room up-stairs might be got ready for him. There he passed the evening in solitude, giving no encouragement to the landlord, who, nevertheless, looked him up three or four times,--till at last George said that his head ached, and that he would wish to be alone. "He was always one of them cankery chiels as never have a kindly word for man nor beast," said the landlord. "Seems as though that raw slash in his face had gone right through into his heart." After that George was left alone, and sat thinking whether it would not be better to ask Alice for two thousand pounds at once,--so as to save him from the disagreeable necessity of a second borrowing before their marriage. He was very uneasy in his mind. He had flattered himself through it all that his cousin had loved him. He had felt sure that such was the case while they were together in Switzerland. When she had determined to give up John Grey, of course he had told himself the same thing. When she had at once answered his first subsequent overture with an assent, he had of course been certain that it was so. Dark, selfish, and even dishonest as he was, he had, nevertheless, enjoyed something of a lover's true pleasure in believing that Alice had still loved him through all their mischances. But his joy had in a moment been turned into gall during that interview in Queen Anne Street. He had read the truth at a glance. A man must be very vain, or else very little used to such matters, who at George Vavasor's age cannot understand the feelings with which a woman receives him. When Alice contrived as she had done to escape the embrace he was so well justified in asking, he knew the whole truth. He was sore at heart, and very angry withal. He could have readily spurned her from him, and rejected her who had once rejected him. He would have done so had not his need for her money restrained him. He was not a man who could deceive himself in such matters. He knew that this was so, and he told himself that he was a rascal. Vavasor Hall was, by the road, about five miles from Shap, and it was not altogether an easy task for Kate to get over to the village without informing her grandfather that the visit was to be made, and what was its purport. She could, indeed, walk, and the walk would not be so long as that she had taken with Alice to Swindale fell;--but walking to an inn on a high road, is not the same thing as walking to a point on a hill side over a lake. Had she been dirty, draggled, and wet through on Swindale fell, it would have simply been matter for mirth; but her brother she knew would not have liked to see her enter the Lowther Arms at Shap in such a condition. It, therefore, became necessary that she should ask her grandfather to lend her the jaunting car. "Where do you want to go?" he asked sharply. In such establishments as that at Vavasor Hall the family horse is generally used for double duties. Though he draws the lady of the house one day, he is not too proud to draw manure on the next. And it will always be found that the master of the house gives a great preference to the manure over the lady. The squire at Vavasor had come to do so to such an extent that he regarded any application for the animal's services as an encroachment. "Only to Shap, grandpapa." "To Shap! what on earth can take you to Shap? There are no shops at Shap." "I am not going to do shopping. I want to see some one there." "Whom can you want to see at Shap?" Then it occurred to Kate on the spur of the moment that she might as well tell her grandfather the fact. "My brother has come down," she said; "and is at the inn there. I had not intended to tell you, as I did not wish to mention his name till you had consented to receive him here." "And he expects to come here now;--does he?" said the squire. "Oh, no, sir. I think he has no expectation of the kind. He has come down simply to see me;--about business I believe." "Business! what business? I suppose he wants to get your money from you?" "I think it is with reference to his marriage. I think he wants me to use my influence with Alice that it may not be delayed." "Look here, Kate; if ever you lend him your money, or any of it,--that is, of the principal I mean,--I will never speak to him again under any circumstance. And more than that! Look here, Kate. In spite of all that has past and gone, the property will become his for his life when I die,--unless I change my will. If he gets your money from you, I will change it, and he shall not be a shilling richer at my death than he is now. You can have the horse to go to Shap." What unlucky chance had it been which had put this idea into the old squire's head on this especial morning? Kate had resolved that she would entreat her brother to make use of her little fortune. She feared that he was now coming with some reference to his cousin's money,--that something was to be done to enable him to avail himself of his cousin's offer; and Kate, almost blushing in the solitude of her chamber at the thought, was determined that her brother must be saved from such temptation. She knew that money was necessary to him. She knew that he could not stand a second contest without assistance. With all their confidences, he had never told her much of his pecuniary circumstances in the world, but she was almost sure that he was a poor man. He had said as much as that to her, and in his letter desiring her to come to him at Shap, he had inserted a word or two purposely intended to prepare her mind for monetary considerations. As she was jogged along over the rough road to Shap, she made up her mind that Aunt Greenow would be the proper person to defray the expense of the coming election. To give Kate her due she would have given up every shilling of her own money without a moment's hesitation, or any feeling that her brother would be wrong to accept it. Nor would she, perhaps, have been unalterably opposed to his taking Alice's money, had Alice simply been his cousin. She felt that as Vavasors they were bound to stand by the future head of the family in an attempt which was to be made, as she felt, for the general Vavasor interest. But she could not endure to think that her brother should take the money of the girl whom he was engaged to marry. Aunt Greenow's money she thought was fair game. Aunt Greenow herself had made various liberal offers to herself which Kate had declined, not caring to be under pecuniary obligations even to Aunt Greenow without necessity; but she felt that for such a purpose as her brother's contest, she need not hesitate to ask for assistance, and she thought also that such assistance would be forthcoming. "Grandpapa knows that you are here, George," said Kate, when their first greeting was over. "The deuce he does! and why did you tell him?" "I could not get the car to come in without letting him know why I wanted it." "What nonsense! as if you couldn't have made any excuse! I was particularly anxious that he should not guess that I am here." "I don't see that it can make any difference, George." "But I see that it can,--a very great difference. It may prevent my ever being able to get near him again before he dies. What did he say about my coming?" "He didn't say much." "He made no offer as to my going there?" "No." "I should not have gone if he had. I don't know now that I ever shall go. To be there to do any good,--so as to make him alter his will, and leave me in the position which I have a right to expect, would take more time than the whole property is worth. And he would endeavour to tie me down in some way I could not stand;--perhaps ask me to give up my notion for going into Parliament." "He might ask you, but he would not make it ground for another quarrel, if you refused." "He is so unreasonable and ignorant that I am better away from him. But, Kate, you have not congratulated me on my matrimonial prospects." "Indeed I did, George, when I wrote to you." "Did you? well; I had forgotten. I don't know that any very strong congratulatory tone is necessary. As things go, perhaps it may be as well for all of us, and that's about the best that can be said for it." "Oh, George!" "You see I'm not romantic, Kate, as you are. Half a dozen children with a small income do not generally present themselves as being desirable to men who wish to push their way in the world." "You know you have always longed to make her your wife." "I don't know anything of the kind. You have always been under a match-making hallucination on that point. But in this case you have been so far successful, and are entitled to your triumph." "I don't want any triumph; you ought to know that." "But I'll tell you what I do want, Kate. I want some money." Then he paused, but as she did not answer immediately, he was obliged to go on speaking. "I'm not at all sure that I have not been wrong in making this attempt to get into Parliament,--that I'm not struggling to pick fruit which is above my reach." "Don't say that, George." "Ah, but I can't help feeling it. I need hardly tell you that I am ready to risk anything of my own. If I know myself I would toss up to-morrow, or for the matter of that to-day, between the gallows and a seat in the House. But I cannot go on with this contest by risking what is merely my own. Money, for immediate use, I have none left, and my neck, though I were ever so willing to risk it, is of no service." "Whatever I have can be yours to-morrow," said Kate, in a hesitating voice, which too plainly pronounced her misery as she made the offer. She could not refrain herself from making it. Though her grandfather's threat was ringing in her ears,--though she knew that she might be ruining her brother by proposing such a loan, she had no alternative. When her brother told her of his want of money, she could not abstain from tendering to him the use of what was her own. "No;" said he. "I shall not take your money." "You would not scruple, if you knew how welcome you are." "At any rate, I shall not take it. I should not think it right. All that you have would only just suffice for my present wants, and I should not choose to make you a beggar. There would, moreover, be a difficulty about readjusting the payment." "There would be no difficulty, because no one need be consulted but us two." "I should not think it right, and therefore let there be an end of it," said George in a tone of voice which had in it something of magniloquence. "What is it you wish then?" said Kate, who knew too well what he did wish. "I will explain to you. When Alice and I are married, of course there will be a settlement made on her, and as we are both the grandchildren of the old squire I shall propose that the Vavasor property shall be hers for life in the event of her outliving me." "Well," said Kate. "And if this be done, there can be no harm in my forestalling some of her property, which, under the circumstances of such a settlement, would of course become mine when we are married." "But the squire might leave the property to whom he pleases." "We know very well that he won't, at any rate, leave it out of the family. In fact, he would only be too glad to consent to such an agreement as that I have proposed, because he would thereby rob me of all power in the matter." "But that could not be done till you are married." "Look here, Kate;--don't you make difficulties." And now, as he looked at her, the cicature on his face seemed to open and yawn at her. "If you mean to say that you won't help me, do say so, and I will go back to London." "I would do anything in my power to help you,--that was not wrong!" "Yes; anybody could say as much as that. That is not much of an offer if you are to keep to yourself the power of deciding what is wrong. Will you write to Alice,--or better still, go to her, and explain that I want the money." "How can I go to London now?" "You can do it very well, if you choose. But if that be too much, then write to her. It will come much better from you than from me; write to her, and explain that I must pay in advance the expenses of this contest, and that I cannot look for success unless I do so. I did not think that the demand would come so quick on me; but they know that I am not a man of capital, and therefore I cannot expect them to carry on the fight for me, unless they know that the money is sure. Scruby has been bitten two or three times by these metropolitan fellows, and he is determined that he will not be bitten again." Then he paused for Kate to speak. "George," she said, slowly. "Well." "I wish you would try any other scheme but that." "There is no other scheme! That's so like a woman;--to quarrel with the only plan that is practicable." "I do not think you ought to take Alice's money." "My dear Kate, you must allow me to be the best judge of what I ought to do, and what I ought not to do. Alice herself understands the matter perfectly. She knows that I cannot obtain this position, which is as desirable for her as it is for me--" "And for me as much as for either," said Kate, interrupting him. "Very well. Alice, I say, knows that I cannot do this without money, and has offered the assistance which I want. I would rather that you should tell her how much I want, and that I want it now, than that I should do so. That is all. If you are half the woman that I take you to be, you will understand this well enough." Kate did understand it well enough. She was quite awake to the fact that her brother was ashamed of the thing he was about to do,--so much ashamed of it that he was desirous of using her voice instead of his own. "I want you to write to her quite at once," he continued; "since you seem to think that it is not worth while to take the trouble of a journey to London." "There is no question about the trouble," said Kate. "I would walk to London to get the money for you, if that were all." "Do you think that Alice will refuse to lend it me?" said he, looking into her face. "I am sure that she would not, but I think that you ought not to take it from her. There seems to me to be something sacred about property that belongs to the girl you are going to marry." "If there is anything on earth I hate," said George, walking about the room, "it is romance. If you keep it for reading in your bedroom, it's all very well for those who like it, but when it comes to be mixed up with one's business it plays the devil. If you would only sift what you have said, you would see what nonsense it is. Alice and I are to be man and wife. All our interests, and all our money, and our station in life, whatever it may be, are to be joint property. And yet she is the last person in the world to whom I ought to go for money to improve her prospects as well as my own. That's what you call delicacy. I call it infernal nonsense." "I tell you what I'll do, George. I'll ask Aunt Greenow to lend you the money,--or to lend it to me." "I don't believe she'd give me a shilling. Moreover, I want it quite immediately, and the time taken up in letter-writing and negotiations would be fatal to me. If you won't apply to Alice, I must. I want you to tell me whether you will oblige me in this matter." Kate was still hesitating as to her answer, when there came a knock at the door, and a little crumpled note was brought up to her. A boy had just come with it across the fell from Vavasor Hall, and Kate, as soon as she saw her name on the outside, knew that it was from her grandfather. It was as follows:-- "If George wishes to come to the Hall, let him come. If he chooses to tell me that he regrets his conduct to me, I will see him." "What is it?" said George. Then Kate put the note into her brother's hand. "I'll do nothing of the kind," he said. "What good should I get by going to the old man's house?" "Every good," said Kate. "If you don't go now you never can do so." "Never till it's my own," said George. "If you show him that you are determined to be at variance with him, it never will be your own;--unless, indeed, it should some day come to you as part of Alice's fortune. Think of it, George; you would not like to receive everything from her." He walked about the room, muttering maledictions between his teeth and balancing, as best he was able at such a moment, his pride against his profit. "You haven't answered my question," said he. "If I go to the Hall, will you write to Alice?" "No, George; I cannot write to Alice asking her for the money." "You won't?" "I could not bring myself to do it." "Then, Kate, you and my grandfather may work together for the future. You may get him to leave you the place if you have skill enough." "That is as undeserved a reproach as any woman ever encountered," said Kate, standing her ground boldly before him. "If you have either heart or conscience, you will feel that it is so." "I'm not much troubled with either one or the other, I fancy. Things are being brought to such a pass with me that I am better without them." "Will you take my money, George; just for the present?" "No. I haven't much conscience; but I have a little left." "Will you let me write to Mrs. Greenow?" "I have not the slightest objection; but it will be of no use whatsoever." "I will do so, at any rate. And now will you come to the Hall?" "To beg that old fool's pardon? No; I won't. In the mood I am in at present, I couldn't do it. I should only anger him worse than ever. Tell him that I've business which calls me back to London at once." "It is a thousand pities." "It can't be helped." "It may make so great a difference to you for your whole life!" urged Kate. "I'll tell you what I'll do," said George. "I'll go to Vavasor and put up with the old squire's insolence, if you'll make this application for me to Alice." I wonder whether it occurred to him that his sister desired his presence at the Hall solely on his own behalf. The same idea certainly did not occur to Kate. She hesitated, feeling that she would almost do anything to achieve a reconciliation between her grandfather and her brother. "But you'll let me write to Aunt Greenow first," said she. "It will take only two days,--or at the most three?" To this George consented as though he were yielding a great deal; and Kate, with a sore conscience, with a full knowledge that she was undertaking to do wrong, promised that she would apply to Alice for her money, if sufficient funds should not be forthcoming from Mrs. Greenow. Thereupon, George graciously consented to proceed to his bedroom, and put together his clothes with a view to his visit to the Hall. "I thank Providence, Kate, that circumstances make it impossible for me to stay above two days. I have not linen to last me longer." "We'll manage that for you at the Hall." "Indeed you won't do anything of the kind. And look, Kate, when I make that excuse don't you offer to do so. I will stay there over to-morrow night, and shall go into Kendal early, so as to catch the express train up on Thursday morning. Don't you throw me over by any counter proposition." Then they started together in the car, and very few words were said till they reached the old lodge, which stood at the entrance to the place. "Eh, Mr. George; be that you?" said the old woman, who came out to swing back for them the broken gate. "A sight of you is good for sair een." It was the same welcome that the inn-keeper had given him, and equally sincere. George had never made himself popular about the place, but he was the heir. "I suppose you had better go into the drawing-room," said Kate; "while I go to my grandfather. You won't find a fire there." "Manage it how you please; but don't keep me in the cold very long. Heavens, what a country house! The middle of January, and no fires in the room." "And remember, George, when you see him you must say that you regret that you ever displeased him. Now that you are here, don't let there be any further misunderstanding." "I think it very probable that there will be," said George. "I only hope he'll let me have the old horse to take me back to Shap if there is. There he is at the front door, so I shan't have to go into the room without a fire." The old man was standing at the hall steps when the car drove up, as though to welcome his grandson. He put out his hand to help Kate down the steps, keeping his eye all the time on George's face. "So you've come back," the squire said to him. [Illustration: "So you've come back, have you?" said the Squire.] "Yes, sir;--I've come back, like the prodigal son in the parable." "The prodigal son was contrite. I hope you are so." "Pretty well for that, sir. I'm sorry there has been any quarrel, and all that, you know." "Go in," said the squire, very angrily. "Go in. To expect anything gracious from you would be to expect pearls from swine. Go in." George went in, shrugging his shoulders as his eyes met his sister's. It was in this fashion that the reconciliation took place between Squire Vavasor and his heir.

When George Vavasor left Mr. Scruby's office, he knew that he needed money. And he knew that he had a very disagreeable job ahead of him. He did not like the task of borrowing his cousin Alice's money. We are apt to imagine that rogues and swindlers carry out their dirty tricks with gusto and delight. In this, I think we are wrong. The poor, broken, semi-genteel beggar, who borrows half-sovereigns from all his old acquaintances, aware that they know that he will never repay them, suffers a little agony each time he asks for money. It is a comfortless, unsatisfying trade, that of living upon other people's money. How was George Vavasor to make his first step towards getting his hand into his cousin's purse? Although she had shuddered at his approach, he knew that the money would be forthcoming when he demanded it - but how was he to make the demand? If he wrote to her, should he simply ask for money, and make no allusion to his love? If he went to her in person, should he make it a mere business visit? He resolved that Kate should do the work for him, and act as his ambassador in money matters. He could talk to Kate as he could not talk to Alice. He decided to see Kate, and with this purpose he went north to Westmorland, to a small wayside inn at Shap among the fells. He wrote to tell his sister he would be there, and begged her to visit him the morning after his arrival. He reached the place late in the evening by train. There is a station at Shap, for which the landlord at the inn, for one, is not thankful. Shap used to owe all its life to the stage-coach, being a stage on the road from Lancaster to Carlisle. It is a high, bleak, thinly-populated place, and Vavasor reached the little inn on a pitch dark, windy night. "What a beastly past of the country," he said to himself, resolving that he would certainly sell Vavasor Hall if it ever became his. "What trash it is, hanging on to such a place as that, simply because one's ancestors have done so. But the world does not hold a more ignorant, useless old fool than my grandfather." George rejected the landlord's friendly greeting, merely grunting in reply. He passed the evening in a little sitting-room in solitude, giving no encouragement to the landlord, who looked in three or four times, till at last George said that he wished to be alone. "He was always one of them cankery chiels as never have a kindly word," said the landlord. "Seems as though that raw slash in his face had gone right through into his heart." After that George was left alone, and sat thinking whether it would be better to ask Alice for two thousand pounds at once, so as to save him from the disagreeable necessity of a second borrowing before their marriage. He was very uneasy. He had flattered himself all along that his cousin loved him. He had felt sure of it in Switzerland. When she had determined to give up John Grey, of course he had told himself the same thing. Dark, selfish, and dishonest as he was, he had, nevertheless, enjoyed something of a lover's true pleasure in believing that Alice had still loved him. But his joy had been turned into gall during that interview in Queen Anne Street. He had read the truth at a glance. When Alice managed to escape his embrace, he knew the whole truth. He was sore at heart, and very angry. He could have readily spurned her then, and would have done so had not his need for her money restrained him. He knew this, and he told himself that he was a rascal. Vavasor Hall was about five miles from Shap, and it was not easy for Kate to get over to the village without informing her grandfather. She could, indeed, walk; but her brother would not like to see her enter the Lowther Arms dirty and bedraggled. So she had to ask her grandfather to lend her the jaunting-car. "Where do you want to go?" he asked sharply. "Only to Shap, grandpapa." "To Shap! what on earth for? There are no shops there." "I am not going shopping. My brother is at the inn," she said. "I had not intended to tell you, as I did not wish to mention his name till you had consented to receive him here." "And he expects to come here now, does he?" said the squire. "Oh, no, sir, I don't think so. He has come simply to see me - about business, I believe." "Business! what business? I suppose he wants to get your money from you?" "I think it is with reference to his marriage." "Look here, Kate; if ever you lend him your money, I will never speak to him again. And more than that! Look here, Kate. In spite of all that has passed, the property will become his for his life when I die - unless I change my will. If he gets your money from you, I will change it, and he shall not be a shilling richer at my death. You can have the horse to go to Shap." What unlucky chance had put this idea into the old squire's head this morning? Kate had resolved to ask her brother to use her little fortune. She feared that he was coming about his cousin's money - that he wished to take up his cousin's offer; and Kate was determined that he must be saved from such temptation. She knew he needed money for the election contest; and she was almost sure that he was a poor man. As she was jogged along over the rough road to Shap, she made up her mind that Aunt Greenow would be the proper person to defray the expense of the coming election. To give Kate her due, she would have given up every shilling of her own money without hesitation. Perhaps she would not have been so opposed to his taking Alice's money, if Alice had simply been his cousin, supporting him in the general Vavasor interest. But she could not bear to think that her brother should take the money of the girl whom he was engaged to marry. Aunt Greenow's money she thought was fair game. Aunt Greenow had made generous offers to Kate herself, which she had declined; but she felt that she need not hesitate to ask for assistance for her brother. "Grandpapa knows that you are here, George," said Kate, after their first greeting. "The deuce he does! why did you tell him?" "I could not get the car without letting him know why I wanted it." "What nonsense! as if you couldn't have made any excuse! I was particularly anxious that he should not guess that I am here." "I don't see that it can make any difference, George." "But I see that it can. It may prevent my ever being able to get near him again before he dies. What did he say about my coming?" "He didn't say much." "He didn't invite he over there?" "No." "I should not have gone if he had. I don't know that I ever shall go. To be there long enough to make him alter his will, and leave me in the position which I have a right to expect, would take more time than the whole property is worth. And he would try to tie me down in some way - perhaps ask me to give up my notion of going into Parliament." "He might ask you, but he would not make it ground for another quarrel." "He is so unreasonable and ignorant that I am better away from him. But, Kate, you have not congratulated me on my engagement." "Indeed I did, George, when I wrote to you." "Did you? I had forgotten. I don't know that any great congratulations are necessary." "Oh, George! You know you have always longed to make her your wife." "I don't know anything of the kind. You have always been under a match-making hallucination on that point. But you have succeeded, and are entitled to your triumph." "I don't want any triumph; you ought to know that." "But I'll tell you what I do want, Kate. I want some money." Then he paused, but as she did not answer, he was obliged to go on speaking. "I'm not sure that I'm right in making this attempt to get into Parliament. It's beyond my reach." "Don't say that, George." "Ah, but I can't help feeling it. I need hardly tell you that I am ready to risk anything of my own. But I have no ready money left." "Whatever I have can be yours tomorrow," said Kate, in a hesitating voice, which too plainly pronounced her misery. She could not refrain herself. Though her grandfather's threat was ringing in her ears - though she knew that she might be ruining her brother by proposing such a loan - she could not help offering. "No, I shall not take your money. I should not think it right to make you a beggar. Therefore let there be an end of it," said George loftily. "What is it you wish then?" said Kate, who knew already. "I will explain. When Alice and I are married, of course there will be a settlement made on her, and as we are both the grandchildren of the old squire I shall propose that the Vavasor property shall be hers for life in the event of her outliving me. If this is done, there can be no harm in my using some of her property, which would of course become mine when we are married." "But the squire might leave the property to whom he pleases." "We know very well that he won't leave it out of the family. In fact, he would be only too glad to consent to such an agreement, because it would rob me of all power in the matter. Look here, Kate; don't make difficulties." As he looked at her, the scar on his face seemed to open and yawn at her. "If you won't help me, say so, and I will go back to London." "I would do anything in my power to help you, that was not wrong!" "That is not much of an offer if you keep the power of deciding what is wrong. Will you write to Alice, or better still, go to her, and explain that I want the money?" "How can I go to London now?" "You can do it very well, if you choose. But if not, then write to her. It will come much better from you than from me. Explain that I must pay the expenses of this contest in advance, and that I cannot hope for success unless I do so. I cannot expect them to carry on the fight for me, unless they know that the money is there. Scruby has been bitten two or three times by these city fellows, and he is determined not to be bitten again." "George, I wish you would try any other scheme but that." "There is no other scheme! That's so like a woman; to quarrel with the only plan that is practicable." "I do not think you ought to take Alice's money." "My dear Kate, you must allow me to be the best judge of what I ought to do. Alice herself understands the matter perfectly. She knows that I cannot obtain this position without money, and has offered her assistance. I would rather that you should tell her how much I want, than that I should do so. That is all." Kate understood that her brother was ashamed; so ashamed that he wanted to use her voice instead of his own. "I want you to write to her at once," he continued; "since you seem to think that it is not worthwhile to take the trouble of a journey to London." "There is no question about the trouble," said Kate. "I would walk to London to get the money for you, if that were all." "Do you think that Alice will refuse to lend it me?" said he, looking into her face. "I am sure that she would not, but I think that you ought not to take it from her. There seems to me to be something sacred about property that belongs to the girl you are going to marry." "If there is anything on earth I hate," said George, walking about the room, "it is romance. When it gets mixed up with one's business it plays the devil. It's all nonsense. Alice and I are to be man and wife. All our interests, and all our money, are to be joint property. And yet she is the last person in the world to whom I ought to go for money to improve our prospects? That's infernal nonsense." "George, I'll ask Aunt Greenow to lend you the money - or to lend it to me." "I don't believe she'd give me a shilling. Moreover, I want it immediately, and the time taken up in letter-writing and negotiations would be fatal. If you won't apply to Alice, I must. Will you do it?" Kate was still hesitating when there came a knock at the door, and a little crumpled note was given her. A boy had just brought it across the fell from Vavasor Hall, and Kate knew at once that it was from her grandfather. It was as follows:- "If George wishes to come to the Hall, let him come. If he chooses to tell me that he regrets his conduct to me, I will see him." "What is it?" said George, and Kate put the note into his hand. "I'll do nothing of the kind," he said. "What good should I get by going to the old man's house?" "Every good," said Kate. "If you don't go now you never can do so." "Never till it's my own," said George. "If you show him that you are determined to disagree with him, it never will be your own - unless, indeed, it should some day come to you as part of Alice's fortune. Think of it, George; you would not like to receive everything from her." He walked about the room, cursing between his teeth and balancing his pride against his profit. "If I go to the Hall, will you write to Alice?" "No, George; I cannot write to Alice asking her for the money." "Then, Kate, you and my grandfather may work together for the future. You may get him to leave you the place if you have skill enough." "That is an undeserved reproach," said Kate, standing her ground boldly. "If you have either heart or conscience, you will know it." "I'm not much troubled with either one or the other, I fancy. I am better off without them." "Will you take my money, George; just for the present?" "No." "Will you let me write to Mrs. Greenow?" "I have no objection; but it will be of no use whatsoever." "I will do so, at any rate. And now will you come to the Hall?" "To beg that old fool's pardon? No; I won't. In the mood I am in at present, I should only anger him worse than ever. Tell him that I've business which calls me back to London at once." "It is a thousand pities. It may make so great a difference to your whole life!" urged Kate. "I'll tell you what I'll do," said George. "I'll go to Vavasor and put up with the old squire's insolence, if you'll make this application for me to Alice." She hesitated, feeling that she would almost do anything to achieve a reconciliation between her grandfather and her brother. "But let me write to Aunt Greenow first," said she. "It will take only two or three days." To this George agreed as though he were yielding a great deal; and Kate, with a sore conscience, promised that she would apply to Alice for her money, if funds should not be forthcoming from Mrs. Greenow. Then George graciously consented to pack his clothes before visiting the Hall. "I shan't stay more than two days," he said. "I will stay there tomorrow night, and go into Kendal early, to catch the express train on Thursday morning." They spoke very little on the way, until they reached the old lodge at the entrance to the place. "Eh, Mr. George; be that you?" said the old woman who came out to swing back the broken gate. "A sight of you is good for sair een." It was the same welcome that the inn-keeper had given him, and equally sincere. George had never made himself popular about the place, but he was the heir. "Remember, George," said Kate on the road up to the house; "when you see our grandfather you must say that you regret that you ever displeased him. Don't let there be any further misunderstanding." "I think it very probable that there will be," said George. "I only hope he'll let me have the old horse to take me back to Shap if there is. There he is at the front door now." The old man was standing at the hall steps when they car drove up, as though to welcome his grandson. He put out his hand to help Kate down the steps, keeping his eye on George's face. "So you've come back," the squire said to him. "Yes, sir; like the prodigal son in the parable." "The prodigal son was contrite. I hope you are." "Pretty well, sir. I'm sorry there has been any quarrel, and all that, you know." "Go in," said the squire, very angrily. "Go in. To expect anything gracious from you would be to expect pearls from swine." George went in, shrugging his shoulders as his eyes met his sister's. It was in this fashion that the reconciliation took place between Squire Vavasor and his heir.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 38: The Inn at Shap

Gentle reader, do you remember Lady Monk's party, and how it ended,--how it ended, at least as regards those special guests with whom we are concerned? Mr. Palliser went away early, Mrs. Marsham followed him to his house in Park Lane, caught him at home, and told her tale. He returned to his wife, found her sitting with Burgo in the dining-room, under the Argus eyes of the constant Bott, and bore her away home. Burgo disappeared utterly from the scene, and Mr. Bott, complaining inwardly that virtue was too frequently allowed to be its own reward, comforted himself with champagne, and then walked off to his lodgings. Lady Monk, when Mr. Palliser made his way into her room up-stairs, seeking his wife's scarf,--which little incident, also, the reader may perhaps remember,--saw that the game was up, and thought with regret of the loss of her two hundred pounds. Such was the ending of Lady Monk's party. Lady Glencora, on her journey home in the carriage with her husband, had openly suggested that Mrs. Marsham had gone to Park Lane to tell of her doings with Burgo, and had declared her resolution never again to see either that lady or Mr. Bott in her own house. This she said with more of defiance in her tone than Mr. Palliser had ever hitherto heard. He was by nature less ready than her, and knowing his own deficiency in that respect, abstained from all answer on the subject. Indeed, during that drive home very few further words were spoken between them. "I will breakfast with you to-morrow," he said to her, as she prepared to go up-stairs. "I have work still to do to-night, and I will not disturb you by coming to your room." "You won't want me to be very early?" said his wife. "No," said he, with more of anger in his voice than he had yet shown. "What hour will suit you? I must say something of what has occurred to-night before I leave you to-morrow." "I don't know what you can have got to say about to-night, but I'll be down by half-past eleven, if that will do?" Mr. Palliser said that he would make it do, and then they parted. Lady Glencora had played her part very well before her husband. She had declined to be frightened by him; had been the first to mention Burgo's name, and had done so with no tremor in her voice, and had boldly declared her irreconcilable enmity to the male and female duennas who had dared to take her in charge. While she was in the carriage with her husband she felt some triumph in her own strength; and as she wished him good night on the staircase, and slowly walked up to her room, without having once lowered her eyes before his, something of this consciousness of triumph still supported her. And even while her maid remained with her she held herself up, as it were, inwardly, telling herself that she would not yield,--that she would not be cowed either by her husband or by his spies. But when she was left alone all her triumph departed from her. She bade her maid go while she was still sitting in her dressing-gown; and when the girl was gone she got close over the fire, sitting with her slippers on the fender, with her elbows on her knees, and her face resting on her hands. In this position she remained for an hour, with her eyes fixed on the altering shapes of the hot coals. During this hour her spirit was by no means defiant, and her thoughts of herself anything but triumphant. Mr. Bott and Mrs. Marsham she had forgotten altogether. After all, they were but buzzing flies, who annoyed her by their presence. Should she choose to leave her husband, they could not prevent her leaving him. It was of her husband and of Burgo that she was thinking,--weighing them one against the other, and connecting her own existence with theirs, not as expecting joy or the comfort of love from either of them, but with an assured conviction that on either side there must be misery for her. But of that shame before all the world which must be hers for ever, should she break her vows and consent to live with a man who was not her husband, she thought hardly at all. That which in the estimation of Alice was everything, to her, at this moment, was almost nothing. For herself, she had been sacrificed; and,--as she told herself with bitter denunciations against herself,--had been sacrificed through her own weakness. But that was done. Whatever way she might go, she was lost. They had married her to a man who cared nothing for a wife, nothing for any woman,--so at least she declared to herself,--but who had wanted a wife that he might have an heir. Had it been given to her to have a child, she thought that she might have been happy,--sufficiently happy in sharing her husband's joy in that respect. But everything had gone against her. There was nothing in her home to give her comfort. "He looks at me every time he sees me as the cause of his misfortune," she said to herself. Of her husband's rank, of the future possession of his title and his estates, she thought much. But of her own wealth she thought nothing. It did not occur to her that she had given him enough in that respect to make his marriage with her a comfort to him. She took it for granted that that marriage was now one distasteful to him, as it was to herself, and that he would eventually be the gainer if she should so conduct herself that her marriage might be dissolved. [Illustration: Lady Glencora.] As to Burgo, I doubt whether she deceived herself much as to his character. She knew well enough that he was a man infinitely less worthy than her husband. She knew that he was a spendthrift, idle, given to bad courses,--that he drank, that he gambled, that he lived the life of the loosest man about the town. She knew also that whatever chance she might have had to redeem him, had she married him honestly before all the world, there could be no such chance if she went to him as his mistress, abandoning her husband and all her duties, and making herself vile in the eyes of all women. Burgo Fitzgerald would not be influenced for good by such a woman as she would then be. She knew much of the world and its ways, and told herself no lies about this. But, as I have said before, she did not count herself for much. What though she were ruined? What though Burgo were false, mean, and untrustworthy? She loved him, and he was the only man she ever had loved! Lower and lower she crouched before the fire; and then, when the coals were no longer red, and the shapes altered themselves no more, she crept into bed. As to what she should say to her husband on the following morning,--she had not yet begun to think of that. Exactly at half-past eleven she entered the little breakfast parlour which looked out over the park. It was the prettiest room in the house, and now, at this springtide, when the town trees were putting out their earliest greens, and were fresh and bright almost as country trees, it might be hard to find a prettier chamber. Mr. Palliser was there already, sitting with the morning paper in his hand. He rose when she entered, and, coming up to her, just touched her with his lips. She put her cheek up to him, and then took her place at the breakfast table. "Have you any headache this morning?" he asked. "Oh, no," she said. Then he took his tea and his toast, spoke some word to her about the fineness of the weather, told her some scraps of news, and soon returned to the absorbing interest of a speech made by the leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords. The speech was very interesting to Mr. Palliser, because in it the noble lord alluded to a break-up in the present Cabinet, as to which the rumours were, he said, so rife through the country as to have destroyed all that feeling of security in the existing Government which the country so much valued and desired. Mr. Palliser had as yet heard no official tidings of such a rupture; but if such rupture were to take place, it must be in his favour. He felt himself at this moment to be full of politics,--to be near the object of his ambition, to have affairs upon his hands which required all his attention. Was it absolutely incumbent on him to refer again to the incidents of last night? The doing so would be odious to him. The remembrance of the task now immediately before him destroyed all his political satisfaction. He did not believe that his wife was in any serious danger. Might it not yet be possible for him to escape from the annoyance, and to wash his mind clean of all suspicion? He was not jealous; he was indeed incapable of jealousy. He knew what it would be to be dishonoured, and he knew that under certain circumstances the world would expect him to exert himself in a certain way. But the thing that he had now to do was a great trouble to him. He would rather have to address the House of Commons with ten columns of figures than utter a word of remonstrance to his wife. But she had defied him,--defied him by saying that she would see his friends no more; and it was the remembrance of this, as he sat behind his newspaper, that made him ultimately feel that he could not pass in silence over what had been done. Nevertheless, he went on reading, or pretending to read, as long as the continuance of the breakfast made it certain that his wife would remain with him. Every now and then he said some word to her of what he was reading, endeavouring to use the tone of voice that was customary to him in his domestic teachings of politics. But through it all there was a certain hesitation,--there were the sure signs of an attempt being made, of which he was himself conscious, and which she understood with the most perfect accuracy. He was deferring the evil moment, and vainly endeavouring to make himself believe that he was comfortably employed the while. She had no newspaper, and made no endeavour to deceive herself. She, therefore, was the first to begin the conversation. "Plantagenet," she said, "you told me last night, as I was going to bed, that you had something to say about Lady Monk's party." He put down the newspaper slowly, and turned towards her. "Yes, my dear. After what happened, I believe that I must say something." "If you think anything, pray say it," said Glencora. "It is not always easy for a man to show what he thinks by what he says," he replied. "My fear is that you should suppose me to think more than I do. And it was for that reason that I determined to sleep on it before I spoke to you." "If anybody is angry with me I'd much rather they should have it out with me while their anger is hot. I hate cold anger." "But I am not angry." "That's what husbands always say when they're going to scold." "But I am not going to scold. I am only going to advise you." "I'd sooner be scolded. Advice is to anger just what cold anger is to hot." "But, my dear Glencora, surely if I find it necessary to speak--" "I don't want to stop you, Plantagenet. Pray, go on. Only it will be so nice to have it over." He was now more than ever averse to the task before him. Husbands, when they give their wives a talking, should do it out of hand, uttering their words hard, sharp, and quick,--and should then go. There are some works that won't bear a preface, and this work of marital fault-finding is one of them. Mr. Palliser was already beginning to find out the truth of this. "Glencora," he said, "I wish you to be serious with me." "I am very serious," she replied, as she settled herself in her chair with an air of mockery, while her eyes and mouth were bright and eloquent with a spirit which her husband did not love to see. Poor girl! There was seriousness enough in store for her before she would be able to leave the room. "You ought to be serious. Do you know why Mrs. Marsham came here from Lady Monk's last night?" "Of course I do. She came to tell you that I was waltzing with Burgo Fitzgerald. You might as well ask me whether I knew why Mr. Bott was standing at all the doors, glaring at me." "I don't know anything about Mr. Bott." "I know something about him though," she said, again moving herself in her chair. "I am speaking now of Mrs. Marsham." "You should speak of them both together as they hunt in couples." "Glencora, will you listen to me, or will you not? If you say that you will not, I shall know what to do." "I don't think you would, Plantagenet." And she nodded her little head at him, as she spoke. "I'm sure I don't know what you would do. But I will listen to you. Only, as I said before, it will be very nice when it's over." "Mrs. Marsham came here, not simply to tell me that you were waltzing with Mr. Fitzgerald,--and I wish that when you mention his name you would call him Mr. Fitzgerald." "So I do." "You generally prefix his Christian name, which it would be much better that you should omit." "I will try," she said, very gently; "but it's hard to drop an old habit. Before you married me you knew that I had learned to call him Burgo." "Let me go on," said Mr. Palliser. "Oh, certainly." "It was not simply to tell me that you were waltzing that Mrs. Marsham came here." "And it was not simply to see me waltzing that Mr. Bott stood in the doorways, for he followed me about, and came down after me to the supper-room." "Glencora, will you oblige me by not speaking of Mr. Bott?" "I wish you would oblige me by not speaking of Mrs. Marsham." Mr. Palliser rose quickly from his chair with a gesture of anger, stood upright for half a minute, and then sat down again. "I beg your pardon, Plantagenet," she said. "I think I know what you want, and I'll hold my tongue till you bid me speak." "Mrs. Marsham came here because she saw that every one in the room was regarding you with wonder." Lady Glencora twisted herself about in her chair, but she said nothing. "She saw that you were not only dancing with Mr. Fitzgerald, but that you were dancing with him,--what shall I say?" "Upon my word I can't tell you." "Recklessly." "Oh! recklessly, was I? What was I reckless of?" "Reckless of what people might say; reckless of what I might feel about it; reckless of your own position." "Am I to speak now?" "Perhaps you had better let me go on. I think she was right to come to me." "That's of course. What's the good of having spies, if they don't run and tell as soon as they see anything, especially anything--reckless." "Glencora, you are determined to make me angry. I am angry now,--very angry. I have employed no spies. When rumours have reached me, not from spies, as you choose to call them, but through your dearest friends and mine--" "What do you mean by rumours from my dearest friends?" "Never mind. Let me go on." "No; not when you say my dear friends have spread rumours about me. Tell me who they are. I have no dear friends. Do you mean Alice Vavasor?" "It does not signify. But when I was warned that you had better not go to any house in which you could meet that man, I would not listen to it. I said that you were my wife, and that as such I could trust you anywhere, everywhere, with any person. Others might distrust you, but I would not do so. When I wished you to go to Monkshade, were there to be any spies there? When I left you last night at Lady Monk's, do you believe in your heart that I trusted to Mrs. Marsham's eyes rather than to your own truth? Do you think that I have lived in fear of Mr. Fitzgerald?" "No, Plantagenet; I do not think so." "Do you believe that I have commissioned Mr. Bott to watch your conduct? Answer me, Glencora." She paused a moment, thinking what actually was her true belief on that subject. "He does watch me, certainly," she said. "That does not answer my question. Do you believe that I have commissioned him to do so?" "No; I do not." "Then it is ignoble in you to talk to me of spies. I have employed no spies. If it were ever to come to that, that I thought spies necessary, it would be all over with me." There was something of feeling in his voice as he said this,--something that almost approached to passion which touched his wife's heart. Whether or not spies would be of any avail, she knew that she had in truth done that of which he had declared that he had never suspected her. She had listened to words of love from her former lover. She had received, and now carried about with her a letter from this man, in which he asked her to elope with him. She had by no means resolved that she would not do this thing. She had been false to her husband; and as her husband spoke of his confidence in her, her own spirit rebelled against the deceit which she herself was practising. "I know that I have never made you happy," she said. "I know that I never can make you happy." He looked at her, struck by her altered tone, and saw that her whole manner and demeanour were changed. "I do not understand what you mean," he said. "I have never complained. You have not made me unhappy." He was one of those men to whom this was enough. If his wife caused him no uneasiness, what more was he to expect from her? No doubt she might have done much more for him. She might have given him an heir. But he was a just man, and knew that the blank he had drawn was his misfortune, and not her fault. But now her heart was loosed and she spoke out, at first slowly, but after a while with all the quietness of strong passion. "No, Plantagenet; I shall never make you happy. You have never loved me, nor I you. We have never loved each other for a single moment. I have been wrong to talk to you about spies; I was wrong to go to Lady Monk's; I have been wrong in everything that I have done; but never so wrong as when I let them persuade me to be your wife!" "Glencora!" "Let me speak now, Plantagenet, It is better that I should tell you everything; and I will. I will tell you everything;--everything! I do love Burgo Fitzgerald. I do! I do! I do! How can I help loving him? Have I not loved him from the first,--before I had seen you? Did you not know that it was so? I do love Burgo Fitzgerald, and when I went to Lady Monk's last night, I had almost made up my mind that I must tell him so, and that I must go away with him and hide myself. But when he came to speak to me--" "He has asked you to go with him, then?" said the husband, in whose bosom the poison was beginning to take effect, thereby showing that he was neither above nor below humanity. Glencora was immediately reminded that though she might, if she pleased, tell her own secrets, she ought not, in accordance with her ideas of honour, tell those of her lover. "What need is there of asking, do you think, when people have loved each other as we have done?" "You wanted to go with him, then?" "Would it not have been the best for you? Plantagenet, I do not love you;--not as women love their husbands when they do love them. But, before God, my first wish is to free you from the misfortune that I have brought on you." As she made this attestation she started up from her chair, and coming close to him, took him by the coat. He was startled, and stepped back a pace, but did not speak; and then stood looking at her as she went on. [Illustration: "Before God, my first wish is to free you from the misfortune that I have brought on you."] "What matters it whether I drown myself, or throw myself away by going with such a one as him, so that you might marry again, and have a child? I'd die;--I'd die willingly. How I wish I could die! Plantagenet, I would kill myself if I dared." He was a tall man and she was short of stature, so that he stood over her and looked upon her, and now she was looking up into his face with all her eyes. "I would," she said. "I would--I would! What is there left for me that I should wish to live?" Softly, slowly, very gradually, as though he were afraid of what he was doing, he put his arm round her waist. "You are wrong in one thing," he said. "I do love you." She shook her head, touching his breast with her hair as she did so. "I do love you," he repeated. "If you mean that I am not apt at telling you so, it is true, I know. My mind is running on other things." "Yes," she said; "your mind is running on other things." "But I do love you. If you cannot love me, it is a great misfortune to us both. But we need not therefore be disgraced. As for that other thing of which you spoke,--of our having, as yet, no child"--and in saying this he pressed her somewhat closer with his arm--"you allow yourself to think too much of it;--much more of it than I do. I have made no complaints on that head, even within my own breast." "I know what your thoughts are, Plantagenet." "Believe me that you wrong my thoughts. Of course I have been anxious, and have, perhaps, shown my anxiety by the struggle I have made to hide it. I have never told you what is false, Glencora." "No; you are not false!" "I would rather have you for my wife, childless,--if you will try to love me,--than any other woman, though another might give me an heir. Will you try to love me?" She was silent. At this moment, after the confession that she had made, she could not bring herself to say that she would even try. Had she said so, she would have seemed to have accepted his forgiveness too easily. "I think, dear," he said, still holding her by her waist, "that we had better leave England for a while. I will give up politics for this season. Should you like to go to Switzerland for the summer, or perhaps to some of the German baths, and then on to Italy when the weather is cold enough?" Still she was silent. "Perhaps your friend, Miss Vavasor, would go with us?" He was killing her by his goodness. She could not speak to him yet; but now, as he mentioned Alice's name, she gently put up her hand and rested it on the back of his. At that moment there came a knock at the door;--a sharp knock, which was quickly repeated. "Come in," said Mr. Palliser, dropping his arm from his wife's waist, and standing away from her a few yards.

Gentle reader, do you remember Lady Monk's party, and how it ended? Mr. Palliser went away early, and Mrs. Marsham followed him to his house in Park Lane and told her tale. He returned to his wife, found her sitting with Burgo in the dining-room, under the eye of Mr. Bott, and bore her away home. Burgo disappeared, and Mr. Bott comforted himself with champagne, and then walked off to his lodgings. Lady Monk saw that the game was up, and thought with regret of the loss of her two hundred pounds. Such was the ending of her party. Lady Glencora, on her journey home in the carriage with her husband, had declared her resolution never again to see either Mrs. Marsham or Mr. Bott in her own house. This she said with more defiance in her tone than Mr. Palliser had ever heard. He was by nature less ready with words than her, and did not answer. Indeed, during that drive very few words were spoken. "I will breakfast with you tomorrow," he said, as she prepared to go upstairs. "I have work still to do tonight, and I will not disturb you by coming to your room." "You won't want me to be very early?" said his wife. "No," said he, with more anger in his voice than he had yet shown. "What hour will suit you? I must say something about tonight before I leave you tomorrow." "I don't know what you can have to say, but I'll be down by half-past eleven, if that will do?" Mr. Palliser said that it would, and then they parted. Lady Glencora had played her part very well before her husband. She had declined to be frightened by him, and had boldly declared her enmity to Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott. She felt some triumph in her own strength; and as she wished him good night on the staircase, and slowly walked up to her room, this consciousness of triumph still supported her. But when she was left alone all her triumph departed from her. She bade her maid go, and then she sat close over the fire, with her slippers on the fender, her elbows on her knees, and her face resting on her hands. In this position she remained for an hour, with her eyes fixed on the coals. Her thoughts were anything but triumphant. She had forgotten Mr. Bott and Mrs. Marsham altogether. It was of her husband and of Burgo that she was thinking - weighing them one against the other, and connecting her own existence with theirs, not expecting joy or the comfort of love from either, but with a conviction that on either side there must be misery for her. But of that shame before all the world, if she should break her vows and live with a man who was not her husband, she thought hardly at all. It was almost nothing to her. For herself, she had been sacrificed; and - as she bitterly told herself - through her own weakness. But that was done. Whatever way she might go, she was lost. They had married her to a man who cared nothing for a wife, nothing for any woman - so she declared to herself - but who had needed a wife so that he might have an heir. If she had had a child, she thought that she might have been happy enough. But there was nothing in her home to give her comfort. "He sees me as the cause of his misfortune," she said to herself. Of her husband's rank, of the future of his title and his estates, she thought much. But of her own wealth she thought nothing. It did not occur to her that she had given him enough wealth to make his marriage a comfort to him. She took it for granted that the marriage was now distasteful to him, as it was to herself, and that he would eventually be the gainer if she led it to be dissolved. As for Burgo, she knew well enough that he was a man much less worthy than her husband. She knew that he was an idle spendthrift - that he drank, gambled, and lived the life of the loosest man about town. She knew also that she could not redeem him if she went to him as his mistress, abandoning her husband and all her duties. Burgo Fitzgerald would not be influenced for good by such a woman as she would then be. She told herself no lies about this. But, as I have said before, she did not count herself for much. What though she were ruined? What though Burgo were untrustworthy? She loved him, and he was the only man she had ever loved! Lower and lower she crouched before the fire; and then, when the coals were no longer glowing, she crept into bed. As to what she should say to her husband on the following morning, she had not yet begun to think of that. Exactly at half-past eleven she entered the pretty little breakfast parlour which looked out over the park. Mr. Palliser was there already, sitting with the morning paper in his hand. He rose when she entered, and, coming up to her, just touched her with his lips. She put her cheek up to him, and then took her place at the breakfast table. "Have you any headache this morning?" he asked. "Oh, no," she said. Then he took his tea and toast, spoke a word about the fineness of the weather, told her some scraps of news, and soon returned to the absorbing interest of a speech made by the leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords. The speech was very interesting to Mr. Palliser, because in it the noble lord alluded to a break-up in the present Cabinet, about which rumours were rife. Mr. Palliser had heard no official news of such a rupture; but if one were to take place, it must be in his favour. He felt himself to be near the object of his ambition, to have affairs upon his hands which required all his attention. Did he really need to refer again to the incidents of last night? Doing so would be odious to him. He did not believe that his wife was in any serious danger. He was not jealous; he was indeed incapable of jealousy. He knew what it would be to be dishonoured, and he knew that under certain circumstances the world would expect him to exert himself in a certain way But the thing that he had now to do was a great trouble to him. He would rather address the House of Commons with ten columns of figures than utter a word of remonstrance to his wife. But she had defied him by saying that she would see his friends no more; and it was this that made him feel that he could not pass over it in silence. Nevertheless, he went on pretending to read. Every now and then he said some word to her of what he was reading, trying to use his usual tone of voice. But there was a certain hesitation - a sign of effort - of which he was himself conscious, and which she understood with perfect accuracy. He was putting off the evil moment. She, therefore, was the first to begin the conversation. "Plantagenet," she said, "you told me last night that you had something to say about Lady Monk's party." He put down the newspaper slowly, and turned towards her. "Yes, my dear." "If you think anything, pray say it," said Glencora. "It is not always easy for a man to show what he thinks by what he says," he replied. "My fear is that you should suppose me to think more than I do. And it was for that reason that I determined to sleep on it before I spoke to you." "If anybody is angry with me I'd much rather they should have it out with me while their anger is hot. I hate cold anger." "But I am not angry." "That's what husbands always say when they're going to scold." "But I am not going to scold. I am only going to advise you." "I'd sooner be scolded. Advice is to anger just what cold anger is to hot." "But, my dear Glencora, surely if I find it necessary to speak-" "I don't want to stop you, Plantagenet. Pray, go on. Only it will be so nice to have it over." He was now more than ever averse to the task before him. There are some works that won't bear a preface, and this work of marital fault-finding is one of them. "Glencora," he said, "I wish you to be serious with me." "I am very serious," she replied with an air of mockery, while her eyes and mouth were bright and eloquent with a spirit which her husband did not love to see. "You ought to be serious. Do you know why Mrs. Marsham came here from Lady Monk's last night?" "Of course I do. She came to tell you that I was waltzing with Burgo Fitzgerald. You might as well ask me whether I knew why Mr. Bott was standing at all the doors, glaring at me." "I don't know anything about Mr. Bott. I am speaking of Mrs. Marsham." "You should speak of them together as they hunt in couples." "Glencora, will you listen to me? If you say that you will not, I shall know what to do." "I don't think you would, Plantagenet." And she nodded her little head at him, as she spoke. "But I will listen to you." "Mrs. Marsham came here, not simply to tell me that you were waltzing with Mr. Fitzgerald - and I wish that when you mention his name you would call him Mr. Fitzgerald." "So I do." "You generally use his Christian name, which it would be much better that you should omit." "I will try," she said, very gently; "but it's hard to drop an old habit. Before you married me you knew that I had learned to call him Burgo." "Let me go on," said Mr. Palliser. "It was not simply to tell me that you were waltzing that Mrs. Marsham came here." "And it was not simply to see me waltzing that Mr. Bott stood in the doorways, for he followed me about, and came after me to the supper-room." "Glencora, will you oblige me by not speaking of Mr. Bott?" "I wish you would oblige me by not speaking of Mrs. Marsham." Mr. Palliser rose quickly from his chair with a gesture of anger, stood upright for half a minute, and then sat down again. "I beg your pardon, Plantagenet," she said. "I'll hold my tongue till you bid me speak." "Mrs. Marsham came here because she saw that everyone in the room was regarding you with wonder." Lady Glencora twisted herself in her chair, but she said nothing. "She saw that you were not only dancing with Mr. Fitzgerald, but that you were dancing with him - what shall I say?" "Upon my word I can't tell you." "Recklessly." "Oh! recklessly, was I? What was I reckless of?" "Reckless of what people might say; reckless of what I might feel about it; reckless of your own position. I think she was right to come to me." "Of course. What's the good of having spies, if they don't run and tell as soon as they see anything, especially anything reckless." "Glencora, you are determined to make me angry. I am angry now, very angry. I have employed no spies. When rumours have reached me, not from spies, as you choose to call them, but through your dearest friends and mine-" "What do you mean by rumours from my dearest friends?" "Never mind. Let me go on." "No; not when you say my dear friends have spread rumours about me. Tell me who they are. Do you mean Alice Vavasor?" "It does not matter. But when I was warned that you had better not go to any house in which you could meet that man, I would not listen to it. I said that you were my wife, and that as such I could trust you anywhere, everywhere, with any person. Others might distrust you, but I would not do so. When I wished you to go to Monkshade, were there to be any spies there? When I left you last night at Lady Monk's, do you believe in your heart that I trusted to Mrs. Marsham's eyes rather than to your own truth? Do you think that I have lived in fear of Mr. Fitzgerald?" "No, Plantagenet; I do not think so." "Do you believe that I have commissioned Mr. Bott to watch your conduct? Answer me, Glencora." She paused a moment, thinking what actually was her true belief on that subject. "He does watch me, certainly," she said. "That does not answer my question. Do you believe that I have commissioned him to do so?" "No; I do not." "Then it is ignoble in you to talk to me of spies. I have employed no spies. If it were ever to come to that, it would be all over with me." There was something of feeling in his voice as he said this, which touched his wife's heart. She knew that she had in truth listened to words of love from her former lover. She had received a letter from this man, in which he asked her to elope with him. She had by no means resolved that she would not do it. She had been false to her husband; and as her husband spoke of his confidence in her, her own spirit rebelled against her own deceit. "I know that I have never made you happy," she said. "I know that I never can make you happy." He looked at her, struck by her altered tone, and saw that her whole manner was changed. "I do not understand what you mean," he said. "I have never complained. You have not made me unhappy." He was one of those men to whom this was enough. If his wife caused him no uneasiness, what more was he to expect from her? No doubt she might have given him an heir. But he was a just man, and knew that was his misfortune, and not her fault. But now her heart was loosed. She spoke out, at first slowly, but with all the quietness of strong passion. "No, Plantagenet; I shall never make you happy. You have never loved me, nor I you. We have never loved each other for a single moment. I have been wrong to talk to you about spies; I was wrong to go to Lady Monk's; I have been wrong in everything that I have done; but never so wrong as when I let them persuade me to be your wife!" "Glencora!" "Let me speak now, Plantagenet. It is better that I should tell you everything; and I will. I do love Burgo Fitzgerald. I do! I do! How can I help it? Have I not loved him from the first, before I had seen you? Did you not know that it was so? I do love Burgo Fitzgerald, and when I went to Lady Monk's last night, I had almost made up my mind that I must tell him so, and that I must go away with him and hide myself. But when he came to speak to me-" "He has asked you to go with him, then?" said the husband. Glencora was immediately reminded that though she might tell her own secrets, she ought not to tell those of her lover. "What need is there of asking, do you think, when people have loved each other as we have done?" "You wanted to go with him, then?" "Would it not have been the best for you? Plantagenet, I do not love you as women love their husbands. But, before God, my first wish is to free you from the misfortune that I have brought on you." As she said this she started up from her chair, and coming close to him, took him by the coat. He was startled, but did not speak; and he stood looking at her as she went on. "What matters it whether I drown myself, or throw myself away by going with such a one as him, so that you might marry again, and have a child? I'd die willingly. How I wish I could die! Plantagenet, I would kill myself if I dared." He was a tall man and she was short, so that he stood over her, and now she was looking up into his face with all her eyes. "I would," she said. "I would! What is there left for me that I should wish to live?" Softly, slowly, very gradually, as though he were afraid of what he was doing, he put his arm round her waist. "You are wrong in one thing," he said. "I do love you." She shook her head, touching his breast with her hair as she did so. "I do love you," he repeated. "If you mean that I am not apt at telling you so, it is true, I know. My mind is running on other things." "Yes," she said; "your mind is running on other things." "But I do love you. If you cannot love me, it is a great misfortune to us both. But we need not therefore be disgraced. As for that other thing - our having, as yet, no child" - and in saying this he pressed her somewhat closer with his arm - "you allow yourself to think too much of it; much more of it than I do. I have made no complaints on that head, even to myself." "I know what your thoughts are, Plantagenet." "Believe me. Of course I have been anxious, and have, perhaps, shown my anxiety by the struggle I have made to hide it. I have never told you what is false, Glencora." "No; you are not false!" "I would rather have you for my wife, childless - if you will try to love me - than any other woman, though another might give me an heir. Will you try to love me?" She was silent. At this moment, after her confession, she could not bring herself to say that she would even try. Had she said so, she would have seemed to have accepted his forgiveness too easily. "I think, dear," he said, still holding her by her waist, "that we had better leave England for a while. I will give up politics for this season. Should you like to go to Switzerland for the summer, or perhaps to the German spas, and then to Italy when the weather is cold enough?" Still she was silent. "Perhaps your friend, Miss Vavasor, would go with us?" He was killing her by his goodness. She could not speak to him yet; but now, as he mentioned Alice's name, she gently put up her hand and rested it on the back of his. At that moment there came a knock at the door - a sharp knock, which was repeated. "Come in," said Mr. Palliser, dropping his arm from his wife's waist, and standing away from her.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 58: The Pallisers at Breakfast

The handmaiden at George Vavasor's lodgings announced "another gent," and then Mr. Scruby entered the room in which were seated George, and Mr. Grimes the publican from the "Handsome Man" on the Brompton Road. Mr. Scruby was an attorney from Great Marlborough Street, supposed to be very knowing in the ways of metropolitan elections; and he had now stepped round, as he called it, with the object of saying a few words to Mr. Grimes, partly on the subject of the forthcoming contest at Chelsea, and partly on that of the contest last past. These words were to be said in the presence of Mr. Vavasor, the person interested. That some other words had been spoken between Mr. Scruby and Mr. Grimes on the same subjects behind Mr. Vavasor's back I think very probable. But even though this might have been so I am not prepared to say that Mr. Vavasor had been deceived by their combinations. The two men were very civil to each other in their salutations, the attorney assuming an air of patronizing condescension, always calling the other Grimes; whereas Mr. Scruby was treated with considerable deference by the publican, and was always called Mr. Scruby. "Business is business," said the publican as soon as these salutations were over; "isn't it now, Mr. Scruby?" "And I suppose Grimes thinks Sunday morning a particularly good time for business," said the attorney, laughing. "It's quiet, you know," said Grimes. "But it warn't me as named Sunday morning. It was Mr. Vavasor here. But it is quiet; ain't it, Mr. Scruby?" Mr. Scruby acknowledged that it was quiet, especially looking out over the river, and then they proceeded to business. "We must pull the governor through better next time than we did last," said the attorney. "Of course we must, Mr. Scruby; but, Lord love you, Mr. Vavasor, whose fault was it? What notice did I get,--just tell me that? Why, Travers's name was up on the liberal interest ever so long before the governor had ever thought about it." "Nobody is blaming you, Mr. Grimes," said George. "And nobody can't, Mr. Vavasor. I done my work true as steel, and there ain't another man about the place as could have done half as much. You ask Mr. Scruby else. Mr. Scruby knows, if ere a man in London does. I tell you what it is, Mr. Vavasor, them Chelsea fellows, who lives mostly down by the river, ain't like your Maryboners or Finsburyites. It wants something of a man to manage them. Don't it Mr. Scruby?" "It wants something of a man to manage any of them as far as my experience goes," said Mr. Scruby. "Of course it do; and there ain't one in London knows so much about it as you do, Mr. Scruby. I will say that for you. But the long and the short of it is this;--business is business, and money is money." "Money is money, certainly," said Mr. Scruby. "There's no doubt in the world about that, Grimes;--and a deal of it you had out of the last election." "No, I hadn't; begging your pardon, Mr. Scruby, for making so free. What I had to my own cheek wasn't nothing to speak of. I wasn't paid for my time; that's what I wasn't. You look how a publican's business gets cut up at them elections;--and then the state of the house afterwards! What would the governor say to me if I was to put down painting inside and out in my little bill?" "It doesn't seem to make much difference how you put it down," said Vavasor. "The total is what I look at." "Just so, Mr. Vavasor; just so. The total is what I looks at too. And I has to look at it a deuced long time before I gets it. I ain't a got it yet; have I, Mr. Vavasor?" "Well; if you ask me I should say you had," said George. "I know I paid Mr. Scruby three hundred pounds on your account." "And I got every shilling of it, Mr. Vavasor. I'm not a going to deny the money, Mr. Vavasor. You'll never find me doing that. I'm as round as your hat, and as square as your elbow,--I am. Mr. Scruby knows me; don't you, Mr. Scruby?" "Perhaps I know you too well, Grimes." "No you don't, Mr. Scruby; not a bit too well. Nor I don't know you too well, either. I respect you, Mr. Scruby, because you're a man as understands your business. But as I was saying, what's three hundred pounds when a man's bill is three hundred and ninety-two thirteen and fourpence?" "I thought that was all settled, Mr. Scruby," said Vavasor. "Why you see, Mr. Vavasor, it's very hard to settle these things. If you ask me whether Mr. Grimes here can sue you for the balance, I tell you very plainly that he can't. We were a little short of money when we came to a settlement, as is generally the case at such times, and so we took Mr. Grimes' receipt for three hundred pounds." "Of course you did, Mr. Scruby." "Not on account, but in full of all demands." "Now Mr. Scruby!" and the publican as he made this appeal looked at the attorney with an expression of countenance which was absolutely eloquent. "Are you going to put me off with such an excuse as that?" so the look spoke plainly enough. "Are you going to bring up my own signature against me, when you know very well that I shouldn't have got a shilling at all for the next twelve months if I hadn't given it? Oh Mr. Scruby!" That's what Mr. Grimes' look said, and both Mr. Scruby and Mr. Vavasor understood it perfectly. "In full of all demands," said Mr. Scruby, with a slight tone of triumph in his voice, as though to show that Grimes' appeal had no effect at all upon his conscience. "If you were to go into a court of law, Grimes, you wouldn't have a leg to stand upon." "A court of law? Who's a going to law with the governor, I should like to know? not I; not if he didn't pay me them ninety-two pounds thirteen and fourpence for the next five years." "Five years or fifteen would make no difference," said Scruby. "You couldn't do it." "And I ain't a going to try. That's not the ticket I've come here about, Mr. Vavasor, this blessed Sunday morning. Going to law, indeed! But Mr. Scruby, I've got a family." "Not in the vale of Taunton, I hope," said George. "They is at the 'Handsome Man' in the Brompton Road, Mr. Vavasor; and I always feels that I owes my first duty to them. If a man don't work for his family, what do he work for?" "Come, come, Grimes," said Mr. Scruby. "What is it you're at? Out with it, and don't keep us here all day." "What is it I'm at, Mr. Scruby? As if you didn't know very well what I'm at. There's my house;--in all them Chelsea districts it's the most convenientest of any public as is open for all manner of election purposes. That's given up to it." "And what next?" said Scruby. "The next is, I myself. There isn't one of the lot of 'em can work them Chelsea fellows down along the river unless it is me. Mr. Scruby knows that. Why I've been a getting of them up with a view to this very job ever since;--why ever since they was a talking of the Chelsea districts. When Lord Robert was a coming in for the county on the religious dodge, he couldn't have worked them fellows anyhow, only for me. Mr. Scruby knows that." "Let's take it all for granted, Mr. Grimes," said Vavasor. "What comes next?" "Well;--them Bunratty people; it is they as has come next. They know which side their bread is likely to be buttered; they do. They're a bidding for the 'Handsome Man' already; they are." "And you'd let your house to the Tory party, Grimes!" said Mr. Scruby, in a tone in which disgust and anger were blended. "Who said anything of my letting my house to the Tory party, Mr. Scruby? I'm as round as your hat, Mr. Scruby, and as square as your elbow; I am. But suppose as all the liberal gents as employs you, Mr. Scruby, was to turn again you and not pay you your little bills, wouldn't you have your eyes open for customers of another kind? Come now, Mr. Scruby?" [Illustration: "I'm as round as your hat, and as square as your elbow; I am."] "You won't make much of that game, Grimes." "Perhaps not; perhaps not. There's a risk in all these things; isn't there, Mr. Vavasor? I should like to see you a Parliament gent; I should indeed. You'd be a credit to the districts; I really think you would." "I'm much obliged by your good opinion, Mr. Grimes," said George. "When I sees a gent coming forward I knows whether he's fit for Parliament, or whether he ain't. I says you are fit. But Lord love you, Mr. Vavasor; it's a thing a gentleman always has to pay for." "That's true enough; a deal more than it's worth, generally." "A thing's worth what it fetches. I'm worth what I'll fetch; that's the long and the short of it. I want to have my balance, that's the truth. It's the odd money in a man's bill as always carries the profit. You ask Mr. Scruby else;--only with a lawyer it's all profit I believe." "That's what you know about it," said Scruby. "If you cut off a man's odd money," continued the publican, "you break his heart. He'd almost sooner have that and leave the other standing. He'd call the hundreds capital, and if he lost them at last, why he'd put it down as being in the way of trade. But the odd money;--he looks at that, Mr. Vavasor, as in a manner the very sweat of his brow, the work of his own hand; that's what goes to his family, and keeps the pot a boiling down-stairs. Never stop a man's odd money, Mr. Vavasor; that is, unless he comes it very strong indeed." "And what is it you want now?" said Scruby. "I wants ninety-two pounds thirteen and fourpence, Mr. Scruby, and then we'll go to work for the new fight with contented hearts. If we're to begin at all, it's quite time; it is indeed, Mr. Vavasor." "And what you mean us to understand is, that you won't begin at all without your money," said the lawyer. "That's about it, Mr. Scruby." "Take a fifty-pound note, Grimes," said the lawyer. "Fifty-pound notes are not so ready," said George. "Oh, he'll be only too happy to have your acceptance; won't you, Grimes." "Not for fifty pounds, Mr. Scruby. It's the odd money that I wants. I don't mind the thirteen and four, because that's neither here nor there among friends, but if I didn't get all them ninety-two pounds I should be a broken-hearted man; I should indeed, Mr. Vavasor. I couldn't go about your work for next year so as to do you justice among the electors. I couldn't indeed." "You'd better give him a bill for ninety pounds at three months, Mr. Vavasor. I have no doubt he has got a stamp in his pocket." "That I have, Mr. Scruby; there ain't no mistake about that. A bill stamp is a thing that often turns up convenient with gents as mean business like Mr. Vavasor and you. But you must make it ninety-two; you must indeed, Mr. Vavasor. And do make it two months if you can, Mr. Vavasor; they do charge so unconscionable on ninety days at them branch banks; they do indeed." George Vavasor and Mr. Scruby, between them, yielded at last, so far as to allow the bill to be drawn for ninety-two pounds, but they were stanch as to the time. "If it must be, it must," said the publican, with a deep sigh, as he folded up the paper and put it into the pocket of a huge case which he carried. "And now, gents, I'll tell you what it is. We'll make safe work of this here next election. We know what's to be our little game in time, and if we don't go in and win, my name ain't Jacob Grimes, and I ain't the landlord of the 'Handsome Man.' As you gents has perhaps got something to say among yourselves, I'll make so bold as to wish you good morning." So, with that, Mr. Grimes lifted his hat from the floor, and bowed himself out of the room. "You couldn't have done it cheaper; you couldn't, indeed," said the lawyer, as soon as the sound of the closing front door had been heard. "Perhaps not; but what a thief the man is! I remember your telling me that the bill was about the most preposterous you had ever seen." "So it was, and if we hadn't wanted him again of course we shouldn't have paid him. But we'll have it all off his next account, Mr. Vavasor,--every shilling of it, It's only lent; that's all;--it's only lent." "But one doesn't want to lend such a man money, if one could help it." "That's true. If you look at it in that light, it's quite true. But you see we cannot do without him. If he hadn't got your bill, he'd have gone over to the other fellows before the week was over; and the worst of it would have been that he knows our hand. Looking at it all round you've got him cheap, Mr. Vavasor;--you have, indeed." "Looking at it all round is just what I don't like, Mr. Scruby, But if a man will have a whistle, he must pay for it." "You can't do it cheap for any of these metropolitan seats; you can't, indeed, Mr. Vavasor. That is, a new man can't. When you've been in four or five times, like old Duncombe, why then, of course, you may snap your fingers at such men as Grimes. But the Chelsea districts ain't dear. I don't call them by any means dear. Now Marylebone is dear,--and so is Southwark. It's dear, and nasty; that's what the borough is. Only that I never tell tales, I could tell you a tale, Mr. Vavasor, that'd make your hair stand on end; I could indeed." "Ah! the game is hardly worth the candle, I believe." "That depends on what way you choose to look at it. A seat in Parliament is a great thing to a man who wants to make his way;--a very great thing;--specially when a man's young, like you, Mr. Vavasor." "Young!" said George. "Sometimes it seems to me as though I've been living for a hundred years. But I won't trouble you with that, Mr. Scruby, and I believe I needn't keep you any longer." With that, he got up and bowed the attorney out of the room, with just a little more ceremony than he had shown to the publican. "Young!" said Vavasor to himself, when he was left alone. "There's my uncle, or the old squire,--they're both younger men than I am. One cares for his dinner, and the other for his bullocks and his trees. But what is there that I care for, unless it is not getting among the sheriff's officers for debt?" Then he took out a little memorandum-book from his breast-pocket, and having made in it an entry as to the amount and date of that bill which he had just accepted on the publican's behalf, he conned over the particulars of its pages. "Very blue; very blue, indeed," he said to himself when he had completed the study. "But nobody shall say I hadn't the courage to play the game out, and that old fellow must die some day, one supposes. If I were not a fool, I should make it up with him before he went; but I am a fool, and shall remain so to the last." Soon after that he dressed himself slowly, reading a little every now and then as he did so. When his toilet was completed, and his Sunday newspapers sufficiently perused, he took up his hat and umbrella and sauntered out.

The handmaiden announced "another gent," and Mr. Scruby entered the room. He was an attorney, supposed to be very knowing in the ways of elections; and he had now come to say a few words to Mr. Grimes. I think it very likely that some other words had been spoken between the two men behind Mr. Vavasor's back. But Vavasor probably knew this. The two men saluted each other very civilly, and then got proceeded to business. "We must pull the governor through better next time than we did last," said the attorney. "Of course we must, Mr. Scruby; but, Lord love you, Mr. Vavasor, whose fault was it? What notice did I get?" "Nobody is blaming you, Mr. Grimes," said George. "And nobody can't, Mr. Vavasor. I done my work true as steel, and there ain't another man as could have done half as much. You ask Mr. Scruby. I tell you what it is, Mr. Vavasor, them Chelsea fellows down by the river ain't like your Maryboners or Finsburyites. It wants a man to manage them. Don't it, Mr. Scruby?" "It wants a man to manage any of them," said Mr. Scruby. "Of course it do; and there ain't one in London knows so much about it as you do, Mr. Scruby. But the long and the short of it is - business is business, and money is money." "Money is money, certainly," said Mr. Scruby. "and you had a deal of it for the last election, Grimes." "No, I hadn't, begging your pardon, Mr. Scruby. What I had for myself wasn't nothing to speak of. I wasn't paid for my time. And then the state of my tavern afterwards! What would the governor say if I was to put down painting in my little bill? But I ain't been paid yet; have I, Mr. Vavasor?" "Well, I should say you had," said George. "I know I paid Mr. Scruby three hundred pounds on your account." "And I got every shilling of it, Mr. Vavasor. I'm not going to deny that. But what's three hundred pounds when a man's bill is three hundred and ninety-two thirteen and fourpence?" "I thought that was all settled, Mr. Scruby," said Vavasor. "Why, Mr. Vavasor, it's very hard to settle these things," said the attorney. "We were a little short of money when we came to a settlement, as is generally the case at such times, and so we took Mr. Grimes' receipt for three hundred pounds - in full payment of all demands. If you were to go to a court of law, Grimes, you wouldn't have a leg to stand upon." "A court of law? That's not what I've come here about, Mr. Vavasor. Going to law, indeed! There's my public-house; in all them Chelsea districts it's the most convenientest for all manner of election purposes. And I can work them Chelsea fellows along the river - Mr. Scruby knows that. But them Bunratty people are a-bidding for the 'Handsome Man' already." "And you'd let your house to the Tory party, Grimes!" said Mr. Scruby, in tones of disgust. "Who said anything about that? But suppose as all the liberal gents as employs you, Mr. Scruby, was to not pay your little bills, wouldn't you look for customers of another kind?" "You won't make much of that game, Grimes." "Perhaps not. But Mr. Vavasor, I should like to see you a Parliament gent; I should indeed. You'd be a credit to the districts." "I'm much obliged," said George. "But Lord love you, Mr. Vavasor, it's a thing a gentleman has to pay for." "A good deal more than it's worth, generally." "A thing's worth what it fetches. I just wants my ninety-two pounds thirteen and fourpence, and then we'll go to work for the new fight with contented hearts. If we're to begin at all, it's time." "You mean that you won't begin at all without your money," said the lawyer. "That's about it, Mr. Scruby." "Take a fifty-pound note, Grimes," said the lawyer. "Fifty-pound notes are not so ready," said George. "I don't mind the thirteen and four, but if I didn't get all them ninety-two pounds I should be a broken-hearted man; I should indeed, Mr. Vavasor. I couldn't go about your work so as to do you justice among the electors." "You'd better give him a bill for ninety pounds at three months, Mr. Vavasor," said the attorney. "You must make it ninety-two; you must indeed, Mr. Vavasor. And do make it two months if you can." George Vavasor and Mr. Scruby yielded at last, so far as to allow the bill to be drawn for ninety-two pounds, but at three months distant. "If it must be, it must," said the publican, with a deep sigh, as he folded up the paper and put it away. "And now, gents, we'll make safe work of this here next election. If we don't win, my name ain't Jacob Grimes. I'll wish you good morning." Mr. Grimes bowed himself out of the room. "You couldn't have done it cheaper," said the lawyer, once he had gone. "Perhaps not; but what a thief the man is! You told me the bill was preposterous." "So it was, and if we hadn't wanted him again of course we shouldn't have paid him. But we'll have it all off his next account, Mr. Vavasor. You see, if he hadn't got your bill, he'd have gone over to the other fellows before the week was over. You've got him cheap. A seat in Parliament is a great thing to a man who wants to make his way; specially a young man like you." "Young!" said George. "Sometimes it seems as though I've been living for a hundred years. I believe I needn't keep you any longer, Mr. Scruby." He saw the attorney out. "Young!" he said to himself, when he was alone. "My uncle and the old squire are both younger men than I am. One cares for his dinner, and the other for his bullocks and his trees. But what do I care for, except not getting arrested for debt?" Then he took out a little notebook from his pocket, and having made an entry about the publican's bill, he looked through its pages. "Very blue, indeed," he said to himself. "But nobody shall say I hadn't the courage to play the game out; and that old fellow in Westmorland must die some day. If I were not a fool, I should make it up with him before he went; but I am a fool." Then he dressed himself, took up his hat and umbrella and sauntered out.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 13: Mr. Grimes Gets His Odd Money

George Vavasor was not in a very happy mood when he left Queen Anne Street, after having flung his gift ring under the grate. Indeed there was much in his condition, as connected with the house which he was leaving, which could not but make him unhappy. Alice was engaged to be his wife, and had as yet said nothing to show that she meditated any breach of that engagement, but she had treated him in a way which made him long to throw her promise in her teeth. He was a man to whom any personal slight from a woman was unendurable. To slights from men, unless they were of a nature to provoke offence, he was indifferent. There was no man living for whose liking or disliking George Vavasor cared anything. But he did care much for the good opinion, or rather for the personal favour, of any woman to whom he had endeavoured to make himself agreeable. "I will marry you," Alice had said to him,--not in words, but in acts and looks, which were plainer than words,--"I will marry you for certain reasons of my own, which in my present condition make it seem that that arrangement will be more convenient to me than any other that I can make; but pray understand that there is no love mixed up with this. There is another man whom I love;--only, for those reasons above hinted, I do not care to marry him." It was thus that he read Alice's present treatment of him, and he was a man who could not endure this treatment with ease. But though he could throw his ring under the grate in his passion, he could not so dispose of her. That he would have done so had his hands been free, we need not doubt. And he would have been clever enough to do so in some manner that would have been exquisitely painful to Alice, willing as she might be to be released from her engagement. But he could not do this to a woman whose money he had borrowed, and whose money he could not repay;--to a woman, more of whose money he intended to borrow immediately. As to that latter part of it, he did say to himself over and over again, that he would have no more of it. As he left the house in Queen Anne Street, on that occasion, he swore, that under no circumstances would he be indebted to her for another shilling. But before he had reached Great Marlborough Street, to which his steps took him, he had reminded himself that everything depended on a further advance. He was in Parliament, but Parliament would be dissolved within three months. Having sacrificed so much for his position, should he let it all fall from him now,--now, when success seemed to be within his reach? That wretched old man in Westmoreland, who seemed gifted almost with immortality,--why could he not die and surrender his paltry acres to one who could use them? He turned away from Regent Street into Hanover Square before he crossed to Great Marlborough Street, giving vent to his passion rather than arranging his thoughts. As he walked the four sides of the square he considered how good it would be if some accident should befall the old man. How he would rejoice were he to hear to-morrow that one of the trees of the "accursed place," had fallen on the "obstinate old idiot," and put an end to him! I will not say that he meditated the murder of his grandfather. There was a firm conviction on his mind, as he thought of all this, that such a deed as that would never come in his way. But he told himself, that if he chose to make the attempt, he would certainly be able to carry it through without detection. Then he remembered Rush and Palmer--the openly bold murderer and the secret poisoner. Both of them, in Vavasor's estimation, were great men. He had often said so in company. He had declared that the courage of Rush had never been surpassed. "Think of him," he would say with admiration, "walking into a man's house, with pistols sufficient to shoot every one there, and doing it as though he were killing rats! What was Nelson at Trafalgar to that? Nelson had nothing to fear!" And of Palmer he declared that he was a man of genius as well as courage. He had "looked the whole thing in the face," Vavasor would say, "and told himself that all scruples and squeamishness are bosh,--child's tales. And so they are. Who lives as though they fear either heaven or hell? And if we do live without such fear or respect, what is the use of telling lies to ourselves? To throw it all to the dogs, as Palmer did, is more manly." "And be hanged," some hearer of George's doctrine replied. "Yes, and be hanged,--if such is your destiny. But you hear of the one who is hanged, but hear nothing of the twenty who are not." Vavasor walked round Hanover Square, nursing his hatred against the old Squire. He did not tell himself that he would like to murder his grandfather. But he suggested to himself, that if he desired to do so, he would have courage enough to make his way into the old man's room, and strangle him; and he explained to himself how he would be able to get down into Westmoreland without the world knowing that he had been there,--how he would find an entrance into the house by a window with which he was acquainted,--how he could cause the man to die as though, those around him should think, it was apoplexy,--he, George Vavasor, having read something on that subject lately. All this he considered very fully, walking rapidly round Hanover Square more than once or twice. If he were to become an active student in the Rush or Palmer school, he would so study the matter that he would not be the one that should be hung. He thought that he could, so far, trust his own ingenuity. But yet he did not meditate murder. "Beastly old idiot!" he said to himself, "he must have his chance as other men have, I suppose," And then he went across Regent Street to Mr. Scruby's office in Great Marlborough Street, not having, as yet, come to any positive conclusion as to what he would do in reference to Alice's money. But he soon found himself talking to Mr. Scruby as though there were no doubts as to the forthcoming funds for the next elections. And Mr. Scruby talked to him very plainly, as though those funds must be forthcoming before long. "A stitch in time saves nine," said Mr. Scruby, meaning to insinuate that a pound in time might have the same effect. "And I'll tell you what, Mr. Vavasor,--of course I've my outstanding bills for the last affair. That's no fault of yours, for the things came so sharp one on another that my fellows haven't had time to make it out. But if you'll put me in funds for what I must be out of pocket in June--" "Will it be so soon as June?" "They are talking of June. Why, then, I'll lump the two bills together when it's all over." In their discussion respecting money Mr. Scruby injudiciously mentioned the name of Mr. Tombe. No precise caution had been given to him, but he had become aware that the matter was being managed through an agency that was not recognized by his client; and as that agency was simply a vehicle of money which found its way into Mr. Scruby's pocket, he should have held his tongue. But Mr. Tombe's name escaped from him, and Vavasor immediately questioned him. Scruby, who did not often make such blunders, readily excused himself, shaking his head, and declaring that the name had fallen from his lips instead of that of another man. Vavasor accepted the excuse without further notice, and nothing more was said about Mr. Tombe while he was in Mr. Scruby's office. But he had not heard the name in vain, and had unfortunately heard it before. Mr. Tombe was a remarkable man in his way. He wore powder to his hair,--was very polite in his bearing,--was somewhat asthmatic, and wheezed in his talking,--and was, moreover, the most obedient of men, though it was said of him that he managed the whole income of the Ely Chapter just as he pleased. Being in these ways a man of note, John Grey had spoken of him to Alice, and his name had filtered through Alice and her cousin Kate to George Vavasor. George seldom forgot things or names, and when he heard Mr. Tombe's name mentioned in connection with his own money matters, he remembered that Mr. Tombe was John Grey's lawyer. As soon as he could escape out into the street he endeavoured to put all these things together, and after a while resolved that he would go to Mr. Tombe. What if there should be an understanding between John Grey and Alice, and Mr. Tombe should be arranging his money matters for him! Would not anything be better than this,--even that little tragedy down in Westmoreland, for which his ingenuity and courage would be required? He could endure to borrow money from Alice. He might even endure it still,--though that was very difficult after her treatment of him; but he could not endure to be the recipient of John Grey's money. By heavens, no! And as he got into a cab, and had himself driven off to the neighbourhood of Doctors' Commons, he gave himself credit for much fine manly feeling. Mr. Tombe's chambers were found without difficulty, and, as it happened, Mr. Tombe was there. The lawyer rose from his chair as Vavasor entered, and bowed his powdered head very meekly as he asked his visitor to sit down. "Mr. Vavasor;--oh, yes. He had heard the name. Yes; he was in the habit of acting for his very old friend Mr. John Grey. He had acted for Mr. John Grey, and for Mr. John Grey's father,--he or his partner,--he believed he might say, for about half a century. There could not be a nicer gentleman than Mr. John Grey;--and such a pretty child as he used to be!" At every new sentence Mr. Tombe caught his poor asthmatic breath, and bowed his meek old head, and rubbed his hands together as though he hardly dared to keep his seat in Vavasor's presence without the support of some such motion; and wheezed apologetically, and seemed to ask pardon of his visitor for not knowing intuitively what was the nature of that visitor's business. But he was a sly old fox was Mr. Tombe, and was considering all this time how much it would be well that he should tell Mr. Vavasor, and how much it would be well that he should conceal. "The fat had got into the fire," as he told his old wife when he got home that evening. He told his old wife everything, and I don't know that any of his clients were the worse for his doing so. But while he was wheezing, and coughing, and apologizing, he made up his mind that if George Vavasor were to ask him certain questions, it would be best that he should answer them truly. If Vavasor did ask those questions, he would probably do so upon certain knowledge, and if so, why, in that case, lying would be of no use. Lying would not put the fat back into the frying pan. And even though such questions might be asked without any absolute knowledge, they would, at any rate, show that the questioner had the means of ascertaining the truth. He would tell as little as he could; but he decided during his last wheeze, that he could not lie in the matter with any chance of benefiting his client. "The prettiest child I ever saw, Mr. Vavasor!" said Mr. Tombe, and then he coughed violently. Some people who knew Mr. Tombe declared that he nursed his cough. "I dare say," said George. "Yes, indeed,--ugh--ugh--ugh." "Can you tell me, Mr. Tombe, whether either you or he have anything to do with the payment of certain sums to my credit at Messrs. Hock and Block's?" "Messrs. Hock and Block's, the bankers,--in Lom--bard Street?" said Mr. Tombe, taking a little more time. "Yes; I bank there," said Vavasor, sharply. "A most respectable house." "Has any money been paid there to my credit, by you, Mr. Tombe?" "May I ask you why you put the question to me, Mr. Vavasor?" "Well, I don't think you may. That is to say, my reason for asking it can have nothing to do with yours for replying to it. If you have had no hand in any such payment, there is an end of it, and I need not take up your time by saying anything more on the subject." "I am not prepared to go that length, Mr. Vavasor,--not altogether to go that length,--ugh--ugh--ugh." "Then, will you tell me what you have done in the matter?" "Well,--upon my word, you've taken me a little by surprise. Let me see. Pinkle,--Pinkle." Pinkle was a clerk who sat in an inner room, and Mr. Tombe's effort to call him seemed to be most ineffectual. But Pinkle understood the sound, and came. "Pinkle, didn't we pay some money into Hock and Block's a few weeks since, to the credit of Mr. George Vavasor?" "Did we, sir?" said Pinkle, who probably knew that his employer was an old fox, and who, perhaps, had caught something of the fox nature himself. "I think we did. Just look Pinkle;--and, Pinkle,--see the date, and let me know all about it. It's fine bright weather for this time of year, Mr. Vavasor; but these easterly winds!--ugh--ugh--ugh!" Vavasor found himself sitting for an apparently interminable number of minutes in Mr. Tombe's dingy chamber, and was coughed at, and wheezed at, till he begun to be tired of his position; moreover, when tired, he showed his impatience. "Perhaps you'll let us write you a line when we have looked into the matter?" suggested Mr. Tombe. "I'd rather know at once," said Vavasor. "I don't suppose it can take you very long to find out whether you have paid money to my account, by order of Mr. Grey. At any rate, I must know before I go away." "Pinkle, Pinkle!" screamed the old man through his coughing; and again Pinkle came. "Well, Pinkle, was anything of the kind done, or is my memory deceiving me?" Mr. Tombe was, no doubt, lying shamefully, for, of course, he remembered all about it; and, indeed, George Vavasor had learned already quite enough for his own purposes. "I was going to look," said Pinkle; and Pinkle again went away. "I'm sorry to give your clerk so much trouble," said Vavasor, in an angry voice; "and I think it must be unnecessary. Surely you know whether Mr. Grey has commissioned you to pay money for me?" "We have so many things to do, Mr. Vavasor; and so many clients. We have, indeed. You see, it isn't only one gentleman's affairs. But I think there was something done. I do, indeed." "What is Mr. John Grey's address?" asked Vavasor, very sharply. "Number 5, Suffolk Street, Pall Mall East," said Mr. Tombe. Herein Mr. Tombe somewhat committed himself. His client, Mr. Grey, was, in fact, in town, but Vavasor had not known or imagined that such was the case. Had Mr. Tombe given the usual address of Nethercoats, nothing further would have been demanded from him on that subject. But he had foolishly presumed that the question had been based on special information as to his client's visit to London, and he had told the plain truth in a very simple way. "Number 5, Suffolk Street," said Vavasor, writing down the address. "Perhaps it will be better that I should go to him, as you do not seem inclined to give me any information." Then he took up his hat, and hardly bowing to Mr. Tombe, left the chambers. Mr. Tombe, as he did so, rose from his chair, and bent his head meekly down upon the table. "Pinkle, Pinkle," wheezed Mr. Tombe. "Never mind; never mind." Pinkle didn't mind; and we may say that he had not minded; for up to that moment he had taken no steps towards a performance of the order which had been given him.

George Vavasor was not in a very happy mood when he left Queen Anne Street after flinging his ring in the fireplace. Indeed there was much to make him unhappy. Alice was engaged to be his wife, but she had treated him in a way which made him long to throw her promise in her teeth. He was a man to whom any personal slight from a woman was unendurable. "I will marry you," Alice's behaviour had said to him, "for certain reasons of my own, which make that arrangement convenient; but pray understand that there is no love mixed up with this. There is another man whom I love; only I do not care to marry him." It was thus that he read Alice's treatment of him, and he could not endure it. But though he could throw his ring under the fire-grate in his passion, he could not so dispose of her. He would have done so had his hands been free. And he would have been clever enough to do so in a way that would have been exquisitely painful to Alice, willing as she might be to be released from her engagement. But he had borrowed money from her, money which he could not repay - and he intended to borrow more immediately. As he walked away, he did say to himself that he would have no more of it. He would not be indebted to her for another shilling. But before long he had reminded himself that everything depended on a further advance. He was in Parliament: having sacrificed so much for his position, should he let it all fall from him now? That wretched old man in Westmorland - why could he not die and surrender his paltry acres to one who could use them? He turned into Hanover Square, considering how good it would be if some accident should befall the old man. How he would rejoice if he were to hear that a tree had fallen on the "obstinate old idiot!" I will not say that he meditated the murder of his grandfather. But he told himself that if he chose to, he would certainly be able to do it without detection. He would have courage enough to make his way into the old man's room and strangle him; and he worked out how he would find an entrance into the house by a window, and how he could cause the old man to die as though from apoplexy. All this he considered very fully, walking rapidly round Hanover Square. And then he went to Mr. Scruby's office in Great Marlborough Street, not having yet decided what he would do about Alice's money. But he soon found himself talking to Mr. Scruby as though there were no doubts about the forthcoming funds for the next election. And Mr. Scruby said plainly that those funds must be forthcoming soon. "Of course I've my outstanding bills for the last affair." said Mr. Scruby. "That's no fault of yours. But if you'll put me in funds for what I'll need to pay in June, I'll lump the two bills together when it's all over." In this discussion, Mr. Scruby unwisely mentioned the name of Mr. Tombe. He had become aware that the money was being managed through an agency that was unknown to his client. Mr. Tombe's name escaped from him, and Vavasor immediately questioned him. Scruby, who did not often make such blunders, shook his head, and declared that he had meant a different man. Vavasor accepted the excuse, and said nothing more about Mr. Tombe. But he had heard the name before. John Grey had spoken of Mr. Tombe to Alice, and his name had filtered through Alice and her cousin Kate to George Vavasor. Now George remembered that Mr. Tombe was John Grey's lawyer. Out in the street he tried to put all these things together, and resolved that he would go to Mr. Tombe. What if there should be an understanding between John Grey and Alice, and Mr. Tombe should be arranging his money matters for him! He could endure to borrow money from Alice, though it was difficult after her treatment of him; but he could not endure to be the recipient of John Grey's money. By heavens, no! As he got into a cab, and was driven off to Doctors' Commons, he gave himself credit for much fine manly feeling. Mr. Tombe's chambers were found without difficulty, and, as it happened, Mr. Tombe was there. The lawyer rose from his chair as Vavasor entered, and meekly asked his visitor to sit down. "Mr. Vavasor; oh, yes. He had heard the name. Yes; he was in the habit of acting for his very old friend Mr. John Grey. He and his partner had acted for Mr. John Grey, and for Mr. John Grey's father, for about half a century." At every new sentence Mr. Tombe bowed his meek old head, and rubbed his hands together, and wheezed apologetically, and seemed to ask pardon of his visitor. But Mr. Tombe was a sly old fox, and was considering all this time how much he should tell Mr. Vavasor, and how much he should conceal. "The fat had got into the fire," as he told his old wife that evening. But while he was wheezing, and coughing, and apologizing, he made up his mind that if George Vavasor were to ask him certain questions, it would be best that he should answer them truly. Lying would not put the fat back into the frying pan. He would tell as little as he could; but he decided he could not lie with any chance of benefiting his client. "Can you tell me, Mr. Tombe, whether you have anything to do with the payment of certain sums to my credit at Messrs. Hock and Block's?" "The bankers in Lombard Street?" said Mr. Tombe, taking a little more time. "A most respectable house." "Has any money been paid there to my credit by you, Mr. Tombe?" "May I ask you why you put the question to me, Mr. Vavasor?" "Well, I don't think you may. If you have had no hand in any such payment, there is an end of it, and I need not take up any more of your time." "Well - upon my word, you've taken me a little by surprise. Let me see. Pinkle - Pinkle!" Pinkle was a clerk who sat in an inner room, and who now came in. "Pinkle, didn't we pay some money into Hock and Block's a few weeks since, to the credit of Mr. George Vavasor?" "Did we, sir?" said Pinkle, who knew that his employer was an old fox, and who, perhaps, had caught something of the fox nature himself. "I think we did. Just look, Pinkle, and see the date, and let me know all about it. It's fine bright weather for this time of year, Mr. Vavasor; but these easterly winds!" Mr. Tombe began to cough and wheeze. "Ugh - ugh - ugh!" Vavasor found himself sitting for interminable minutes in Mr. Tombe's dingy chamber, being coughed and wheezed at, till he begun to be tired of it; and he showed his impatience. "Perhaps you'll let us write you a line when we have looked into the matter?" suggested Mr. Tombe. "I'd rather know at once," said Vavasor. "I don't suppose it can take you very long to find out whether you have paid money to my account, by order of Mr. Grey. At any rate, I must know before I go away." "Pinkle, Pinkle!" screamed the old man through his coughing; and again Pinkle came in. "Well, Pinkle, was anything of the kind done, or is my memory deceiving me?" "I was going to look," said Pinkle; and he went away again. "I'm sorry to give your clerk so much trouble," said Vavasor angrily; "and I think it must be unnecessary. Surely you know whether Mr. Grey has commissioned you to pay money for me?" "We have so many things to do, Mr. Vavasor; and so many clients. We have, indeed. But I think there was something done." "What is Mr. John Grey's address?" asked Vavasor, very sharply. "Number 5, Suffolk Street, Pall Mall East," said Mr. Tombe. Herein he foolishly committed himself. Vavasor had known of Nethercoats, but he had not known John Grey's London address - or that John Grey was in London now. "Number 5, Suffolk Street," said Vavasor, writing it down. "Perhaps it will be better that I should go to him, as you do not seem inclined to give me any information." Then he took up his hat, and hardly bowing, left the room. "Pinkle, Pinkle," wheezed Mr. Tombe. "Never mind." Pinkle didn't mind; and he had never minded; for up to that moment he had taken no steps towards carrying out the order which had been given him.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 51: Bold Speculations on Murder

Parliament opened that year on the twelfth of February, and Mr. Palliser was one of the first Members of the Lower House to take his seat. It had been generally asserted through the country, during the last week, that the existing Chancellor of the Exchequer had, so to say, ceased to exist as such; that though he still existed to the outer world, drawing his salary, and doing routine work,--if a man so big can have any routine work to do,--he existed no longer in the inner world of the cabinet. He had differed, men said, with his friend and chief, the Prime Minister, as to the expediency of repealing what were left of the direct taxes of the country, and was prepared to launch himself into opposition with his small bodyguard of followers, with all his energy and with all his venom. There is something very pleasant in the close, bosom friendship, and bitter, uncompromising animosity, of these human gods,--of these human beings who would be gods were they not shorn so short of their divinity in that matter of immortality. If it were so arranged that the same persons were always friends, and the same persons were always enemies, as used to be the case among the dear old heathen gods and goddesses;--if Parliament were an Olympus in which Juno and Venus never kissed, the thing would not be nearly so interesting. But in this Olympus partners are changed, the divine bosom, now rabid with hatred against some opposing deity, suddenly becomes replete with love towards its late enemy, and exciting changes occur which give to the whole thing all the keen interest of a sensational novel. No doubt this is greatly lessened for those who come too near the scene of action. Members of Parliament, and the friends of Members of Parliament, are apt to teach themselves that it means nothing; that Lord This does not hate Mr. That, or think him a traitor to his country, or wish to crucify him; and that Sir John of the Treasury is not much in earnest when he speaks of his noble friend at the "Foreign Office" as a god to whom no other god was ever comparable in honesty, discretion, patriotism, and genius. But the outside Briton who takes a delight in politics,--and this description should include ninety-nine educated Englishmen out of every hundred,--should not be desirous of peeping behind the scenes. No beholder at any theatre should do so. It is good to believe in these friendships and these enmities, and very pleasant to watch their changes. It is delightful when Oxford embraces Manchester, finding that it cannot live without support in that quarter; and very delightful when the uncompromising assailant of all men in power receives the legitimate reward of his energy by being taken in among the bosoms of the blessed. But although the outer world was so sure that the existing Chancellor of the Exchequer had ceased to exist, when the House of Commons met that gentleman took his seat on the Treasury Bench. Mr. Palliser, who had by no means given a general support to the Ministry in the last Session, took his seat on the same side of the House indeed, but low down, and near to the cross benches. Mr. Bott sat close behind him, and men knew that Mr. Bott was a distinguished member of Mr. Palliser's party, whatever that party might be. Lord Cinquebars moved the Address, and I must confess that he did it very lamely. He was once accused by Mr. Maxwell, the brewer, of making a great noise in the hunting-field. The accusation could not be repeated as to his performance on this occasion, as no one could hear a word that he said. The Address was seconded by Mr. Loftus Fitzhoward, a nephew of the Duke of St. Bungay, who spoke as though he were resolved to trump poor Lord Cinquebars in every sentence which he pronounced,--as we so often hear the second clergyman from the Communion Table trumping his weary predecessor, who has just finished the Litany not in the clearest or most audible voice. Every word fell from Mr. Fitzhoward with the elaborate accuracy of a separate pistol-shot; and as he became pleased with himself in his progress, and warm with his work, he accented his words sharply, made rhetorical pauses, even moved his hands about in action, and quite disgusted his own party, who had been very well satisfied with Lord Cinquebars. There are many rocks which a young speaker in Parliament should avoid, but no rock which requires such careful avoiding as the rock of eloquence. Whatever may be his faults, let him at least avoid eloquence. He should not be inaccurate, which, however, is not much; he should not be long-winded, which is a good deal; he should not be ill-tempered, which is more; but none of these faults are so damnable as eloquence. All Mr. Fitzhoward's friends and all his enemies knew that he had had his chance, and that he had thrown it away. In the Queen's Speech there had been some very lukewarm allusion to remission of direct taxation. This remission, which had already been carried so far, should be carried further if such further carrying were found practicable. So had said the Queen. Those words, it was known, could not have been approved of by the energetic and still existing Chancellor of the Exchequer. On this subject the mover of the Address said never a word, and the seconder only a word or two. What they had said had, of course, been laid down for them; though, unfortunately, the manner of saying could not be so easily prescribed. Then there arose a great enemy, a man fluent of diction, apparently with deep malice at his heart, though at home,--as we used to say at school,--one of the most good-natured fellows in the world; one ambitious of that godship which a seat on the other side of the House bestowed, and greedy to grasp at the chances which this disagreement in the councils of the gods might give him. He was quite content, he said, to vote for the Address, as, he believed, would be all the gentlemen on his side of the House. No one could suspect them or him of giving a factious opposition to Government. Had they not borne and forborne beyond all precedent known in that House? Then he touched lightly, and almost with grace to his opponents, on many subjects, promising support, and barely hinting that they were totally and manifestly wrong in all things. But--. Then the tone of his voice changed, and the well-known look of fury was assumed upon his countenance. Then great Jove on the other side pulled his hat over his eyes, and smiled blandly. Then members put away the papers they had been reading for a moment, and men in the gallery began to listen. But--. The long and the short of it was this; that the existing Government had come into power on the cry of a reduction of taxation, and now they were going to shirk the responsibility of their own measures. They were going to shirk the responsibility of their own election cry, although it was known that their own Chancellor of the Exchequer was prepared to carry it out to the full. He was willing to carry it out to the full were he not restrained by the timidity, falsehood, and treachery of his colleagues, of whom, of course, the most timid, the most false, and the most treacherous was--the great god Jove, who sat blandly smiling on the other side. [Illustration: Great Jove.] No one should ever go near the House of Commons who wishes to enjoy all this. It was so manifestly evident that neither Jove nor any of his satellites cared twopence for what the irate gentleman was saying; nay, it became so evident that, in spite of his assumed fury, the gentleman was not irate. He intended to communicate his look of anger to the newspaper reports of his speech; and he knew from experience that he could succeed in that. And men walked about the House in the most telling moments,--enemies shaking hands with enemies,--in a way that showed an entire absence of all good, honest hatred among them. But the gentleman went on and finished his speech, demanding at last, in direct terms, that the Treasury Jove should state plainly to the House who was to be, and who was not to be, the bearer of the purse among the gods. Then Treasury Jove got up smiling, and thanked his enemy for the cordiality of his support. "He had always," he said, "done the gentleman's party justice for their clemency, and had feared no opposition from them; and he was glad to find that he was correct in his anticipations as to the course they would pursue on the present occasion." He went on saying a good deal about home matters, and foreign matters, proving that everything was right, just as easily as his enemy had proved that everything was wrong. On all these points he was very full, and very courteous; but when he came to the subject of taxation, he simply repeated the passage from the Queen's Speech, expressing a hope that his right honourable friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, would be able to satisfy the judgement of the House, and the wishes of the people. That specially personal question which had been asked he did not answer at all. But the House was still all agog, as was the crowded gallery. The energetic and still existing Chancellor of the Exchequer was then present, divided only by one little thin Secretary of State from Jove himself. Would he get up and declare his purposes? He was a man who almost always did get up when an opportunity offered itself,--or when it did not. Some second little gun was fired off from the Opposition benches, and then there was a pause. Would the purse-bearer of Olympus rise upon his wings and speak his mind, or would he sit in silence upon his cloud? There was a general call for the purse-bearer, but he floated in silence, and was inexplicable. The purse-bearer was not to be bullied into any sudden reading of the riddle. Then there came on a general debate about money matters, in which the purse-bearer did say a few words, but he said nothing as to the great question at issue. At last up got Mr. Palliser, towards the close of the evening, and occupied a full hour in explaining what taxes the Government might remit with safety, and what they might not,--Mr. Bott, meanwhile, prompting him with figures from behind with an assiduity that was almost too persistent. According to Mr. Palliser, the words used in the Queen's Speech were not at all too cautious. The Members went out gradually, and the House became very thin during this oration; but the newspapers declared, next morning, that his speech had been the speech of the night, and that the perspicuity of Mr. Palliser pointed him out as the coming man. He returned home to his house in Park Lane quite triumphant after his success, and found Lady Glencora, at about twelve o'clock, sitting alone. She had arrived in town on that day, having come up at her own request, instead of remaining at Matching Priory till after Easter, as he had proposed. He had wished her to stay, in order, as he had said, that there might be a home for his cousins. But she had expressed herself unwilling to remain without him, explaining that the cousins might have the home in her absence, as well as they could in her presence; and he had given way. But, in truth, she had learned to hate her cousin Iphy Palliser with a hatred that was unreasonable,--seeing that she did not also hate Alice Vavasor, who had done as much to merit her hatred as had her cousin. Lady Glencora knew by what means her absence from Monkshade had been brought about. Miss Palliser had told her all that had passed in Alice's bedroom on the last night of Alice's stay at Matching, and had, by so doing, contrived to prevent the visit. Lady Glencora understood well all that Alice had said: and yet, though she hated Miss Palliser for what had been done, she entertained no anger against Alice. Of course Alice would have prevented that visit to Monkshade if it were in her power to do so. Of course she would save her friend. It is hardly too much to say that Lady Glencora looked to Alice to save her. Nevertheless she hated Iphy Palliser for engaging herself in the same business. Lady Glencora looked to Alice to save her, and yet it may be doubted whether she did, in truth, wish to be saved. While she was at Matching, and before Mr. Palliser had returned from Monkshade, a letter reached her, by what means she had never learned. "A letter has been placed within my writing-case," she said to her maid, quite openly. "Who put it there?" The maid had declared her ignorance in a manner that had satisfied Lady Glencora of her truth. "If such a thing happens again," said Lady Glencora, "I shall be obliged to have the matter investigated. I cannot allow that anything should be put into my room surreptitiously." There, then, had been an end of that, as regarded any steps taken by Lady Glencora. The letter had been from Burgo Fitzgerald, and had contained a direct proposal that she should go off with him. "I am at Matching," the letter said, "at the Inn; but I do not dare to show myself, lest I should do you an injury. I walked round the house yesterday, at night, and I know that I saw your room. If I am wrong in thinking that you love me, I would not for worlds insult you by my presence; but if you love me still, I ask you to throw aside from you that fictitious marriage, and give yourself to the man whom, if you love him, you should regard as your husband." There had been more of it, but it had been to the same effect. To Lady Glencora it had seemed to convey an assurance of devoted love,--of that love which, in former days, her friends had told her was not within the compass of Burgo's nature. He had not asked her to meet him then, but saying that he would return to Matching after Parliament was met, begged her to let him have some means of knowing whether her heart was true to him. She told no one of the letter, but she kept it, and read it over and over again in the silence and solitude of her room. She felt that she was guilty in thus reading it,--even in keeping it from her husband's knowledge; but though conscious of this guilt, though resolute almost in its commission, still she determined not to remain at Matching after her husband's departure,--not to undergo the danger of remaining there while Burgo Fitzgerald should be in the vicinity. She could not analyse her own wishes. She often told herself, as she had told Alice, that it would be better for them all that she should go away; that in throwing herself even to the dogs, if such must be the result, she would do more of good than of harm. She declared to herself, in the most passionate words she could use, that she loved this man with all her heart. She protested that the fault would not be hers, but theirs, who had forced her to marry the man she did not love. She assured herself that her husband had no affection for her, and that their marriage was in every respect prejudicial to him. She recurred over and over again, in her thoughts, to her own childlessness, and to his extreme desire for an heir. "Though I do sacrifice myself," she would say, "I shall do more of good than harm, and I cannot be more wretched than I am now." But yet she fled to London because she feared to leave herself at Matching when Burgo Fitzgerald should be there. She sent no answer to his letter. She made no preparation for going with him. She longed to see Alice, to whom alone, since her marriage, had she ever spoken of her love, and intended to tell her the whole tale of that letter. She was as one who, in madness, was resolute to throw herself from a precipice, but to whom some remnant of sanity remained which forced her to seek those who would save her from herself. Mr. Palliser had not seen her since her arrival in London, and, of course, he took her by the hand and kissed her. But it was the embrace of a brother rather than of a lover or a husband. Lady Glencora, with her full woman's nature, understood this thoroughly, and appreciated by instinct the true bearing of every touch from his hand. "I hope you are well?" she said. "Oh, yes; quite well. And you? A little fatigued with your journey, I suppose?" "No; not much." "Well, we have had a debate on the Address. Don't you want to know how it has gone?" "If it has concerned you particularly, I do, of course." "Concerned me! It has concerned me certainly." "They haven't appointed you yet; have they?" "No; they don't appoint people during debates, in the House of Commons. But I fear I shall never make you a politician." "I'm almost afraid you never will. But I'm not the less anxious for your success, since you wish it yourself. I don't understand why you should work so very hard; but, as you like it, I'm as anxious as anybody can be that you should triumph." "Yes; I do like it," he said. "A man must like something, and I don't know what there is to like better. Some people can eat and drink all day; and some people can care about a horse. I can do neither." And there were others, Lady Glencora thought, who could love to lie in the sun, and could look up into the eyes of women, and seek their happiness there. She was sure, at any rate, that she knew one such. But she said nothing of this. "I spoke for a moment to Lord Brock," said Mr. Palliser. Lord Brock was the name by which the present Jove of the Treasury was known among men. "And what did Lord Brock say?" "He didn't say much, but he was very cordial." "But I thought, Plantagenet, that he could appoint you if he pleased? Doesn't he do it all?" "Well, in one sense, he does. But I don't suppose I shall ever make you understand." He endeavoured, however, to do so on the present occasion, and gave her a somewhat longer lecture on the working of the British Constitution, and the manner in which British politics evolved themselves, than would have been expected from most young husbands to their young wives under similar circumstances. Lady Glencora yawned, and strove lustily, but ineffectually, to hide her yawn in her handkerchief. "But I see you don't care a bit about it," said he, peevishly. "Don't be angry, Plantagenet. Indeed I do care about it, but I am so ignorant that I can't understand it all at once. I am rather tired, and I think I'll go to bed now. Shall you be late?" "No, not very; that is, I shall be rather late. I've a lot of letters I want to write to-night, as I must be at work all to-morrow. By-the-by, Mr. Bott is coming to dine here. There will be no one else." The next day was a Wednesday, and the House would not sit in the evening. "Mr. Bott!" said Lady Glencora, showing by her voice that she anticipated no pleasure from that gentleman's company. "Yes, Mr. Bott. Have you any objection?" "Oh, no. Would you like to dine alone with him?" "Why should I dine alone with him? Why shouldn't you eat your dinner with us? I hope you are not going to become fastidious, and to turn up your nose at people. Mrs. Marsham is in town, and I dare say she'll come to you if you ask her." But this was too much for Lady Glencora. She was disposed to be mild, but she could not endure to have her two duennas thus brought upon her together on the first day of her arrival in London. And Mrs. Marsham would be worse than Mr. Bott. Mr. Bott would be engaged with Mr. Palliser during the greater part of the evening. "I thought," said she, "of asking my cousin, Alice Vavasor, to spend the evening with me." "Miss Vavasor!" said the husband. "I must say that I thought Miss Vavasor--" He was going to make some allusion to that unfortunate hour spent among the ruins, but he stopped himself. "I hope you have nothing to say against my cousin?" said his wife. "She is my only near relative that I really care for;--the only woman, I mean." "No; I don't mean to say anything against her. She's very well as a young lady, I dare say. I would sooner that you would ask Mrs. Marsham to-morrow." Lady Glencora was standing, waiting to go away to her own room, but it was absolutely necessary that this matter should be decided before she went. She felt that he was hard to her, and unreasonable, and that he was treating her like a child who should not be allowed her own way in anything. She had endeavoured to please him, and, having failed, was not now disposed to give way. "As there will be no other ladies here to-morrow evening, Plantagenet, and as I have not yet seen Alice since I have been in town, I wish you would let me have my way in this. Of course I cannot have very much to say to Mrs. Marsham, who is an old woman." "I especially want Mrs. Marsham to be your friend," said he. "Friendships will not come by ordering, Plantagenet," said she. [Illustration: "Friendships will not come by ordering," said Lady Glencora.] "Very well," said he. "Of course, you will do as you please. I am sorry that you have refused the first favour I have asked you this year." Then he left the room, and she went away to bed.

Parliament opened that year on the twelfth of February, and Mr. Palliser was one of the first members of the House of Commons to take his seat. During the last week, rumour had spread through the country that the present Chancellor of the Exchequer had differed with the Prime Minister over repealing direct taxes, and that he was prepared to leave the Cabinet and launch himself into opposition with his small bodyguard of followers, with all his energy and venom. There is something very pleasant in the close friendship and bitter animosity of these human gods. If Parliamentary friendships and enmities never changed, the thing would not be nearly so interesting. But these sudden rabid hatreds or devout loves give to the whole thing all the keen interest of a sensational novel. No doubt this is greatly lessened for those too near the scene of action. The outside Briton who takes a delight in politics - and this should include ninety-nine educated Englishmen out of every hundred - should not desire to peep behind the scenes. No beholder at any theatre should do so. It is good to believe in these friendships and these enmities, and very pleasant to watch their changes. But although the outer world was so sure that the existing Chancellor of the Exchequer had ceased to exist, when the House of Commons met that gentleman took his seat on the Treasury Bench. Mr. Palliser took his seat on the same side of the House, but low down, near to the cross benches, with Mr. Bott close behind. Lord Cinquebars moved the Address, and I must confess that he did it very lamely. No one could hear a word that he said. The Address was seconded by Mr. Loftus Fitzhoward, a nephew of the Duke of St. Bungay, who spoke as though he were resolved to out-do poor Lord Cinquebars, so that every word fell from him with the elaborate accuracy of a pistol-shot. He made rhetorical pauses, and even gesticulated in a way that quite disgusted his own party. A young speaker in Parliament should be careful to avoid eloquence. All Mr. Fitzhoward's friends and enemies knew that he had had his chance, and that he had thrown it away. In the Queen's Speech there had been some very lukewarm allusion to remission of direct taxation. Those words could not have been approved of by the existing Chancellor of the Exchequer. Next there arose a great enemy, an ambitious, fluent man, apparently with deep malice at his heart, though one of the most good-natured fellows in the world. He was quite content, he said, to vote for the Address, as, he believed, would be all the gentlemen on his side of the House. Then he touched lightly and gracefully on many subjects of legislation, promising support, and just hinting that they were totally and manifestly wrong in all things. But- The tone of his voice changed, and he assumed a well-known look of fury. Members put away the papers they had been reading, and began to listen. But - the existing Government had come into power on the promise of a reduction of taxation, and now they were going to shirk the responsibility of their own promise. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was prepared to carry it out - but was restrained by the timidity and treachery of his colleagues, of whom, of course, the most timid and treacherous was - the great god Jove, who sat blandly smiling on the government side. It was obvious Jove did not care twopence for what the irate gentleman was saying; and in fact the gentleman was not irate. His look of anger was for the newspaper reports. But he finished his speech by demanding that Jove should state plainly to the House who was to be the bearer of the purse among the gods. Then got up smiling, and thanked his enemy. He spoke a good deal about home matters, and foreign matters, proving that everything was right just as easily as his enemy had proved that everything was wrong. When he came to the subject of taxation, he simply repeated the passage from the Queen's Speech, expressing a hope that his right honourable friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, would be able to satisfy the judgement of the House, and the wishes of the people. But the House was all agog, as was the crowded gallery. The energetic and still existing Chancellor of the Exchequer was divided only by one little thin Secretary of State from Jove himself. Would he get up and declare his purposes? No. He floated in silence, and was inexplicable. Then there was a general debate about money matters, in which the purse-bearer did say a few words, but nothing about the great question. At last up got Mr. Palliser, towards the close of the evening, and occupied a full hour in explaining what taxes the Government might remit with safety, and what they might not, Mr. Bott prompting him with figures from behind almost too assiduously. The Members went out gradually during this oration; but the newspapers declared, next morning, that his speech had been the speech of the night, and that Mr. Palliser was the coming man. He returned home to his house in Park Lane quite triumphant, and found Lady Glencora, at about twelve o'clock, sitting alone. She had arrived in town on that day, although he had wished her to stay at Matching Priory till after Easter, with his cousins. But she had said she was unwilling to remain without him, explaining that the cousins might have the home in her absence; and he had given way. In truth, she had learned to hate her cousin Iphy Palliser with an unreasonable hatred. Lady Glencora knew how her absence from Monkshade had been brought about. Miss Palliser had told her all that had passed in Alice's bedroom on the last night of her stay. Yet Lady Glencora had no anger against Alice. It is hardly too much to say that Lady Glencora looked to Alice to save her. Nevertheless she hated Iphy Palliser for engaging herself in the same business. And it may be doubted whether Lady Glencora did, in truth, wish to be saved. While she was at Matching, a letter reached her, by what means she never learned, although she suspected her maid of placing it inside her writing-case. The letter had been from Burgo Fitzgerald, and had contained a direct proposal that she should go off with him. "I am at Matching," the letter said, "at the Inn; but I do not dare to show myself. I walked round the house yesterday, at night, and I know that I saw your room. If you love me still, I ask you to throw aside that fictitious marriage, and give yourself to the man whom, if you love him, you should regard as your husband." To Lady Glencora the letter had seemed to assure devoted love - that love which, formerly, her friends had told her that Burgo was not capable of feeling. Saying that he would return to Matching after Parliament was met, he begged her to let him know whether her heart was true to him. She told no one of the letter, but she kept it, and read it over and over again in the silence of her room. She felt that she was guilty in thus reading it; but she determined not to undergo the danger of remaining at Matching while Burgo Fitzgerald was nearby. She could not analyse her own wishes. She often told herself, as she had told Alice, that it would be better for them all that she should go away. She declared to herself that she loved Burgo with all her heart. She protested that the fault would not be hers, but theirs, who had forced her to marry the man she did not love. She assured herself that her husband had no affection for her, and that their marriage was damaging to him. She recurred over and over again, in her thoughts, to her own childlessness, and to his extreme desire for an heir. "If I do sacrifice myself," she would say, "I shall do more good than harm, and I cannot be more wretched than I am now." Yet she fled to London rather than risk having Burgo Fitzgerald near. She sent no answer to his letter. She made no preparation for going with him. She longed to see Alice and to tell her about that letter. She was like one who, in madness, was resolved to throw herself from a precipice, but to whom some remnant of sanity remained which forced her to seek those who would save her from herself. Mr. Palliser had not seen her since her arrival in London, and of course, he took her by the hand and kissed her. But it was the embrace of a brother rather than a lover or a husband. Lady Glencora understood this thoroughly. "I hope you are well?" she said. "Oh, yes; quite well. And you? A little fatigued with your journey, I suppose?" "No; not much." "Well, we have had a debate on the Address. Don't you want to know how it has gone?" "If it has concerned you particularly, I do, of course." "It has concerned me certainly." "They haven't appointed you yet, have they?" "No; they don't appoint people during debates in the House of Commons. But I fear I shall never make you a politician." "I'm afraid you never will. But I'm not the less anxious for your success, since you wish it yourself. I don't understand why you should work so very hard; but, as you like it, I'm as anxious as anybody can be that you should triumph." "Yes; I do like it," he said. "A man must like something, and I don't know what there is to like better. I spoke for a moment to Lord Brock." This was the name of the present Jove. "And what did Lord Brock say?" "He didn't say much, but he was very cordial." "But I thought, Plantagenet, that he could appoint you if he pleased? Doesn't he decide it all?" "Well, in one sense, he does. But I don't suppose I shall ever make you understand." He tried, however, to do so, and gave her a somewhat longer lecture on the working of the British Constitution than would have been expected from most young husbands to their young wives. Lady Glencora yawned, and tried to hide her yawn in her handkerchief. "But I see you don't care a bit about it," said he, peevishly. "Don't be angry, Plantagenet. Indeed I do care about it, but I am so ignorant that I can't understand it all at once. I am rather tired, and I think I'll go to bed now. Shall you be late?" "No, not very; that is, I shall be rather late. I've a lot of letters I want to write tonight, By-the-by, Mr. Bott is coming to dine tomorrow." "Mr. Bott!" said Lady Glencora with displeasure. "Have you any objection?" "Oh, no. Would you like to dine alone with him?" "Why should I dine alone with him? Why shouldn't you eat your dinner with us? I hope you are not going to become fastidious, and to turn up your nose at people. Mrs. Marsham is in town, and I dare say she'll come if you ask her." But this was too much for Lady Glencora. She could not endure to have her two duennas together on the first day of her arrival in London. And Mrs. Marsham would be worse than Mr. Bott, who would be talking to Mr. Palliser most of the evening. "I thought," said she, "of asking my cousin, Alice Vavasor, to spend the evening with me." "Miss Vavasor!" said the husband. "I must say that I thought Miss Vavasor-" He was going to allude to that unfortunate hour spent among the ruins, but he stopped himself. "I hope you have nothing to say against my cousin?" said his wife. "No; I don't mean to say anything against her. But I would rather that you would ask Mrs. Marsham tomorrow." Lady Glencora felt that he was hard on her, and unreasonable, and that he was treating her like a child who should not be allowed her own way in anything. She had tried to please him, and, having failed, was not now disposed to give way. "As there will be no other ladies here tomorrow evening, Plantagenet, and as I have not yet seen Alice since I have been in town, I wish you would let me have my way in this. I cannot have very much to say to Mrs. Marsham, who is an old woman." "I especially want Mrs. Marsham to be your friend," said he. "Friendships will not come by ordering, Plantagenet," said she. "Very well," said he. "Of course, you will do as you please. I am sorry that you have refused the first favour I have asked you this year." Then he left the room, and she went away to bed.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 42: Parliament Meets

The second week in July saw Mr. Palliser's party, carriage and all, established at Lucerne, in Switzerland, safe beyond the reach of the German gambling tables. Alice Vavasor was still with them; and the reader will therefore understand that that quarrel about Lady Glencora's wickedness had been settled without any rupture. It had been settled amicably, and by the time that they had reached Lucerne, Alice was inclined to acknowledge that the whole thing was not worth notice; but for many days her anger against Mr. Palliser had not been removed, and her intimacy with him had been much checked. It was now a month since the occurrence of that little scene in the salon at Baden, which was described in the last chapter,--since Mr. Palliser had marched off with his wife, leaving Alice to follow as she best could by herself. After that, as the reader may remember, he had almost told her that she was to be blamed because of his wife's indiscretion; and when she had declared her intention of leaving him, and making her way home to England by herself, he had answered her not at all, and had allowed her to go off to her own room under the full ban of his displeasure. Since that he had made no apology to her; he had not, in so many words, acknowledged that he had wronged her; but Alice had become aware that he intended to apologize by his conduct, and she had been content so far to indulge his obstinacy as to accept this conduct on his part in lieu of any outspoken petition for pardon. The acknowledgement of a mistake and the asking for grace is almost too much for any woman to expect from such a man as Mr. Palliser. Early on the morning after the scene in question, Lady Glencora had gone into Alice's bedroom, and had found her cousin in her dressing-gown, packing up her things, or looking as though she intended to do so. "You are not such a fool," she said, "as to think anything of what occurred yesterday?" Alice assured her that, whether fool or not, she did think a great deal of it. "In point of fact," said Alice, "I can't stand it. He expects me to take care of you, and chooses to show himself offended if you don't do just what he thinks proper; whereas, as you know well enough, I have not the slightest influence over you." All these positions Lady Glencora contradicted vigorously. Of course, Mr. Palliser had been wrong in walking out of the Assembly Rooms as he had done, leaving Alice behind him. So much Lady Glencora admitted. But this had come of his intense anxiety. "And you know what a man he is," said his wife--"how stiff, and hard, and unpleasant he can be without meaning it."--"There is no reason why I should bear his unpleasantness," said Alice. "Yes, there is,--great reason. You are to do it for the sake of friendship. And as for my not doing what you tell me, you know that's not true." "Did I not beg you to keep away from the table?" "Of course you did, and of course I was naughty; but that was only once. Alice, I want you more than I ever wanted you before. I cannot tell you more now, but you must stay with me." Alice consented to come down to breakfast without any immediate continuance of her active preparations for going, and at last, of course, she stayed. When she entered the breakfast-room Mr. Palliser came up to her, and offered her his hand. She had no alternative but to take it, and then seated herself. That there was an intended apology in the manner in which he offered her toast and butter, she was convinced; and the special courtesy with which he handed her to the carriage, when she and Lady Glencora went out for their drive, after dinner, was almost as good as a petition for pardon. So the thing went on, and by degrees Mr. Palliser and Miss Vavasor were again friends. But Alice never knew in what way the matter was settled between Mr. Palliser and his wife, or whether there was any such settling. Probably there was none. "Of course, he understands that it didn't mean anything," Lady Glencora had said. "He knows that I don't want to gamble." But let that be as it might, their sojourn at Baden was curtailed, and none of the party went up again to the Assembly Rooms before their departure. Before establishing themselves at Lucerne they made a little tour round by the Falls of the Rhine and Zurich. In their preparations for this journey, Alice made a struggle, but a struggle in vain, to avoid a passage through Basle. It was only too clear to her that Mr. Palliser was determined to go by Basle. She could not bring herself to say that she had recollections connected with that place which would make a return to it unpleasant to her. If she could have said as much, even to Glencora, Mr. Palliser would no doubt have gone round,--round by any more distant route that might have been necessary to avoid that eternal gateway into Switzerland. But she could not say it. She was very averse to talking about herself and her own affairs, even with her cousin. Of course Lady Glencora knew the whole story of Mr. John Grey and his rejection,--and knew much also of that other story of Mr. George Vavasor. And, of course, like all Alice's friends, she hated George Vavasor, and was prepared to receive Mr. John Grey with open arms, if there were any possibility that her cousin would open her arms to him also. But Alice was so stubborn about her own affairs that her friend found it almost impossible to speak of them. "It is not that you trouble me," Alice once said, "but that you trouble yourself about that which is of no use. It is all done and over; and though I know that I have behaved badly,--very badly,--yet I believe that everything has been done for the best. I am inclined to think that I can live alone, or perhaps with my cousin Kate, more happily than I could with any husband." "That is such nonsense." "Perhaps so; but, at any rate, I mean to try. We Vavasors don't seem to be good at marrying." "You want some one to break your heart for you; that's what you want," said Lady Glencora. In saying this she knew but little of the state of her friend's heart, and perhaps was hardly capable of understanding it. With all the fuss that Lady Glencora made to herself,--with all the tears that she had shed about her lost lover, and was so often shedding,--with all her continual thinking of the matter, she had never loved Burgo Fitzgerald as Alice Vavasor had loved Mr. Grey. But her nature was altogether different to that of Alice. Love with her had in it a gleam of poetry, a spice of fun, a touch of self-devotion, something even of hero-worship; but with it all there was a dash of devilry, and an aptitude almost for wickedness. She knew Burgo Fitzgerald to be a scapegrace, and she liked him the better on that account. She despised her husband because he had no vices. She would have given everything she had to Burgo,--pouring her wealth upon him with a total disregard of herself, had she been allowed to do so. She would have forgiven him sin after sin, and might perhaps have brought him round, at last, to some life not absolutely reckless and wretched. But in all that she might have done, there would have been no thoughtfulness,--no true care either for him or for herself. And now that she was married there was no thoughtfulness, or care either for herself or for her husband. She was ready to sacrifice herself for him, if any sacrifice might be required of her. She believed herself to be unfit for him, and would have submitted to be divorced,--or smothered out of the way, for the matter of that,--if the laws of the land would have permitted it. But she had never for a moment given to herself the task of thinking what conduct on her part might be the best for his welfare. But Alice's love had been altogether of another kind,--and I am by no means sure that it was better suited for the work of this work-a-day world than that of her cousin. It was too thoughtful. I will not say that there was no poetry in it, but I will say that it lacked romance. Its poetry was too hard for romance. There was certainly in it neither fun nor wickedness; nor was there, I fear, so large a proportion of hero-worship as there always should be in a girl's heart when she gives it away. But there was in it an amount of self-devotion which none of those near to her had hitherto understood,--unless it were that one to whom the understanding of it was of the most importance. In all the troubles of her love, of her engagements, and her broken promises, she had thought more of others than of herself,--and, indeed, those troubles had chiefly come from that self-devotion. She had left John Grey because she feared that she would do him no good as his wife,--that she would not make him happy; and she had afterwards betrothed herself for a second time to her cousin, because she believed that she could serve him by marrying him. Of course she had been wrong. She had been very wrong to give up the man she did love, and more wrong again in suggesting to herself the possibility of marrying the man she did not love. She knew that she had been wrong in both, and was undergoing repentance with very bitter inward sackcloth. But she said little of all this even to her cousin. They went to Lucerne by Basle, and put up at the big hotel with the balcony over the Rhine, which Alice remembered so well. On the first evening of her arrival she found herself again looking down upon the river, as though it might have been from the same spot which she had occupied together with George and Kate. But, in truth, that house is very large, and has many bedrooms over the water. Who has ever been through Basle, and not stood in one of them, looking down upon the father of waters? Here, on this very spot, in one of these balconies, was brought to her a letter from her cousin Kate, which was filled with tidings respecting her cousin George. Mr. Palliser brought it to her with his own hands, and she had no other alternative but to read it in his presence. "George has lost his election," the letter began. For one moment Alice thought of her money, and the vain struggle in which it had been wasted. For one moment, something like regret for the futility of the effort she had made came upon her. But it passed away at once. "It was worth our while to try it," she said to herself, and then went on with her letter. "I and Aunt Greenow are up in London," the letter went on to say, "and have just heard the news. Though I have been here for three days, and have twice sent word to him to say so, he has not been near me. Perhaps it is best that he should stay away, as I do not know how any words could pass between us that would be pleasant. The poll was finished this afternoon, and he lost his election by a large majority. There were five candidates altogether for the two seats--three Liberals, and two Conservatives. The other two Liberals were seated, and he was the last of the five. I continue to hear tidings about him from day to day,--or rather, my aunt hears them and tells them to me, which fill me full of fears as to his future career. I believe that he has abandoned his business, and that he has now no source of income. I would willingly share what I have with him; or I would do more than that. After keeping back enough to repay you gradually what he owes you, I would give him all my share of the income out of the estate. But I cannot do this while we are presumed to be enemies. I am up here to see a lawyer as to some steps which he is taking to upset grandpapa's will. The lawyer says that it is all nonsense, and that George's lawyer is not really in earnest; but I cannot do anything till the matter is settled. Dear Alice, though so much of your money is for a time gone, I am bound to congratulate you on your safety,--on what I may more truly call your escape. You will understand what my own feelings must be in writing this, after all that I did to bring you and him together,--after all my hopes and ambition respecting him. As for the money, it shall be repaid. I do not think I shall ever dare to indulge in any strong desire again. I think you will forgive me the injury I have done you;--and I know that you will pity me. "I am here to see the London lawyer,--but not only for that. Aunt Greenow is buying her wedding clothes, and Captain Bellfield is in lodgings near to us, also buying his trousseau; or, as I should more properly say, having it bought for him. I am hardly in a mood for much mirth, but it is impossible not to laugh inwardly when she discusses before me the state of his wardrobe, and proposes economical arrangements--greatly to his disgust. At present, she holds him very tightly in hand, and makes him account for all his hours as well as all his money. 'Of course, he'll run wild directly he's married,' she said to me, yesterday; 'and, of course, there'll always be a fight about it; but the more I do to tame him now, the less wild he'll be by-and-by. And though I dare say, I shall scold him sometimes, I shall never quarrel with him.' I have no doubt all that is true; but what a fool she is to trouble herself with such a man. She says she does it for an occupation. I took courage to tell her once that a caged tiger would give her as much to do, and be less dangerous. She was angry at this, and answered me very sharply. I had tried my hand on a tiger, she said, and had felt his claws. She chose to sacrifice herself,--if a sacrifice it were to be,--when some good result might be possible. I had nothing further to say; and from that time to this we have been on the pleasantest terms possible as to the Captain. They have settled with your father to take Vavasor Hall for three years, and I suppose I shall stay with them till your return. What I may do then will depend entirely upon your doings. I feel myself to be a desolate, solitary being, without any tie to any person, or to any place. I never thought that I should feel the death of my grandfather to be such a loss to me as it has been. Except you, I have nothing left to me; and, as regards you, I have the unpleasant feeling that I have for years been endeavouring to do you the worst possible injury, and that you must regard me as an enemy from whom you have escaped indeed, but not without terrible wounds." Alice was always angered by any assumption that her conduct to Mr. Grey had been affected by the advice or influence of her cousin Kate. But this very feeling seemed to preserve Kate from the worse anger, which might have been aroused against her, had Alice acknowledged the injury which her cousin had in truth done to her. It was undoubtedly true that had Alice neither seen nor heard from Kate during the progress of John Grey's courtship, John Grey would not have lost his wife. But against this truth Alice was always protesting within her own breast. She had been weak, foolish, irresolute,--and had finally acted with false judgement. So much she now admitted to herself. But she would not admit that any other woman had persuaded her to such weakness. "She mistakes me," Alice thought, as she put up her letter. "She is not the enemy who has wounded me." Mr. Palliser, who had brought her the letter, was seated in the same balcony, and while Alice had been reading, had almost buried himself in newspapers which conveyed intelligence as to the general elections then in progress. He was now seated with a sheet of _The Times_ in his hand, opened to its full extent,--for he had been too impatient to cut the paper,--and as he held it up in his hands before his eyes, was completely hidden beneath it. Five or six other open papers were around him, and he had not spoken a word since he had commenced his present occupation. Lady Glencora was standing on the other side of him, and she also had received letters. "Sophy tells me that you are returned for Silverbridge," she said at last. "Who? I! yes; I'm returned," said Mr. Palliser, speaking with something like disdain in his voice as to the possibility of anybody having stood with a chance of success against him in his own family borough. For a full appreciation of the advantages of a private seat in the House of Commons let us always go to those great Whig families who were mainly instrumental in carrying the Reform Bill. The house of Omnium had been very great on that occasion. It had given up much, and had retained for family use simply the single seat at Silverbridge. But that that seat should be seriously disputed hardly suggested itself as possible to the mind of any Palliser. The Pallisers and the other great Whig families have been right in this. They have kept in their hands, as rewards for their own services to the country, no more than the country is manifestly willing to give them. "Yes; I have been returned," said Mr. Palliser. "I'm sorry to see, Miss Vavasor, that your cousin has not been so fortunate." "So I find," said Alice. "It will be a great misfortune to him." "Ah! I suppose so. Those Metropolitan elections cost so much trouble and so much money, and under the most favourable circumstances, are so doubtful. A man is never sure there till he has fought for his seat three or four times." "This has been the third time with him," said Alice, "and he is a poor man." "Dear, dear," said Mr. Palliser, who himself knew nothing of such misfortunes. "I have always thought that those seats should be left to rich commercial men who can afford to spend money upon them. Instead of that, they are generally contested by men of moderate means. Another of my friends in the House has been thrown out." "Who is that unfortunate?" asked Lady Glencora. "Mr. Bott," said the unthinking husband. "Mr. Bott out!" exclaimed Lady Glencora. "Mr. Bott thrown out! I am so glad. Alice, are you not glad? The red-haired man, that used to stand about, you know, at Matching;--he has lost his seat in Parliament. I suppose he'll go and stand about somewhere in Lancashire, now." A very indiscreet woman was poor Lady Glencora. Mr. Palliser's face became black beneath _The Times_ newspaper. "I did not know," said he, "that my friend Mr. Bott and Miss Vavasor were enemies." "Enemies! I don't suppose they were enemies," said Glencora. "But he was a man whom no one could help observing,--and disliking." "He was a man I specially disliked," said Alice, with great courage. "He may be very well in Parliament; but I never met a man who could make himself so disagreeable in society. I really did feel myself constrained to be his enemy." "Bravo, Alice!" said Lady Glencora. "I hope he did nothing at Matching, to--to--to--," began Mr. Palliser, apologetically. "Nothing especially to offend me, Mr. Palliser,--except that he had a way that I especially dislike of trying to make little secret confidences." "And then he was so ugly," said Lady Glencora. "I felt certain that he endeavoured to do mischief," said Alice. "Of course he did," said Lady Glencora; "and he had a habit of rubbing his head against the papers in the rooms, and leaving a mark behind him that was quite unpardonable." Mr. Palliser was effectually talked down, and felt himself constrained to abandon his political ally. Perhaps he did this the easier as the loss which Mr. Bott had just suffered would materially interfere with his political utility. "I suppose he will remain now among his own people," said Mr. Palliser. "Let us hope he will," said Lady Glencora,--"and that his own people will appreciate the advantage of his presence." Then there was nothing more said about Mr. Bott. It was evening, and while they were still sitting among their letters and newspapers, there came a shout along the water, and the noise of many voices from the bridge. Suddenly, there shot down before them in the swift running stream the heads of many swimmers in the river, and with the swimmers came boats carrying their clothes. They went by almost like a glance of light upon the waters, so rapid was the course of the current. There was the shout of voices,--the quick passage of the boats,--the uprising, some half a dozen times, of the men's hands above the surface; and then they were gone down the river, out of sight,--like morsels of wood thrown into a cataract, which are borne away instantly. "Oh, how I wish I could do that!" said Lady Glencora. "It seems to be very dangerous," said Mr. Palliser. "I don't know how they can stop themselves." "Why should they want to stop themselves?" said Lady Glencora. "Think how cool the water must be, and how beautiful to be carried along so quickly, and to go on, and on, and on! I suppose we couldn't try it?" As no encouragement was given to this proposition, Lady Glencora did not repeat it; but stood leaning on the rail of the balcony, and looking enviously down upon the water. Alice was, of course, thinking of that other evening, when perhaps the same swimmers had come down under the bridge and before the balcony, and where George Vavasor was sitting in her presence. It was, I think, on that evening, that she made up her mind to separate herself from Mr. Grey. On the day after that, Mr. Palliser and his party went on to Lucerne, making that journey, as I have said, by slow stages; taking Schaffhausen and Zurich in their way. At Lucerne, they established themselves for some time, occupying nearly a dozen rooms in the great hotel which overlooks the lake. Here there came to them a visitor, of whose arrival I will speak in the next chapter.

The second week in July saw Mr. Palliser's party established at Lucerne, in Switzerland, safe beyond the reach of the German gambling tables. Alice Vavasor was still with them; for the quarrel about Lady Glencora's wickedness had been settled amicably. However, for many days Alice's anger against Mr. Palliser had not been removed, and her intimacy with him had been much checked. It was now a month since that little scene in the salon at Baden, which was described in the last chapter. Mr. Palliser had made no apology to her; but Alice had become aware that he intended to apologize by his conduct, and she had been content to accept this conduct in lieu of any spoken request for pardon. The acknowledgement of a mistake and the asking for forgiveness is almost too much for any woman to expect from such a man as Mr. Palliser. Early on the morning after the scene in question, Lady Glencora had gone into Alice's bedroom, and had found her cousin packing up her things. "You are not such a fool," she said, "as to think anything of what happened yesterday?" Alice assured her that, whether fool or not, she did think a great deal of it. "In fact," she said, "I can't stand it. He expects me to take care of you, and is offended if you don't do just what he thinks proper; while, as you know well enough, I have not the slightest influence over you." Lady Glencora contradicted this vigorously. Mr. Palliser had been anxious. "And you how know how stiff, and hard, and unpleasant he can be without meaning it," said his wife. "There is no reason why I should bear his unpleasantness," said Alice. "Yes, there is - friendship. And as for my not doing what you tell me, you know that's not true." "Did I not beg you to keep away from the table?" "Of course you did, and of course I was naughty; but that was only once. Alice, I want you more than I ever wanted you before. I cannot tell you more now, but you must stay with me." Alice consented to come down to breakfast without continuing her packing, and at last, of course, she stayed. When she entered the breakfast-room Mr. Palliser came up and offered her his hand. She had no alternative but to take it. There was an intended apology in the manner in which he offered her toast and butter; and he treated her with special courtesy when he handed her to the carriage for their drive. So by degrees Mr. Palliser and Miss Vavasor were again friends. But Alice never knew how the matter was settled between Mr. Palliser and his wife, or whether there was any such settling. "Of course, he knows that I don't want to gamble," Lady Glencora had said. All the same, none of them went to the Assembly Rooms again before their departure. Before establishing themselves at Lucerne they made a little tour by the Falls of the Rhine and Zurich. Alice had made a struggle, but in vain, to avoid a passage through Basle. It was clear that Mr. Palliser was determined to go by Basle, and she could not bring herself to say that she had unpleasant memories connected with that place. She was very averse to talking about herself and her own affairs, even with her cousin. Of course Lady Glencora knew the whole story of Mr. John Grey and George Vavasor. And, of course, like all Alice's friends, she hated George Vavasor, and was prepared to receive Mr. John Grey with open arms, if there were any possibility that her cousin would open her arms to him also. But Alice was so stubborn about her own affairs that her friend found it almost impossible to speak of them. "It is all over and done," Alice once said; "and though I know that I have behaved badly, yet I believe everything has been for the best. I am inclined to think that I can live alone, or perhaps with my cousin Kate, more happily than I could with any husband." "That is such nonsense." "Perhaps; but, at any rate, I mean to try. We Vavasors don't seem to be good at marrying." "You want someone to break your heart for you," said Lady Glencora. She understood little of the state of her friend's heart; for with all the tears that Lady Glencora had shed about her lost lover, and her continual thinking of the matter, she had never loved Burgo Fitzgerald as Alice Vavasor had loved Mr. Grey. But her nature was altogether different to Alice's. Love with her had in it a gleam of poetry, a spice of fun, something even of hero-worship; but with it all there was a dash of devilry, and almost wickedness. She knew Burgo Fitzgerald to be a scapegrace, and she liked him the better on that account. She despised her husband because he had no vices. She would have given everything she had to Burgo; but in all that she might have done for him, there would have been no thoughtfulness - no true care. And now that she was married there was no thoughtfulness or care either for herself or for her husband. She was ready to sacrifice herself for him, if necessary. She believed herself to be unfit for him, and would have submitted to be divorced. But she had never for a moment set herself the task of thinking what conduct on her part might be best for his welfare. Alice's love had been altogether of another kind - and it lacked romance. There was certainly in it neither fun nor wickedness; nor was there, I fear, so much hero-worship as there should be in a girl's heart when she gives it away. But in all the troubles of her love, she had thought more of others than of herself; and, indeed, those troubles had chiefly come from that. She had left John Grey because she feared that she would do him no good as his wife; and she had betrothed herself for a second time to her cousin, because she believed that she could help him by marrying him. Of course she had been wrong on both counts. She knew it, was undergoing bitter repentance. But she said little of all this to her cousin. They went through Basle, and stayed at the big hotel with the balcony over the Rhine, which Alice remembered so well. On the first evening of her arrival she found herself again looking down upon the river. Here, on one of these balconies, was brought to her a letter from her cousin Kate, which was filled with news about her cousin George. Mr. Palliser brought it, and she had no alternative but to read it in his presence. "George has lost his election," the letter began. For one moment Alice thought of her money, and the vain struggle in which it had been wasted. She felt a fleeting regret for the futility of the effort. But it passed away at once. "It was worth our while to try it," she said to herself, and then went on with her letter. "I and Aunt Greenow are up in London," the letter said, "and have just heard the news. Though I have been here for three days, and have twice sent word to him, he has not been near me. Perhaps it is best that he should stay away, as I do not know how any pleasant words could pass between us. He lost by a large majority. There were five candidates altogether for the two seats, and he was the last of the five. I continue to hear news about him - or rather, my aunt hears and tells me - which fills me with fear about his future career. I believe that he has abandoned his business, and has no source of income. I would willingly share what I have with him; or I would give him all my share of the income out of the estate. But I cannot do this while we are presumed to be enemies. I am in London to see a lawyer about some steps which George is taking to upset grandpapa's will. The lawyer says that it is all nonsense, and that George's lawyer is not really in earnest; but I cannot do anything till the matter is settled. "Dear Alice, though so much of your money is gone, I must congratulate you on your escape. You will understand what I feel in writing this, after all that I did to bring you and him together - after all my hopes and ambitions. The money shall be repaid. I think you will forgive me the injury I have done you; and I know that you will pity me. "Aunt Greenow is buying her wedding clothes, and Captain Bellfield is in lodgings near to us, also buying his trousseau; or, I should say, having it bought for him. I am hardly in a mood for mirth, but it is impossible not to laugh inwardly when she discusses the state of his wardrobe, and proposes economies - greatly to his disgust. She holds him very tightly in hand, and makes him account for all his hours as well as all his money. "'Of course, he'll run wild directly he's married,' she said to me, yesterday; 'but the more I tame him now, the less wild he'll be by-and-by. And though I shall scold him sometimes, I shall never quarrel with him.' I have no doubt all that is true; but what a fool she is to trouble herself with such a man. She says she does it for an occupation. I took courage to tell her once that a caged tiger would give her as much to do; and she answered me very sharply. I had tried my hand on a tiger, she said, and had felt his claws. She chose to sacrifice herself when some good result might be possible. I had nothing further to say; and since then we have been on the pleasantest terms about the Captain. "They have arranged with your father to take Vavasor Hall for three years, and I suppose I shall stay with them till your return. What I may do then will depend entirely upon your doings. I feel myself to be a desolate, solitary being, without any tie. I never thought that I should feel the death of my grandfather to be such a loss. Apart from you, I have nothing left to me; and I have the unpleasant feeling that I have for years been trying to do you the worst possible injury, and that you must regard me as an enemy from whom you have escaped, but not without terrible wounds." It was undoubtedly true that if Alice had neither seen nor heard from Kate during John Grey's courtship, John Grey would not have lost his wife. But Alice protested against this truth within her own breast. She had been weak and foolish; but she would not admit that any other woman had persuaded her to such weakness. "She mistakes me," Alice thought. "She is not the enemy who has wounded me." While Alice had been reading, Mr. Palliser had almost buried himself in newspapers which held news about the elections. He was now completely hidden behind a sheet of the Times, and had not spoken a word since he had begun reading. Lady Glencora had also received letters. "Sophy tells me that you are returned for Silverbridge," she said at last. "What? yes; I'm returned," said Mr. Palliser, speaking with something like disdain about the possibility of anything else in his own family borough. The house of Omnium had been very great in carrying out the Reform Bill. It had given up much, and had retained for family use simply the single seat at Silverbridge. But that that seat should be seriously disputed hardly suggested itself as possible to the mind of any Palliser. "I'm sorry to see, Miss Vavasor, that your cousin has not been so fortunate," he said. "So I find," said Alice. "It will be a great misfortune to him." "Those Metropolitan elections cost so much trouble and money, and are so doubtful. A man is never sure there till he has fought for his seat three or four times." "This has been the third time with him," said Alice, "and he is a poor man." "Dear, dear," said Mr. Palliser, who knew nothing of such misfortunes. "I have always thought that those seats should be left to rich commercial men who can afford to spend money upon them. Instead of that, they are generally contested by men of moderate means. Another of my friends in the House has been thrown out." "Who?" asked Lady Glencora. "Mr. Bott," said the unthinking husband. "Mr. Bott out!" exclaimed Lady Glencora. "I am so glad. Alice, are you not glad? The red-haired man, that used to stand about, you know, at Matching. I suppose he'll go and stand about somewhere in Lancashire, now." "I did not know," said Mr. Palliser stiffly, "that my friend Mr. Bott and Miss Vavasor were enemies." "Enemies! I don't suppose they were enemies," said Glencora. "But he was a man whom no one could help disliking." "He was a man I specially disliked," said Alice, with great courage. "He may be very well in Parliament; but I never met a man who could make himself so disagreeable in society. I really did feel myself constrained to be his enemy." "Bravo, Alice!" said Lady Glencora. "I hope he did nothing at Matching, to - to -" began Mr. Palliser. "Nothing especially to offend me, Mr. Palliser - except that he had an unpleasant way of trying to make little secret confidences. I felt certain that he was trying to do mischief," said Alice. "Of course he was," said Lady Glencora; "and he had a habit of rubbing his head against the wallpaper, and leaving a mark that was quite unpardonable." Mr. Palliser felt himself forced to abandon his political ally. Perhaps this was easier now that Mr. Bott had lost his seat. It was evening, and while they were still sitting among their letters and newspapers, there came a shout along the water, and the noise of voices from the bridge. Suddenly, there shot down before them in the swift running stream the heads of many swimmers in the river, alongside boats carrying their clothes. They went by almost like a glance of light upon the waters, so rapid was the current. "Oh, how I wish I could do that!" said Lady Glencora. "It seems to be very dangerous," said Mr. Palliser. "I don't know how they can stop themselves." "Why should they want to stop themselves?" said Lady Glencora. "Think how cool the water must be, and how beautiful to be carried along so quickly!" She stood leaning on the rail of the balcony, and looking enviously down upon the water. Alice was, of course, thinking of that other evening, when George Vavasor was with her - and when she made up her mind to separate herself from Mr. Grey. The next day, Mr. Palliser and his party went on to Lucerne, making that journey by slow stages via Schaffhausen and Zurich. At Lucerne, they stayed for some time in the great hotel which overlooks the lake. Here there came to them a visitor.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 69: From Baden to Lucerne

These arrangements as to the return of Mr. Palliser's party to London did not, of course, include Mr. Grey. They were generally discussed in Mr. Grey's absence, and communicated to him by Mr. Palliser. "I suppose we shall see you in England before long?" said Mr. Palliser. "I shall be able to tell you that before you go," said Grey. "Not but that in any event I shall return to England before the winter." "Then come to us at Matching," said Mr. Palliser. "We shall be most happy to have you. Say that you'll come for the first fortnight in December. After that we always go to the Duke, in Barsetshire. Though, by-the-by, I don't suppose we shall go anywhere this year," Mr. Palliser added, interrupting the warmth of his invitation, and reflecting that, under the present circumstances, perhaps, it might be improper to have any guests at Matching in December. But he had become very fond of Mr. Grey, and on this occasion, as he had done on some others, pressed him warmly to make an attempt at Parliament. "It isn't nearly so difficult as you think," said he, when Grey declared that he would not know where to look for a seat. "See the men that get in. There was Mr. Vavasor. Even he got a seat." "But he had to pay for it very dearly." "You might easily find some quiet little borough." "Quiet little boroughs have usually got their own quiet little Members," said Grey. "They're fond of change; and if you like to spend a thousand pounds, the thing isn't difficult. I'll put you in the way of it." But Mr. Grey still declined. He was not a man prone to be talked out of his own way of life, and the very fact that George Vavasor had been in Parliament would of itself have gone far towards preventing any attempt on his part in that direction. Alice had also wanted him to go into public life, but he had put aside her request as though the thing were quite out of the question,--never giving a moment to its consideration. Had she asked him to settle himself and her in Central Africa, his manner and mode of refusal would have been the same. It was this immobility on his part,--this absolute want of any of the weakness of indecision, which had frightened her, and driven her away from him. He was partly aware of this; but that which he had declined to do at her solicitation, he certainly would not do at the advice of any one else. So it was that he argued the matter with himself. Had he now allowed himself to be so counselled, with what terrible acknowledgements of his own faults must he not have presented himself before Alice? "I suppose books, then, will be your object in life?" said Mr. Palliser. "I hope they will be my aids," Grey answered. "I almost doubt whether any object such as that you mean is necessary for life, or even expedient. It seems to me that if a man can so train himself that he may live honestly and die fearlessly, he has done about as much as is necessary." "He has done a great deal, certainly," said Mr. Palliser, who was not ready enough to carry on the argument as he might have done had more time been given to him to consider it. He knew very well that he himself was working for others, and not for himself; and he was aware, though he had not analysed his own convictions on the matter, that good men struggle as they do in order that others, besides themselves, may live honestly, and, if possible, die fearlessly. The recluse of Nethercoats had thought much more about all this than the rising star of the House of Commons; but the philosophy of the rising star was the better philosophy of the two, though he was by far the less brilliant man. "I don't see why a man should not live honestly and be a Member of Parliament as well," continued Mr. Palliser, when he had been silent for a few minutes. "Nor I either," said Grey. "I am sure that there are such men, and that the country is under great obligation to them. But they are subject to temptations which a prudent man like myself may perhaps do well to avoid." But though he spoke with an assured tone, he was shaken, and almost regretted that he did not accept the aid which was offered to him. It is astonishing how strong a man may be to those around him,--how impregnable may be his exterior, while within he feels himself to be as weak as water, and as unstable as chaff. But the object which he had now in view was a renewal of his engagement with Alice, and he felt that he must obtain an answer from her before they left Lucerne. If she still persisted in refusing to give him her hand, it would not be consistent with his dignity as a man to continue his immediate pursuit of her any longer. In such case he must leave her, and see what future time might bring forth. He believed himself to be aware that he would never offer his love to another woman; and if Alice were to remain single, he might try again, after the lapse of a year or two. But if he failed now,--then, for that year or two, he would see her no more. Having so resolved, and being averse to anything like a surprise, he asked her, as he left her one evening, whether she would walk with him on the following morning. That morning would be the morning of her last day at Lucerne; and as she assented she knew well what was to come. She said nothing to Lady Glencora on the subject, but allowed the coming prospects of the Palliser family to form the sole subject of their conversation that night, as it had done on every night since the great news had become known. They were always together for an hour every evening before Alice was allowed to go to bed, and during this hour the anxieties of the future father and mother were always discussed till Alice Vavasor was almost tired of them. But she was patient with her friend, and on this special night she was patient as ever. But when she was released and was alone, she made a great endeavour to come to some fixed resolution as to what she would do on the morrow,--some resolution which should be absolutely resolute, and from which no eloquence on the part of any one should move her. But such resolutions are not easily reached, and Alice laboured through half the night almost in vain. She knew that she loved the man. She knew that he was as true to her as the sun is true to the earth. She knew that she would be, in all respects, safe in his hands. She knew that Lady Glencora would be delighted, and her father gratified. She knew that the countesses would open their arms to her,--though I doubt whether this knowledge was in itself very persuasive. She knew that by such a marriage she would gain all that women generally look to gain when they give themselves away. But, nevertheless, as far as she could decide at all, she decided against her lover. She had no right of her own to be taken back after the evil that she had done, and she did not choose to be taken back as an object of pity and forgiveness. "Where are you going?" said her cousin, when she came in with her hat on, soon after breakfast. "I am going to walk,--with Mr. Grey." "By appointment?" "Yes, by appointment. He asked me yesterday." "Then it's all settled, and you haven't told me!" "All that is settled I have told you very often. He asked me yesterday to walk with him this morning, and I could not well refuse him." "Why should you have wished to refuse him?" "I haven't said that I did wish it. But I hate scenes, and I think it would have been pleasanter for us to have parted without any occasion for special words." "Alice, you are such a fool!" "So you tell me very often." "Of course he is now going to say the very thing that he has come all this way for the purpose of saying. He has been wonderfully slow about it; but then slow as he is, you are slower. If you don't make it up with him now, I really shall think you are very wicked. I am becoming like Lady Midlothian;--I can't understand it. I know you want to be his wife, and I know he wants to be your husband, and the only thing that keeps you apart is your obstinacy,--just because you have said you wouldn't have him. My belief is that if Lady Midlothian and the rest of us were to pat you on the back, and tell you how right you were, you'd ask him to take you, out of defiance. You may be sure of this, Alice; if you refuse him now, it'll be for the last time." This, and much more of the same kind, she bore before Mr. Grey came to take her, and she answered to it all as little as she could. "You are making me very unhappy, Glencora," she said once. "I wish I could break you down with unhappiness," Lady Glencora answered, "so that he might find you less stiff, and hard, and unmanageable." Directly upon that he came in, looking as though he had no business on hand more exciting than his ordinary morning's tranquil employments. Alice at once got up to start with him. "So you and Alice are going to make your adieux," said Lady Glencora. "It must be done sooner or later," said Mr. Grey; and then they went off. Those who know Lucerne,--and almost everybody now does know Lucerne,--will remember the big hotel which has been built close to the landing-pier of the steamers, and will remember also the church that stands upon a little hill or rising ground, to the left of you, as you come out of the inn upon the lake. The church is immediately over the lake, and round the church there is a burying-ground, and skirting the burying-ground there are cloisters, through the arches and apertures of which they who walk and sit there look down immediately upon the blue water, and across the water upon the frowning menaces of Mount Pilate. It is one of the prettiest spots in that land of beauty; and its charm is to my feeling enhanced by the sepulchral monuments over which I walk, and by which I am surrounded, as I stand there. Up here, into these cloisters, Alice and John Grey went together. I doubt whether he had formed any purpose of doing so. She certainly would have gone without question in any direction that he might have led her. The distance from the inn up to the church-gate did not take them ten minutes, and when they were there their walk was over. But the place was solitary, and they were alone; and it might be as well for Mr. Grey to speak what words he had to say there as elsewhere. They had often been together in those cloisters before, but on such occasions either Mr. Palliser or Lady Glencora had been with them. On their slow passage up the hill very little was spoken, and that little was of no moment. "We will go in here for a few minutes," he said. "It is the prettiest spot about Lucerne, and we don't know when we may see it again." So they went in, and sat down on one of the embrasures that open from the cloisters over the lake. "Probably never again," said Alice. "And yet I have been here now two years running." She shuddered as she remembered that in that former year George Vavasor had been with her. As she thought of it all she hated herself. Over and over again she had told herself that she had so mismanaged the latter years of her life that it was impossible for her not to hate herself. No woman had a clearer idea of feminine constancy than she had, and no woman had sinned against that idea more deeply. He gave her time to think of all this as he sat there looking down upon the water. "And yet I would sooner live in Cambridgeshire," were the first words he spoke. "Why so?" "Partly because all beauty is best enjoyed when it is sought for with some trouble and difficulty, and partly because such beauty, and the romance which is attached to it, should not make up the staple of one's life. Romance, if it is to come at all, should always come by fits and starts." "I should like to live in a pretty country." "And would like to live a romantic life,--no doubt; but all those things lose their charm if they are made common. When a man has to go to Vienna or St. Petersburg two or three times a month, you don't suppose he enjoys travelling?" "All the same, I should like to live in a pretty country," said Alice. "And I want you to come and live in a very ugly country." Then he paused for a minute or two, not looking at her, but gazing still on the mountain opposite. She did not speak a word, but looked as he was looking. She knew that the request was coming, and had been thinking about it all night; but now that it had come she did not know how to bear herself. "I don't think," he went on to say, "that you would let that consideration stand in your way, if on other grounds you were willing to become my wife." "What consideration?" "Because Nethercoats is not so pretty as Lucerne." "It would have nothing to do with it," said Alice. "It should have nothing to do with it." "Nothing; nothing at all," repeated Alice. "Will you come, then? Will you come and be my wife, and help me to be happy amidst all that ugliness? Will you come and be my one beautiful thing, my treasure, my joy, my comfort, my counsellor?" "You want no counsellor, Mr. Grey." "No man ever wanted one more. Alice, this has been a bad year to me, and I do not think that it has been a happy one for you." "Indeed, no." "Let us forget it,--or rather, let us treat it as though it were forgotten. Twelve months ago you were mine. You were, at any rate, so much mine that I had a right to boast of my possession among my friends." "It was a poor boast." "They did not seem to think so. I had but one or two to whom I could speak of you, but they told me that I was going to be a happy man. As to myself, I was sure that I was to be so. No man was ever better contented with his bargain than I was with mine. Let us go back to it, and the last twelve months shall be as though they had never been." "That cannot be, Mr. Grey. If it could, I should be worse even than I am." "Why cannot it be?" "Because I cannot forgive myself what I have done, and because you ought not to forgive me." "But I do. There has never been an hour with me in which there has been an offence of yours rankling in my bosom unforgiven. I think you have been foolish, misguided,--led away by a vain ambition, and that in the difficulty to which these things brought you, you endeavoured to constrain yourself to do an act, which, when it came near to you,--when the doing of it had to be more closely considered, you found to be contrary to your nature." Now, as he spoke thus, she turned her eyes upon him, and looked at him, wondering that he should have had power to read her heart so accurately. "I never believed that you would marry your cousin. When I was told of it, I knew that trouble had blinded you for awhile. You had driven yourself to revolt against me, and upon that your heart misgave you, and you said to yourself that it did not matter then how you might throw away all your sweetness. You see that I speak of your old love for me with the frank conceit of a happy lover." "No;--no, no!" she ejaculated. "But the storm passes over the tree and does not tear it up by the roots or spoil it of all its symmetry. When we hear the winds blowing, and see how the poor thing is shaken, we think that its days are numbered and its destruction at hand. Alice, when the winds were shaking you, and you were torn and buffeted, I never thought so. There may be some who will forgive you slowly. Your own self-forgiveness will be slow. But I, who have known you better than any one,--yes, better than any one,--I have forgiven you everything, have forgiven you instantly. Come to me, Alice, and comfort me. Come to me, for I want you sorely." She sat quite still, looking at the lake and the mountain beyond, but she said nothing. What could she say to him? "My need of you is much greater now," he went on to say, "than when I first asked you to share the world with me. Then I could have borne to lose you, as I had never boasted to myself that you were my own,--had never pictured to myself the life that might be mine if you were always to be with me. But since that day I have had no other hope,--no other hope but this for which I plead now. Am I to plead in vain?" "You do not know me," she said; "how vile I have been! You do not think what it is,--for a woman to have promised herself to one man while she loved another." "But it was me you loved. Ah! Alice, I can forgive that. Do I not tell you that I did forgive it the moment that I heard it? Do you not hear me say that I never for a moment thought that you would marry him? Alice, you should scold me for my vanity, for I have believed all through that you loved me, and me only. Come to me, dear, and tell me that it is so, and the past shall be only as a dream." "I am dreaming it always," said Alice. "They will cease to be bitter dreams if your head be upon my shoulder. You will cease to reproach yourself when you know that you have made me happy." "I shall never cease to reproach myself. I have done that which no woman can do and honour herself afterwards. I have been--a jilt." "The noblest jilt that ever yet halted between two minds! There has been no touch of selfishness in your fickleness. I think I could be hard enough upon a woman who had left me for greater wealth, for a higher rank,--who had left me even that she might be gay and merry. It has not been so with you." "Yes, it has. I thought you were too firm in your own will, and--" "And you think so still. Is that it?" "It does not matter what I think now. I am a fallen creature, and have no longer a right to such thoughts. It will be better for us both that you should leave me,--and forget me. There are things which, if a woman does them, should never be forgotten;--which she should never permit herself to forget." "And am I to be punished, then, because of your fault? Is that your sense of justice?" He got up, and standing before her, looked down upon her. "Alice, if you will tell me that you do not love me, I will believe you, and will trouble you no more. I know that you will say nothing to me that is false. Through it all you have spoken no word of falsehood. If you love me, after what has passed, I have a right to demand your hand. My happiness requires it, and I have a right to expect your compliance. I do demand it. If you love me, Alice, I tell you that you dare not refuse me. If you do so, you will fail hereafter to reconcile it to your conscience before God." Then he stopped his speech, and waited for a reply; but Alice sat silent beneath his gaze, with her eyes turned upon the tombstones beneath her feet. Of course she had no choice but to yield. He, possessed of power and force infinitely greater than hers, had left her no alternative but to be happy. But there still clung to her what I fear we must call a perverseness of obstinacy, a desire to maintain the resolution she had made,--a wish that she might be allowed to undergo the punishment she had deserved. She was as a prisoner who would fain cling to his prison after pardon has reached him, because he is conscious that the pardon is undeserved. And it may be that there was still left within her bosom some remnant of that feeling of rebellion which his masterful spirit had ever produced in her. He was so imperious in his tranquillity, he argued his question of love with such a manifest preponderance of right on his side, that she had always felt that to yield to him would be to confess the omnipotence of his power. She knew now that she must yield to him,--that his power over her was omnipotent. She was pressed by him as in some countries the prisoner is pressed by the judge,--so pressed that she acknowledged to herself silently that any further antagonism to him was impossible. Nevertheless, the word which she had to speak still remained unspoken, and he stood over her, waiting for her answer. Then slowly he sat down beside her, and gradually he put his arm round her waist. She shrank from him, back against the stonework of the embrasure, but she could not shrink away from his grasp. She put up her hand to impede his, but his hand, like his character and his words, was full of power. It would not be impeded. "Alice," he said, as he pressed her close with his arm, "the battle is over now, and I have won it." "You win everything,--always," she said, whispering to him, as she still shrank from his embrace. "In winning you I have won everything." Then he put his face over her and pressed his lips to hers. I wonder whether he was made happier when he knew that no other touch had profaned those lips since last he had pressed them?

These arrangements for the return of Mr. Palliser's party to London did not, of course, include Mr. Grey. "I suppose we shall see you in England before long?" said Mr. Palliser. "I shall be able to tell you that before you go," said Grey. "In any event I shall return to England before winter." "Then come to us at Matching," said Mr. Palliser. "We shall be most happy to have you. Say that you'll come for the first fortnight in December. After that we always go to the Duke, in Barsetshire - though I don't suppose we shall go anywhere this year." Mr. Palliser reflected that, under the circumstances, it might be improper to have any guests at Matching in December. But he had become very fond of Mr. Grey, and now, as on several occasions, pressed him warmly to make an attempt at Parliament. "It isn't nearly so difficult as you think," said he. "Look at Mr. Vavasor. Even he got a seat." "But he had to pay for it very dearly." "You might easily find some quiet little borough." "Quiet little boroughs have usually got their own quiet little Members," said Grey. "They're fond of change; and if you like to spend a thousand pounds, the thing isn't difficult. I'll put you in the way of it." But Mr. Grey still declined. He was not a man to be talked out of his own way of life, and the very fact that George Vavasor had been in Parliament deterred him from making any attempt himself. Alice had also wanted him to go into public life, but he had put aside her request without giving it consideration. It was this immobility on his part - this absolute lack of any of the weakness of indecision, which had frightened her, and driven her away from him. He was partly aware of this; but if he had not done it at her suggestion, he certainly would not do on the advice of anyone else. If he changed his mind, what terrible acknowledgements of his own faults must he not have made before Alice? "I suppose books, then, will be your object in life?" said Mr. Palliser. "I hope they will be my aids," Grey answered. "I almost doubt whether any object is necessary for life. It seems to me that if a man can live honestly and die fearlessly, he has done about as much as is necessary." "He has done a great deal, certainly," said Mr. Palliser, who would have been ready enough to carry on the argument if he had more time. He knew that he himself was working for others, and not for himself; and he was aware that good men struggle as they do in order that others, besides themselves, may live honestly and die fearlessly. The recluse of Nethercoats had thought much more about all this than the rising star of the House of Commons; but the rising star had the better philosophy of the two, though he was a less brilliant man. "I don't see why a man should not live honestly and be a Member of Parliament as well," continued Mr. Palliser. "Nor I either," said Grey. "I am sure that there are such men, and that the country is under great obligation to them. But they have temptations which a prudent man may do well to avoid." But though he spoke with an assured tone, he was shaken, and almost regretted that he did not accept the aid which was offered to him. What he now wished for was a renewal of his engagement with Alice, and he felt that he must obtain an answer from her before they left Lucerne. If she still persisted in refusing to give him her hand, it would not be consistent with his dignity to continue his immediate pursuit of her any longer. In that case he must leave her, and see what the future might bring. If Alice were to remain single, he might try again, after a year or two. But if he failed now, then for that year or two he would see her no more. Having resolved this, he asked her one evening whether she would walk with him on the following morning - the morning of her last day at Lucerne. As she agreed she knew well what was to come. She said nothing to Lady Glencora about it, but that night, when she was alone, she tried to decide what she would do. She knew that she loved the man. She knew that he was as true to her as the sun is true to the earth. She knew that she would be safe in his hands. She knew that Lady Glencora would be delighted, and her father gratified. She knew that by such a marriage she would gain all that women generally look to gain when they give themselves away. But, nevertheless, as far as she could decide at all, she decided against her lover. She had no right to be taken back after the evil that she had done, and she did not choose to be taken back as an object of pity and forgiveness. "Where are you going?" said her cousin, when she came in with her hat on, soon after breakfast. "I am going to walk with Mr. Grey. He asked me yesterday to walk with him this morning, and I could not very well refuse him." "Why should you have wished to refuse him?" "I think it would have been pleasanter for us to have parted without any need for special words." "Alice, you are such a fool!" "So you tell me very often." "Of course he is now going to say the very thing that he has come all this way for. He has been wonderfully slow about it; but you are slower. If you don't make up with him now, I really shall think you are very wicked. I can't understand it. I know you want to be his wife, and I know he wants to be your husband, and the only thing that keeps you apart is your obstinacy. You may be sure of this, Alice; if you refuse him now, it'll be for the last time." "You are making me very unhappy, Glencora," she said. "I wish I could break you down with unhappiness," Lady Glencora answered, "so that he might find you less stiff, and hard, and unmanageable." Just then he came in, looking as though he had no business on hand more exciting than his ordinary morning's tranquil employments. "So you and Alice are going to make your adieux," said Lady Glencora. "It must be done sooner or later," said Mr. Grey; and off they went. The church by Lake Lucerne is one of the prettiest spots in that land of beauty. Up here, into the cloisters, Alice and John Grey went together. "We will go in here for a few minutes," he said. "It is a lovely spot, and we don't know when we may see it again." The place was deserted as they went in, and sat down on one of the embrasures that open over the lake. "Probably never again," said Alice. "And yet I have been here now two years running." She shuddered as she remembered the time when George Vavasor had been with her; and she hated herself. No woman had a clearer idea of feminine constancy than she had, and no woman had sinned against that idea more deeply. He gave her time to think of all this as he sat looking down upon the water. "And yet I would sooner live in Cambridgeshire," he said. "Why so?" "Partly because such beauty and romance should not make up the staple of one's life. Romance, if it is to come at all, should always come by fits and starts." "I should like to live in a pretty country." "And would like to live a romantic life; but all those things lose their charm if they are made common. When a man has to go to Vienna or St. Petersburg two or three times a month, you don't suppose he enjoys travelling?" "All the same, I should like to live in a pretty country," said Alice. "And I want you to come and live in a very ugly country." Then he paused for a minute or two, not looking at her, but gazing still on the mountain opposite. "I don't think," he went on, "that you would let that stand in your way, if on other grounds you were willing to become my wife." "Prettiness would have nothing to do with it," said Alice. "Will you come, then? Will you come and be my wife, and help me to be happy amidst all that ugliness? Will you come and be my one beautiful thing, my treasure, my joy, my comfort, my counsellor?" "You need no counsellor, Mr. Grey." "No man ever needed one more. Alice, this has been a bad year to me, and I do not think that it has been a happy one for you." "Indeed, no." "Let us forget it - or rather, let us treat it as though it were forgotten. Twelve months ago you were mine - enough mine, at least, that I had a right to boast of my possession among my friends." "It was a poor boast." "They did not seem to think so. And no man was ever better contented with his bargain than I was with mine. Let us go back to it, and the last twelve months shall be as though they had never been." "That cannot be, Mr. Grey - because I cannot forgive myself what I have done, and you ought not to forgive me." "But I do. I think you have been foolish, misguided - led away by a vain ambition, and that in your difficulty, you tried to force yourself to do something which you then found to be contrary to your nature." As he spoke, she turned her eyes upon him, wondering that he should have read her heart so accurately. "I never believed that you would marry your cousin. When I was told of it, I knew that trouble had blinded you for a while. You had driven yourself to revolt against me, and your heart misgave you, and you said to yourself that it did not matter then how you might throw away all your sweetness. "But the storm passes over the tree and does not tear it up by the roots. Alice, when the winds were shaking you, and you were torn and buffeted, I never thought your destruction was at hand. There may be some who will forgive you slowly. Your own self-forgiveness will be slow. But I, who have known you better than any one, I have forgiven you everything, have forgiven you instantly. Come to me, Alice, and comfort me. Come to me, for I want you sorely." She sat quite still, looking at the lake and the mountain beyond, but she said nothing. What could she say to him? "My need of you is much greater now," he went on to say, "than when I first asked you. Then I could have borne to lose you, as I had never pictured to myself the life that might be mine if you were with me. But since that day I have had no other hope but this. Am I to plead in vain?" "You do not know me," she said; "how vile I have been! You do not think what it is, for a woman to have promised herself to one man while she loved another." "But it was me you loved. I can forgive that. Alice, you should scold me for my vanity, for I have believed all through that you loved me. Come to me, dear, and tell me that it is so, and the past shall be only as a dream." "I am dreaming it always," said Alice. "They will cease to be bitter dreams if your head be upon my shoulder. You will cease to reproach yourself when you know that you have made me happy." "I shall never cease to reproach myself. I have done that which no woman can do and honour herself afterwards. I have been - a jilt." "The noblest jilt that ever yet halted between two minds! There has been no touch of selfishness in your fickleness. I think I could be hard enough upon a woman who had left me for greater wealth, or higher rank. It has not been so with you." "Yes, it has. I thought you were too firm in your own will, and-" "And you think so still. Is that it?" "It does not matter what I think now. I no longer have a right to such thoughts. It will be better for us both that you should leave me - and forget me. There are things which, if a woman does them, she should never permit herself to forget." "And am I to be punished, then, because of your fault? Is that your sense of justice?" He stood and looked down upon her. "Alice, if you tell me that you do not love me, I will believe you, and will trouble you no more. I know that you will say nothing that is false. But if you love me, I have a right to demand your hand. My happiness requires it, and I have a right to expect your compliance. I do demand it. If you love me, Alice, I tell you that you dare not refuse me. If you do so, you will fail hereafter to reconcile it to your conscience before God." Then he waited; but Alice sat silent, with her eyes turned upon the tombstones. Of course she had no choice but to yield. He had left her no alternative but to be happy. But there still clung to her what I fear we must call a perverseness of obstinacy, a desire to keep the resolution she had made - to undergo the punishment she had deserved. She was as a prisoner who would fain cling to his prison after pardon has reached him, because he is conscious that the pardon is undeserved. And it may be that she still felt some remnant of the rebellion which his masterful spirit had always produced in her. He was so imperious in his tranquillity - he argued with such a manifest weight of right on his side, that she had always felt that to yield to him would be to confess the omnipotence of his power. She knew now that she must yield to him. Nevertheless, the word which she had to speak still remained unspoken, and he stood waiting for her answer. Then slowly he sat down beside her, and gradually he put his arm round her waist. She shrank from him, against the stonework, but she could not shrink away from his grasp. She put up her hand to impede his, but his hand, like his character and his words, would not be impeded. "Alice," he said, as he pressed her close with his arm, "the battle is over now, and I have won it." "You win everything - always," she said, whispering to him, as she still shrank from his embrace. "In winning you I have won everything." Then he pressed his lips to hers.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 74: Showing What Happened in the Churchyard

The next day was Sunday, and it was well known at the lodging-house in the Close that Mr. Cheesacre would not be seen there then. Mrs. Greenow had specially warned him that she was not fond of Sunday visitors, fearing that otherwise he might find it convenient to give them too much of his society on that idle day. In the morning the aunt and niece both went to the Cathedral, and then at three o'clock they dined. But on this occasion they did not dine alone. Charlie Fairstairs, who, with her family, had come home from Yarmouth, had been asked to join them; and in order that Charlie might not feel it dull, Mrs. Greenow had, with her usual good-nature, invited Captain Bellfield. A very nice little dinner they had. The captain carved the turkey, giving due honour to Mr. Cheesacre as he did so; and when he nibbled his celery with his cheese, he was prettily jocose about the richness of the farmyard at Oileymead. "He is the most generous man I ever met," said Mrs. Greenow. "So he is," said Captain Bellfield, "and we'll drink his health. Poor old Cheesy! It's a great pity he shouldn't get himself a wife." "I don't know any man more calculated to make a young woman happy," said Mrs. Greenow. "No, indeed," said Miss Fairstairs. "I'm told that his house and all about it is quite beautiful." "Especially the straw-yard and the horse-pond," said the Captain. And then they drank the health of their absent friend. It had been arranged that the ladies should go to church in the evening, and it was thought that Captain Bellfield would, perhaps, accompany them; but when the time for starting came, Kate and Charlie were ready, but the widow was not, and she remained,--in order, as she afterwards explained to Kate, that Captain Bellfield might not seem to be turned out of the house. He had made no offer churchwards, and,--"Poor man," as Mrs. Greenow said in her little explanation, "if I hadn't let him stay there, he would have had no resting-place for the sole of his foot, but some horrid barrack-room!" Therefore the Captain was allowed to find a resting-place in Mrs. Greenow's drawing-room; but on the return of the young ladies from church, he was not there, and the widow was alone, "looking back," she said, "to things that were gone;--that were gone. But come, dears, I am not going to make you melancholy." So they had tea, and Mr. Cheesacre's cream was used with liberality. Captain Bellfield had not allowed the opportunity to slip idly from his hands. In the first quarter of an hour after the younger ladies had gone, he said little or nothing, but sat with a wine-glass before him, which once or twice he filled from the decanter. "I'm afraid the wine is not very good," said Mrs. Greenow. "But one can't get good wine in lodgings." "I'm not thinking very much about it, Mrs. Greenow; that's the truth," said the Captain. "I daresay the wine is very good of its kind." Then there was another period of silence between them. "I suppose you find it rather dull, living in lodgings; don't you?" asked the Captain. "I don't know quite what you mean by dull, Captain Bellfield; but a woman circumstanced as I am, can't find her life very gay. It's not a full twelvemonth yet since I lost all that made life desirable, and sometimes I wonder at myself for holding up as well as I do." "It's wicked to give way to grief too much, Mrs. Greenow." "That's what my dear Kate always says to me, and I'm sure I do my best to overcome it." Upon this soft tears trickled down her cheek, showing in their course that she at any rate used no paint in producing that freshness of colour which was one of her great charms. Then she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, and removing it, smiled faintly on the Captain. "I didn't intend to treat you to such a scene as this, Captain Bellfield." "There is nothing on earth, Mrs. Greenow, I desire so much, as permission to dry those tears." "Time alone can do that, Captain Bellfield;--time alone." "But cannot time be aided by love and friendship and affection?" "By friendship, yes. What would life be worth without the solace of friendship?" "And how much better is the warm glow of love?" Captain Bellfield, as he asked this question, deliberately got up, and moved his chair over to the widow's side. But the widow as deliberately changed her position to the corner of a sofa. The Captain did not at once follow her, nor did he in any way show that he was aware that she had fled from him. "How much better is the warm glow of love?" he said again, contenting himself with looking into her face with all his eyes. He had hoped that he would have been able to press her hand by this time. "The warm, glow of love, Captain Bellfield, if you have ever felt it--" "If I have ever felt it! Do I not feel it now, Mrs. Greenow? There can be no longer any mask kept upon my feelings. I never could restrain the yearnings of my heart when they have been strong." "Have they often been strong, Captain Bellfield?" "Yes; often;--in various scenes of life; on the field of battle--" "I did not know that you had seen active service." "What!--not on the plains of Zuzuland, when with fifty picked men I kept five hundred Caffres at bay for seven weeks;--never knew the comfort of a bed, or a pillow to my head, for seven long weeks!" "Not for seven weeks?" said Mrs. Greenow. "No. Did I not see active service at Essiquebo, on the burning coast of Guiana, when all the wild Africans from the woods rose up to destroy the colony; or again at the mouth of the Kitchyhomy River, when I made good the capture of a slaver by my own hand and my own sword!" "I really hadn't heard," said Mrs. Greenow. "Ah, I understand. I know. Cheesy is the best fellow in the world in some respects, but he cannot bring himself to speak well of a fellow behind his back. I know who has belittled me. Who was the first to storm the heights of Inkerman?" demanded the Captain, thinking in the heat of the moment that he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. "But when you spoke of yearnings, I thought you meant yearnings of a softer kind." "So I did. So I did. I don't know why I have been led away to speak of deeds that are very seldom mentioned, at any rate by myself. But I cannot bear that a slanderous backbiting tongue should make you think that I have seen no service. I have served her Majesty in the four quarters of the globe, Mrs. Greenow; and now I am ready to serve you in any way in which you will allow me to make my service acceptable." Whereupon he took one stride over to the sofa, and went down upon his knees before her. "But, Captain Bellfield, I don't want any services. Pray get up now; the girl will come in." "I care nothing for any girl. I am planted here till some answer shall have been made to me; till some word shall have been said that may give me a little hope." Then he attempted to get hold of her hand, but she put them behind her back and shook her head. "Arabella," he said, "will you not speak a word to me?" "Not a word, Captain Bellfield, till you get up; and I won't have you call me Arabella. I am the widow of Samuel Greenow, than whom no man was more respected where he was known, and it is not fitting that I should be addressed in that way." "But I want you to become my wife,--and then--" "Ah, then indeed! But that then isn't likely to come. Get up, Captain Bellfield, or I'll push you over and then ring the bell. A man never looks so much like a fool as when he's kneeling down,--unless he's saying his prayers, as you ought to be doing now. Get up, I tell you. It's just half past seven, and I told Jeannette to come to me then." There was that in the widow's voice which made him get up, and he rose slowly to his feet. "You've pushed all the chairs about, you stupid man," she said. Then in one minute she had restored the scattered furniture to their proper places, and had rung the bell. When Jeannette came she desired that tea might be ready by the time that the young ladies returned, and asked Captain Bellfield if a cup should be set for him. This he declined, and bade her farewell while Jeannette was still in the room. She shook hands with him without any sign of anger, and even expressed a hope that they might see him again before long. "He's a very handsome man, is the Captain," said Jeannette, as the hero of the Kitchyhomy River descended the stairs. "You shouldn't think about handsome men, child," said Mrs. Greenow. "And I'm sure I don't," said Jeannette. "Not no more than anybody else; but if a man is handsome, ma'am, why it stands to reason that he is handsome." "I suppose Captain Bellfield has given you a kiss and a pair of gloves." "As for gloves and such like, Mr. Cheesacre is much better for giving than the Captain; as we all know; don't we, ma'am? But in regard to kisses, they're presents as I never takes from anybody. Let everybody pay his debts. If the Captain ever gets a wife, let him kiss her." On the following Tuesday morning Mr. Cheesacre as usual called in the Close, but he brought with him no basket. He merely left a winter nosegay made of green leaves and laurestinus flowers, and sent up a message to say that he should call at half past three, and hoped that he might then be able to see Mrs. Greenow--on particular business. "That means you, Kate," said Mrs. Greenow. "No, it doesn't; it doesn't mean me at all. At any rate he won't see me." "I dare say it's me he wishes to see. It seems to be the fashionable plan now for gentlemen to make offers by deputy. If he says anything, I can only refer him to you, you know." "Yes, you can; you can tell him simply that I won't have him. But he is no more thinking of me than--" "Than he is of me, you were going to say." "No, aunt; I wasn't going to say that at all." "Well, we shall see. If he does mean anything, of course you can please yourself; but I really think you might do worse." "But if I don't want to do at all?" "Very well; you must have your own way. I can only tell you what I think." At half past three o'clock punctually Mr. Cheesacre came to the door, and was shown up-stairs. He was told by Jeannette that Captain Bellfield had looked in on the Sunday afternoon, but that Miss Fairstairs and Miss Vavasor had been there the whole time. He had not got on his black boots nor yet had his round topped hat. And as he did wear a new frock coat, and had his left hand thrust into a kid glove, Jeannette was quite sure that he intended business of some kind. With new boots, creaking loudly, he walked up into the drawing-room, and there he found the widow alone. "Thanks for the flowers," she said at once. "It was so good of you to bring something that we could accept." "As for that," said he, "I don't see why you should scruple about a trifle of cream, but I hope that any such feeling as that will be over before long." To this the widow made no answer, but she looked very sweetly on him as she bade him sit down. He did sit down; but first he put his hat and stick carefully away in one corner, and then he pulled off his glove--somewhat laboriously, for his hand was warm. He was clearly prepared for great things. As he pushed up his hair with his hands there came from his locks an ambrosial perfume,--as of marrow-oil, and there was a fixed propriety of position of every hair of his whiskers, which indicated very plainly that he had been at a hairdresser's shop since he left the market. Nor do I believe that he had worn that coat when he came to the door earlier in the morning. If I were to say that he had called at his tailor's also, I do not think that I should be wrong. "How goes everything at Oileymead?" said Mrs. Greenow, seeing that her guest wanted some little assistance in leading off the conversation. "Pretty well, Mrs. Greenow; pretty well. Everything will go very well if I am successful in the object which I have on hand to-day." "I'm sure I hope you'll be successful in all your undertakings." "In all my business undertakings I am, Mrs. Greenow. There isn't a shilling due on my land to e'er a bank in Norwich; and I haven't thrashed out a quarter of last year's corn yet, which is more than many of them can say. But there ain't many of them who don't have to pay rent, and so perhaps I oughtn't to boast." "I know that Providence has been very good to you, Mr. Cheesacre, as regards worldly matters." "And I haven't left it all to Providence, either. Those who do, generally go to the wall, as far as I can see. I'm always at work late and early, and I know when I get a profit out of a man's labour and when I don't, as well as though it was my only chance of bread and cheese." "I always thought you understood farming business, Mr. Cheesacre." "Yes, I do. I like a bit of fun well enough, when the time for it comes, as you saw at Yarmouth. And I keep my three or four hunters, as I think a country gentleman should; and I shoot over my own ground. But I always stick to my work. There are men, like Bellfield, who won't work. What do they come to? They're always borrowing." "But he has fought his country's battles, Mr. Cheesacre." "He fight! I suppose he's been telling you some of his old stories. He was ten years in the West Indies, and all his fighting was with the mosquitoes." "But he was in the Crimea. At Inkerman, for instance--" "He in the Crimea! Well, never mind. But do you inquire before you believe that story. But as I was saying, Mrs. Greenow, you have seen my little place at Oileymead." "A charming house. All you want is a mistress for it." "That's it; that's just it. All I want is a mistress for it. And there's only one woman on earth that I would wish to see in that position. Arabella Greenow, will you be that woman?" As he made the offer he got up and stood before her, placing his right hand upon his heart. [Illustration: "Arabella Greenow, will you be that woman?"] "I, Mr. Cheesacre!" she said. "Yes, you. Who else? Since I saw you what other woman has been anything to me; or, indeed, I may say before? Since the first day I saw you I felt that there my happiness depended." "Oh, Mr. Cheesacre, I thought you were looking elsewhere." "No, no, no. There never was such a mistake as that. I have the highest regard and esteem for Miss Vavasor, but really--" "Mr. Cheesacre, what am I to say to you?" "What are you to say to me? Say that you'll be mine. Say that I shall be yours. Say that all I have at Oileymead shall be yours. Say that the open carriage for a pair of ponies to be driven by a lady which I have been looking at this morning shall be yours. Yes, indeed; the sweetest thing you ever saw in your life,--just like one that the lady of the Lord Lieutenant drives about in always. That's what you must say. Come, Mrs. Greenow!" "Ah, Mr. Cheesacre, you don't know what it is to have buried the pride of your youth hardly yet twelve months." "But you have buried him, and there let there be an end of it. Your sitting here all alone, morning, noon, and night, won't bring him back. I'm sorry for him; I am indeed. Poor Greenow! But what more can I do?" "I can do more, Mr. Cheesacre. I can mourn for him in solitude and in silence." "No, no, no. What's the use of it,--breaking your heart for nothing,--and my heart too. You never think of that." And Mr. Cheesacre spoke in a tone that was full of reproach. "It cannot be, Mr. Cheesacre." "Ah, but it can be. Come, Mrs. Greenow. We understand each other well enough now, surely. Come, dearest." And he approached her as though to put his arm round her waist. But at that moment there came a knock at the door, and Jeannette, entering the room, told her mistress that Captain Bellfield was below and wanted to know whether he could see her for a minute on particular business. "Show Captain Bellfield up, certainly," said Mrs. Greenow. "D---- Captain Bellfield!" said Mr. Cheesacre.

The next day was Sunday. Mrs. Greenow had warned Mr. Cheesacre that she was not fond of Sunday visitors, fearing that otherwise he might give them too much of his society. In the morning the aunt and niece went to the Cathedral, and at three o'clock they dined. But today they did not dine alone. Charlie Fairstairs had been asked to join them; and so that Charlie might not feel it dull, Mrs. Greenow had, with her usual good-nature, invited Captain Bellfield. The captain carved the turkey, giving due honour to Mr. Cheesacre as he did so; and when he nibbled his celery with his cheese, he joked prettily about the richness of the farmyard at Oileymead. "He is the most generous man I ever met," said Mrs. Greenow. "So he is," said Captain Bellfield, "and we'll drink his health. Poor old Cheesy! It's a pity he shouldn't get himself a wife." "I don't know any man more calculated to make a young woman happy," said Mrs. Greenow. "No, indeed," said Miss Fairstairs. "I'm told that his house and all about it is quite beautiful." "Especially the straw-yard and the horse-pond," said the Captain. And then they drank the health of their absent friend. The ladies were to go to church in the evening, and it was thought that Captain Bellfield would accompany them; but when it was time to set out, Kate and Charlie were ready, but the widow was not. She stayed behind - as she afterwards explained to Kate - so as not to turn Captain Bellfield out of the house. However, when the young ladies returned from church, he was not there, and the widow was alone, "looking back," she said, "to things that were gone. But come, dears, I am not going to make you melancholy." So they had tea, with Mr. Cheesacre's cream. Captain Bellfield had not allowed the opportunity to slip. After the younger ladies had gone, he said little, but sat with a wine-glass before him, which once or twice he filled from the decanter. "I'm afraid the wine is not very good," said Mrs. Greenow. "But one can't get good wine in lodgings." "I'm not thinking about it, Mrs. Greenow; that's the truth," said the Captain. "I suppose you find it rather dull, living in lodgings?" "A woman in my circumstances can't find her life very gay, Captain Bellfield. It's not yet a full year yet since I lost all that made life happy." "It's wicked to give way to grief too much, Mrs. Greenow." "That's what my dear Kate says, and I do my best to overcome it." Upon this, soft tears trickled down her cheek. She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, and smiled faintly. "I didn't intend to treat you to such a scene as this, Captain Bellfield." "There is nothing on earth, Mrs. Greenow, that I desire so much as permission to dry those tears." "Time alone can do that, Captain Bellfield." "But cannot time be aided by love and friendship and affection?" "By friendship, yes. What would life be worth without friendship?" "And how much better is the warm glow of love?" Captain Bellfield, as he asked this question, deliberately got up, and moved his chair over to the widow's side. But the widow as deliberately changed her position to the corner of a sofa. The Captain refrained from following her immediately. "How much better is the warm glow of love?" he said again. "The warm, glow of love, Captain Bellfield, if you have ever felt it-" "If I have ever felt it! Do I not feel it now, Mrs. Greenow? There can be no longer any mask kept upon my feelings. I never could restrain the yearnings of my heart when they have been strong." "Have they often been strong, Captain Bellfield?" "Yes; often; on the field of battle-" "I did not know that you had seen active service." "What! - not on the plains of Zuzuland, when with fifty men I kept five hundred Kaffirs at bay - and never knew the comfort of a bed for seven long weeks! And did I not see active service at Essiquebo, on the burning coast of Guiana, when all the wild Africans from the woods rose up to destroy the colony; or at the mouth of the Kitchyhomy River, when I captured a slaver with my own hand and my own sword!" "I really hadn't heard," said Mrs. Greenow. "Ah, I understand. Cheesy is the best fellow in the world in some respects, but he cannot bring himself to speak well of a fellow behind his back. Yet who was the first to storm the heights of Inkerman?" demanded the Captain. "When you spoke of yearnings, I thought you meant yearnings of a softer kind." "So I did. I have been led away to speak of deeds that are seldom mentioned. But I cannot bear that a slanderous backbiting tongue should make you think that I have seen no service. I have served her Majesty in the four quarters of the globe, Mrs. Greenow; and now I am ready to serve you in any way in which you will allow me." He took one stride over to the sofa, and went down upon his knees before her. "But, Captain Bellfield, I don't want any services. Pray get up; the girl will come in." "I care nothing for any girl. I am planted here till you give me a little hope." Then he attempted to take her hand, but she put her hands behind her back and shook her head. "Arabella," he said, "will you not speak a word to me?" "Not a word, Captain Bellfield, till you get up; and I won't have you call me Arabella. I am the widow of Samuel Greenow, and it is not fitting that I should be addressed in that way." "But I want you to become my wife - and then-" "Ah, then indeed! But that isn't likely to happen. Get up, Captain Bellfield, or I'll push you over and then ring the bell. A man never looks so much like a fool as when he's kneeling down, unless he's saying his prayers, as you ought to be doing now. Get up, I tell you. It's half past seven, and I told Jeannette to come to me then." Something in the widow's voice made him get up, and he rose slowly to his feet. "You've pushed all the chairs about, you stupid man," she said. In one minute she had restored them to their proper places, and had rung the bell. When Jeannette came she desired that tea might be ready by the time the young ladies returned, and asked Captain Bellfield if he would stay for a cup. He declined, and said farewell. She shook hands without any sign of anger, and even expressed a hope that they might see him again before long. "He's a very handsome man, is the Captain," said Jeannette, as he descended the stairs. "You shouldn't think about handsome men, child," said Mrs. Greenow. "I suppose Captain Bellfield has given you a kiss and a pair of gloves." "As for gloves and such like, Mr. Cheesacre is much better for giving than the Captain. But kisses is presents as I never takes from anybody. If the Captain ever gets a wife, let him kiss her." On the following Tuesday morning Mr. Cheesacre called as usual in the Close, but brought no basket. He merely left a winter nosegay made of green leaves and viburnum flowers, and sent a message to say that he should call at half past three, and hoped that he might then be able to see Mrs. Greenow on particular business. "That means you, Kate," said Mrs. Greenow. "It doesn't mean me at all." "It seems to be the fashion now for gentlemen to make offers by deputy. If he says anything, I can only refer him to you, you know." "You can tell him simply that I won't have him. But he is not thinking of me." "Well, we shall see. If he does mean anything, of course you can please yourself; but I really think you might do worse." At half past three o'clock Mr. Cheesacre arrived, and was shown upstairs. He was told by Jeannette that Captain Bellfield had looked in on Sunday afternoon, but that Miss Fairstairs and Miss Vavasor had been there the whole time. As he wore a new frock coat, and kid gloves, Jeannette was quite sure that he intended business of some kind. His new boots creaking loudly, he walked up into the drawing-room, and found the widow alone. "Thanks for the flowers," she said, and sweetly bade him sit down. First he put his hat and stick carefully in a corner, and laboriously pulled off his gloves. There came from his hair an ambrosial perfume - as of bone-marrow oil - and the fixed position of his whiskers indicated that he had recently been at a hairdresser's. "How goes everything at Oileymead?" said Mrs. Greenow, seeing that her guest needed some assistance in starting the conversation. "Pretty well, Mrs. Greenow. Everything will go very well if I am successful in my object today." "I'm sure I hope you'll be successful in all your undertakings." "In all my business undertakings I am, Mrs. Greenow. I don't owe a shilling to any bank in Norwich." "I know that Providence has been very good to you, Mr. Cheesacre." "I haven't left it all to Providence, either. I'm always at work, late and early. I like a bit of fun well enough, as you saw at Yarmouth. And I keep my three or four hunters, as I think a country gentleman should. But I always stick to my work. There are men, like Bellfield, who won't work. What do they come to? They're always borrowing." "But he has fought his country's battles, Mr. Cheesacre." "He fight! I suppose he's been telling you some of his old stories. He was ten years in the West Indies, and all his fighting was with the mosquitoes." "But he was in the Crimea. At Inkerman, for instance-" "He in the Crimea! Well, never mind. But you inquire before you believe that story. But as I was saying, Mrs. Greenow, you have seen my little place at Oileymead." "A charming house. All you want is a mistress for it." "That's just it. All I want is a mistress for it. And there's only one woman on earth that I would wish to see in that position. Arabella Greenow, will you be that woman?" He got up and stood before her, placing his right hand upon his heart. "I, Mr. Cheesacre!" she said. "Yes, you. Who else? Since the first day I saw you I felt that my happiness depended on you." "Oh, Mr. Cheesacre, I thought you were looking elsewhere." "No, no, no. I have the highest regard for Miss Vavasor, but really-" "Mr. Cheesacre, what am I to say to you?" "Say that you'll be mine. Come, Mrs. Greenow!" "Ah, Mr. Cheesacre, you don't know what it is to have buried the pride of your youth hardly twelve months." "But you have buried him, and sitting here all alone won't bring him back. I'm sorry, indeed. But what more can I do?" "I can mourn for him in solitude and silence, Mr. Cheesacre." "No, no, no. What's the use of breaking your heart for nothing - and my heart too." Mr. Cheesacre spoke reproachfully. "It cannot be, Mr. Cheesacre." "Ah, but it can be. We understand each other well enough now, surely. Come, dearest." And he approached her as though to put his arm round her waist. But at that moment there came a knock at the door, and Jeannette, entering, told her mistress that Captain Bellfield was below and wanted to know whether he could see her for a minute on particular business. "Show Captain Bellfield up, certainly," said Mrs. Greenow. "D-- Captain Bellfield!" said Mr. Cheesacre.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 20: Which Shall It Be?

Mr. Grey and wife were duly carried away from Matching Priory by post horses, and did their honeymoon, we may be quite sure, with much satisfaction. When Alice was first asked where she would go, she simply suggested that it should not be to Switzerland. They did, in truth, go by slow stages to Italy, to Venice, Florence, and on to Rome; but such had not been their intention when they first started on their journey. At that time Mr. Grey believed that he would be wanted again in England, down at Silverbridge in Barsetshire, very shortly. But before he had married a week he learned that all that was to be postponed. The cup of fruition had not yet reached Mr. Palliser's lips. "There will be no vacancy either in the county or in the borough till Parliament meets." That had been the message sent by Mr. Palliser to Mr. Grey. Lady Glencora's message to Alice had been rather more full, having occupied three pages of note paper, the last of which had been crossed, but I do not know that it was more explicit. She had abused Lord Brock, had abused Mr. Finespun, and had abused all public things and institutions, because the arrangements as now proposed would be very comfortable to Alice, but would not, as she was pleased to think, be very comfortable to herself. "You can go to Rome and see everything and enjoy yourself, which I was not allowed to do; and all this noise and bother, and crowd of electioneering, will take place down in Barsetshire just when I am in the middle of all my trouble." There were many very long letters came from Lady Glencora to Rome during the winter,--letters which Alice enjoyed thoroughly, but which she could not but regard as being very indiscreet. The Duke was at the Castle during the Christmas week, and the descriptions of the Duke and of his solicitude as to his heir were very comic. "He comes and bends over me on the sofa in the most stupendous way, as though a woman to be the mother of his heir must be a miracle in nature. He is quite awful when he says a word or two, and more awful in his silence. The devil prompted me the other day, and I said I hoped it would be a girl. There was a look came over his face which nearly frightened me. If it should be, I believe he will turn me out of the house; but how can I help it? I wish you were going to have a baby at the same time. Then, if yours was a boy and mine a girl, we'd make a change." This was very indiscreet. Lady Glencora would write indiscreet letters like this, which Alice could not show to her husband. It was a thousand pities. But December and January wore themselves away, and the time came in which the Greys were bound to return to England. The husband had very fully discussed with his wife that matter of his parliamentary ambition, and found in her a very ready listener. Having made up his mind to do this thing, he was resolved to do it thoroughly, and was becoming almost as full of politics, almost as much devoted to sugar, as Mr. Palliser himself. He at any rate could not complain that his wife would not interest herself in his pursuits. Then, as they returned, came letters from Lady Glencora, written as her troubles grew nigh. The Duke had gone, of course; but he was to be there at the appointed time. "Oh, I do so wish he would have a fit of the gout in London,--or at Timbuctoo," said Lady Glencora. When they reached London they first heard the news from Mr. Vavasor, who on this occasion condescended to meet them at the railway. "The Duke has got an heir," he said, before the carriage-door was open;--"born this morning!" One might have supposed that it was the Duke's baby, and not the baby of Lady Glencora and Mr. Palliser. There was a note from Mr. Palliser to Mr. Grey. "Thank God!" said the note, "Lady Glencora and the boy"--Mr. Palliser had scorned to use the word child--"Lady Glencora and the boy are quite as well as can be expected. Both the new writs were moved for last night." Mr. Palliser's honours, as will be seen, came rushing upon him all at once. Wondrous little baby,--_purpureo genitus!_ What have the gods not done for thee, if thou canst only manage to live till thy good things are all thine own,--to live through all the terrible solicitude with which they will envelope thee! Better than royal rank will be thine, with influence more than royal, and power of action fettered by no royalty. Royal wealth which will be really thine own, to do with it as it beseemeth thee. Thou wilt be at the top of an aristocracy in a country where aristocrats need gird themselves with no buckram. All that the world can give will be thine; and yet when we talk of thee religiously, philosophically, or politico-economically, we are wont to declare that thy chances of happiness are no better,--no better, if they be no worse,--than are those of thine infant neighbour just born, in that farmyard cradle. Who shall say that they are better or that they are worse? Or if they be better, or if they be worse, how shall we reconcile to ourselves that seeming injustice? And now we will pay a little visit to the small one born in the purple, and the story of that visit shall be the end of our history. It was early in April, quite early in April, and Mr. and Mrs. Grey were both at Gatherum Castle. Mrs. Grey was there at the moment of which we write, but Mr. Grey was absent at Silverbridge with Mr. Palliser. This was the day of the Silverbridge election, and Mr. Grey had gone to that ancient borough, to offer himself as a candidate to the electors, backed by the presence and aid of a very powerful member of the Cabinet. Lady Glencora and Alice were sitting up-stairs with the small, purple-born one in their presence, and the small, purple-born one was lying in Alice's lap. "It is such a comfort that it is over," said the mother. "You are the most ungrateful of women." "Oh, Alice,--if you could have known! Your baby may come just as it pleases. You won't lie awake trembling how on earth you will bear your disgrace if one of the vile weaker sex should come to disturb the hopes of your lords and masters;--for I had two, which made it so much more terrible." "I'm sure Mr. Palliser would not have said a word." "No, he would have said nothing,--nor would the Duke. The Duke would simply have gone away instantly, and never have seen me again till the next chance comes,--if it ever does come. And Mr. Palliser would have been as gentle as a dove;--much more gentle than he is now, for men are rarely gentle in their triumph. But I should have known what they both thought and felt." "It's all right now, dear." "Yes, my bonny boy,--you have made it all right for me;--have you not?" And Lady Glencora took her baby into her own arms. "You have made everything right, my little man. But oh, Alice, if you had seen the Duke's long face through those three days; if you had heard the tones of the people's voices as they whispered about me; if you had encountered the oppressive cheerfulness of those two London doctors,--doctors are such bad actors,--you would have thought it impossible for any woman to live throughout. There's one comfort;--if my mannikin lives, I can't have another eldest. He looks like living;--don't he, Alice?" Then were perpetrated various mysterious ceremonies of feminine idolatry which were continued till there came a grandly dressed old lady, who called herself the nurse, and who took the idol away. [Illustration: "Yes, my bonny boy,--you have made it all right for me."] In the course of that afternoon Lady Glencora took Alice all over the house. It was a castle of enormous size, quite new,--having been built by the present proprietor,--very cold, very handsome, and very dull. "What an immense place!" said Alice, as she stood looking round her in the grand hall, which was never used as an entrance except on very grand occasions. "Is it not? And it cost--oh, I can't tell you how much it cost. A hundred thousand pounds or more. Well;--that would be nothing, as the Duke no doubt had the money in his pocket to do what he liked with at the time. But the joke is, nobody ever thinks of living here. Who'd live in such a great, overgrown place such as this, if they could get a comfortable house like Matching? Do you remember Longroyston and the hot-water pipes? I always think of the poor Duchess when I come through here. Nobody ever lives here, or ever will. The Duke comes for one week in the year, and Plantagenet says he hates to do that. As for me, nothing on earth shall ever make me live here. I was completely in their power and couldn't help their bringing me here the other day;--because I had, as it were, disgraced myself." "How disgraced yourself?" "In being so long, you know, before that gentleman was born. But they shan't play me the same trick again. I shall dare to assert myself, now. Come,--we must go away. There are some of the British public come to see one of the British sights. That's another pleasure here. One has to run about to avoid being caught by the visitors. The housekeeper tells me they always grumble because they are not allowed to go into my little room up-stairs." On the evening of that day Mr. Palliser and Mr. Grey returned home from Silverbridge together. The latter was then a Member of Parliament, but the former at that moment was the possessor of no such dignity. The election for the borough was now over, whereas that for the county had not yet taken place. But there was no rival candidate for the position, and Mr. Palliser was thoroughly contented with his fate. He was at this moment actually Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in about ten days' time would be on his legs in the House proposing for his country's use his scheme of finance. The two men were seated together in an open carriage, and were being whirled along by four horses. They were both no doubt happy in their ambition, but I think that of the two, Mr. Palliser showed his triumph the most. Not that he spoke even to his friend a word that was triumphant in its tone. It was not thus that he rejoiced. He was by nature too placid for that. But there was a nervousness in his contentment which told the tale to any observer who might know how to read it. "I hope you'll like it," he said to Grey. "I shall never like it as you do," Grey answered. "And why not;--why not?" "In the first place, I have not begun it so young." "Any time before thirty-five is young enough." "For useful work, yes,--but hardly for enjoyment in the thing. And then I don't believe it all as you do. To you the British House of Commons is everything." "Yes;--everything," said Mr. Palliser with unwonted enthusiasm;--"everything, everything. That and the Constitution are everything." "It is not so to me." "Ah, but it will be. If you really take to the work, and put yourself into harness, it will be so. You'll get to feel it as I do. The man who is counted by his colleagues as number one on the Treasury Bench in the English House of Commons, is the first of living men. That's my opinion. I don't know that I ever said it before; but that's my opinion." "And who is the second;--the purse-bearer to this great man?" "I say nothing about the second. I don't know that there is any second. I wonder how we shall find Lady Glencora and the boy." They had then arrived at the side entrance to the Castle, and Mr. Grey ran up-stairs to his wife's room to receive her congratulations. "And you are a Member of Parliament?" she asked. "They tell me so, but I don't know whether I actually am one till I've taken the oaths." "I am so happy. There's no position in the world so glorious!" "It's a pity you are not Mr. Palliser's wife. That's just what he has been saying." "Oh, John, I am so happy. It is so much more than I have deserved. I hope,--that is, I sometimes think--" "Think what, dearest?" "I hope nothing that I have ever said has driven you to it." "I'd do more than that, dear, to make you happy," he said, as he put his arm round her and kissed her; "more than that, at least if it were in my power." Probably my readers may agree with Alice, that in the final adjustment of her affairs she had received more than she had deserved. All her friends, except her husband, thought so. But as they have all forgiven her, including even Lady Midlothian herself, I hope that they who have followed her story to its close will not be less generous.

Mr. Grey and wife were duly carried away from Matching Priory for their honeymoon. When Alice was first asked where she wished to go, she simply suggested that it should not be to Switzerland. They travelled slowly through Italy to Rome, although that had not been their original intention, because Mr. Grey believed that he would be wanted in England, down at Silverbridge, very shortly. But he soon learned that things were to be postponed. "There will be no vacancy till Parliament meets." That had been the message sent to him by Mr. Palliser. Lady Glencora's message to Alice had been rather longer, covering three pages; she had abused Lord Brock, had abused Mr. Finespun, and had abused all public things, because the arrangements now proposed would not be very comfortable to herself. "You can go to Rome and see everything and enjoy yourself, which I was not allowed to do; and all this bother of electioneering will take place just when I am in the middle of all my trouble." Many very long letters came from Lady Glencora to Rome during the winter - letters which Alice enjoyed thoroughly, but which were very indiscreet. The Duke was at the Castle for Christmas, and Glencora's descriptions of him were very comic. "He comes and bends over me on the sofa in the most stupendous way, as though a woman who may the mother of his heir must be a miracle. The other day the devil prompted to say that I hoped it would be a girl. The look on his face nearly frightened me. If it is a girl, I believe he will turn me out of the house; but how can I help it? I wish you were going to have a baby at the same time. Then, if yours was a boy and mine a girl, we'd exchange." This was very indiscreet, and it was a pity Alice could not show it to her husband. But December and January wore themselves away, and the time came for the Greys to return to England. The husband had discussed his parliamentary ambition with his wife, and found her a very ready listener. Having made up his mind to do this, he was resolved to do it thoroughly, and was becoming almost as full of politics as Mr. Palliser himself. Then, when they reached London, they heard the news from Mr. Vavasor, who met them at the railway. "The Duke has got an heir," he said, before the carriage-door was open; "born this morning!" One might have supposed that it was the Duke's baby, and not Lady Glencora's and Mr. Palliser's. There was a note from Mr. Palliser to Mr. Grey. "Thank God!" it said, "Lady Glencora and the boy are quite as well as can be expected. Both the new writs were moved for last night." Mr. Palliser's honours came rushing upon him all at once. Wondrous little baby! Better than royal rank will be thine, with influence more than royal. All that the world can give will be thine; and yet when we talk of thee, we are wont to declare that thy chances of happiness are no better than those of thine infant neighbour, in the farmyard cradle. Who shall say that they are better or worse? And how shall we reconcile to ourselves that seeming injustice? And now we will pay a little visit to the small one, to end our history. It was early in April, when Mrs. Grey was at Gatherum Castle, but Mr. Grey was absent at Silverbridge with Mr. Palliser. This was the day of the Silverbridge election. Lady Glencora and Alice were sitting upstairs with the small, noble-born one lying in Alice's lap. "It is such a comfort that it is over," said the mother. "You are the most ungrateful of women." "Oh, Alice! Your baby may come just as it pleases. You won't lie awake trembling how on earth you will bear your disgrace if it should be a girl." "I'm sure Mr. Palliser would not have said a word." "No, he would have said nothing, nor would the Duke. The Duke would simply have gone away instantly, and never have seen me again till the next chance comes - if it ever does come. And Mr. Palliser would have been as gentle as a dove. But I should have known what they both thought and felt." "It's all right now, dear." "Yes, my bonny boy, you have made it all right for me; have you not?" And Lady Glencora took her baby into her own arms. "But, oh, Alice, if you had seen the Duke's long face through those three days; if you had heard the oppressive cheerfulness of those two London doctors - doctors are such bad actors - you would have thought it impossible for any woman to live through it. But you have made everything right, my little man." Then there were various ceremonies of feminine idolatry till an old nurse carried the idol away. That afternoon Lady Glencora took Alice all over the house. It was a castle of enormous size, quite new, very cold, very handsome, and very dull. "What an immense place!" said Alice, as she stood looking round her in the grand hall. "Is it not? And it cost a hundred thousand pounds or more. Well, that would be nothing to the Duke. But the joke is, nobody ever thinks of living here. Who'd live in such a great, overgrown place such as this, if they could get a comfortable house like Matching? The Duke comes for one week in the year, and Plantagenet says he hates to do that. As for me, nothing on earth shall ever make me live here. I couldn't help their bringing me here; but I shall assert myself now. Come, we must go away to avoid being caught by the public tour." That evening Mr. Palliser and Mr. Grey returned home from Silverbridge together. Mr. Grey was by then a Member of Parliament, but Mr. Palliser had to wait for the county election. But there was no rival candidate for the position, and Mr. Palliser was thoroughly contented. He was now Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in about ten days' time would be on his feet in the House proposing his scheme of finance. The two men were seated together in an open carriage. Although Mr. Palliser was rejoicing, he did not speak a word that was triumphant in its tone. "I hope you'll like it," he said to Grey. "I shall never like it as you do," Grey answered. "Why not?" "In the first place, I have not begun it so young." "Any time before thirty-five is young enough." "For useful work, yes - but hardly for enjoyment in the thing. And then I don't believe it all as you do. To you the British House of Commons is everything." "Yes; everything," said Mr. Palliser with unusual enthusiasm; "everything, everything. That and the Constitution are everything." "It is not so to me." "Ah, but it will be. If you really take to the work, you'll get to feel it as I do. The man who is number one on the Treasury Bench in the English House of Commons, is the first of living men. That's my opinion. I don't know that I ever said it before; but that's my opinion." "And who is the second; the purse-bearer to this great man?" "I don't know that there is any second. I wonder how we shall find Lady Glencora and the boy." They had arrived at the Castle, and Mr. Grey ran upstairs to his wife's room to receive her congratulations. "And you are a Member of Parliament?" she asked. "They tell me so." "I am so happy. There's no position in the world so glorious!" "It's a pity you are not Mr. Palliser's wife. That's just what he has been saying." "Oh, John, I am so happy. It is so much more than I have deserved. I hope - that is, I sometimes think-" "Think what, dearest?" "I hope nothing that I have ever said has driven you to it." "I'd do more than that, dear, to make you happy," he said, as he put his arm round her and kissed her. Probably my readers may agree with Alice that she had received more than she deserved. All her friends, except her husband, thought so. But as they have all forgiven her, including even Lady Midlothian herself, I hope that they who have followed her story to its close will not be less generous.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 80: The Story Is Finished Within the Halls of the Duke of Omnium

Kate Vavasor had sent to her brother only the first half of her cousin's letter, that half in which Alice had attempted to describe what had taken place between her and Mr. Grey. In doing this, Kate had been a wicked traitor,--a traitor to that feminine faith against which treason on the part of one woman is always unpardonable in the eyes of other women. But her treason would have been of a deeper die had she sent the latter portion, for in that Alice had spoken of George Vavasor himself. But even of this treason, Kate would, I think, have been guilty, had the words which Alice wrote been of a nature to serve her own purpose if read by her brother. But they had not been of this nature. They had spoken of George as a man with whom any closer connection than that which existed at present was impossible, and had been written with the view of begging Kate to desist from making futile attempts in that direction. "I feel myself driven," Alice had said, "to write all this, as otherwise,--if I were simply to tell you that I have resolved to part from Mr. Grey,--you would think that the other thing might follow. The other thing cannot follow. I should think myself untrue in my friendship to you if I did not tell you about Mr. Grey; and you will be untrue in your friendship to me if you take advantage of my confidence by saying more about your brother." This part of Alice's letter Kate had not sent to George Vavasor;--"But the other thing shall follow," Kate had said, as she read the words for the second time, and then put the papers into her desk. "It shall follow." To give Kate Vavasor her due, she was, at any rate, unselfish in her intrigues. She was obstinately persistent, and she was moreover unscrupulous, but she was not selfish. Many years ago she had made up her mind that George and Alice should be man and wife, feeling that such a marriage would be good at any rate for her brother. It had been almost brought about, and had then been hindered altogether through a fault on her brother's part. But she had forgiven him this sin as she had forgiven many others, and she was now at work in his behalf again, determined that they two should be married, even though neither of them might be now anxious that it should be so. The intrigue itself was dear to her, and success in it was necessary to her self-respect. She answered Alice's letter with a pleasant, gossiping epistle, which shall be recorded, as it will tell us something of Mrs. Greenow's proceedings at Yarmouth. Kate had promised to stay at Yarmouth for a month, but she had already been there six weeks, and was still under her aunt's wing. Yarmouth, October, 186--. DEAREST ALICE, Of course I am delighted. It is no good saying that I am not. I know how difficult it is to deal with you, and therefore I sit down to answer your letter with fear and trembling, lest I should say a word too much, and thereby drive you back, or not say quite enough and thereby fail to encourage you on. Of course I am glad. I have long thought that Mr. Grey could not make you happy, and as I have thought so, how can I not be glad? It is no use saying that he is good and noble, and all that sort of thing. I have never denied it. But he was not suited to you, and his life would have made you wretched. Ergo, I rejoice. And as you are the dearest friend I have, of course I rejoice mightily. I can understand accurately the sort of way in which the interview went. Of course he had the best of it. I can see him so plainly as he stood up in unruffled self-possession, ignoring all that you said, suggesting that you were feverish or perhaps bilious, waving his hand over you a little, as though that might possibly do you some small good, and then taking his leave with an assurance that it would be all right as soon as the wind changed. I suppose it's very noble in him, not taking you at your word, and giving you, as it were, another chance; but there is a kind of nobility which is almost too great for this world. I think very well of you, my dear, as women go, but I do not think well enough of you to believe that you are fit to be Mr. John Grey's wife. Of course I'm very glad. You have known my mind from the first to the last, and, therefore, what would be the good of my mincing matters? No woman wishes her dearest friend to marry a man to whom she herself is antipathetic. You would have been as much lost to me, had you become Mrs. Grey of Nethercoats, Cambridgeshire, as though you had gone to heaven. I don't say but what Nethercoats may be a kind of heaven,--but then one doesn't wish one's friend that distant sort of happiness. A flat Eden I can fancy it, hemmed in by broad dykes, in which cream and eggs are very plentiful, where an Adam and an Eve might drink the choicest tea out of the finest china, with toast buttered to perfection, from year's end to year's end; into which no money troubles would ever find their way, nor yet any naughty novels. But such an Eden is not tempting to me, nor, as I think, to you. I can fancy you stretching your poor neck over the dyke, longing to fly away that you might cease to be at rest, but knowing that the matrimonial dragon was too strong for any such flight. If ever bird banged his wings to pieces against gilded bars, you would have banged yours to pieces in that cage. You say that you have failed to make him understand that the matter is settled. I need not say that of course it is settled, and that he must be made to understand it. You owe it to him now to put him out of all doubt. He is, I suppose, accessible to the words of a mortal, god though he be. But I do not fear about this, for, after all, you have as much firmness about you as most people;--perhaps as much as he has at bottom, though you may not have so many occasions to show it. As to that other matter I can only say that you shall be obliged, as far as it is in my power to obey you. For what may come out from me by word of mouth when we are together, I will not answer with certainty. But my pen is under better control, and it shall not write the offending name. And now I must tell you a little about myself;--or rather, I am inclined to spin a yarn, and tell you a great deal. I have got such a lover! But I did describe him before. Of course it's Mr. Cheesacre. If I were to say he hasn't declared himself, I should hardly give you a fair idea of my success. And yet he has not declared himself,--and, which is worse, is very anxious to marry a rival. But it's a strong point in my favour that my rival wants him to take me, and that he will assuredly be driven to make me an offer sooner or later, in obedience to her orders. My aunt is my rival, and I do not feel the least doubt as to his having offered to her half a dozen times. But then she has another lover, Captain Bellfield, and I see that she prefers him. He is a penniless scamp and looks as though he drank. He paints his whiskers too, which I don't like; and, being forty, tries to look like twenty-five. Otherwise he is agreeable enough, and I rather approve of my aunt's taste in preferring him. But my lover has solid attractions, and allures me on by a description of the fat cattle which he sends to market. He is a man of substance, and should I ever become Mrs. Cheesacre, I have reason to think that I shall not be left in want. We went up to his place on a visit the other day. Oileymead is the name of my future home;--not so pretty as Nethercoats, is it? And we had such a time there! We reached the place at ten and left it at four, and he managed to give us three meals. I'm sure we had before our eyes at different times every bit of china, delf, glass, and plate in the establishment. He made us go into the cellar, and told us how much wine he had got there, and how much beer. "It's all paid for, Mrs. Greenow, every bottle of it," he said, turning round to my aunt, with a pathetic earnestness, for which I had hardly given him credit. "Everything in this house is my own; it's all paid for. I don't call anything a man's own till it's paid for. Now that jacket that Bellfield swells about with on the sands at Yarmouth,--that's not his own,--and it's not like to be either." And then he winked his eye as though bidding my aunt to think of that before she encouraged such a lover as Bellfield. He took us into every bedroom, and disclosed to us all the glories of his upper chambers. It would have done you good to see him lifting the counterpanes, and bidding my aunt feel the texture of the blankets! And then to see her turn round to me and say:--"Kate, it's simply the best-furnished house I ever went over in my life!"--"It does seem very comfortable," said I. "Comfortable!" said he. "Yes, I don't think there's anybody can say that Oileymead isn't comfortable." I did so think of you and Nethercoats. The attractions are the same;--only in the one place you would have a god for your keeper, and in the other a brute. For myself, if ever I'm to have a keeper at all, I shall prefer a man. But when we got to the farmyard his eloquence reached the highest pitch. "Mrs. Greenow," said he, "look at that," and he pointed to heaps of manure raised like the streets of a little city. "Look at that!" "There's a great deal," said my aunt. "I believe you," said he. "I've more muck upon this place here than any farmer in Norfolk, gentle or simple; I don't care who the other is." Only fancy, Alice; it may all be mine; the blankets, the wine, the muck, and the rest of it. So my aunt assured me when we got home that evening. When I remarked that the wealth had been exhibited to her and not to me, she did not affect to deny it, but treated that as a matter of no moment. "He wants a wife, my dear," she said, "and you may pick him up to-morrow by putting out your hand." When I remarked that his mind seemed to be intent on low things, and specially named the muck, she only laughed at me. "Money's never dirty," she said, "nor yet what makes money." She talks of taking lodgings in Norwich for the winter, saying that in her widowed state she will be as well there as anywhere else, and she wants me to stay with her up to Christmas. Indeed she first proposed the Norwich plan on the ground that it might be useful to me,--with a view to Mr. Cheesacre, of course; but I fancy that she is unwilling to tear herself away from Captain Bellfield. At any rate to Norwich she will go, and I have promised not to leave her before the second week in November. With all her absurdities I like her. Her faults are terrible faults, but she has not the fault of hiding them by falsehood. She is never stupid, and she is very good-natured. She would have allowed me to equip myself from head to foot at her expense, if I would have accepted her liberality, and absolutely offered to give me my trousseau if I would marry Mr. Cheesacre. I live in the hope that you will come down to the old place at Christmas. I won't offend you more than I can help. At any rate he won't be there. And if I don't see you there, where am I to see you? If I were you I would certainly not go to Cheltenham. You are never happy there. Do you ever dream of the river at Basle? I do;--so often. Most affectionately yours, KATE VAVASOR. [Illustration: "Mrs. Greenow, look at that."] Alice had almost lost the sensation created by the former portion of Kate's letter by the fun of the latter, before she had quite made that sensation her own. The picture of the Cambridgeshire Eden would have displeased her had she dwelt upon it, and the allusion to the cream and toast would have had the very opposite effect to that which Kate had intended. Perhaps Kate had felt this, and had therefore merged it all in her stories about Mr. Cheesacre. "I will go to Cheltenham," she said to herself. "He has recommended it. I shall never be his wife;--but, till we have parted altogether, I will show him that I think well of his advice." That same afternoon she told her father that she would go to Lady Macleod's at Cheltenham before the end of the month. She was, in truth, prompted to this by a resolution, of which she was herself hardly conscious, that she would not at this period of her life be in any way guided by her cousin. Having made up her mind about Mr. Grey, it was right that she should let her cousin know her purpose; but she would never be driven to confess to herself that Kate had influenced her in the matter. She would go to Cheltenham. Lady Macleod would no doubt vex her by hourly solicitations that the match might be renewed; but, if she knew herself, she had strength to withstand Lady Macleod. She received one letter from Mr. Grey before the time came for her departure, and she answered it, telling him of her intention;--telling him also that she now felt herself bound to explain to her father her present position. "I tell you this," she said, "in consequence of what you said to me on the matter. My father will know it to-morrow, and on the following morning I shall start for Cheltenham. I have heard from Lady Macleod and she expects me." On the following morning she did tell her father, standing by him as he sat at his breakfast. "What!" said he, putting down his tea-cup and looking up into her face; "What! not marry John Grey!" "No, papa; I know how strange you must think it." "And you say that there has been no quarrel." "No;--there has been no quarrel. By degrees I have learned to feel that I should not make him happy as his wife." "It's d----d nonsense," said Mr. Vavasor. Now such an expression as this from him, addressed to his daughter, showed that he was very deeply moved. "Oh, papa! don't talk to me in that way." "But it is. I never heard such trash in my life. If he comes to me I shall tell him so. Not make him happy! Why can't you make him happy?" "We are not suited to each other." "But what's the matter with him? He's a gentleman." "Yes; he's a gentleman." "And a man of honour, and with good means, and with all that knowledge and reading which you profess to like. Look here, Alice; I am not going to interfere, nor shall I attempt to make you marry anyone. You are your own mistress as far as that is concerned. But I do hope, for your sake and for mine,--I do hope that there is nothing again between you and your cousin." "There is nothing, papa." "I did not like your going abroad with him, though I didn't choose to interrupt your plan by saying so. But if there were anything of that kind going on, I should be bound to tell you that your cousin's position at present is not a good one. Men do not speak well of him." "There is nothing between us, papa; but if there were, men speaking ill of him would not deter me." "And men speaking well of Mr. Grey will not do the other thing. I know very well that women can be obstinate." "I haven't come to this resolution without thinking much about it, papa." "I suppose not. Well;--I can't say anything more. You are your own mistress, and your fortune is in your own keeping. I can't make you marry John Grey. I think you very foolish, and if he comes to me I shall tell him so. You are going down to Cheltenham, are you?" "Yes, papa; I have promised Lady Macleod." "Very well. I'd sooner it should be you than me; that's all I can say." Then he took up his newspaper, thereby showing that he had nothing further to say on the matter, and Alice left him alone. The whole thing was so vexatious that even Mr. Vavasor was disturbed by it. As it was not term time he had no signing to do in Chancery Lane, and could not, therefore, bury his unhappiness in his daily labour,--or rather in his labour that was by no means daily. So he sat at home till four o'clock, expressing to himself in various phrases his wonder that "any man alive should ever rear a daughter." And when he got to his club the waiters found him quite unmanageable about his dinner, which he ate alone, rejecting all proposition of companionship. But later in the evening he regained his composure over a glass of whiskey-toddy and a cigar. "She's got her own money," he said to himself, "and what does it matter? I don't suppose she'll marry her cousin. I don't think she's fool enough for that. And after all she'll probably make it up again with John Grey." And in this way he determined that he might let this annoyance run off him, and that he need not as a father take the trouble of any interference. But while he was at his club there came a visitor to Queen Anne Street, and that visitor was the dangerous cousin of whom, according to his uncle's testimony, men at present did not speak well. Alice had not seen him since they had parted on the day of their arrival in London,--nor, indeed, had heard of his whereabouts. In the consternation of her mind at this step which she was taking,--a step which she had taught herself to regard as essentially her duty before it was taken, but which seemed to herself to be false and treacherous the moment she had taken it,--she had become aware that she had been wrong to travel with her cousin. She felt sure,--she thought that she was sure,--that her doing so had in nowise affected her dealings with Mr. Grey. She was very certain,--she thought that she was certain,--that she would have rejected him just the same had she never gone to Switzerland. But every one would say of her that her journey to Switzerland with such companions had produced that result. It had been unlucky and she was sorry for it, and she now wished to avoid all communication with her cousin till this affair should be altogether over. She was especially unwilling to see him; but she had not felt it necessary to give any special injunctions as to his admittance; and now, before she had time to think of it,--on the eve of her departure for Cheltenham,--he was in the room with her, just as the dusk of the October evening was coming on. She was sitting away from the fire, almost behind the window-curtains, thinking of John Grey and very unhappy in her thoughts, when George Vavasor was announced. It will of course be understood that Vavasor had at this time received his sister's letter. He had received it, and had had time to consider the matter since the Sunday morning on which we saw him in his own rooms in Cecil Street. "She can turn it all into capital to-morrow, if she pleases," he had said to himself when thinking of her income. But he had also reminded himself that her grandfather would probably enable him to settle an income out of the property upon Alice, in the event of their being married. And then he had also felt that he could have no greater triumph than "walking atop of John Grey," as he called it. His return for the Chelsea Districts would hardly be sweeter to him than that. "You must have thought I had vanished out of the world," said George, coming up to her with his extended hand. Alice was confused, and hardly knew how to address him. "Somebody told me that you were shooting," she said after a pause. "So I was, but my shooting is not like the shooting of your great Nimrods,--men who are hunters upon the earth. Two days among the grouse and two more among the partridges are about the extent of it. Capel Court is the preserve in which I am usually to be found." Alice knew nothing of Capel Court, and said, "Oh, indeed." "Have you heard from Kate?" George asked. "Yes, once or twice; she is still at Yarmouth with Aunt Greenow." "And is going to Norwich, as she says. Kate seems to have made a league with Aunt Greenow. I, who don't pretend to be very disinterested in money matters, think that she is quite right. No doubt Aunt Greenow may marry again, but friends with forty thousand pounds are always agreeable." "I don't believe that Kate thinks much of that," said Alice. "Not so much as she ought, I dare say. Poor Kate is not a rich woman, or, I fear, likely to become one. She doesn't seem to dream of getting married, and her own fortune is less than a hundred a year." "Girls who never dream of getting married are just those who make the best marriages at last," said Alice. "Perhaps so, but I wish I was easier about Kate. She is the best sister a man ever had." "Indeed she is." "And I have done nothing for her as yet. I did think, while I was in that wine business, that I could have done anything I pleased for her. But my grandfather's obstinacy put me out of that; and now I'm beginning the world again,--that is, comparatively. I wonder whether you think I'm wrong in trying to get into Parliament?" "No; quite right. I admire you for it. It is just what I would do in your place. You are unmarried, and have a right to run the risk." "I am so glad to hear you speak like that," said he. He had now managed to take up that friendly, confidential, almost affectionate tone of talking which he had so often used when abroad with her, and which he had failed to assume when first entering the room. "I have always thought so." "But you have never said it." "Haven't I? I thought I had." "Not heartily like that. I know that people abuse me;--my own people, my grandfather, and probably your father,--saying that I am reckless and the rest of it. I do risk everything for my object; but I do not know that any one can blame me,--unless it be Kate. To whom else do I owe anything?" "Kate does not blame you." "No; she sympathizes with me; she, and she only, unless it be you." Then he paused for an answer, but she made him none. "She is brave enough to give me her hearty sympathy. But perhaps for that very reason I ought to be the more chary in endangering the only support that she is like to have. What is ninety pounds a year for the maintenance of a single lady?" "I hope that Kate will always live with me," said Alice; "that is, as soon as she has lost her home at Vavasor Hall." He had been very crafty and had laid a trap for her. He had laid a trap for her, and she had fallen into it. She had determined not to be induced to talk of herself; but he had brought the thing round so cunningly that the words were out of her mouth before she remembered whither they would lead her. She did remember this as she was speaking them, but then it was too late. "What;--at Nethercoats?" said he. "Neither she nor I doubt your love, but few men would like such an intruder as that into their household, and of all men Mr. Grey, whose nature is retiring, would like it the least." "I was not thinking of Nethercoats," said Alice. "Ah, no; that is it, you see. Kate says so often to me that when you are married she will be alone in the world." "I don't think she will ever find that I shall separate myself from her." "No; not by any will of your own. Poor Kate! You cannot be surprised that she should think of your marriage with dread. How much of her life has been made up of her companionship with you;--and all the best of it too! You ought not to be angry with her for regarding your withdrawal into Cambridgeshire with dismay." Alice could not act the lie which now seemed to be incumbent on her. She could not let him talk of Nethercoats as though it were to be her future home. She made the struggle, and she found that she could not do it. She was unable to find the words which should tell no lie to the ear, and which should yet deceive him. "Kate may still live with me," she said slowly. "Everything is over between me and Mr. Grey." "Alice!--is that true?" "Yes, George; it is true. If you will allow me to say so, I would rather not talk about it;--not just at present." "And does Kate know it?" "Yes, Kate knows it." "And my uncle?" "Yes, papa knows it also." "Alice, how can I help speaking of it? How can I not tell you that I am rejoiced that you are saved from a thraldom which I have long felt sure would break your heart?" "Pray do not talk of it further." "Well; if I am forbidden I shall of course obey. But I own it is hard to me. How can I not congratulate you?" To this she answered nothing, but beat with her foot upon the floor as though she were impatient of his words. "Yes, Alice, I understand. You are angry with me," he continued. "And yet you have no right to be surprised that when you tell me this I should think of all that passed between us in Switzerland. Surely the cousin who was with you then has a right to say what he thinks of this change in your life; at any rate he may do so, if as in this case he approves altogether of what you are doing." "I am glad of your approval, George; but pray let that be an end to it." After that the two sat silent for a minute or two. She was waiting for him to go, but she could not bid him leave the house. She was angry with herself, in that she had allowed herself to tell him of her altered plans, and she was angry with him because he would not understand that she ought to be spared all conversation on the subject. So she sat looking through the window at the row of gaslights as they were being lit, and he remained in his chair with his elbow on the table and his head resting on his hand. "Do you remember asking me whether I ever shivered," he said at last; "--whether I ever thought of things that made me shiver? Don't you remember; on the bridge at Basle?" "Yes; I remember." "Well, Alice;--one cause for my shivering is over. I won't say more than that now. Shall you remain long at Cheltenham?" "Just a month." "And then you come back here?" "I suppose so. Papa and I will probably go down to Vavasor Hall before Christmas. How much before I cannot say." "I shall see you at any rate after your return from Cheltenham? Of course Kate will know, and she will tell me." "Yes; Kate will know. I suppose she will stay here when she comes up from Norfolk. Good-bye." "Good-bye, Alice. I shall have fewer fits of that inward shivering that you spoke of,--many less, on account of what I have now heard. God bless you, Alice; good-bye." "Good-bye, George." As he went he took her hand and pressed it closely between his own. In those days when they were lovers,--engaged lovers, a close, long-continued pressure of her hand had been his most eloquent speech of love. He had not been given to many kisses,--not even to many words of love. But he would take her hand and hold it, even as he looked away from her, and she remembered well the touch of his palm. It was ever cool,--cool, and with a surface smooth as a woman's,--a small hand that had a firm grip. There had been days when she had loved to feel that her own was within it, when she trusted in it, and intended that it should be her staff through life. Now she distrusted it; and as the thoughts of the old days came upon her, and the remembrance of that touch was recalled, she drew her hand away rapidly. Not for that had she driven from her as honest a man as had ever wished to mate with a woman. He, George Vavasor, had never so held her hand since the day when they had parted, and now on this first occasion of her freedom she felt it again. What did he think of her? Did he suppose that she could transfer her love in that way, as a flower may be taken from one buttonhole and placed in another? He read it all, and knew that he was hurrying on too quickly. "I can understand well," he said in a whisper, "what your present feelings are; but I do not think you will be really angry with me because I have been unable to repress my joy at what I cannot but regard as your release from a great misfortune." Then he went. "My release!" she said, seating herself on the chair from which he had risen. "My release from a misfortune! No;--but my fall from heaven! Oh, what a man he is! That he should have loved me, and that I should have driven him away from me!" Her thoughts travelled off to the sweetness of that home at Nethercoats, to the excellence of that master who might have been hers; and then in an agony of despair she told herself that she had been an idiot and a fool, as well as a traitor. What had she wanted in life that she should have thus quarrelled with as happy a lot as ever had been offered to a woman? Had she not been mad, when she sent from her side the only man that she loved,--the only man that she had ever truly respected? For hours she sat there, all alone, putting out the candles which the servant had lighted for her, and leaving untasted the tea that was brought to her. Poor Alice! I hope that she may be forgiven. It was her special fault, that when at Rome she longed for Tibur, and when at Tibur she regretted Rome. Not that her cousin George is to be taken as representing the joys of the great capital, though Mr. Grey may be presumed to form no inconsiderable part of the promised delights of the country. Now that she had sacrificed her Tibur, because it had seemed to her that the sunny quiet of its pastures lacked the excitement necessary for the happiness of life, she was again prepared to quarrel with the heartlessness of Rome, and already was again sighing for the tranquillity of the country. Sitting there, full of these regrets, she declared to herself that she would wait for her father's return, and then, throwing herself upon his love and upon his mercy, would beg him to go to Mr. Grey and ask for pardon for her. "I should be very humble to him," she said; "but he is so good, that I may dare to be humble before him." So she waited for her father. She waited till twelve, till one, till two;--but still he did not come. Later than that she did not dare to wait for him. She feared to trust him on such business returning so late as that,--after so many cigars; after, perhaps, some superfluous beakers of club nectar. His temper at such a moment would not be fit for such work as hers. But if he was late in coming home, who had sent him away from his home in unhappiness? Between two and three she went to bed, and on the following morning she left Queen Anne Street for the Great Western Station before her father was up.

Kate Vavasor had sent to her brother only the first half of her cousin's letter, in which Alice had described her meeting with Mr. Grey. In doing this, Kate had been a wicked traitor to Alice. But her treason would have been worse if she had sent the second half, in which Alice had spoken of George Vavasor himself. Kate might have done even this, if Alice had not spoken of George as a man with whom any closer connection was impossible. She had begged Kate to cease making futile attempts in that direction. "I feel myself driven," Alice had said, "to write all this, as otherwise, when I tell you that I have resolved to part from Mr. Grey, you would think that the other thing might follow. The other thing cannot follow." "But the other thing shall follow," Kate said, as she read the words. To give Kate Vavasor her due, she was unselfish in her intrigues. She was obstinately persistent, and unscrupulous, but she was not selfish. Many years ago she had made up her mind that George and Alice should be man and wife, feeling that such a marriage would be good at any rate for her brother. It had almost happened, and had then been hindered through her brother's fault. But she was now at work on his behalf again, determined that the two should be married. The intrigue itself was dear to her, and success was necessary to her self-respect. She answered Alice's letter with a pleasant, gossiping epistle about Mrs. Greenow's proceedings at Yarmouth. Kate had promised to stay at Yarmouth for a month, but she had already been there six weeks, under her aunt's wing. She wrote: Dearest Alice, Of course I am delighted. It is no good saying that I am not; but I answer your letter with fear and trembling, lest I should say too much. I have long thought that Mr. Grey could not make you happy. He is good and noble, and all that sort of thing; but he was not suited to you, and his life would have made you wretched. So I rejoice. I can well understand how the interview went. I can see him so plainly in his unruffled self-possession, ignoring all that you said, suggesting that you were feverish, waving his hand over you as though that might do you good, and leaving with an assurance that it would be all right as soon as the wind changed. I suppose it's very noble in him, giving you, as it were, another chance; but there is a kind of nobility which is almost too great for this world. Of course I'm very glad. No woman wishes her dearest friend to marry a man whom she herself does not like. You would have been lost to me as Mrs. Grey of Nethercoats. I daresay it is a lovely place, but if ever bird banged his wings to pieces against gilded bars, you would have banged yours to pieces in that cage. You say that you have failed to make him understand that the matter is settled. Of course it is settled, and he must be made to understand it. You owe it to him now to put him out of all doubt. And now I must tell you a little about myself; or rather, tell you a great deal. I have got such a lover! I described him before. Of course it's Mr. Cheesacre. As yet he has not declared himself, and, what's worse, is very anxious to marry a rival - my aunt. But she wants him to take me, so he will be driven to make me an offer sooner or later, in obedience to her orders. My aunt has another lover, Captain Bellfield, and she prefers him. He is a penniless scamp and looks as though he drank. He paints his whiskers too; otherwise he is agreeable enough. But my lover has solid attractions. He is a man of substance, and should I ever become Mrs. Cheesacre, I should not be left in want. We went to visit his place the other day. Oileymead is its name - and we had such a time there! We reached the place at ten and left it at four, and he managed to give us three meals. I'm sure we saw every bit of china, glass, and plate in the establishment. He made us go into the cellar, and told us how much wine and beer he had got there. "It's all paid for, Mrs. Greenow, every bottle," he said with a pathetic earnestness. "I don't call anything a man's own till it's paid for. Now that jacket that Bellfield swells about with - that's not his own." Then he took us into every bedroom, and showed us all their glories. You should have seen him bidding my aunt feel the thickness of the blankets! And she turned round to me and said: "Kate, it's simply the best-furnished house I ever went over in my life!" "Yes," said he, "nobody can say that Oileymead isn't comfortable." I thought of you and Nethercoats. The attractions are the same; only in the one place you would have a god for your keeper, and in the other a brute. But when we got to the farmyard his eloquence reached the highest pitch. "Mrs. Greenow," said he, "look at that," and he pointed to heaps of manure. "I've more muck upon this place here than any farmer in Norfolk." Only fancy, Alice; it may all be mine; the blankets, the wine, the muck, and the rest of it. So my aunt assured me when we got home that evening. When I remarked that the wealth had been exhibited to her and not to me, she did not deny it, but said, "He wants a wife, my dear, and you may have him tomorrow by putting out your hand." When I mentioned the muck, she only laughed. "Money's never dirty," she said, "nor what makes money." She talks of taking lodgings in Norwich for the winter, and she wants me to stay with her up to Christmas. I fancy that she is unwilling to tear herself away from Captain Bellfield. At any rate, I have promised not to leave her before the second week in November. With all her absurdities and faults, I like her. She is never stupid, and she is very good-natured. She absolutely offered to give me my trousseau if I would marry Mr. Cheesacre. I hope that you will come up to the old place at Christmas. I won't offend you more than I can help. At any rate he won't be there. If I were you I would certainly not go to Cheltenham. You are never happy there. Do you ever dream of the river at Basle? I do; so often. Most affectionately yours, Kate Vavasor. "I will go to Cheltenham," said Alice to herself after reading this. "He has recommended it. I shall never be his wife; but I will show him that I think well of his advice." That afternoon she told her father that she would go to Lady Macleod's at Cheltenham. She was, in truth, prompted by a resolution, of which she was herself hardly conscious, that she would not be guided by her cousin just now. She would go to Cheltenham. Lady Macleod would no doubt vex her by begging that the match might be renewed; but she had strength to withstand Lady Macleod. She received one letter from Mr. Grey before she departed, and she answered it, telling him that she now felt bound to explain the position to her father. On the following morning she told her father at breakfast. "What!" said he, putting down his tea-cup. "What! not marry John Grey!" "No, papa; I know how strange you must think it." "And there has been no quarrel?" "No. But I have learned to feel that I should not make him happy as his wife." "It's d---d nonsense," said Mr. Vavasor, very deeply moved. "Oh, papa! don't talk to me in that way." "But it is. I never heard such trash in my life. If he comes to me I shall tell him so. Not make him happy! Why can't you make him happy?" "We are not suited to each other." "But what's the matter with him? He's a gentleman." "Yes." "And a man of honour, and with good means, and with all that knowledge and reading which you profess to like. Look here, Alice; I am not going to interfere. You are your own mistress. But I do hope that there is nothing again between you and your cousin." "There is nothing, papa." "I did not like your going abroad with him, though I didn't want to say so. But I must tell you that men do not speak well of your cousin." "There is nothing between us, papa; but if there were, men speaking ill of him would not deter me." "And men speaking well of Mr. Grey will not do the other thing." "No. I have thought a great deal about it, papa." "Well; I can't make you marry John Grey. I think you very foolish, and if he comes to me I shall tell him so." Then he took up his newspaper, thereby showing that he had nothing further to say on the matter, and Alice left him alone. The whole thing was so vexatious that when Mr. Vavasor went to his club the waiters found him quite unmanageable about his dinner. But later in the evening he regained his composure over a whiskey-toddy and a cigar. "She's got her own money," he said to himself, "and what does it matter? I don't think she's fool enough to marry her cousin. And she'll probably make it up again with John Grey." So he decided that he need not take any fatherly trouble about it. But while he was at his club a visitor came to Queen Anne Street: the dangerous cousin. Alice had not seen him since they had parted on their arrival in London. In her trouble at this step which she was taking - a step which she had taught herself to regard as her duty, but which seemed to herself to be false and treacherous the moment she had taken it - she had become aware that she had been wrong to travel with her cousin. She felt sure it had not affected her dealings with Mr. Grey. She was very certain - she thought she was certain - that she would have rejected him just the same. But everyone would say that her journey had caused it, and she wished to avoid all communication with her cousin for now. However, she had not given any orders about his admittance; and now, before she had time to think, he was in the room with her, just as the October dusk was coming on. She was sitting away from the fire, very unhappy in her thoughts, when George Vavasor was announced. He had received his sister's letter, and had had time to consider the matter. "She can turn all her income into capital tomorrow, if she pleases," he had said to himself. But he had also reminded himself that her grandfather would probably allow him to settle an income upon Alice out of his property if they married. And he had also felt that he could have no greater triumph than "walking atop of John Grey." "You must have thought I had vanished out of the world," said George. Alice, confused, hardly knew how to address him. "Somebody told me that you were shooting," she said after a pause. "So I was, but two days among the grouse and two more among the partridges was about the extent of it. Have you heard from Kate?" "Yes, once or twice; she is still at Yarmouth with Aunt Greenow." "And is going to Norwich, as she says. Kate seems to have made friends with Aunt Greenow, and I think that she is quite right. Friends with forty thousand pounds are always agreeable." "I don't believe that Kate thinks much about that," said Alice. "Not so much as she ought, I dare say. Poor Kate is not a rich woman, or, I fear, likely to become one. She doesn't seem to dream of getting married, and her own fortune is less than a hundred a year." "Girls who never dream of getting married are just those who make the best marriages at last," said Alice. "Perhaps so, but I wish I was easier about Kate. She is the best sister a man ever had." "Indeed she is." "I did think, while I was in that wine business, that I could have done something for her. But my grandfather's obstinacy prevented that; and now I'm beginning the world again - that is, comparatively. I wonder whether you think I'm wrong in trying to get into Parliament?" "No; I admire you for it. It is just what I would do in your place. You are unmarried, and have a right to run the risk." "I am so glad to hear you speak like that," said he. He had now managed to take up that friendly, confidential tone of talking which he had often used when abroad with her. "I have always thought so." "But you have never said it." "Haven't I? I thought I had." "Not heartily like that. I know that people abuse me, saying that I am reckless and the rest of it. I do risk everything for my object; but I do not know that anyone can blame me, unless it be Kate. To whom else do I owe anything?" "Kate does not blame you." "No; she sympathizes with me; no-one else does, unless it be you." Then he paused for an answer, but she made him none. "She is brave enough to give me her hearty sympathy. But perhaps for that very reason I ought to be more careful in endangering the only support that she is likely to have." "I hope that Kate will live with me," said Alice; "that is, once she has lost her home at Vavasor Hall." He had been very crafty and had laid a trap for her, and she had fallen into it. She had been determined not to talk of herself; but the words were out of her mouth before she remembered where they would lead her. "What - at Nethercoats?" said he. "Few men would like such an intruder into their household, and of all men Mr. Grey, whose nature is retiring, would like it the least." "I was not thinking of Nethercoats," said Alice. "Ah, no. Kate says often to me that when you are married she will be alone in the world. Poor Kate! You cannot be surprised that she should dread your marriage. How much of her life has been made up of her companionship with you! You ought not to be angry with her for regarding your marriage with dismay." Alice could not let him talk of Nethercoats as though it were to be her future home. "Kate may still live with me," she said slowly. "Everything is over between me and Mr. Grey." "Alice! is that true?" "Yes, George. I would rather not talk about it at present." "And does Kate know it?" "Yes." "And my uncle?" "Yes, papa knows it also." "Alice, how can I help speaking of it? I am rejoiced that you are saved from a thraldom which I was sure would break your heart!" "Pray do not talk of it further." "Well; I shall of course obey. But how can I not congratulate you?" To this she answered nothing, but beat with her foot upon the floor as though impatient of his words. "Yes, Alice, I understand. You are angry with me," he continued. "Yet surely your cousin has a right to say what he thinks of this change in your life; especially if he approves of it." "I am glad of your approval, George; but pray let that be an end to it." After that the two sat silent for a minute or two. She was waiting for him to go, but she could not bid him leave. She was angry with herself, for allowing herself to tell him of her altered plans, and she was angry with him because he would not understand that she ought to be spared all conversation on the subject. So she sat looking through the window at the gas-lamps as they were being lit, and he remained in his chair. "Do you remember asking me whether I ever shivered," he said at last, "on the bridge at Basle?" "Yes; I remember." "Well, Alice, one cause for my shivering is over. I won't say more than that now. Shall you remain long at Cheltenham?" "Just a month." "And then you come back here?" "I suppose so. Papa and I will probably go to Vavasor Hall before Christmas." "I shall see you at any rate after your return from Cheltenham? Of course Kate will know." "Yes; I suppose Kate will stay here when she comes back from Norfolk. Good-bye." "Good-bye, Alice. I shall have fewer fits now of that inward shivering that you spoke of. God bless you, Alice; good-bye." "Good-bye, George." He took her hand and pressed it closely between his own. In the days when they were engaged, a close pressure of her hand had been his most eloquent speech of love. He had not been given to many kisses - not even to many words of love. But he would take her hand and hold it, and she remembered well the touch of his palm. It was a cool, smooth, small hand that had a firm grip. There had been days when she had loved to feel that her own was within it, when she trusted in it, as her staff through life. Now she distrusted it; and she drew her hand away rapidly. What did he think of her? Did he suppose that she could transfer her love in that way, as a flower may be taken from one buttonhole and placed in another? He read it all, and knew that he was hurrying on too quickly. "I can understand well," he whispered, "what your present feelings are; but I do not think you will be really angry with me because I have been unable to repress my joy at your release from a great misfortune." Then he went. "My release!" she said. "My release from a misfortune! No; my fall from heaven! Oh, what a man he is! That he should have loved me, and that I should have driven him away!" Her thoughts travelled off to the sweetness of that home at Nethercoats, to the excellence of its master; and in an agony of despair she told herself that she had been an idiot and a fool, as well as a traitor. Had she not been mad, when she sent away the only man that she loved - the only man that she had ever truly respected? For hours she sat there, all alone, leaving untasted the tea that was brought to her. Poor Alice! I hope that she may be forgiven. Sitting there, full of these regrets, she declared to herself that she would wait for her father's return, and then, throwing herself upon his love and mercy, would beg him to go to Mr. Grey and ask for pardon for her. "I should be very humble to him," she said; "but he is so good, that I may dare to be humble before him." So she waited for her father. She waited till twelve, till one, till two;-but still he did not come. Later than that she did not dare to wait for him. His temper at such a time would not be fit for the task. Between two and three she went to bed, and on the following morning she left Queen Anne Street for the station before her father was up.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 14: Alice Vavasor Becomes Troubled

Poor Kate's condition at the old Hall on that night was very sad. The presence of death is always a source of sorrow, even though the circumstances of the case are of a kind to create no agony of grief. The old man who had just passed away up-stairs was fully due to go. He had lived his span all out, and had himself known that to die was the one thing left for him to do. Kate also had expected his death, and had felt that the time had come in which it would be foolish even to wish that it should be arrested. But death close to one is always sad as it is solemn. And she was quite alone at Vavasor Hall. She had no acquaintance within some miles of her. From the young vicar, though she herself had not quarrelled with him, she could receive no comfort, as she hardly knew him; nor was she of a temperament which would dispose her to turn to a clergyman at such a time for comfort, unless to one who might have been an old friend. Her aunt and brother would probably both come to her, but they could hardly be with her for a day or two, and during that day or two it would be needful that orders should be given which it is disagreeable for a woman to have to give. The servants, moreover, in the house were hardly fit to assist her much. There was an old butler, or footman, who had lived at the Hall for more than fifty years, but he was crippled with rheumatism, and so laden with maladies, that he rarely crept out of his own room. He was simply an additional burden on the others. There was a boy who had lately done all the work which the other should have done, and ever so much more beside. There is no knowing how much work such a boy will do when properly drilled, and he was now Kate's best minister in her distress. There was the old nurse,--but she had been simply good for nursing, and there were two rough Westmoreland girls who called themselves cook and housemaid. On that first evening,--the very day on which her grandfather had died,--Kate would have been more comfortable had she really found something that she could do. But there was in truth nothing. She hovered for an hour or two in and out of the room, conscious of the letter which she had in her pocket, and very desirous in heart of reading it, but restrained by a feeling that at such a moment she ought to think only of the dead. In this she was wrong. Let the living think of the dead, when their thoughts will travel that way whether the thinker wish it or no. Grief taken up because grief is supposed to be proper, is only one degree better than pretended grief. When one sees it, one cannot but think of the lady who asked her friend, in confidence, whether hot roast fowl and bread-sauce were compatible with the earliest state of weeds; or of that other lady,--a royal lady she,--who was much comforted in the tedium of her trouble when assured by one of the lords about the Court that piquet was mourning. It was late at night, near eleven, before Kate took out her letter and read it. As something of my story hangs upon it, I will give it at length, though it was a long letter. It had been written with great struggles, and with many tears, and Kate, as she read it to the end, almost forgot that her grandfather was lying dead in the room above her. Queen Anne Street, April, 186--. DEAREST KATE, I hardly know how to write to you--what I have to tell, and yet I must tell it. I must tell it to you, but I shall never repeat the story to any one else. I should have written yesterday, when it occurred, but I was so ill that I felt myself unable to make the exertion. Indeed, at one time, after your brother had left me, I almost doubted whether I should ever be able to collect my thoughts again. My dismay was at first so great that my reason for a time deserted me, and I could only sit and cry like an idiot. Dear Kate, I hope you will not be angry with me for telling you. I have endeavoured to think about it as calmly as I can, and I believe that I have no alternative. The fact that your brother has quarrelled with me cannot be concealed from you, and I must not leave him to tell you of the manner of it. He came to me yesterday in great anger. His anger then was nothing to what it became afterwards; but even when he first came in he was full of wrath. He stood up before me, and asked me how it had come to pass that I had sent him the money which he had asked of me through the hands of Mr. Grey. Of course I had not done this, and so I told him at once. I had spoken of the matter to no one but papa, and he had managed it for me. Even now I know nothing of it, and as I have not yet spoken to papa I cannot understand it. George at once told me that he disbelieved me, and when I sat quiet under this insult, he used harsher words, and said that I had conspired to lower him before the world. He then asked me whether I loved him. Oh, Kate, I must tell it you all, though it is dreadful to me that I should have to write it. You remember how it came to pass when we were in Westmoreland together at Christmas? Do not think that I am blaming you, but I was very rash then in the answers which I made to him. I thought that I could be useful to him as his wife, and I had told myself that it would be good that I should be of use in some way. When he asked me that question yesterday, I sat silent. Indeed, how could I have answered it in the affirmative, when he had just used such language to me,--while he was standing opposite to me, looking at me in that way which he has when he is enraged? Then he spoke again and demanded of me that I should at once send back to Mr. Grey all presents of his which I had kept, and at the same time took up and threw across the table on to the sofa near me, a little paper knife which Mr. Grey once gave me. I could not allow myself to be so ordered by him; so I said nothing, but put the knife back upon the table. He then took it again and threw it beneath the grate. "I have a right to look upon you as my wife," he said, "and, as such, I will not allow you to keep that man's things about you." I think I told him then that I should never become his wife, but though I remember many of his words, I remember none of my own. He swore, I know, with a great oath, that if I went back a second time from my word to him he would leave me no peace,--that he would punish me for my perfidy with some fearful punishment. Oh, Kate, I cannot tell you what he looked like. He had then come quite close to me, and I know that I trembled before him as though he were going to strike me. Of course I said nothing. What could I say to a man who behaved to me in such a manner? Then, as far as I can remember it, he sat down and began to talk about money. I forget what he said at first, but I know that I assured him that he might take what he wanted so long as enough was left to prevent my being absolutely a burden on papa. "That, madam, is a matter of course," he said. I remember those words so well. Then he explained that after what had passed between us, I had no right to ruin him by keeping back from him money which had been promised to him, and which was essential to his success. In this, dear Kate, I think he was mainly right. But he could not have been right in putting it to me in that hard, cruel manner, especially as I had never refused anything that he had asked of me in respect of money. The money he may have while it lasts; but then there must be an end of it all between us, even though he should have the power of punishing me, as he says he will do. Punishing me, indeed! What punishment can be so hard as that which he has already inflicted? He then desired me to write a letter to him which he might show to the lawyer,--to our own lawyer, I think he meant,--in order that money might be raised to pay back what Mr. Grey had advanced, and give him what he now required. I think he said it was to be five thousand pounds. When he asked this I did not move. Indeed, I was unable to move. Then he spoke very loud, and swore at me again, and brought me pen and ink, demanding that I should write the letter. I was so frightened that I thought of running to the door to escape, and I would have done so had I not distrusted my own power. Had it been to save my life I could not have written the letter. I believe I was now crying,--at any rate I threw myself back and covered my face with my hands. Then he came and sat by me, and took hold of my arms. Oh, Kate; I cannot tell it you all. He put his mouth close to my ear, and said words which were terrible, though I did not understand them. I do not know what it was he said, but he was threatening me with his anger if I did not obey him. Before he left me, I believe I found my voice to tell him that he should certainly have the money which he required. And so he shall. I will go to Mr. Round myself, and insist on its being done. My money is my own, and I may do with it as I please. But I hope,--I am obliged to hope, that I may never be made to see my cousin again. I will not pretend to express any opinion as to the cause of all this. It is very possible that you will not believe all I say,--that you will think that I am mad and have deluded myself. Of course your heart will prompt you to accuse me rather than him. If it is so, and if there must therefore be a division between us, my grief will be greatly increased; but I do not know that I can help it. I cannot keep all this back from you. He has cruelly ill-used me and insulted me. He has treated me as I should have thought no man could have treated a woman. As regards money, I did all that I could do to show that I trusted him thoroughly, and my confidence has only led to suspicion. I do not know whether he understands that everything must be over between us; but, if not, I must ask you to tell him so. And I must ask you to explain to him that he must not come again to Queen Anne Street. If he does, nothing shall induce me to see him. Tell him also that the money that he wants shall assuredly be sent to him as soon as I can make Mr. Round get it. Dearest Kate, good-bye. I hope you will feel for me. If you do not answer me I shall presume that you think yourself bound to support his side, and to believe me to have been wrong. It will make me very unhappy; but I shall remember that you are his sister, and I shall not be angry with you. Yours always affectionately, ALICE VAVASOR. Kate, as she read her letter through, at first quickly, and then very slowly, came by degrees almost to forget that death was in the house. Her mind, and heart, and brain, were filled with thoughts and feelings that had exclusive reference to Alice and her brother, and at last she found herself walking the room with quick, impetuous steps, while her blood was hot with indignation. All her sympathies in the matter were with Alice. It never occurred to her to disbelieve a word of the statement made to her, or to suggest to herself that it had been coloured by any fears or exaggerations on the part of her correspondent. She knew that Alice was true. And, moreover, much as she loved her brother,--willing as she had been and would still be to risk all that she possessed, and herself also, on his behalf,--she knew that it would be risking and not trusting. She loved her brother, such love having come to her by nature, and having remained with her from of old; and in his intellect she still believed. But she had ceased to have belief in his conduct. She feared everything that he might do, and lived with a consciousness that though she was willing to connect all her own fortunes with his, she had much reason to expect that she might encounter ruin in doing so. Her sin had been in this,--that she had been anxious to subject Alice to the same danger,--that she had intrigued, sometimes very meanly, to bring about the object which she had at heart,--that she had used all her craft to separate Alice from Mr. Grey. Perhaps it may be alleged in her excuse that she had thought,--had hoped rather than thought,--that the marriage which she contemplated would change much in her brother that was wrong, and bring him into a mode of life that would not be dangerous. Might not she and Alice together so work upon him, that he should cease to stand ever on the brink of some half-seen precipice? To risk herself for her brother was noble. But when she used her cunning in inducing her cousin to share that risk she was ignoble. Of this she had herself some consciousness, as she walked up and down the old dining-room at midnight, holding her cousin's letter in her hand. Her cheeks became tinged with shame as she thought of the scene which Alice had described,--the toy thrown beneath the grate, the loud curses, the whispered threats, which had been more terrible than curses, the demand for money, made with something worse than a cut-throat's violence, the strong man's hand placed upon the woman's arm in anger and in rage, those eyes glaring, and the gaping horror of that still raw cicatrice, as he pressed his face close to that of his victim! Not for a moment did she think of defending him. She accused him to herself vehemently of a sin over and above those sins which had filled Alice with dismay. He had demanded money from the girl whom he intended to marry! According to Kate's idea, nothing could excuse or palliate this sin. Alice had accounted it as nothing,--had expressed her opinion that the demand was reasonable;--even now, after the ill-usage to which she had been subjected, she had declared that the money should be forthcoming, and given to the man who had treated her so shamefully. It might be well that Alice should so feel and so act, but it behoved Kate to feel and act very differently. She would tell her brother, even in the house of death, should he come there, that his conduct was mean and unmanly. Kate was no coward. She declared to herself that she would do this even though he should threaten her with all his fury,--though he should glare upon her with all the horrors of his countenance. One o'clock, and two o'clock, still found her in the dark sombre parlour, every now and then pacing the floor of the room. The fire had gone out, and, though it was now the middle of April, she began to feel the cold. But she would not go to bed before she had written a line to Alice. To her brother a message by telegraph would of course be sent the next morning; as also would she send a message to her aunt. But to Alice she would write, though it might be but a line. Cold as she was, she found her pens and paper, and wrote her letter that night. It was very short. "Dear Alice, to-day I received your letter, and to-day our poor old grandfather died. Tell my uncle John, with my love, of his father's death. You will understand that I cannot write much now about that other matter; but I must tell you, even at such a moment as this, that there shall be no quarrel between you and me. There shall be none at least on my side. I cannot say more till a few days shall have passed by. He is lying up-stairs, a corpse. I have telegraphed to George, and I suppose he will come down. I think my aunt Greenow will come also, as I had written to her before, seeing that I wanted the comfort of having her here. Uncle John will of course come or not as he thinks fitting. I don't know whether I am in a position to say that I shall be glad to see him; but I should be very glad. He and you will know that I can, as yet, tell you nothing further. The lawyer is to see the men about the funeral. Nothing, I suppose, will be done till George comes. Your own cousin and friend, KATE VAVASOR." And then she added a line below, "My own Alice,--If you will let me, you shall be my sister, and be the nearest to me and the dearest." Alice, when she received this, was at the first moment so much struck, and indeed surprised, by the tidings of her grandfather's death, that she was forced, in spite of the still existing violence of her own feelings, to think and act chiefly with reference to that event. Her father had not then left his room. She therefore went to him, and handed him Kate's letter. "Papa," she said, "there is news from Westmoreland; bad news, which you hardly expected yet." "My father is dead," said John Vavasor. Whereupon Alice gave him Kate's letter, that he might read it. "Of course I shall go down," he said, as he came to that part in which Kate had spoken of him. "Does she think I shall not follow my father to the grave, because I dislike her brother? What does she mean by saying that there shall be no quarrel between you and her?" "I will explain that at another time," said Alice. John Vavasor asked no further questions then, but declared at first that he should go to Westmoreland on the following day. Then he altered his purpose. "I'll go by the mail train to-night," he said. "It will be very disagreeable, but I ought to be there when the will is opened." There was very little more said in Queen Anne Street on the subject till the evening,--till a few moments before Mr. Vavasor left his house. He indeed had thought nothing more about that quarrelling, or rather that promise that there should be no quarrelling, between the girls. He still regarded his nephew George as the man who, unfortunately, was to be his son-in-law, and now, during this tedious sad day, in which he felt himself compelled to remain at home, he busied his mind in thinking of George and Alice, as living together at the old Hall. At six, the father and daughter dined, and soon after dinner Mr. Vavasor went up to his own room to prepare himself for his journey. After a while Alice followed him,--but she did not do so till she knew that if anything was to be told before the journey no further time could be lost. "Papa," she said, as soon as she had shut the door behind her, "I think I ought to tell you before you go that everything is over between me and George." "Have you quarrelled with him too?" said her father, with uncontrolled surprise. "I should perhaps say that he has quarrelled with me. But, dear papa, pray do not question me at present. I will tell you all when you come back, but I thought it right that you should know this before you went." "It has been his doing then?" "I cannot explain it to you in a hurry like this. Papa, you may understand something of the shame which I feel, and you should not question me now." "And John Grey?" "There is nothing different in regard to him." "I'll be shot if I can understand you. George, you know, has had two thousand pounds of your money,--of yours or somebody else's. Well, we can't talk about it now, as I must be off. Thinking as I do of George, I'm glad of it,--that's all." Then he went, and Alice was left alone, to comfort herself as best she might by her own reflections. George Vavasor had received the message on the day previous to that on which Alice's letter had reached her, but it had not come to him till late in the day. He might have gone down by the mail train of that night, but there were one or two persons, his own attorney especially, whom he wished to see before the reading of his grandfather's will. He remained in town, therefore, on the following day, and went down by the same train as that which took his uncle. Walking along the platform, looking for a seat, he peered into a carriage and met his uncle's eye. The two saw each other, but did not speak, and George passed on to another carriage. On the following morning, before the break of day, they met again in the refreshment room, at the station at Lancaster. "So my father has gone, George," said the uncle, speaking to the nephew. They must go to the same house, and Mr. Vavasor felt that it would be better that they should be on speaking terms when they reached it. "Yes," said George; "he has gone at last. I wonder what we shall find to have been his latest act of injustice." The reader will remember that he had received Kate's first letter, in which she had told him of the Squire's altered will. John Vavasor turned away disgusted. His finer feelings were perhaps not very strong, but he had no thoughts or hopes in reference to the matter which were mean. He expected nothing himself, and did not begrudge his nephew the inheritance. At this moment he was thinking of the old Squire as a father who had ever been kind to him. It might be natural that George should have no such old affection at his heart, but it was unnatural that he should express himself as he had done at such a moment. The uncle turned away, but said nothing. George followed him with a little proposition of his own. "We shan't get any conveyance at Shap," he said. "Hadn't we better go over in a chaise from Kendal?" To this the uncle assented, and so they finished their journey together. George smoked all the time that they were in the carriage, and very few words were spoken. As they drove up to the old house, they found that another arrival had taken place before them,--Mrs. Greenow having reached the house in some vehicle from the Shap station. She had come across from Norwich to Manchester, where she had joined the train which had brought the uncle and nephew from London.

Poor Kate's condition that night was very sad. Death is always a sorrow, even though it may cause no agony of grief. The old man had lived his span; both he and Kate had expected his death. But death close to one is always sad and solemn. And she was quite alone at Vavasor Hall. She had no acquaintance within miles. Her aunt and brother would probably both come, but they could take a day or two, and during that time she needed to give orders which were disagreeable for a woman. The servants were hardly fit to assist her much. There was an old butler who had lived at the Hall for more than fifty years, but he was crippled with rheumatism, and was simply an additional burden on the others. There was a boy who had lately done all the work, and he was now Kate's best minister in her distress. There was the old nurse - but she had been good only for nursing; and there were two rough Westmorland girls who called themselves cook and housemaid. On that evening of the day on which her grandfather had died, Kate would have been more comfortable if she had found something that she could do. But there was nothing. She hovered for an hour or two around the room, conscious of the letter from Alice in her pocket, wishing to read it, but restrained by a feeling that at the moment she ought to think only of the dead. It was late at night before Kate took out her letter and read it. It had been written with great struggles, and with many tears, and Kate, as she read it, almost forgot that her grandfather was lying dead in the room above her. Queen Anne Street, April, 186--. Dearest Kate, I hardly know how to write what I have to tell, and yet I must tell it; but I shall never repeat the story to anyone else. I would have written yesterday, when it occurred, but I was so ill that I felt unable to. Indeed, at one time, after your brother had left me, I almost doubted whether I should ever be able to collect my thoughts again. My dismay was so great that my reason for a time deserted me, and I could only sit and cry like an idiot. Dear Kate, I hope you will not be angry with me for telling you. I have tried to think about it as calmly as I can, and I believe that I have no alternative. The fact that your brother has quarrelled with me cannot be concealed from you, and I must not leave him to tell you about it. He came to me yesterday in great anger; although his anger then was nothing to what it became afterwards. He stood before me, and asked me how it had come to pass that I had sent him my money through the hands of Mr. Grey. Of course I had not done this, and so I told him. I had spoken of the matter to no one but papa, and he had managed it for me. Even now I know nothing of it, and as I have not yet spoken to papa I cannot understand it. George at once told me that he disbelieved me, and when I sat quiet, he used harsher words, and said that I had conspired to lower him before the world. He then asked me whether I loved him. Oh, Kate, I must tell it you all, though it is dreadful to write it. You remember what happened when we were in Westmorland together at Christmas? Do not think that I am blaming you, but I was very rash then in the answer I made to him. I thought that I could be useful to him as his wife, and I thought it would be good that I should be of use in some way. When he asked me that question yesterday, I sat silent. Indeed, how could I have answered "yes", when he had just used such language to me - while he was standing there looking so enraged? Then he demanded that I should at once send back to Mr. Grey all presents of his which I had kept, and he threw across the table a little paper knife which Mr. Grey once gave me. I could not allow myself to be so ordered by him; so I said nothing, but put the knife back upon the table. He then took it again and threw it beneath the grate. "I have a right to regard you as my wife," he said, "and I will not allow you to keep that man's things." I think I told him then that I should never become his wife, but though I remember many of his words, I remember none of my own. He swore, I know, with a great oath, that if I went back a second time from my word he would leave me no peace - he would punish me fearfully. Oh, Kate, I cannot tell you what he looked like. He had come quite close to me, and I trembled as though he were going to strike me. I said nothing. What could I say to him? Then, as far as I can remember it, he sat down and began to talk about money. I forget what he said at first, but I know that I assured him that he might take what he wanted so long as enough was left to prevent my being absolutely a burden on papa. "That, madam, is a matter of course," he said. I remember those words so well. Then he explained that after what had passed between us, I had no right to ruin him by keeping back money which had been promised to him, and which was essential to his success. In this, dear Kate, I think he was mainly right. But he could not have been right in saying it in that hard, cruel manner, especially as I had never refused any money that he had asked of me. The money he may have while it lasts; but then there must be an end of it all between us, even though he should have the power of punishing me, as he says he will do. What punishment can be so hard as that which he has already inflicted? He then desired me to write a letter which he might show to the lawyer in order that money might be raised to pay back what Mr. Grey had advanced, and give him what he now required. I think he said it was to be five thousand pounds. When he asked this I was unable to move. Then he spoke very loud, and swore at me again, and brought me pen and ink, demanding that I should write the letter. I was so frightened that I thought of running to the door to escape, and I would have done so if I had felt able. Had it been to save my life I could not have written the letter. I believe I was now crying - at any rate I covered my face with my hands. Then he came and sat by me, and took hold of my arms. Oh, Kate; I cannot tell it you all. He put his mouth close to my ear, and said words which were terrible. He was threatening me with his anger if I did not obey him. Before he left me, I believe I found my voice to tell him that he should certainly have the money. And so he shall. I will go to Mr. Round myself, and insist on its being done. But I hope that I may never be made to see my cousin again. I will not pretend to express any opinion as to the cause of all this. It is very possible that you will not believe all I say - that you will think that I am mad and deluded. Of course your heart will prompt you to accuse me rather than him. If it is so, my grief will be greatly increased; but I cannot help it. I cannot keep all this back from you. He has cruelly ill-used me and insulted me. He has treated me as I should have thought no man could have treated a woman. As regards money, I did all that I could do to show that I trusted him thoroughly, and my confidence has only led to suspicion. I do not know whether he understands that everything must be over between us; but, if not, I must ask you to tell him so. And I must ask you to explain to him that he must not come again to Queen Anne Street. If he does, nothing shall induce me to see him. Tell him that the money that he wants shall be sent to him as soon as I can manage it. Dearest Kate, good-bye. I hope you will feel for me. If you do not answer me I shall presume that you think yourself bound to support his side, and to believe me to have been wrong. It will make me very unhappy; but I shall remember that you are his sister, and I shall not be angry with you. Yours always affectionately, Alice Vavasor. Kate, as she read her letter through, at first quickly, and then very slowly, almost forgot that death was in the house. Her mind and heart were filled with thoughts of Alice and her brother, and at last she found herself walking the room with quick, impetuous steps, while her blood was hot with indignation. All her sympathies were with Alice. It never occurred to her to disbelieve a word, or to suggest that it had been exaggerated. She knew that Alice was true. And, moreover, much as she loved her brother, she did not trust him. She believed in his intellect; but she had ceased to have belief in his conduct. She feared everything that he might do, and was conscious that though she was willing to connect all her own fortunes with his, it might ruin her. Her sin had been in seeking to subject Alice to the same danger; she had plotted to bring about the thing she wished for, and to separate Alice from Mr. Grey. In her excuse, she had hoped a marriage between Alice and her brother would change much in George that was wrong. Might not she and Alice together so work upon him, that he should cease to stand always on the brink of some half-seen precipice? To risk herself for her brother was noble. But inducing her cousin to share that risk was ignoble. She knew this as she walked up and down the old dining-room at midnight, holding her cousin's letter in her hand. Her cheeks became tinged with shame as she thought of the scene which Alice had described - the knife thrown beneath the grate, the loud curses, the whispered threats, more terrible than curses, the demand for money, made with a cut-throat's violence, the strong man's hand placed upon the woman's arm in rage, those eyes glaring, and the gaping horror of that scar as he pressed his face close to his victim's! Not for a moment did she think of defending him. He had demanded money from the girl whom he intended to marry! To Kate, nothing could excuse this sin. Alice had written that the demand was reasonable; even now, after his ill-usage, she had declared that the money should be given to the man who had treated her so shamefully. Kate felt very differently. She would tell her brother that his conduct was mean and unmanly. Kate was no coward. She declared to herself that she would do this even though he should threaten her with all his fury. One o'clock, and two o'clock, still found her in the sombre parlour. The fire had gone out, and she began to feel the cold. But she would not go to bed before she had written a line to Alice. To her brother, and her aunt, a message by telegraph would be sent the next morning. But to Alice she must write a line. Cold as she was, she found her pens and paper, and wrote: "Dear Alice, today I received your letter, and today our poor old grandfather died. Tell my uncle John, with my love, of his father's death. You will understand that I cannot write much now about that other matter; but I must tell you, even at such a moment as this, that there shall be no quarrel between you and me. There shall be none at least on my side. I cannot say more till a few days shall have passed by. He is lying upstairs, a corpse. I have telegraphed to George, and I suppose he will come here. I think my aunt Greenow will come also, as I asked her earlier. Uncle John will of course come or not as he thinks fitting. I should be very glad to see him. The lawyer is to see about the funeral. Nothing, I suppose, will be done till George comes. "Your own cousin and friend, Kate Vavasor." And then she added a line below, "My own Alice, if you will let me, you shall be my sister, and be the nearest to me and the dearest." Alice, when she received this, was at first so surprised by the news of her grandfather's death, that she was forced to think chiefly about that event. She went to her father and handed him Kate's letter. "Papa," she said, "there is bad news from Westmorland." "My father is dead," said John Vavasor; and he read the letter. "Of course I shall go," he said, as he came to that part in which Kate had spoken of him. "Does she think I shall not go to my father's funeral? What does she mean by saying that there shall be no quarrel between you and her?" "I will explain another time," said Alice. John Vavasor asked no further questions, but declared that he would go to Westmorland by the mail train that evening. "It will be very disagreeable," he said, "but I ought to be there when the will is opened." Little more was said on the subject till the evening. But after dinner, as he went up to pack, Alice followed him. "Papa," she said, "I think I ought to tell you before you go that everything is over between me and George." "Have you quarrelled with him too?" said her father, with surprise. "I should perhaps say that he has quarrelled with me. But, dear papa, pray do not question me at present. I will tell you all when you come back, but I thought it right that you should know this before you went." "And John Grey?" "There is nothing different in regard to him." "I'll be shot if I can understand you. George, you know, has had two thousand pounds of your money - of yours or somebody else's. Well, we can't talk about it now, as I must be off. I'm glad of it, that's all." Then he went, and Alice was left alone. George Vavasor had also received the message, and he took the same train as his uncle. Walking along the platform, looking for a seat, he peered into a carriage and met his uncle's eye. The two saw each other, but did not speak, and George passed on to another carriage. On the following morning, before daybreak, they met again in the refreshment room at Lancaster Station. "So my father has gone, George," said the uncle, feeling that it would be better that they should be on speaking terms. "Yes," said George; "he has gone at last. I wonder what we shall find to have been his latest act of injustice." The reader will remember that Kate had written to him about the Squire's altered will. John Vavasor turned away disgusted. He expected nothing from the will himself, and did not begrudge his nephew the inheritance. At this moment he was thinking of the old Squire as a father who had always been kind to him. So he turned away, but said nothing. George followed him saying, "We shan't get any transport at Shap. Hadn't we better go over in a chaise from Kendal?" To this the uncle assented, and so they finished their journey together. George smoked all the time in the carriage, and very few words were spoken. As they drove up to the old house, they found that Mrs. Greenow had arrived in some vehicle from the Shap station, having travelled from Norwich to Manchester, where she had joined the same train.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 54: Showing How Alice Was Punished

Mr. Vavasor was at his wits' end about his daughter. She had put her name to four bills for five hundred pounds each, and had demanded from him, almost without an apology, his aid in obtaining money to meet them. And she might put her name to any other number of bills, and for any amount! There was no knowing how a man ought to behave to such a daughter. "I don't want her money," the father said to himself; "and if she had got none of her own, I would make her as comfortable as I could with my own income. But to see her throw her money away in such a fashion as this is enough to break a man's heart." Mr. Vavasor went to his office in Chancery Lane, but he did not go to the chambers of Mr. Round, the lawyer. Instead of calling on Mr. Round he sent a note by a messenger to Suffolk Street, and the answer to the note came in the person of Mr. Grey. John Grey was living in town in these days, and was in the habit of seeing Mr. Vavasor frequently. Indeed, he had not left London since the memorable occasion on which he had pitched his rival down the tailor's stairs at his lodgings. He had made himself pretty well conversant with George Vavasor's career, and had often shuddered as he thought what might be the fate of any girl who might trust herself to marry such a man as that. He had been at home when Mr. Vavasor's note had reached his lodgings, and had instantly walked off towards Chancery Lane. He knew his way to Mr. Vavasor's signing-office very accurately, for he had acquired a habit of calling there, and of talking to the father about his daughter. He was a patient, persevering man, confident in himself, and apt to trust that he would accomplish those things which he attempted, though he was hardly himself aware of any such aptitude. He had never despaired as to Alice. And though he had openly acknowledged to himself that she had been very foolish,--or rather, that her judgement had failed her,--he had never in truth been angry with her. He had looked upon her rejection of himself, and her subsequent promise to her cousin, as the effects of a mental hallucination, very much to be lamented,--to be wept for, perhaps, through a whole life, as a source of terrible sorrow to himself and to her. But he regarded it all as a disease, of which the cure was yet possible,--as a disease which, though it might never leave the patient as strong as she was before, might still leave her altogether. And as he would still have clung to his love had she been attacked by any of those illnesses for which doctors have well-known names, so would he cling to her now that she was attacked by a malady for which no name was known. He had already heard from Mr. Vavasor that Alice had discovered how impossible it was that she should marry her cousin, and, in his quiet, patient, enduring way, was beginning to feel confident that he would, at last, carry his mistress off with him to Nethercoats. It was certainly a melancholy place, that signing-office, in which Mr. John Vavasor was doomed to spend twelve hours a week, during every term time, of his existence. Whether any man could really pass an existence of work in such a workshop, and not have gone mad,--could have endured to work there for seven hours a day, every week-day of his life, I am not prepared to say. I doubt much whether any victims are so doomed. I have so often wandered through those gloomy passages without finding a sign of humanity there,--without hearing any slightest tick of the hammer of labour, that I am disposed to think that Lord Chancellors have been anxious to save their subordinates from suicide, and have mercifully decreed that the whole staff of labourers, down to the very message boys of the office, should be sent away to green fields or palatial clubs during, at any rate, a moiety of their existence. The dismal set of chambers, in which the most dismal room had been assigned to Mr. Vavasor, was not actually in Chancery Lane. Opening off from Chancery Lane are various other small lanes, quiet, dingy nooks, some of them in the guise of streets going no whither, some being thoroughfares to other dingy streets beyond, in which sponging-houses abound, and others existing as the entrances to so-called Inns of Court,--inns of which all knowledge has for years been lost to the outer world of the laity, and, as I believe, lost almost equally to the inner world of the legal profession. Who has ever heard of Symonds' Inn? But an ancestral Symonds, celebrated, no doubt, in his time, did found an inn, and there it is to this day. Of Staples' Inn, who knows the purposes or use? Who are its members, and what do they do as such? And Staples' Inn is an inn with pretensions, having a chapel of its own, or, at any rate, a building which, in its external dimensions, is ecclesiastical, having a garden and architectural proportions; and a faade towards Holborn, somewhat dingy, but respectable, with an old gateway, and with a decided character of its own. The building in which Mr. John Vavasor had a room and a desk was located in one of these side streets, and had, in its infantine days, been regarded with complacency by its founder. It was stone-faced, and strong, and though very ugly, had about it that air of importance which justifies a building in assuming a special name of itself. This building was called the Accountant-General's Record Office, and very probably, in the gloom of its dark cellars, may lie to this day the records of the expenditure of many a fair property which has gotten itself into Chancery, and has never gotten itself out again. It was entered by a dark hall, the door of which was never closed; and which, having another door at its further end leading into another lane, had become itself a thoroughfare. But the passers through it were few in number. Now and then a boy might be seen there carrying on his head or shoulders a huge mass of papers which you would presume to be accounts, or some clerk employed in the purlieus of Chancery Lane who would know the shortest possible way from the chambers of some one attorney to those of some other. But this hall, though open at both ends, was as dark as Erebus; and any who lingered in it would soon find themselves to be growing damp, and would smell mildew, and would become naturally affected by the exhalations arising from those Chancery records beneath their feet. Up the stone stairs, from this hall, John Grey passed to Mr. Vavasor's signing-room. The stairs were broad, and almost of noble proportions, but the darkness and gloom which hung about the hall, hung also about them,--a melancholy set of stairs, up and down which no man can walk with cheerful feet. Here he came upon a long, broad passage, in which no sound was, at first, to be heard. There was no busy noise of doors slamming, no rapid sound of shoes, no passing to and fro of men intent on their daily bread. Pausing for a moment, that he might look round about him and realize the deathlike stillness of the whole, John Grey could just distinguish the heavy breathing of a man, thereby learning that there was a captive in, at any rate, one of those prisons on each side of him. As he drew near to the door of Mr. Vavasor's chamber he knew that the breathing came from thence. On the door there were words inscribed, which were just legible in the gloom--"Signing Room. Mr. Vavasor." How John Vavasor did hate those words! It seemed to him that they had been placed there with the express object of declaring his degradation aloud to the world. Since his grandfather's will had been read to him he had almost made up his mind to go down those melancholy stairs for the last time, to shake the dust off his feet as he left the Accountant-General's Record Office for ever, and content himself with half his official income. But how could he give up so many hundreds a year while his daughter was persisting in throwing away thousands as fast as, or faster than, she could lay her hands on them? John Grey entered the room and found Mr. Vavasor sitting all alone in an arm-chair over the fire. I rather think that that breathing had been the breathing of a man asleep. He was resting himself amidst the labours of his signing. It was a large, dull room, which could not have been painted, I should think, within the memory of man, looking out backwards into some court. The black wall of another building seemed to stand up close to the window,--so close that no direct ray of the sun ever interrupted the signing-clerk at his work. In the middle of the room there was a large mahogany-table, on which lay a pile of huge papers. Across the top of them there was placed a bit of blotting-paper, with a quill pen, the two only tools which were necessary to the performance of the signing-clerk's work. On the table there stood a row of official books, placed lengthways on their edges: the "Post-Office Directory," the "Court Circular," a "Directory to the Inns of Court," a dusty volume of Acts of Parliament, which had reference to Chancery accounts,--a volume which Mr. Vavasor never opened; and there were some others; but there was no book there in which any Christian man or woman could take delight, either for amusement or for recreation. There were three or four chairs round the wall, and there was the one arm-chair which the occupant of the chamber had dragged away from its sacred place to the hearth-rug. There was also an old Turkey carpet on the floor. Other furniture there was none. Can it be a matter of surprise to any one that Mr. Vavasor preferred his club to his place of business? He was not left quite alone in this deathlike dungeon. Attached to his own large room there was a small closet, in which sat the signing-clerk's clerk,--a lad of perhaps seventeen years of age, who spent the greatest part of his time playing tit-tat-to by himself upon official blotting-paper. Had I been Mr. Vavasor I should have sworn a bosom friendship with that lad, have told him all my secrets, and joined his youthful games. "Come in!" Mr. Vavasor had cried when John Grey disturbed his slumber by knocking at the door. "I'm glad to see you,--very. Sit down; won't you? Did you ever see such a wretched fire? The coals they give you in this place are the worst in all London. Did you ever see such coals?" And he gave a wicked poke at the fire. It was now the 1st of May, and Grey, who had walked from Suffolk Street, was quite warm. "One hardly wants a fire at all, such weather as this," he said. "Oh; don't you?" said the signing-clerk. "If you had to sit here all day, you'd see if you didn't want a fire. It's the coldest building I ever put my foot in. Sometimes in winter I have to sit here the whole day in a great-coat. I only wish I could shut old Sugden up here for a week or two, after Christmas." The great lawyer whom he had named was the man whom he supposed to have inflicted on him the terrible injury of his life, and he was continually invoking small misfortunes on the head of that tyrant. "How is Alice?" said Grey, desiring to turn the subject from the ten-times-told tale of his friend's wrongs. Mr. Vavasor sighed. "She is well enough, I believe," he said. "Is anything the matter in Queen Anne Street?" "You'll hardly believe it when I tell you; and, indeed, I hardly know whether I ought to tell you or not." "As you and I have gone so far together, I think that you ought to tell me anything that concerns her nearly." "That's just it. It's about her money. Do you know, Grey, I'm beginning to think that I've been wrong in allowing you to advance what you have done on her account?" "Why wrong?" "Because I foresee there'll be a difficulty about it. How are we to manage about the repayment?" "If she becomes my wife there will be no management wanted." "But how if she never becomes your wife? I'm beginning to think she'll never do anything like any other woman." "I'm not quite sure that you understand her," said Grey; "though of course you ought to do so better than any one else." "Nobody can understand her," said the angry father. "She told me the other day, as you know, that she was going to have nothing more to do with her cousin--" "Has she--has she become friends with him again?" said Grey. As he asked the question there came a red spot on each cheek, showing the strong mental anxiety which had prompted it. "No; I believe not;--that is, certainly not in the way you mean. I think that she is beginning to know that he is a rascal." "It is a great blessing that she has learned the truth before it was too late." "But would you believe it;--she has given him her name to bills for two thousand pounds, payable at two weeks' sight? He sent to her only this morning a fellow that he called his clerk, and she has been fool enough to accept them. Two thousand pounds! That comes of leaving money at a young woman's own disposal." "But we expected that, you know," said Grey, who seemed to take the news with much composure. "Expected it?" "Of course we did. You yourself did not suppose that what he had before would have been the last." "But after she had quarrelled with him!" "That would make no difference with her. She had promised him her money, and as it seems that he will be content with that, let her keep her promise." "And give him everything! Not if I can help it. I'll expose him. I will indeed. Such a pitiful rascal as he is!" "You will do nothing, Mr. Vavasor, that will injure your daughter. I'm very sure of that." "But, by heavens--. Such sheer robbery as that! Two thousand pounds more in fourteen days!" The shortness of the date at which the bills were drawn seemed to afflict Mr. Vavasor almost as keenly as the amount. Then he described the whole transaction as accurately as he could do so, and also told how Alice had declared her purpose of going to Mr. Round the lawyer, if her father would not undertake to procure the money for her by the time the bills should become due. "Mr. Round, you know, has heard nothing about it," he continued. "He doesn't dream of any such thing. If she would take my advice, she would leave the bills, and let them be dishonoured. As it is, I think I shall call at Drummonds', and explain the whole transaction." "You must not do that," said Grey. "I will call at Drummonds', instead, and see that the money is all right for the bills. As far as they go, let him have his plunder." "And if she won't take you, at last, Grey? Upon my word, I don't think she ever will. My belief is she'll never get married. She'll never do anything like any other woman." "The money won't be missed by me if I never get married," said Grey, with a smile. "If she does marry me, of course I shall make her pay me." "No, by George! that won't do," said Vavasor. "If she were your daughter you'd know that she could not take a man's money in that way." "And I know it now, though she is not my daughter. I was only joking. As soon as I am certain,--finally certain,--that she can never become my wife, I will take back my money. You need not be afraid. The nature of the arrangement we have made shall then be explained to her." In this way it was settled; and on the following morning the father informed the daughter that he had done her bidding, and that the money would be placed to her credit at the bankers' before the bills came due. On that Saturday, the day which her cousin had named in his letter, she trudged down to Drummonds', and was informed by a very courteous senior clerk in that establishment, that due preparation for the bills had been made. So far, I think we may say that Mr. George Vavasor was not unfortunate.

Mr. Vavasor was at his wits' end about his daughter. She had put her name to four bills for five hundred pounds each, and had demanded his aid in obtaining money to meet them. And she might put her name to any other number of bills! "I don't want her money," the father said to himself; "and if she had none, I would make her as comfortable as I could with my own income. But to see her throw her money away like this is enough to break a man's heart." He sent a note to Mr. Round, the lawyer, and the answer to the note came in the person of Mr. Grey. John Grey had acquired a habit of calling at Mr. Vavasor's office to talk to the father about his daughter. He had never despaired about Alice. And though he acknowledged that she had been very foolish - or rather, that her judgement had failed her - he had never been angry with her. He had looked upon her rejection of himself, and her promise to her cousin, as the effects of a mental hallucination, very much to be lamented, but curable - a disease which might leave her altogether. And just as he would still have clung to his love if she had been attacked by any ordinary illness, so would he cling to her now that she was attacked by a malady which had no name. He had heard from Mr. Vavasor that Alice had discovered it was impossible that she should marry her cousin, and, in his quiet, patient way was beginning to feel confident that he would, at last, carry her off with him to Nethercoats. Mr. Vavasor's office was in a dismal set of chambers, on one of the quiet, dingy side-streets off Chancery Lane. The ugly stone building, which was called the Accountant-General's Record Office, was entered by a dark hall; and, having an open door at either end, this had become a thoroughfare. But the passers through it were few, and the hall was dark, damp, and smelt of mildew. From this hall, up the gloomy stone stairs, John Grey passed to Mr. Vavasor's room. Pausing in the silent passage outside the door, he could just hear the heavy breathing of a man within. He entered and found Mr. Vavasor sitting in an arm-chair by the fire, resting amidst his labours. It was a large, dull room, with the view through the window of the black wall of another building. A pile of papers lay on a large mahogany table. There were three or four chairs round the wall, the arm-chair on the hearth-rug, and an old Turkey carpet on the floor. Other furniture there was none. Can it be any surprise that Mr. Vavasor preferred his club? He was not quite alone in this deathlike dungeon. Attached to his own large room there was a small closet in which sat his clerk, a youth who spent most of his time doodling on the blotting-paper. "Come in!" Mr. Vavasor cried. "I'm glad to see you. Sit down. Did you ever see such a wretched fire? It's the coldest building I ever put my foot in. Sometimes in winter I have to sit here in a great-coat." "How is Alice?" said Grey. Mr. Vavasor sighed. "She is well enough." "Is anything the matter?" "You'll hardly believe it when I tell you; and, indeed, I hardly know whether I ought to tell you." "I think that you ought to tell me anything that concerns her." "It's about her money. Do you know, Grey, I'm beginning to think that I've been wrong in allowing you to advance money on her account?" "Why?" "Because I foresee difficulty about the repayment." "If she becomes my wife there will be no management wanted." "But what if she never becomes your wife? I'm beginning to think she'll never do anything like any other woman. She told me the other day, as you know, that she was going to have nothing more to do with her cousin-" "Has she become friends with him again?" said Grey, in strong anxiety. "No - certainly not in the way you mean. I think that she is learning that he is a rascal. But would you believe it - she has given him her name to bills for two thousand pounds, payable at two weeks? Two thousand pounds!" "But we expected that, you know," said Grey, with composure. "Expected it? After she had quarrelled with him?" "She had promised him her money, and as it seems that he will be content with that, let her keep her promise." "And give him everything! Not if I can help it. I'll expose the rascal, I will indeed!" "You will do nothing, Mr. Vavasor, that will injure your daughter. I'm sure of that." "But it's sheer robbery!" Then Mr. Vavasor described the whole transaction, and told how Alice had declared she would go to Mr. Round the lawyer, if her father would not procure the money for her. "If she would take my advice, she would leave the bills, and let them be dishonoured. I think I shall call at Drummonds bank, and explain it." "You must not do that," said Grey. "I will call at Drummonds, instead, and see that the money is all right for the bills. Let him have his plunder." "And what if she won't take you, Grey? My belief is she'll never get married." "The money won't be missed by me if I never get married," said Grey, with a smile. "No, by George! that won't do," said Vavasor. "Then as soon as I am certain that she can never become my wife, I will take back my money." So it was settled; and next morning the father informed the daughter that he had done her bidding, and that the money would be in the bank before the bills came due. On that Saturday which her cousin had named in his letter, she trudged down to Drummonds, and was informed by a very courteous senior clerk that due preparation for the bills had been made. So far, I think we may say that Mr. George Vavasor was fortunate.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 61: The Bills Are Made All Right

It will no doubt be understood that George Vavasor did not roam about in the woods unshorn, or wear leathern trappings and sandals, like Robinson Crusoe, instead of coats and trousers. His wildness was of another kind. Indeed, I don't know that he was in truth at all wild, though Lady Macleod had called him so, and Alice had assented to her use of the word. George Vavasor had lived in London since he was twenty, and now, at the time of the beginning of my story, he was a year or two over thirty. He was and ever had been the heir to his grandfather's estate; but that estate was small, and when George first came to London his father was a strong man of forty, with as much promise of life in him as his son had. A profession had therefore been absolutely necessary to him; and he had, at his uncle John's instance, been placed in the office of a parliamentary land agent. With this parliamentary land agent he had quarrelled to the knife, but not before he had by his talents made himself so useful that he had before him the prospects of a lucrative partnership in the business. George Vavasor had many faults, but idleness--absolute idleness--was not one of them. He would occasionally postpone his work to pleasure. He would be at Newmarket when he should have been at Whitehall. But it was not usual with him to be in bed when he should be at his desk, and when he was at his desk he did not whittle his ruler, or pick his teeth, or clip his nails. Upon the whole his friends were pleased with the first five years of his life in London--in spite of his having been found to be in debt on more than one occasion. But his debts had been paid; and all was going on swimmingly, when one day he knocked down the parliamentary agent with a blow between the eyes, and then there was an end of that. He himself was wont to say that he had known very well what he was about, that it had behoved him to knock down the man who was to have been his partner, and that he regretted nothing in the matter. At any rate the deed was looked upon with approving eyes by many men of good standing,--or, at any rate, sufficient standing to help George to another position; and within six weeks of the time of his leaving the office at Whitehall, he had become a partner in an established firm of wine merchants. A great-aunt had just then left him a couple of thousand pounds, which no doubt assisted him in his views with the wine merchants. In this employment he remained for another period of five years, and was supposed by all his friends to be doing very well. And indeed he did not do badly, only that he did not do well enough to satisfy himself. He was ambitious of making the house to which he belonged the first house in the trade in London, and scared his partners by the boldness and extent of his views. He himself declared that if they would only have gone along with him he would have made them princes in the wine market. But they were men either of more prudence or of less audacity than he, and they declined to walk in his courses. At the end of the five years Vavasor left the house, not having knocked any one down on this occasion, and taking with him a very nice sum of money. The two last of these five years had certainly been the best period of his life, for he had really worked very hard, like a man, giving up all pleasure that took time from him,--and giving up also most pleasures which were dangerous on account of their costliness. He went to no races, played no billiards, and spoke of Cremorne as a childish thing, which he had abandoned now that he was no longer a child. It was during these two years that he had had his love passages with his cousin; and it must be presumed that he had, at any rate, intended at one time to settle himself respectably as a married man. He had, however, behaved very badly to Alice, and the match had been broken off. He had also during the last two years quarrelled with his grandfather. He had wished to raise a sum of money on the Vavasor estate, which, as it was unentailed, he could only do with his grandfather's concurrence. The old gentleman would not hear of it,--would listen with no patience to the proposition. It was in vain that George attempted to make the squire understand that the wine business was going on very well, that he himself owed no man anything, that everything with him was flourishing;--but that his trade might be extended indefinitely by the use of a few thousand pounds at moderate interest. Old Mr. Vavasor was furious. No documents and no assurances could make him lay aside a belief that the wine merchants, and the business, and his grandson were all ruined and ruinous together. No one but a ruined man would attempt to raise money on the family estate! So they had quarrelled, and had never spoken or seen each other since. "He shall have the estate for his life," the squire said to his son John. "I don't think I have a right to leave it away from him. It never has been left away from the heir. But I'll tie it up so that he shan't cut a tree on it." John Vavasor perhaps thought that the old rule of primogeniture might under such circumstances have been judiciously abandoned--in this one instance, in his own favour. But he did not say so. Nor would he have said it had there been a chance of his doing so with success. He was a man from whom no very noble deed could be expected; but he was also one who would do no ignoble deed. After that George Vavasor had become a stockbroker, and a stockbroker he was now. In the first twelve months after his leaving the wine business,--the same being the first year after his breach with Alice,--he had gone back greatly in the estimation of men. He had lived in open defiance of decency. He had spent much money and had apparently made none, and had been, as all his friends declared, on the high road to ruin. Aunt Macleod had taken her judgement from this period of his life when she had spoken of him as a man who never did anything. But he had come forth again suddenly as a working man; and now they who professed to know, declared that he was by no means poor. He was in the City every day; and during the last two years had earned the character of a shrewd fellow who knew what he was about, who might not perhaps be very mealy-mouthed in affairs of business, but who was fairly and decently honourable in his money transactions. In fact, he stood well on 'Change. And during these two years he had stood a contest for a seat in Parliament, having striven to represent the metropolitan borough of Chelsea, on the extremely Radical interest. It is true that he had failed, and that he had spent a considerable sum of money in the contest. "Where on earth does your nephew get his money?" men said to John Vavasor at his club. "Upon my word I don't know," said Vavasor. "He doesn't get it from me, and I'm sure he doesn't get it from my father." But George Vavasor, though he failed at Chelsea, did not spend his money altogether fruitlessly. He gained reputation by the struggle, and men came to speak of him as though he were one who would do something. He was a stockbroker, a thorough-going Radical, and yet he was the heir to a fine estate, which had come down from father to son for four hundred years! There was something captivating about his history and adventures, especially as just at the time of the election he became engaged to an heiress, who died a month before the marriage should have taken place. She died without a will, and her money all went to some third cousins. George Vavasor bore this last disappointment like a man, and it was at this time that he again became fully reconciled to his cousin. Previous to this they had met; and Alice, at her cousin Kate's instigation, had induced her father to meet him. But at first there had been no renewal of real friendship. Alice had given her cordial assent to her cousin's marriage with the heiress, Miss Grant, telling Kate that such an engagement was the very thing to put him thoroughly on his feet. And then she had been much pleased by his spirit at that Chelsea election. "It was grand of him, wasn't it?" said Kate, her eyes brimming full of tears. "It was very spirited," said Alice. "If you knew all, you would say so. They could get no one else to stand but that Mr. Travers, and he wouldn't come forward, unless they would guarantee all his expenses." "I hope it didn't cost George much," said Alice. "It did, though; nearly all he had got. But what matters? Money's nothing to him, except for its uses. My own little mite is my own now, and he shall have every farthing of it for the next election, even though I should go out as a housemaid the next day." There must have been something great about George Vavasor, or he would not have been so idolized by such a girl as his sister Kate. Early in the present spring, before the arrangements for the Swiss journey were made, George Vavasor had spoken to Alice about that intended marriage which had been broken off by the lady's death. He was sitting one evening with his cousin in the drawing-room in Queen Anne Street, waiting for Kate, who was to join him there before going to some party. I wonder whether Kate had had a hint from her brother to be late! At any rate, the two were together for an hour, and the talk had been all about himself. He had congratulated her on her engagement with Mr. Grey, which had just become known to him, and had then spoken of his own last intended marriage. "I grieved for her," he said, "greatly." "I'm sure you did, George." "Yes, I did;--for her, herself. Of course the world has given me credit for lamenting the loss of her money. But the truth is, that as regards both herself and her money, it is much better for me that we were never married." "Do you mean even though she should have lived?" "Yes;--even had she lived." "And why so? If you liked her, her money was surely no drawback." "No; not if I had liked her." "And did you not like her?" "No." "Oh, George!" "I did not love her as a man should love his wife, if you mean that. As for my liking her, I did like her. I liked her very much." "But you would have loved her?" "I don't know. I don't find that task of loving so very easy. It might have been that I should have learned to hate her." "If so, it is better for you, and better for her, that she has gone." "It is better. I am sure of it. And yet I grieve for her, and in thinking of her I almost feel as though I were guilty of her death." "But she never suspected that you did not love her?" "Oh no. But she was not given to think much of such things. She took all that for granted. Poor girl! she is at rest now, and her money has gone, where it should go, among her own relatives." "Yes; with such feelings as yours are about her, her money would have been a burden to you." "I would not have taken it. I hope, at least, that I would not have taken it. Money is a sore temptation, especially to a poor man like me. It is well for me that the trial did not come in my way." "But you are not such a very poor man now, are you, George? I thought your business was a good one." "It is, and I have no right to be a poor man. But a man will be poor who does such mad things as I do. I had three or four thousand pounds clear, and I spent every shilling of it on the Chelsea election. Goodness knows whether I shall have a shilling at all when another chance comes round; but if I have I shall certainly spend it, and if I have not, I shall go in debt wherever I can raise a hundred pounds." "I hope you will be successful at last." "I feel sure that I shall. But, in the mean time, I cannot but know that my career is perfectly reckless. No woman ought to join her lot to mine unless she has within her courage to be as reckless as I am. You know what men do when they toss up for shillings?" "Yes, I suppose I do." "I am tossing up every day of my life for every shilling that I have." "Do you mean that you're--gambling?" "No. I have given that up altogether. I used to gamble, but I never do that now, and never shall again. What I mean is this,--that I hold myself in readiness to risk everything at any moment, in order to gain any object that may serve my turn. I am always ready to lead a forlorn hope. That's what I mean by tossing up every day for every shilling that I have." Alice did not quite understand him, and perhaps he did not intend that she should. Perhaps his object was to mystify her imagination. She did not understand him, but I fear that she admired the kind of courage which he professed. And he had not only professed it: in that matter of the past election he had certainly practised it. In talking of beauty to his sister he had spoken of himself as being ugly. He would not generally have been called ugly by women, had not one side of his face been dreadfully scarred by a cicatrice, which in healing, had left a dark indented line down from his left eye to his lower jaw. That black ravine running through his cheek was certainly ugly. On some occasions, when he was angry or disappointed, it was very hideous; for he would so contort his face that the scar would, as it were, stretch itself out, revealing all its horrors, and his countenance would become all scar. "He looked at me like the devil himself--making the hole in his face gape at me," the old squire had said to John Vavasor in describing the interview in which the grandson had tried to bully his grandfather into assenting to his own views about the mortgage. But in other respects George's face was not ugly, and might have been thought handsome by many women. His hair was black, and was parted in the front. His forehead, though low, was broad. His eyes were dark and bright, and his eyebrows were very full, and perfectly black. At those periods of his anger, all his face which was not scar, was eye and eyebrow. He wore a thick black moustache, which covered his mouth, but no whiskers. People said of him that he was so proud of his wound that he would not grow a hair to cover it. The fact, however, was that no whisker could be made to come sufficiently forward to be of service, and therefore he wore none. The story of that wound should be told. When he was yet hardly more than a boy, before he had come up to London, he was living in a house in the country which his father then occupied. At the time his father was absent, and he and his sister only were in the house with the maid-servants. His sister had a few jewels in her room, and an exaggerated report of them having come to the ears of certain enterprising burglars, a little plan was arranged for obtaining them. A small boy was hidden in the house, a window was opened, and at the proper witching hour of night a stout individual crept up-stairs in his stocking-feet, and was already at Kate Vavasor's door,--when, in the dark, dressed only in his nightshirt, wholly unarmed, George Vavasor flew at the fellow's throat. Two hours elapsed before the horror-stricken women of the house could bring men to the place. George's face had then been ripped open from the eye downwards, with some chisel, or house-breaking instrument. But the man was dead. George had wrenched from him his own tool, and having first jabbed him all over with insufficient wounds, had at last driven the steel through his windpipe. The small boy escaped, carrying with him two shillings and threepence which Kate had left upon the drawing-room mantelpiece. George Vavasor was rather low in stature, but well made, with small hands and feet, but broad in the chest and strong in the loins. He was a fine horseman and a hard rider; and men who had known him well said that he could fence and shoot with a pistol as few men care to do in these peaceable days. Since volunteering had come up, he had become a captain of Volunteers, and had won prizes with his rifle at Wimbledon. Such had been the life of George Vavasor, and such was his character, and such his appearance. He had always lived alone in London, and did so at present; but just now his sister was much with him, as she was staying up in town with an aunt, another Vavasor by birth, with whom the reader will, if he persevere, become acquainted in course of time. I hope he will persevere a little, for of all the Vavasors Mrs. Greenow was perhaps the best worth knowing. But Kate Vavasor's home was understood to be in her grandfather's house in Westmoreland. On the evening before they started for Switzerland, George and Kate walked from Queen Anne Street, where they had been dining with Alice, to Mrs. Greenow's house. Everything had been settled about luggage, hours of starting, and routes as regarded their few first days; and the common purse had been made over to George. That portion of Mr. Grey's letter had been read which alluded to the Paynims and the glasses of water, and everything had passed in the best of good-humour. "I'll endeavour to get the cold water for you," George had said; "but as to the breakfasts, I can only hope you won't put me to severe trials by any very early hours. When people go out for pleasure it should be pleasure." The brother and sister walked through two or three streets in silence, and then Kate asked a question. "George, I wonder what your wishes really are about Alice?" "That she shouldn't want her breakfast too early while we are away." "That means that I'm to hold my tongue, of course." "No, it doesn't." "Then it means that you intend to hold yours." "No; not that either." "Then what does it mean?" "That I have no fixed wishes on the subject. Of course she'll marry this man John Grey, and then no one will hear another word about her." "She will no doubt, if you don't interfere. Probably she will whether you interfere or not. But if you wish to interfere--" "She's got four hundred a year, and is not so good-looking as she was." "Yes; she has got four hundred a year, and she is more handsome now than ever she was. I know that you think so;--and that you love her and love no one else--unless you have a sneaking fondness for me." "I'll leave you to judge of that last." "And as for me,--I only love two people in the world; her and you. If ever you mean to try, you should try now."

It will be understood that George Vavasor did not roam about in the woods in leather clothes and sandals, like Robinson Crusoe. His wildness was of another kind. Indeed, I don't know that he was truly wild at all. George Vavasor had lived in London since he was twenty, and was now just over thirty. He was the heir to his grandfather's estate; but that estate was small. He had therefore needed a profession; and with his uncle John's help, he had been placed in the office of a parliamentary land agent. He had quarrelled with this land agent, but not before his talents had made him useful. George Vavasor had many faults, but idleness was not one of them. He would occasionally postpone his work for pleasure. He would be at Newmarket races when he should have been at Whitehall. But when he was at his desk he did not waste time. Upon the whole his friends were pleased with the first five years of his life in London - in spite of the debts he ran up. But his debts were paid; and all was going on swimmingly, when one day he knocked down the parliamentary agent, and that was the end of that. However, he had friends who helped him to another position, as a partner in an established firm of wine merchants. A great-aunt had just then left him a couple of thousand pounds, which no doubt helped him in the wine merchants' eyes. In this employment he remained for another five years, and did not do badly, but did not do well enough to satisfy himself. He was ambitious for the company, and scared his partners by the boldness of his views. So at the end of the five years George Vavasor left the wine house, not having knocked anyone down on this occasion, and taking with him a very nice sum of money. The two last of these five years had certainly been the best period of his life, for he had really worked very hard. It was during these two years that he had had his love passages with his cousin; and presumably had intended to become a respectable married man. He had, however, behaved very badly to Alice, and the match had been broken off. He had also quarrelled with his grandfather. He had wished to raise a sum of money on the Vavasor estate, which he could only do with his grandfather's agreement. The old gentleman would not hear of it. In vain George tried to make the squire understand that the wine business was flourishing, but that his trade might be greatly extended by the use of a few thousand pounds. Old Mr. Vavasor was furious. He was convinced that the wine merchants and his grandson were all ruined. No one but a ruined man would attempt to raise money on the family estate! So they had quarrelled, and had never spoken or seen each other since. "He shall have the estate once I'm gone," the squire said to his younger son John. "It never has been left away from the heir. But I'll tie it up so that he shan't cut a tree on it." John Vavasor perhaps thought that the old rule of primogeniture might have been judiciously abandoned in this case, in his own favour. But he did not say so. After that George Vavasor had become a stockbroker, and a stockbroker he was now. In the first twelve months after his leaving the wine business, and after his breach with Alice, he had gone backwards in men's esteem. He had been, it seemed, on the road to ruin. Aunt Macleod was thinking of this period of his life when she said he was a man who never did anything. But now he was working in the City every day. During the last two years he had earned a reputation as a shrewd fellow who was honourable in his money transactions. And during these two years he had stood for a seat in Parliament, having striven to represent Chelsea as a Radical candidate. It is true that he had failed, after spending a large sum of money in the contest. But though he failed, he did not spend his money fruitlessly. Men began to speak of him as a man who would do something. He was a stockbroker, a Radical, and yet the heir to a fine old estate! There was something captivating about his history and adventures, especially as at the time of the election he became engaged to an heiress, who died a month before their marriage. She died without a will, and her money all went to some third cousins. George Vavasor bore this last disappointment like a man, and it was at this time that he again became fully reconciled with his cousin. Before this there had been no renewal of real friendship, although Alice had given her cordial assent to her cousin's marriage with the heiress, telling Kate that such an engagement was the very thing to put George on his feet. And she had been pleased by his spirit at the Chelsea election. "It was grand of him, wasn't it?" said Kate, her eyes brimming with tears. "It was very spirited," said Alice. "I hope it didn't cost him much." "It did, though; nearly all he had got. But money's nothing to him, except for its uses. He shall have every farthing of my own money for the next election, even if I have go out as a housemaid." There must have been something great about George Vavasor, or he would not have been idolized by such a girl as his sister Kate. Early in the spring, before the arrangements for the Swiss journey were made, George Vavasor had spoken to Alice about that intended marriage which had been broken off by the lady's death. They were sitting one evening in her drawing-room, waiting for Kate to join them. I wonder whether Kate had had a hint from her brother to be late! At any rate, the two were together for an hour, and the talk had been all about himself. He had congratulated her on her engagement with Mr. Grey, and had then spoken of his own intended marriage. "I grieved for her," he said, "greatly." "I'm sure you did, George." "Of course the world thinks I was lamenting the loss of her money. But the truth is, that as regards both herself and her money, it is much better for me that we were never married." "Do you mean even if she had lived?" "Yes." "Why? If you liked her, her money was surely no drawback." "No; not if I had liked her." "And did you not like her?" "I liked her very much. But I did not love her as a man should love his wife." "But you would have come to love her?" "I don't know. I don't find that task of loving very easy. I might have learned to hate her. And yet I grieve for her, and feel almost guilty of her death." "But she never suspected that you did not love her?" "Oh no. She took all that for granted. Poor girl! she is at rest now, and her money has gone, where it should go, among her own relatives. I would not have taken it - I hope so, at least. Money is a sore temptation." "But you are not a poor man, are you, George? I thought your business was a good one." "It is, and I have no right to be a poor man. I had three or four thousand pounds clear, but I spent every shilling on the Chelsea election. Goodness knows whether I shall have a shilling at all when another chance comes round; but if I have I shall certainly spend it, or else go in debt to raise the money." "I hope you will be successful." "I feel sure that I shall. But meamwhile, no woman ought to join her lot to mine unless she is brave enough to be as reckless as I am. I keep myself ready to risk everything at any moment, in order to gain any object that may serve my turn." Alice did not quite understand him, and perhaps he intended to mystify her. I fear that she admired the kind of courage which he professed. George described himself as ugly. One side of his face been dreadfully scarred, with a dark line running down from his left eye to his lower jaw. That black ravine through his cheek was certainly ugly, and sometimes, when his face was distorted by anger or disappointment, it was hideous; for it seemed to stretch itself out, and his countenance would become all scar. But in other respects George was not ugly. His hair was black; his forehead, though low, was broad. His eyes were dark and bright, and his black eyebrows were very full. He wore a thick black moustache, but no sideburns. People said that he was so proud of his wound that he would not grow a hair to cover it. The fact, however, was that no whisker could be made to fully cover it, and therefore he wore none. The story of that wound should be told. When he was a youth, he lived in his father's house in the country. At the time his father was absent, and only he and his sister were in the house with the maid-servants. His sister had a few jewels in her room, and when an exaggerated report of them reached the ears of some enterprising burglars, they hatched a little plan. A small boy was hidden in the house, a window was opened, and in the dead of night a man crept upstairs in his stocking-feet, and was already at Kate Vavasor's door - when George, in his nightshirt, wholly unarmed, flew at the fellow's throat. George's face was ripped open from the eye downwards, with a chisel used as a house-breaking instrument. But the man was dead. George had wrenched his own tool from him, and after several vain jabs, had at last driven the steel through his windpipe. The small boy escaped. George Vavasor was not tall, but well made, broad-chested and strong. He was a fine horseman, and could shoot and fence, it was said, better than most men. He had always lived alone in London; but just now his sister Kate was much with him, as she was staying up in town with an aunt - another Vavasor by birth, now called Mrs. Greenow. But Kate Vavasor's home was her grandfather's house in Westmorland. On the evening before they started for Switzerland, George and Kate walked from Queen Anne Street, where they had been dining with Alice, to Mrs. Greenow's house. Everything had been settled about luggage and routes for their few first days; and that part of Mr. Grey's letter had been read which alluded to the Paynims and the glasses of water, in the best of good-humour. Now the brother and sister walked in silence, before Kate asked, "George, I wonder what your wishes really are about Alice?" "I have no wishes on the subject. Of course she'll marry this man John Grey, and then no one will hear another word about her." "She will, no doubt, if you don't interfere. But if you wish to interfere-" "She's got four hundred a year, and is not so good-looking as she was." "Yes; she has got four hundred a year, and she is more handsome now than ever she was. I know that you think so; and that you love her and no-one else - unless you have a sneaking fondness for me." "I'll leave you to judge that." "As for me, I only love two people in the world; her and you. If ever you mean to try, you should try now."

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 4: George Vavasor, the Wild Man

George Vavasor remained about four days beneath his grandfather's roof; but he was not happy there himself, nor did he contribute to the happiness of any one else. He remained there in great discomfort so long, being unwilling to leave till an answer had been received to the request made to Aunt Greenow, in order that he might insist on Kate's performance of her promise with reference to Alice, if that answer should be unfavourable. During these five days Kate did all in her power to induce her brother to be, at any rate, kind in his manner towards his grandfather, but it was in vain. The Squire would not be the first to be gracious; and George, quite as obstinate as the old man, would take no steps in that direction till encouraged to do so by graciousness from the other side. Poor Kate entreated each of them to begin, but her entreaties were of no avail. "He is an ill-mannered cub," the old man said, "and I was a fool to let him into the house. Don't mention his name to me again." George argued the matter more at length. Kate spoke to him of his own interest in the matter, urging upon him that he might, by such conduct, drive the Squire to exclude him altogether from the property. "He must do as he likes," George said, sulkily. "But for Alice's sake!" Kate answered. "Alice would be the last to expect me to submit to unreasonable ill-usage for the sake of money. As regards myself, I confess that I'm very fond of money and am not particularly squeamish. I would do anything that a man can do to secure it. But this I can't do. I never injured him, and I never asked him to injure himself. I never attempted to borrow money from him. I have never cost him a shilling. When I was in the wine business he might have enabled me to make a large fortune simply by settling on me then the reversion of property which, when he dies, ought to be my own. He was so perversely ignorant that he would make no inquiry, but chose to think that I was ruining myself, at the only time of my life when I was really doing well." "But he had a right to act as he pleased," urged Kate. "Certainly he had. But he had no right to resent my asking such a favour at his hands. He was an ignorant old fool not to do it; but I should never have quarrelled with him on that account. Nature made him a fool, and it wasn't his fault. But I can't bring myself to kneel in the dirt before him simply because I asked for what was reasonable." The two men said very little to each other. They were never alone together except during that half-hour after dinner in which they were supposed to drink their wine. The old Squire always took three glasses of port during this period, and expected that his grandson would take three with him. But George would drink none at all. "I have given up drinking wine after dinner," said he, when his grandfather pushed the bottle over to him. "I suppose you mean that you drink nothing but claret," said the Squire, in a tone of voice that was certainly not conciliatory. "I mean simply what I say," said George--"that I have given up drinking wine after dinner." The old man could not openly quarrel with his heir on such a point as that. Even Mr. Vavasor could not tell his grandson that he was going to the dogs because he had become temperate. But, nevertheless, there was offence in it; and when George sat perfectly silent, looking at the fire, evidently determined to make no attempt at conversation, the offence grew, and became strong. "What the devil's the use of your sitting there if you neither drink nor talk?" said the old man. "No use in the world, that I can see," said George; "if, however, I were to leave you, you would abuse me for it." "I don't care how soon you leave me," said the Squire. From all which it may be seen that George Vavasor's visit to the hall of his ancestors was not satisfactory. On the fourth day, about noon, came Aunt Greenow's reply. "Dearest Kate," she said, "I am not going to do what you ask me,"--thus rushing instantly into the middle of her subject. You see, I don't know my nephew, and have no reason for being specially anxious that he should be in Parliament. I don't care two straws about the glory of the Vavasor family. If I had never done anything for myself, the Vavasors would have done very little for me. I don't care much about what you call 'blood.' I like those who like me, and whom I know. I am very fond of you, and because you have been good to me I would give you a thousand pounds if you wanted it for yourself; but I don't see why I am to give my money to those I don't know. If it is necessary to tell my nephew of this, pray tell him that I mean no offence. Your friend C. is still waiting--waiting--waiting, patiently; but his patience may be exhausted. Your affectionate aunt, ARABELLA GREENOW. "Of course she won't," said George, as he threw back the letter to his sister. "Why should she?" "I had hoped she would," said Kate. "Why should she? What did I ever do for her? She is a sensible woman. Who is your friend C., and why is he waiting patiently?" "He is a man who would be glad to marry her for her money, if she would take him." "Then what does she mean by his patience being exhausted?" "It is her folly. She chooses to pretend to think that the man is a lover of mine." "Has he got any money?" "Yes; lots of money--or money's worth." "And what is his name?" "His name is Cheesacre. But pray don't trouble yourself to talk about him." "If he wants to marry you, and has plenty of money, why shouldn't you take him?" "Good heavens, George! In the first place he does not want to marry me. In the next place all his heart is in his farmyard." "And a very good place to have it," said George. "Undoubtedly. But, really, you must not trouble yourself to talk about him." "Only this,--that I should be very glad to see you well married." "Should you?" said she, thinking of her close attachment to himself. "And now, about the money," said George. "You must write to Alice at once."--"Oh, George!" "Of course you must; you have promised. Indeed, it would have been much wiser if you had taken me at my word, and done it at once."--"I cannot do it." Then the scar on his face opened itself, and his sister stood before him in fear and trembling. "Do you mean to tell me," said he, "that you will go back from your word, and deceive me;--that after having kept me here by this promise, you will not do what you have said you would do?" "Take my money now, and pay me out of hers as soon as you are married. I will be the first to claim it from her,--and from you." "That is nonsense." "Why should it be nonsense? Surely you need have no scruple with me. I should have none with you if I wanted assistance." "Look here, Kate; I won't have it, and there's an end of it. All that you have in the world would not pull me through this election, and therefore such a loan would be worse than useless." "And am I to ask her for more than two thousand pounds?" "You are to ask her simply for one thousand. That is what I want, and must have, at present. And she knows that I want it, and that she is to supply it; only she does not know that my need is so immediate. That you must explain to her." "I would sooner burn my hand, George!" "But burning your hand, unfortunately, won't do any good. Look here, Kate; I insist upon your doing this for me. If you do not, I shall do it, of course, myself; but I shall regard your refusal as an unjustifiable falsehood on your part, and shall certainly not see you afterwards. I do not wish, for reasons which you may well understand, to write to Alice myself on any subject at present. I now claim your promise to do so; and if you refuse, I shall know very well what to do." Of course she did not persist in her refusal. With a sorrowful heart, and with fingers that could hardly form the needful letters, she did write a letter to her cousin, which explained the fact--that George Vavasor immediately wanted a thousand pounds for his electioneering purposes. It was a stiff, uncomfortable letter, unnatural in its phraseology, telling its own tale of grief and shame. Alice understood very plainly all the circumstances under which it was written, but she sent back word to Kate at once, undertaking that the money should be forthcoming; and she wrote again before the end of January, saying that the sum named had been paid to George's credit at his own bankers. Kate had taken immense pride in the renewal of the match between her brother and her cousin, and had rejoiced in it greatly as being her own work. But all that pride and joy were now over. She could no longer write triumphant notes to Alice, speaking always of George as one who was to be their joint hero, foretelling great things of his career in Parliament, and saying little soft things of his enduring love. It was no longer possible to her now to write of George at all, and it was equally impossible to Alice. Indeed, no letters passed between them, when that monetary correspondence was over, up to the end of the winter. Kate remained down in Westmoreland, wretched and ill at ease, listening to hard words spoken by her grandfather against her brother, and feeling herself unable to take her brother's part as she had been wont to do in other times. George returned to town at the end of those four days, and found that the thousand pounds was duly placed to his credit before the end of the month. It is hardly necessary to tell the reader that this money had come from the stores of Mr. Tombe, and that Mr. Tombe duly debited Mr. Grey with the amount. Alice, in accordance with her promise, had told her father that the money was needed, and her father, in accordance with his promise, had procured it without a word of remonstrance. "Surely I must sign some paper," Alice had said. But she had been contented when her father told her that the lawyers would manage all that. It was nearly the end of February when George Vavasor made his first payment to Mr. Scruby on behalf of the coming election; and when he called at Mr. Scruby's office with this object, he received some intelligence which surprised him not a little. "You haven't heard the news," said Scruby. "What news?" said George. "The Marquis is as nearly off the hooks as a man can be." Mr. Scruby, as he communicated the tidings, showed clearly by his face and voice that they were supposed to be of very great importance; but Vavasor did not at first seem to be as much interested in the fate of "the Marquis" as Scruby had intended. "I'm very sorry for him," said George. "Who is the Marquis? There'll be sure to come another, so it don't much signify." "There will come another, and that's just it. It's the Marquis of Bunratty; and if he drops, our young Member will go into the Upper House." "What, immediately; before the end of the Session?" George, of course, knew well enough that such would be the case, but the effect which this event would have upon himself now struck him suddenly. "To be sure," said Scruby. "The writ would be out immediately. I should be glad enough of it, only that I know that Travers's people have heard of it before us, and that they are ready to be up with their posters directly the breath is out of the Marquis's body. We must go to work immediately; that's all." "It will only be for part of a Session," said George. "Just so," said Mr. Scruby. "And then there'll be the cost of another election." "That's true," said Mr. Scruby; "but in such cases we do manage to make it come a little cheaper. If you lick Travers now, it may be that you'll have a walk-over for the next." "Have you seen Grimes?" asked George. "Yes, I have; the blackguard! He is going to open his house on Travers's side. He came to me as bold as brass, and told me so, saying that he never liked gentlemen who kept him waiting for his odd money. What angers me is that he ever got it." "We have not managed it very well, certainly," said Vavasor, looking nastily at the attorney. "We can't help those little accidents, Mr. Vavasor. There are worse accidents than that turn up almost daily in my business. You may think yourself almost lucky that I haven't gone over to Travers myself. He is a Liberal, you know; and it hasn't been for want of an offer, I can tell you." Vavasor was inclined to doubt the extent of his luck in this respect, and was almost disposed to repent of his Parliamentary ambition. He would now be called upon to spend certainly not less than three thousand pounds of his cousin's money on the chance of being able to sit in Parliament for a few months. And then, after what a fashion would he be compelled to negotiate that loan! He might, to be sure, allow the remainder of this Session to run, and stand, as he had intended, at the general election; but he knew that if he now allowed a Liberal to win the seat, the holder of the seat would be almost sure of subsequent success. He must either fight now, or give up the fight altogether; and he was a man who did not love to abandon any contest in which he had been engaged. "Well, Squire," said Scruby, "how is it to be?" And Vavasor felt that he detected in the man's voice some diminution of that respect with which he had hitherto been treated as a paying candidate for a metropolitan borough. "This lord is not dead yet," said Vavasor. "No; he's not dead yet, that we have heard; but it won't do for us to wait. We want every minute of time that we can get. There isn't any hope for him, I'm told. It's gout in the stomach, or dropsy at the heart, or some of those things that make a fellow safe to go." "It won't do to wait for the next election?" "If you ask me, I should say certainly not. Indeed, I shouldn't wish to have to conduct it under such circumstances. I hate a fight when there's no chance of success. I grudge spending a man's money in such a case; I do indeed, Mr. Vavasor." "I suppose Grimes's going over won't make much difference?" "The blackguard! He'll take a hundred and fifty votes, I suppose; perhaps more. But that is not much in such a constituency as the Chelsea districts. You see, Travers played mean at the last election, and that will be against him." "But the Conservatives will have a candidate." "There's no knowing; but I don't think they will. They'll try one at the general, no doubt; but if the two sitting Members can pull together, they won't have much of a chance." Vavasor found himself compelled to say that he would stand; and Scruby undertook to give the initiatory orders at once, not waiting even till the Marquis should be dead. "We should have our houses open as soon as theirs," said he. "There's a deal in that." So George Vavasor gave his orders. "If the worst comes to the worst," he said to himself, "I can always cut my throat." As he walked from the attorney's office to his club he bethought himself that that might not unprobably be the necessary termination of his career. Everything was going wrong with him. His grandfather, who was eighty years of age, would not die,--appeared to have no symptoms of dying;--whereas this Marquis, who was not yet much over fifty, was rushing headlong out of the world, simply because he was the one man whose continued life at the present moment would be serviceable to George Vavasor. As he thought of his grandfather he almost broke his umbrella by the vehemence with which he struck it against the pavement. What right could an ignorant old fool like that have to live for ever, keeping the possession of a property which he could not use, and ruining those who were to come after him? If now, at this moment, that wretched place down in Westmoreland could become his, he might yet ride triumphantly over his difficulties, and refrain from sullying his hands with more of his cousin's money till she should become his wife. Even that thousand pounds had not passed through his hands without giving him much bitter suffering. As is always the case in such matters, the thing done was worse than the doing of it. He had taught himself to look at it lightly whilst it was yet unaccomplished; but he could not think of it lightly now. Kate had been right. It would have been better for him to take her money. Any money would have been better than that upon which he had laid his sacrilegious hands. If he could have cut a purse, after the old fashion, the stain of the deed would hardly have been so deep. In these days,--for more than a month, indeed, after his return from Westmoreland,--he did not go near Queen Anne Street, trying to persuade himself that he stayed away because of her coldness to him. But, in truth, he was afraid of seeing her without speaking of her money, and afraid to see her if he were to speak of it. "You have seen the _Globe_?" someone said to him as he entered the club. "No, indeed; I have seen nothing." "Bunratty died in Ireland this morning. I suppose you'll be up for the Chelsea districts?"

George Vavasor remained about four days beneath his grandfather's roof; but he was not happy there, nor did he add to anyone else's happiness. However, he was unwilling to leave till an answer came from Aunt Greenow about Kate's request for money. Kate did everything in her power to induce her brother to be kind to his grandfather, but it was in vain. Both men were as obstinate as each other, and neither would take the first step towards graciousness. Poor Kate entreated each of them to no avail. "He is an ill-mannered cub," the old man said, "and I was a fool to let him into the house." So Kate told George that his conduct might drive the Squire to disinherit him completely. "He must do as he likes," George said sulkily. "But for Alice's sake!" "Alice would be the last to expect me to submit to ill-usage for the sake of money. I confess that I'm very fond of money and would do anything that a man can do to secure it. But this I can't do. I have never cost him a shilling. When I was in the wine business he might have enabled me to make a large fortune simply by giving me my property in advance. He perversely chose to think that I was ruining myself, at the only time of my life when I was really doing well." "But he had a right to act as he pleased," urged Kate. "Certainly he had. But he had no right to resent my asking such a favour. Nature made him a fool, and that's not his fault. But I can't bring myself to kneel in the dirt before him simply because I asked for what was reasonable." The two men said very little to each other. They were never alone together except during that half-hour after dinner in which they were supposed to drink their wine. The old Squire always took three glasses of port, but George would drink none at all. "I have given up drinking wine after dinner," said he, when his grandfather pushed the bottle over to him. The old man could not openly quarrel with his heir on such a point. But, nevertheless, there was offence in it; and when George sat perfectly silent, looking at the fire, with no attempt at conversation, the offence grew, and became strong. "What the devil's the use of your sitting there if you neither drink nor talk?" said the old man. "No use in the world, that I can see," said George; "if, however, I were to leave you, you would abuse me for it." "I don't care how soon you leave me," said the Squire. From all which it may be seen that George Vavasor's visit to his ancestral hall was not satisfactory. On the fourth day Aunt Greenow's reply came. It said: Dearest Kate, I am not going to do what you ask me. You see, I don't know my nephew, and have no reason for being specially anxious that he should be in Parliament. I don't care two straws about the glory of the Vavasor family, who have never done much for me. I am very fond of you, and because you have been good to me I would give you a thousand pounds if you wanted it for yourself; but I don't see why I should give my money to those I don't know. Pray tell my nephew that I mean no offence. Your friend C. is still waiting - waiting, patiently; but his patience may be exhausted. Your affectionate aunt, Arabella Greenow. "Of course she won't," said George, as he threw back the letter to his sister. "Why should she? She is a sensible woman. Who is your friend C., and why is he waiting patiently?" "He is a man who would be glad to marry her for her money, if she would take him. But she pretends to think that he is a lover of mine." "Has he got any money?" "Yes; lots." "And what is his name?" "His name is Cheesacre. But don't talk about him." "If he wants to marry you, and has plenty of money, why shouldn't you take him?" "Good heavens, George! In the first place he does not want to marry me. In the next place all his heart is in his farmyard." "And a very good place to have it," said George. "Undoubtedly. But, really, do not talk about him." "I should be very glad to see you well married." "Should you?" said she, thinking of her close attachment to him. "And now," said George, "you must write to Alice at once. You promised." "I cannot do it." Then the scar on his face opened itself, making her tremble. "Do you mean to tell me," said he, "that you will go back from your word?" "Take my money now, and pay me out of hers as soon as you are married." "That is nonsense. All that you have in the world would not pull me through this election, and such a loan would be worse than useless." "Am I to ask her for more than two thousand pounds?" "You are to ask her simply for one thousand. That is what I need at present. She knows that I want it, and that she is to supply it; only she does not know that my need is immediate. That you must explain to her." "I would sooner burn my hand, George!" "Look here, Kate; I insist. If you do not write, I shall; but I certainly shall not see you afterwards. I do not wish to write to Alice myself on any subject at present. If you refuse, I shall know very well what to do." With a sorrowful heart, she did write to her cousin, explaining that George Vavasor immediately wanted a thousand pounds for his electioneering. It was a stiff, uncomfortable letter, telling its own tale of grief and shame. Alice understood very plainly the circumstances under which it was written, but she sent back word to Kate at once, promising that the money should be forthcoming; and before the end of January she wrote to say that the sum named had been paid to George's credit at his bankers. Kate had felt immense joy and pride in the renewal of the match between Alice and her brother. But all that pride and joy were now over. She could no longer write triumphant notes to Alice, speaking of George as their joint hero, and saying little soft things of his enduring love. It was no longer possible for her to write of George at all, and it was equally impossible to Alice. Indeed, no letters passed between them after that, until the end of winter. Kate remained in Westmorland, wretched and ill at ease, listening to her grandfather's hard words about her brother, and feeling unable to take her brother's part as she used to do. George returned to town, and found the thousand pounds duly placed to his credit before the end of the month. It is hardly necessary to tell the reader that this money had come from Mr. Tombe, and that Mr. Tombe duly debited Mr. Grey with the amount. Alice, as she had promised to do, had told her father that the money was needed, and her father had procured it without a word of remonstrance. "Surely I must sign some paper," Alice had said. But she had been content when her father told her that the lawyers would manage all that. It was nearly the end of February when George Vavasor made his first payment to Mr. Scruby for the coming election; and when he called at Mr. Scruby's office, he received some news. "The Marquis is as nearly dead as a man can be," said Mr. Scruby, as if the matter were of very great importance. "I'm very sorry for him," said George. "Who is the Marquis?" "It's the Marquis of Bunratty; and if he drops, our young Member will go into the House of Lords." "What, immediately?" George now realised that there would be a by-election, sooner than expected. "To be sure," said Scruby. "Unfortunately Travers's people heard of it before us, and are ready to be up with their posters directly the breath is out of the Marquis's body. We must go to work immediately; that's all." "It will only be for part of a Session," said George. "Just so," said Mr. Scruby. "And then there'll be the cost of another election." "That's true," said Mr. Scruby; "but in such cases we do manage to make it a little cheaper. If you beat Travers now, maybe you'll have a walk-over for the next." "Have you seen Grimes?" asked George. "Yes, I have; the blackguard! He is going to open his public house on Travers's side. He came to me as bold as brass, saying that he never liked gentlemen who kept him waiting for money." "We have not managed it very well, certainly," said Vavasor, looking nastily at the attorney. "We can't help those little accidents, Mr. Vavasor. You may think yourself lucky that I haven't gone over to Travers myself. He is a Liberal, you know; and it hasn't been for want of an offer, I can tell you." Vavasor almost repented of his Parliamentary ambition. He would now have to spend at least three thousand pounds of his cousin's money on the chance of being able to sit in Parliament for a few months. He might, to be sure, wait for the general election; but if he allowed a Liberal to win the seat now, that holder of the seat would be almost sure to win it again. He must either fight now, or give up the fight altogether. "Well, Squire," said Scruby, "how is it to be?" And Vavasor felt that he detected in the man's voice some lessening of respect. "This lord is not dead yet," said Vavasor. "No; but we can't wait. We need every minute we can get. There isn't any hope for him, I'm told." "Will Grimes's going over make much difference?" "He'll take a hundred and fifty votes, I suppose. But that is not much in Chelsea." "But the Conservatives will have a candidate." "I don't think they will, not until the general election." Vavasor found himself compelled to say that he would stand; and Scruby undertook to give orders at once, not waiting even till the Marquis should be dead. George Vavasor, as he left the attorney's office, said to himself, "If the worst comes to the worst, I can always cut my throat." Everything was going wrong with him. His grandfather, who was eighty, would not die; whereas this Marquis, who was not much over fifty, was rushing headlong out of the world, simply to inconvenience George Vavasor. As he thought of his grandfather he almost broke his umbrella by vehemently striking it against the pavement. What right could an ignorant old fool like that have to live for ever? If that wretched place in Westmorland could become his now, he might yet ride triumphantly over his difficulties, and refrain from sullying his hands with more of his cousin's money till she should become his wife. Even that thousand pounds had given him much bitter suffering. He had taught himself to look at it lightly before it was done; but he could not think of it lightly now. Kate had been right. It would have been better for him to take her money. In these days, he did not go near Queen Anne Street, trying to persuade himself that he stayed away because of Alice's coldness to him. But, in truth, he was afraid of seeing her without speaking of her money, and afraid to see her if he were to speak of it. "Have you seen the papers?" someone said to him as he entered the club. "Bunratty died in Ireland this morning. I suppose you'll be up for election in the Chelsea districts?"

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 41: A Noble Lord Dies

It was not till they had been for a day or two together at Lucerne that Mr. Grey told Mr. Palliser the story of George Vavasor's visit to him in Suffolk Street. Having begun the history of his connection with Alice, he found himself obliged to go with it to the end, and as he described the way in which the man had vanished from the sight of all who had known him,--that he had in truth gone, so as no longer to be a cause of dread, he could not without dissimulation, keep back the story of that last scene. "And he tried to murder you!" said Mr. Palliser. "He should be caught and,--and--" Mr. Palliser hesitated, not liking to say boldly that the first cousin of the lady who was now living with him ought to be hung. "It is better as it is," said Grey. "He actually walked into your rooms in the day time, and fired a pistol at you as you were sitting at your breakfast! He did that in London, and then walked off and went abroad, as though he had nothing to fear!" "That was just it," said Grey. Mr. Palliser began to think that something ought to be done to make life more secure in the metropolis of the world. Had he not known Mr. Grey, or been accustomed to see the other man in Parliament, he would not have thought so much about it. But it was almost too much for him when he reflected that one man whom he now called his friend, had been nearly murdered in daylight, in the heart of his own part of London, by another man whom he had reckoned among his Parliamentary supporters. "And he has got your money too!" said Palliser, putting all the circumstances of the case together. In answer to this Mr. Grey said that he hoped the loss might eventually be his own; but that he was bound to regard the money which had been taken as part of Miss Vavasor's fortune. "He is simply the greatest miscreant of whom I ever heard in my life," said Mr. Palliser. "The wonder is that Miss Vavasor should ever have brought herself to--to like him." Then Mr. Grey apologized for Alice, explaining that her love for her cousin had come from her early years; that the man himself was clever and capable of assuming pleasant ways, and that he had not been wholly bad till ruin had come upon him. "He attempted public life and made himself miserable by failing, as most men do who make that attempt," said Grey. This was a statement which Mr. Palliser could not allow to pass without notice. Whereupon the two men got away from George Vavasor and their own individual interests, and went on seriously discussing the merits and demerits of public life. "The end of it all is," said Grey at last, "that public men in England should be rich like you, and not poor like that miserable wretch, who has now lost everything that the Fates had given him." They continued to live at Lucerne in this way for a fortnight. Mr. Grey, though he was not unfrequently alone with Alice, did not plead his suit in direct words; but continued to live with her on terms of close and easy friendship. He had told her that her cousin had left England,--that he had gone to America immediately after his disappointment in regard to the seat in Parliament, and that he would probably not return. "Poor George!" Alice had said; "he is a man very much to be pitied." "He is a man very much to be pitied," Grey had replied. After that, nothing more was said between them about George Vavasor. From Lady Glencora Alice did hear something; but Lady Glencora herself had not heard the whole story. "I believe he misbehaved himself, my dear," Lady Glencora said; "but then, you know, he always does that. I believe that he saw Mr. Grey and insulted him. Perhaps you had better not ask anything about it till by-and-by. You'll be able to get anything out of him then." In answer to this Alice made her usual protest, and Lady Glencora, as was customary, told her that she was a fool. I am inclined to think that Mr. Grey knew what he was about. Lady Glencora once scolded him very vehemently for not bringing the affair to an end. "We shall be going on to Italy before it's settled," she said; "and I don't suppose you can go with us, unless it is settled." Mr. Grey protested that he had no intention of going to Italy in either case. "Then it will be put off for another year or two, and you are both of you as old as Adam and Eve already." "We ancient people are never impatient," said Grey, laughing. "If I were you I would go to her and tell her, roundly, that she should marry me, and then I would shake her. If you were to scold her, till she did not know whether she stood on her head or her heels, she would come to reason." "Suppose you try that, Lady Glencora!" "I can't. It's she that always scolds me,--as you will her, when she's your wife. You and Mr. Palliser are very much alike. You're both of you so very virtuous that no woman would have a chance of picking a hole in your coats." But Lady Glencora was wrong. Alice would, no doubt, have submitted herself patiently to her lover's rebukes, and would have confessed her own sins towards him with any amount of self-accusation that he might have required; but she would not, on that account, have been more willing to obey him in that one point, as to which he now required present obedience. He understood that she must be taught to forgive herself for the evil she had done,--to forgive herself, at any rate in part,--before she could be induced to return to her old allegiance to him. Thus they went on together at Lucerne, passing quiet, idle days,--with some pretence of reading, with a considerable amount of letter-writing, with boat excursions and pony excursions,--till the pony excursions came to a sudden end by means of a violent edict, as to which, and the cause of it, a word or two must be said just now. During these days of the boats and the ponies, the carriage which Lady Glencora hated so vehemently was shut up in limbo, and things went very pleasantly with her. Mr. Palliser received political letters from England, which made his mouth water sadly, and was often very fidgety. Parliament was not now sitting, and the Government would, of course, remain intact till next February. Might it not be possible that when the rent came in the Cabinet, he might yet be present at the darning? He was a constant man, and had once declared his intention of being absent for a year. He continued to speak to Grey of his coming travels, as though it was impossible that they should be over until after the next Easter. But he was sighing for Westminster, and regretting the blue books which were accumulating themselves at Matching;--till on a sudden, there came to him tidings which upset all his plans, which routed the ponies, which made everything impossible, which made the Alps impassable and the railways dangerous, which drove Burgo Fitzgerald out of Mr. Palliser's head, and so confused him that he could no longer calculate the blunders of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. All the Palliser world was about to be moved from its lowest depths, to the summits of its highest mountains. Lady Glencora had whispered into her husband's ear that she thought it probable--; she wasn't sure;--she didn't know. And then she burst out into tears on his bosom as he sat by her on her bedside. He was beside himself when he left her, which he did with the primary intention of telegraphing to London for half a dozen leading physicians. He went out by the lake side, and walked there alone for ten minutes in a state of almost unconscious exaltation. He did not quite remember where he was, or what he was doing. The one thing in the world which he had lacked; the one joy which he had wanted so much, and which is so common among men, was coming to him also. In a few minutes it was to him as though each hand already rested on the fair head of a little male Palliser, of whom one should rule in the halls at Gatherum, and the other be eloquent among the Commons of England. Hitherto,--for the last eight or nine months, since his first hopes had begun to fade,--he had been a man degraded in his own sight amidst all his honours. What good was all the world to him if he had nothing of his own to come after him? We must give him his due, too, when we speak of this. He had not had wit enough to hide his grief from his wife; his knowledge of women and of men in social life had not been sufficient to teach him how this should be done; but he had wished to do it. He had never willingly rebuked her for his disappointment, either by a glance of his eye, or a tone of his voice; and now he had already forgiven everything. Burgo Fitzgerald was a myth. Mrs. Marsham should never again come near her. Mr. Bott was, of course, a thing abolished;--he had not even had the sense to keep his seat in Parliament. Dandy and Flirt should feed on gilded corn, and there should be an artificial moon always ready in the ruins. If only those d----able saddle-ponies of Lucerne had not come across his wife's path! He went at once into the yard and ordered that the ponies should be abolished;--sent away, one and all, to the furthest confines of the canton; and then he himself inspected the cushions of the carriage. Were they dry? As it was August in those days, and August in Lucerne is a warm month, it may be presumed that they were dry. He then remembered that he had promised to send Alice up to his wife, and he hurried back into the house. She was alone in the breakfast-room, waiting for him and for his wife. In these days, Mr. Grey would usually join them at dinner; but he seldom saw them before eleven or twelve o'clock in the day. Then he would saunter in and join Mr. Palliser, and they would all be together till the evening. When the expectant father of embryo dukes entered the room, Alice perceived at once that some matter was astir. His manner was altogether changed, and he showed by his eye that he was eager and moved beyond his wont. "Alice," he said, "would you mind going up to Glencora's room? She wishes to speak to you." He had never called her Alice before, and as soon as the word was spoken, he remembered himself and blushed. "She isn't ill, I hope?" said Alice. "No;--she isn't ill. At least I think she had better not get up quite yet. Don't let her excite herself, if you can help it." "I'll go to her at once," said Alice rising. "I'm so much obliged to you;--but, Miss Vavasor--" "You called me Alice just now, Mr. Palliser, and I took it as a great compliment." He blushed again. "Did I? Very well. Then I'll do it again--if you'll let me. But, if you please, do be as calm with her as you can. She is so easily excited, you know. Of course, if there's anything she fancies, we'll take care to get it for her; but she must be kept quiet." Upon this Alice left him, having had no moment of time to guess what had happened, or was about to happen; and he was again alone, contemplating the future glories of his house. Had he a thought for his poor cousin Jeffrey, whose nose was now so terribly out of joint? No, indeed. His thoughts were all of himself, and the good things that were coming to him,--of the new world of interest that was being opened for him. It would be better to him, this, than being Chancellor of the Exchequer. He would rather have it in store for him to be father of the next Duke of Omnium, than make half a dozen consecutive annual speeches in Parliament as to the ways and means, and expenditure of the British nation! Could it be possible that this foreign tour had produced for him this good fortune? If so, how luckily had things turned out! He would remember even that ball at Lady Monk's with gratitude. Perhaps a residence abroad would be best for Lady Glencora at this particular period of her life. If so, abroad she should certainly live. Before resolving, however, on anything permanently on this head, he thought that he might judiciously consult those six first-rate London physicians, whom, in the first moment of his excitement, he had been desirous of summoning to Lucerne. In the meantime Alice had gone up to the bedroom of the lady who was now to be the subject of so much anxious thought. When she entered the room, her friend was up and in her dressing-gown, lying on a sofa which stood at the foot of the bed. "Oh, Alice, I'm so glad you've come," said Lady Glencora. "I do so want to hear your voice." Then Alice knelt beside her, and asked her if she were ill. "He hasn't told you? But of course he wouldn't. How could he? But, Alice, how did he look? Did you observe anything about him? Was he pleased?" "I did observe something, and I think he was pleased. But what is it? He called me Alice. And seemed to be quite unlike himself. But what is it? He told me that I was to come to you instantly." "Oh, Alice, can't you guess?" Then suddenly Alice did guess the secret, and whispered her guess into Lady Glencora's ear. "I suppose it is so," said Lady Glencora. "I know what they'll do. They'll kill me by fussing over me. If I could go about my work like a washerwoman, I should be all right." "I am so happy," she said, some two or three hours afterwards. "I won't deny that I am very happy. It seemed as though I were destined to bring nothing but misery to everybody, and I used to wish myself dead so often. I shan't wish myself dead now." "We shall all have to go home, I suppose?" said Alice. "He says so;--but he seems to think that I oughtn't to travel above a mile and a half a day. When I talked of going down the Rhine in one of the steamers, I thought he would have gone into a fit. When I asked him why, he gave me such a look. I know he'll make a goose of himself;--and he'll make geese of us, too; which is worse." On that afternoon, as they were walking together, Mr. Palliser told the important secret to his new friend, Mr. Grey. He could not deny himself the pleasure of talking about this great event. "It is a matter, you see, of such immense importance to me," Mr. Palliser said. "Indeed, it is," said Grey. "Every man feels that when a child is about to be born to him." But this did not at all satisfy Mr. Palliser. "Yes," said he. "That's of course. It is an important thing to everybody;--very important, no doubt. But, when a man--. You see, Grey, I don't think a man is a bit better because he is rich, or because he has a title; nor do I think he is likely to be in any degree the happier. I am quite sure that he has no right to be in the slightest degree proud of that which he has had no hand in doing for himself." "Men usually are very proud of such advantages," said Grey. "I don't think that I am; I don't, indeed. I am proud of some things. Whenever I can manage to carry a point in the House, I feel very proud of it. I don't think I ever knocked under to any one, and I am proud of that." Perhaps, Mr. Palliser was thinking of a certain time when his uncle the Duke had threatened him, and he had not given way to the Duke's threats. "But I don't think I'm proud because chance has made me my uncle's heir." "Not in the least, I should say." "But I do feel that a son to me is of more importance than it is to most men. A strong anxiety on the subject, is, I think, more excusable in me than it might be in another. I don't know whether I quite make myself understood?" "Oh, yes! When there's a dukedom and heaven knows how many thousands a year to be disposed of, the question of their future ownership does become important." "This property is so much more interesting to one, if one feels that all one does to it is done for one's own son." "And yet," said Grey, "of all the great plunderers of property throughout Europe, the Popes have been the most greedy." "Perhaps it's different, when a man can't have a wife," said Mr. Palliser. From all this it may be seen that Mr. Palliser and Mr. Grey had become very intimate. Had chance brought them together in London they might have met a score of times before Mr. Palliser would have thought of doing more than bowing to such an acquaintance. Mr. Grey might have spent weeks at Matching, without having achieved anything like intimacy with its noble owner. But things of that kind progress more quickly abroad than they do at home. The deck of an ocean steamer is perhaps the most prolific hotbed of the growth of sudden friendships; but an hotel by the side of a Swiss lake does almost as well. For some time after this Lady Glencora's conduct was frequently so indiscreet as to drive her husband almost to frenzy. On the very day after the news had been communicated to him, she proposed a picnic, and made the proposition not only in the presence of Alice, but in that of Mr. Grey also! Mr. Palliser, on such an occasion, could not express all that he thought; but he looked it. "What is the matter, now, Plantagenet?" said his wife. "Nothing," said he;--"nothing. Never mind." "And shall we make this party up to the chapel?" The chapel in question was Tell's chapel--ever so far up the lake. A journey in a steam-boat would have been necessary. "No!" said he, shouting out his refusal at her. "We will not." "You needn't be angry about it," said she;--as though he could have failed to be stirred by such a proposition at such a time. On another occasion she returned from an evening walk, showing on her face some sign of the exercise she had taken. "Good G----! Glencora," said he, "do you mean to kill yourself?" He wanted her to eat six or seven times a day; and always told her that she was eating too much, remembering some ancient proverb about little and often. He watched her now as closely as Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott had watched her before; and she always knew that he was doing so. She made the matter worse by continually proposing to do things which she knew he would not permit, in order that she might enjoy the fun of seeing his agony and amazement. But this, though it was fun to her at the moment, produced anything but fun, as its general result. "Upon my word, Alice, I think this will kill me," she said. "I am not to stir out of the house now, unless I go in the carriage, or he is with me." "It won't last long." "I don't know what you call long. As for walking with him, it's out of the question. He goes about a mile an hour. And then he makes me look so much like a fool. I had no idea that he would be such an old coddle." "The coddling will all be given to some one else, very soon." "No baby could possibly live through it, if you mean that. If there is a baby--" "I suppose there will be one, by-and-by," said Alice. "Don't be a fool! But, if there is, I shall take that matter into my own hands. He can do what he pleases with me, and I can't help myself; but I shan't let him or anybody do what they please with my baby. I know what I'm about in such matters a great deal better than he does. I've no doubt he's a very clever man in Parliament; but he doesn't seem to me to understand anything else." Alice was making some very wise speech in answer to this, when Lady Glencora interrupted her. "Mr. Grey wouldn't make himself so troublesome, I'm quite sure." Then Alice held her tongue. When the first consternation arising from the news had somewhat subsided,--say in a fortnight from the day in which Mr. Palliser was made so triumphant,--and when tidings had been duly sent to the Duke, and an answer from his Grace had come, arrangements were made for the return of the party to England. The Duke's reply was very short:-- MY DEAR PLANTAGENET,--Give my kind love to Glencora. If it's a boy, of course I will be one of the godfathers. The Prince, who is very kind, will perhaps oblige me by being the other. I should advise you to return as soon as convenient. Your affectionate uncle, OMNIUM. That was the letter; and short as it was, it was probably the longest that Mr. Palliser had ever received from the Duke. There was great trouble about the mode of their return. "Oh, what nonsense," said Glencora. "Let us get into an express train, and go right through to London." Mr. Palliser looked at her with a countenance full of rebuke and sorrow. He was always so looking at her now. "If you mean, Plantagenet, that we are to be dragged all across the Continent in that horrible carriage, and be a thousand days on the road, I for one won't submit to it." "I wish I had never told him a word about it," she said afterwards to Alice. "He would never have found it out himself, till this thing was all over." Mr. Palliser did at last consent to take the joint opinion of a Swiss doctor and an English one who was settled at Berne; and who, on the occasion, was summoned to Lucerne. They suggested the railway; and as letters arrived for Mr. Palliser,--medical letters,--in which the same opinion was broached, it was agreed, at last, that they should return by railway; but they were to make various halts on the road, stopping at each halting-place for a day. The first was, of course, Basle, and from Basle they were to go on to Baden. "I particularly want to see Baden again," Lady Glencora said; "and perhaps I may be able to get back my napoleon."

It was not till they had been together for a day or two at Lucerne that Mr. Grey told Mr. Palliser the story of George Vavasor's visit to him. Having begun the history of his connection with Alice, he found himself obliged to go on with it to the end. "And he tried to murder you!" said Mr. Palliser. "He should be caught and - and-" "It is better as it is," said Grey. "He actually walked into your rooms and fired a pistol as you were sitting at your breakfast!" "Just so," said Grey. Mr. Palliser began to think that something ought to be done to make life safer in the metropolis of the world. "And he has got your money too!" he said. "He is simply the greatest criminal I ever heard of. The wonder is that Miss Vavasor should ever have brought herself to - to like him." Then Mr. Grey apologized for Alice, explaining that her love for her cousin had come from her early years; that the man himself was clever and could assume pleasant ways, and had not been wholly bad till ruin had come upon him. "He attempted public life and made himself miserable by failing, as most men do who make the attempt," he said. Mr. Palliser could not allow that statement to pass without comment. Whereupon the two men got away from George Vavasor, and went on seriously discussing the merits of public life as a parliamentarian. "The end of it all is," said Grey at last, "that public men in England should be rich like you, and not poor like that miserable wretch, who has now lost everything." They continued to live at Lucerne in this way for a fortnight. Mr. Grey, though he was often alone with Alice, did not plead his suit, but continued to live with her on terms of close and easy friendship. He had told her that her cousin had gone to America immediately after his disappointment over the seat in Parliament, and that he would probably not return. "Poor George!" Alice had said; "he is very much to be pitied." "He is," Grey had replied. And nothing more was said between them about George Vavasor. From Lady Glencora Alice did hear something; but Lady Glencora herself had not heard the whole story. "I believe he misbehaved himself, my dear," Lady Glencora said; "I believe that he saw Mr. Grey and insulted him. Perhaps you had better not ask anything about it till by-and-by. You'll be able to get anything out of him then." In answer to this Alice made her usual protest, and Lady Glencora told her that she was a fool. I am inclined to think that Mr. Grey knew what he was doing, although Lady Glencora once scolded him for not bringing the affair to a conclusion. "We shall be going to Italy before it's settled," she said to him; "and if you don't settle it, it will be put off for another year or two, and you are both as old as Adam and Eve already." "We ancient people are never impatient," said Grey, laughing. "If you were to scold her, she would come to reason." "Suppose you try that, Lady Glencora!" "I can't. It's she that always scolds me, as you will scold her when she's your wife." But Lady Glencora was wrong. Alice would, no doubt, have submitted patiently to her lover's rebukes, and would have confessed her own sins towards him; but she would not, on that account, have been more willing to obey him in that one point of marriage. He understood that she must be taught to forgive herself before she could be induced to return to her old allegiance to him. Thus they passed quiet, idle days at Lucerne, with some pretence of reading, a considerable amount of letter-writing, and with boat and pony excursions, till the pony excursions came to a sudden end because of a violent edict. During these days of the boats and the ponies, Mr. Palliser received political letters from England which made him very fidgety. Parliament was not sitting, and the Government would remain intact till next February. Might it not be possible that when a gap came in the Cabinet, he might yet be present at its filling? Although he continued to plan travelling till Easter, he was sighing for Westminster - till suddenly there came tidings which upset all his plans, which made the Alps impassable and the railways dangerous, which drove Burgo Fitzgerald out of Mr. Palliser's head, and so confused him that he could no longer calculate the blunders of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. All the Palliser world was about to be moved from its lowest depths, to the summits of its highest mountains. Lady Glencora had whispered into her husband's ear that she thought it probable; - she wasn't sure; - she didn't know. And then she burst into tears. He was beside himself when he left her, meaning to telegraph to London for half a dozen leading physicians. He went out by the lake side, and walked there alone for ten minutes in a state of almost unconscious exaltation. He did not quite remember where he was, or what he was doing. The one thing in the world which he had lacked - the one joy which he had wanted so much, and which is so common among men - was coming to him also. In a few minutes it was to him as though each hand already rested on the fair head of a little male Palliser, of whom one should rule in the halls at Gatherum, and the other be eloquent among the Commons of England. He had not had wit enough to hide his grief from his wife; but he had wished to do it. He had never rebuked her for his disappointment; and now he had already forgiven everything. Burgo Fitzgerald was a myth. Mrs. Marsham should never again come near her. If only those saddle-ponies of Lucerne had not come across his wife's path! He went at once into the yard and ordered that the ponies should be abolished. He then remembered that he had promised to send Alice up to his wife, and he hurried back into the house. She was alone in the breakfast-room, for Mr. Grey seldom saw them before eleven or twelve o'clock. When the expectant father of embryo dukes entered the room, Alice perceived at once that something was astir. His manner was altogether changed, and he was unusually eager. "Alice," he said, "would you mind going up to Glencora's room? She wishes to speak to you." He had never called her Alice before, and as soon as he said it, he blushed. "She isn't ill, I hope?" said Alice. "No; she isn't ill. At least I think she had better not get up quite yet. Don't let her excite herself, if you can help it." "I'll go to her at once," said Alice rising. "I'm so much obliged to you;- but, Miss Vavasor-" "You called me Alice just now, Mr. Palliser, and I took it as a great compliment." He blushed again. "Did I? Very well. But, if you please, do be as calm with her as you can. She is so easily excited, you know. Of course, if there's anything she fancies, we'll take care to get it for her; but she must be kept quiet." Alice left him with his thoughts, which were all of himself, and the good things that were coming to him - of the new world of interest that was being opened for him. Could it be possible that this foreign tour had produced this good fortune? If so, how luckily had things turned out! He would remember even that ball at Lady Monk's with gratitude. Perhaps residence abroad would be best for Lady Glencora at this particular period of her life. Before resolving, however, on anything, he thought that he might consult those six first-rate London physicians. In the meantime Alice had gone up to Glencora's bedroom. "Oh, Alice, I'm so glad you've come," said Lady Glencora. "I do so want to hear your voice." Then Alice knelt beside her, and asked her if she were ill. "He hasn't told you? But of course he wouldn't. How could he? But, Alice, how did he look? Was he pleased?" "I think he was pleased. But what is it? He called me Alice. And seemed to be quite unlike himself. What is it? He told me that I was to come to you instantly." "Oh, Alice, can't you guess?" Then suddenly Alice did guess the secret, and whispered into Lady Glencora's ear. "I suppose so," said Lady Glencora. "I know what they'll do. They'll fuss over me so. If I could go about my work like a washerwoman, I should be all right." "I am so happy," she said, some two or three hours afterwards. "I won't deny that I am very happy. I used to wish myself dead so often. I shan't wish myself dead now." "We shall all have to go home, I suppose?" said Alice. "He says so; but he seems to think that I oughtn't to travel more than a mile and a half a day. When I talked of going down the Rhine in one of the steamers, I thought he would have gone into a fit." On that afternoon, as they were walking together, Mr. Palliser told the important secret to his new friend, Mr. Grey. He could not deny himself the pleasure of talking about it. "It is a matter, you see, of such immense importance to me," Mr. Palliser said. "Indeed, it is," said Grey. "Every man feels that when a child is to be born to him." But this did not satisfy Mr. Palliser. "Yes," said he. "Naturally. It is an important thing to everybody, no doubt. But, when a man has a title - he's no better or happier than other men, of course - but a son is of more importance than it is to most men. One feels that all one does is done for one's own son." It may be seen that Mr. Palliser and Mr. Grey had become good friends. Had chance brought them together in London they might have met a score of times before Mr. Palliser would have thought of doing more than bowing. But things of that kind progress more quickly abroad than they do at home. For some time after this Lady Glencora's conduct was frequently so indiscreet as to drive her husband almost to frenzy. On the very day after he learnt the news, she proposed a picnic! "What is the matter, now, Plantagenet?" said she. "Nothing," said he; "nothing. Never mind." "And shall we go up to the chapel?" The chapel was far up the lake; a journey in a steam-boat would have been necessary. "No!" said he, shouting his refusal. "We will not." "You needn't be angry about it," said she. On another occasion she returned from an evening walk, appearing a little tired. "Good G---! Glencora," said he, "do you mean to kill yourself?" He wanted her to eat six or seven times a day; and always told her that she was eating too much, remembering some ancient proverb about little and often. He watched her closely; and she knew that he was doing so. She continually proposed to do things which she knew he would not permit, in order to enjoy the fun of seeing his agony and amazement. But though this was fun to her at the moment, it produced anything but fun as its general result. "Upon my word, Alice, I think this will kill me," she said. "I am not to stir out of the house now, unless I go in the carriage, or he is with me." "It won't last long." "I don't know what you call long. As for walking with him, it's out of the question. He goes about a mile an hour. I had no idea that he would be such an old coddle." "The coddling will all be given to someone else, very soon." "No baby could possibly live through it, if you mean that. I shall take that matter into my own hands. He can do what he pleases with me; but I shan't let him or anybody else do what they please with my baby. I know what I'm about in such matters a great deal better than he does. I've no doubt he's a very clever man in Parliament; but he doesn't seem to me to understand anything else. Mr. Grey wouldn't make himself so troublesome, I'm quite sure." Alice held her tongue. About a fortnight after the first consternation of the news, arrangements were made for their return to England. Mr. Palliser had written to the Duke of Omnium, and had this short reply: My dear Plantagenet, Give my kind love to Glencora. If it's a boy, of course I will be one of the godfathers. The Prince, who is very kind, will perhaps oblige me by being the other. I should advise you to return as soon as convenient. Your affectionate uncle, Omnium. Short as it was, it was probably the longest letter that Mr. Palliser had ever received from the Duke. There was great trouble about the mode of their return. "Oh, what nonsense," said Glencora. "Let us get an express train, and go right through to London." Mr. Palliser looked at her with a countenance full of rebuke and sorrow. He was always so looking at her now. "If you mean, Plantagenet, that we are to be dragged all across the Continent in that horrible carriage, and be a thousand days on the road, I for one won't submit to it." Mr. Palliser did at last consent to take the joint opinion of a Swiss doctor and an English one at Berne. They suggested the railway; and it was agreed, at last, that thus they should return, but stopping at various halting-places for a day. The first was Basle, and from Basle they were to go on to Baden. "I particularly want to see Baden again," Lady Glencora said; "and perhaps I may be able to get back my napoleon."

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 73: In Which Come Tidings of Great Moment to All Pallisers

Burgo Fitzgerald, of whose hunting experiences something has been told in the last chapter, was a young man born in the purple of the English aristocracy. He was related to half the dukes in the kingdom, and had three countesses for his aunts. When he came of age he was master of a sufficient fortune to make it quite out of the question that he should be asked to earn his bread; and though that, and other windfalls that had come to him, had long since been spent, no one had ever made to him so ridiculous a proposition as that. He was now thirty, and for some years past had been known to be much worse than penniless; but still he lived on in the same circles, still slept softly and drank of the best, and went about with his valet and his groom and his horses, and fared sumptuously every day. Some people said the countesses did it for him, and some said that it was the dukes;--while others, again, declared that the Jews were his most generous friends. At any rate he still seemed to live as he had always lived, setting tradesmen at defiance, and laughing to scorn all the rules which regulate the lives of other men. About eighteen months before the time of which I am now speaking, a great chance had come in this young man's way, and he had almost succeeded in making himself one of the richest men in England. There had been then a great heiress in the land, on whom the properties of half-a-dozen ancient families had concentrated; and Burgo, who in spite of his iniquities still kept his position in the drawing-rooms of the great, had almost succeeded in obtaining the hand and the wealth,--as people still said that he had obtained the heart,--of the Lady Glencora M'Cluskie. But sundry mighty magnates, driven almost to despair at the prospect of such a sacrifice, had sagaciously put their heads together, and the result had been that the Lady Glencora had heard reason. She had listened,--with many haughty tossings indeed of her proud little head, with many throbbings of her passionate young heart; but in the end she listened and heard reason. She saw Burgo, for the last time, and told him that she was the promised bride of Plantagenet Palliser, nephew and heir of the Duke of Omnium. He had borne it like a man,--never having groaned openly, or quivered once before any comrade at the name of the Lady Glencora. She had married Mr. Palliser at St. George's Square, and on the morning of the marriage he had hung about his club door in Pall Mall, listening to the bells, and saying a word or two about the wedding, with admirable courage. It had been for him a great chance,--and he had lost it. Who can say, too, that his only regret was for the money? He had spoken once of it to a married sister of his, in whose house he had first met Lady Glencora. "I shall never marry now,--that is all," he said--and then he went about, living his old reckless life, with the same recklessness as ever. He was one of those young men with dark hair and blue eyes,--who wear no beard, and are certainly among the handsomest of all God's creatures. No more handsome man than Burgo Fitzgerald lived in his days; and this merit at any rate was his,--that he thought nothing of his own beauty. But he lived ever without conscience, without purpose,--with no idea that it behoved him as a man to do anything but eat and drink,--or ride well to hounds till some poor brute, much nobler than himself, perished beneath him. He chiefly concerns our story at this present time because the Lady Glencora who had loved him,--and would have married him had not those sagacious heads prevented it,--was a cousin of Alice Vavasor's. She was among those very great relations with whom Alice was connected by her mother's side,--being indeed so near to Lady Macleod, that she was first cousin to that lady, only once removed. Lady Midlothian was aunt to the Lady Glencora, and our Alice might have called cousins, and not been forbidden, with the old Lord of the Isles, Lady Glencora's father,--who was dead, however, some time previous to that affair with Burgo,--and with the Marquis of Auld Reekie, who was Lady Glencora's uncle, and had been her guardian. But Alice had kept herself aloof from her grand relations on her mother's side, choosing rather to hold herself as belonging to those who were her father's kindred. With Lady Glencora, however, she had for a short time--for some week or ten days,--been on terms of almost affectionate intimacy. It had been then, when the wayward heiress with the bright waving locks had been most strongly minded to give herself and her wealth to Burgo Fitzgerald. Burgo had had money dealings with George Vavasor, and knew him,--knew him intimately, and had learned the fact of his cousinship between the heiress and his friend's cousin. Whereupon in the agony of those weeks in which the sagacious heads were resisting her love, Lady Glencora came to her cousin in Queen Anne Street, and told Alice all that tale. "Was Alice," she asked, "afraid of the marquises and the countesses, or of all the rank and all the money which they boasted?" Alice answered that she was not at all afraid of them. "Then would she permit Lady Glencora and Burgo to see each other in the drawing-room at Queen Anne Street, just once!" Just once,--so that they might arrange that little plan of an elopement. But Alice could not do that for her newly found cousin. She endeavoured to explain that it was not the dignity of the sagacious heads which stood in her way, but her woman's feeling of what was right and wrong in such a matter. "Why should I not marry him?" said Lady Glencora, with her eyes flashing. "He is my equal." Alice explained that she had no word to say against such a marriage. She counselled her cousin to be true to her love if her love was in itself true. But she, an unmarried woman, who had hitherto not known her cousin, might not give such help as that! "If you will not help me, I am helpless!" said the Lady Glencora, and then she kneeled at Alice's knees and threw her wavy locks abroad on Alice's lap. "How shall I bribe you?" said Lady Glencora. "Next to him I will love you better than all the world." But Alice, though she kissed the fair forehead and owned that such reward would be worth much to her, could not take any bribe for such a cause. Then Lady Glencora had been angry with her, calling her heartless, and threatening her that she too might have sorrow of her own and want assistance. Alice told nothing of her own tale,--how she had loved her cousin and had been forced to give him up, but said what kind words she could, and she of the waving hair and light blue eyes had been pacified. Then she had come again,--had come daily while the sagacious heads were at work,--and Alice in her trouble had been a comfort to her. But the sagacious heads were victorious, as we know, and Lady Glencora M'Cluskie became Lady Glencora Palliser with all the propriety in the world, instead of becoming wife to poor Burgo, with all imaginable impropriety. And then she wrote a letter to Alice, very short and rather sad; but still with a certain sweetness in it. "She had been counselled that it was not fitting for her to love as she had thought to love, and she had resolved to give up her dream. Her cousin Alice, she knew, would respect her secret. She was going to become the wife of the best man, she thought, in all the world; and it should be the one care of her life to make him happy." She said not a word in all her letter of loving this newly found lord. "She was to be married at once. Would Alice be one among the bevy of bridesmaids who were to grace the ceremony?" Alice wished her joy heartily,--"heartily," she said, but had declined that office of bridesmaid. She did not wish to undergo the cold looks of the Lady Julias and Lady Janes who all would know each other, but none of whom would know her. So she sent her cousin a little ring, and asked her to keep it amidst all the wealthy tribute of marriage gifts which would be poured forth at her feet. From that time to this present Alice had heard no more of Lady Glencora. She had been married late in the preceding season and had gone away with Mr. Palliser, spending her honeymoon amidst the softnesses of some Italian lake. They had not returned to England till the time had come for them to encounter the magnificent Christmas festivities of Mr. Palliser's uncle, the Duke. On this occasion Gatherum Castle, the vast palace which the Duke had built at a cost of nearly a quarter of a million, was opened, as it had never been opened before;--for the Duke's heir had married to the Duke's liking, and the Duke was a man who could do such things handsomely when he was well pleased. Then there had been a throng of bridal guests, and a succession of bridal gaieties which had continued themselves even past the time at which Mr. Palliser was due at Westminster;--and Mr. Palliser was a legislator who served his country with the utmost assiduity. So the London season commenced, progressed, and was consumed; and still Alice heard nothing more of her friend and cousin Lady Glencora. But this had troubled her not at all. A chance circumstance, the story of which she had told to no one, had given her a short intimacy with this fair child of the gold mines, but she had felt that they two could not live together in habits of much intimacy. She had, when thinking of the young bride, only thought of that wild love episode in the girl's life. It had been strange to her that she should in one week have listened to the most passionate protestations from her friend of love for one man, and then have been told in the next that another man was to be her friend's husband! But she reflected that her own career was much the same,--only with the interval of some longer time. But her own career was not the same. Glencora had married Mr. Palliser,--had married him without pausing to doubt;--but Alice had gone on doubting till at last she had resolved that she would not marry Mr. Grey. She thought of this much in those days at Cheltenham, and wondered often whether Glencora lived with her husband in the full happiness of conjugal love. One morning, about three days after Mr. Grey's visit, there came to her two letters, as to neither of which did she know the writer by the handwriting. Lady Macleod had told her,--with some hesitation, indeed, for Lady Macleod was afraid of her,--but had told her, nevertheless, more than once, that those noble relatives had heard of the treatment to which Mr. Grey was being subjected, and had expressed their great sorrow,--if not dismay or almost anger. Lady Macleod, indeed, had gone as far as she dared, and might have gone further without any sacrifice of truth. Lady Midlothian had said that it would be disgraceful to the family, and Lady Glencora's aunt, the Marchioness of Auld Reekie, had demanded to be told what it was the girl wanted. When the letters came Lady Macleod was not present, and I am disposed to think that one of them had been written by concerted arrangement with her. But if so she had not dared to watch the immediate effect of her own projectile. This one was from Lady Midlothian. Of the other Lady Macleod certainly knew nothing, though it also had sprung out of the discussions which had taken place as to Alice's sins in the Auld Reekie-Midlothian set. This other letter was from Lady Glencora. Alice opened the two, one without reading the other, very slowly. Lady Midlothian's was the first opened, and then came a spot of anger on Alice's cheeks as she saw the signature, and caught a word or two as she allowed her eye to glance down the page. Then she opened the other, which was shorter, and when she saw her cousin's signature, "Glencora Palliser," she read that letter first,--read it twice before she went back to the disagreeable task of perusing Lady Midlothian's lecture. The reader shall have both the letters, but that from the Countess shall have precedence. Castle Reekie, N.B. -- Oct. 186--. MY DEAR MISS VAVASOR, I have not the pleasure of knowing you personally, though I have heard of you very often from our dear mutual friend and relative Lady Macleod, with whom I understand that you are at present on a visit. Your grandmother,--by the mother's side,--Lady Flora Macleod, and my mother the Countess of Leith, were half-sisters; and though circumstances since that have prevented our seeing so much of each other as is desirable, I have always remembered the connection, and have ever regarded you as one in whose welfare I am bound by ties of blood to take a warm interest. "'Since that!'--what does she mean by 'since that'?" said Alice to herself. "She has never set eyes on me at all. Why does she talk of not having seen as much of me as is desirable?" I had learned with great gratification that you were going to be married to a most worthy gentleman, Mr. John Grey of Nethercoats, in Cambridgeshire. When I first heard this I made it my business to institute some inquiries, and I was heartily glad to find that your choice had done you so much credit. [If the reader has read Alice's character as I have meant it should be read, it will thoroughly be understood that this was wormwood to her.] I was informed that Mr. Grey is in every respect a gentleman,--that he is a man of most excellent habits, and one to whom any young woman could commit her future happiness with security, that his means are very good for his position, and that there was no possible objection to such a marriage. All this gave great satisfaction to me, in which I was joined by the Marchioness of Auld Reekie, who is connected with you almost as nearly as I am, and who, I can assure you, feels a considerable interest in your welfare. I am staying with her now, and in all that I say, she agrees with me. You may feel then how dreadfully we were dismayed when we were told by dear Lady Macleod that you had told Mr. Grey that you intended to change your mind! My dear Miss Vavasor, can this be true? There are things in which a young lady has no right to change her mind after it has been once made up; and certainly when a young lady has accepted a gentleman, that is one of them. He cannot legally make you become his wife, but he has a right to claim you before God and man. Have you considered that he has probably furnished his house in consequence of his intended marriage,--and perhaps in compliance with your own especial wishes? [I think that Lady Macleod must have told the Countess something that she had heard about the garden.] Have you reflected that he has of course told all his friends? Have you any reason to give? I am told, none! Nothing should ever be done without a reason; much less such a thing as this in which your own interests and, I may say, respectability are involved. I hope you will think of this before you persist in destroying your own happiness and perhaps that of a very worthy man. I had heard, some years ago, when you were much younger, that you had become imprudently attached in another direction--with a gentleman with none of those qualities to recommend him which speak so highly for Mr. Grey. It would grieve me very much, as it would also the Marchioness, who in this matter thinks exactly as I do, if I were led to suppose that your rejection of Mr. Grey had been caused by _any renewal of that project_. Nothing, my dear Miss Vavasor, could be more unfortunate,--and I might almost add a stronger word. I have been advised that a line from me as representing your poor mother's family, especially as I have at the present moment the opportunity of expressing Lady Auld Reekie's sentiments as well as my own, might be of service. I implore you, my dear Miss Vavasor, to remember what you owe to God and man, and to carry out an engagement made by yourself, that is in all respects comme il faut, and which will give entire satisfaction to your friends and relatives. MARGARET M. MIDLOTHIAN. I think that Lady Macleod had been wrong in supposing that this could do any good. She should have known Alice better; and should also have known the world better. But her own reverence for her own noble relatives was so great that she could not understand, even yet, that all such feeling was wanting to her niece. It was to her impossible that the expressed opinion of such an one as the Countess of Midlothian, owning her relationship and solicitude, and condescending at the same time to express friendship,--she could not, I say, understand that the voice of such an one, so speaking, should have no weight whatever. But I think that she had been quite right in keeping out of Alice's way at the moment of the arrival of the letter. Alice read it, slowly, and then replacing it in its envelope, leaned back quietly in her chair,--with her eyes fixed upon the teapot on the table. She had, however, the other letter on which to occupy her mind, and thus relieve her from the effects of too deep an animosity against the Countess. The Lady Glencora's letter was as follows: Matching Priory, Thursday. DEAR COUSIN, I have just come home from Scotland, where they have been telling me something of your little troubles. I had little troubles once too, and you were so good to me! Will you come to us here for a few weeks? We shall be here till Christmas-time, when we go somewhere else. I have told my husband that you are a great friend of mine as well as a cousin, and that he must be good to you. He is very quiet, and works very hard at politics; but I think you will like him. Do come! There will be a good many people here, so that you will not find it dull. If you will name the day we will send the carriage for you at Matching Station, and I dare say I can manage to come myself. Yours affectionately, G. PALLISER. P.S. I know what will be in your mind. You will say, why did not she come to me in London? She knew the way to Queen Anne Street well enough. Dear Alice, don't say that. Believe me, I had much to do and think of in London. And if I was wrong, yet you will forgive me. Mr. Palliser says I am to give you his love,--as being a cousin,--and say that you must come! This letter was certainly better than the other, but Alice, on reading it, came to a resolve that she would not accept the invitation. In the first place, even that allusion to her little troubles jarred upon her feelings; and then she thought that her rejection of Mr. Grey could be no special reason why she should go to Matching Priory. Was it not very possible that she had been invited that she might meet Lady Midlothian there, and encounter all the strength of a personal battery from the Countess? Lady Glencora's letter she would of course answer, but to Lady Midlothian she would not condescend to make any reply whatever. About eleven o'clock Lady Macleod came down to her. For half-an-hour or so Alice said nothing; nor did Lady Macleod ask any question. She looked inquisitively at Alice, eyeing the letter which was lying by the side of her niece's workbasket, but she said no word about Mr. Grey or the Countess. At last Alice spoke. "Aunt," she said, "I have had a letter this morning from your friend, Lady Midlothian." "She is my cousin, Alice; and yours as much as mine." "Your cousin then, aunt. But it is of more moment that she is your friend. She certainly is not mine, nor can her cousinship afford any justification for her interfering in my affairs." "Alice,--from her position--" "Her position can be nothing to me, aunt. I will not submit to it. There is her letter, which you can read if you please. After that you may burn it. I need hardly say that I shall not answer it." "And what am I to say to her, Alice?" "Nothing from me, aunt;--from yourself, whatever you please, of course." Then there was silence between them for a few minutes. "And I have had another letter, from Lady Glencora, who married Mr. Palliser, and whom I knew in London last spring." "And has that offended you, too?" "No, there is no offence in that. She asks me to go and see her at Matching Priory, her husband's house; but I shall not go." But at last Alice agreed to pay this visit, and it may be as well to explain here how she was brought to do so. She wrote to Lady Glencora, declining, and explaining frankly that she did decline, because she thought it probable that she might there meet Lady Midlothian. Lady Midlothian, she said, had interfered very unwarrantably in her affairs, and she did not wish to make her acquaintance. To this Lady Glencora replied, post haste, that she had intended no such horrid treachery as that for Alice; that neither would Lady Midlothian be there, nor any of that set; by which Alice knew that Lady Glencora referred specially to her aunt the Marchioness; that no one would be at Matching who could torment Alice, either with right or without it, "except so far as I myself may do so," Lady Glencora said; and then she named an early day in November, at which she would herself undertake to meet Alice at the Matching Station. On receipt of this letter, Alice, after two days' doubt, accepted the invitation.

Burgo Fitzgerald, of whom something has been told in the last chapter, was a young man born into the English aristocracy. He was related to half the dukes in the kingdom, and had three countesses for aunts. When he came of age he had a large enough fortune to make it out of the question that he should be asked to earn his bread; and though the fortune had long since been spent, no one had ever made to him so ridiculous a suggestion as that. He was now thirty, and worse than penniless; but still he lived in the same circles, drank of the best, went about with his valet and his groom and his horses, and dined sumptuously every day. Some people said the countesses did it for him, and some said the dukes; while others declared that the money-lenders were his most generous friends. At any rate he still seemed to live as he had always lived. About eighteen months before the time of which I am writing, a great opportunity had come in this young man's way, and he had almost succeeded in making himself one of the richest men in England. There had been a great heiress, on whom the properties of half-a-dozen ancient families had concentrated; and Burgo had almost succeeded in obtaining the hand and the wealth - and people still said the heart - of the Lady Glencora M'Cluskie. But various mighty magnates, aghast at the prospect of such a marriage, had put their heads together to make Lady Glencora hear reason. She had listened with many haughty tossings of her proud little head, with many throbbings of her passionate young heart; but she listened and heard reason. She saw Burgo for the last time, and told him that she was the promised bride of Plantagenet Palliser, nephew and heir of the Duke of Omnium. Burgo had borne it like a man. Lady Glencora had married Mr. Palliser at St. George's Square, and on the morning of the marriage Burgo had hung about his club door in Pall Mall, listening to the bells, and speaking about the wedding with admirable courage. He spoke once of it to a married sister, in whose house he had first met Lady Glencora. "I shall never marry now," he said - and then he went on living his old life, as recklessly as ever. No more handsome man than Burgo Fitzgerald lived; and he had the merit of thinking nothing of his own beauty. But he lived without conscience and without purpose - feeling no need to do anything but eat and drink - or ride to hounds till some poor brute, much nobler than himself, perished beneath him. He concerns our story because the Lady Glencora who had loved him was a cousin of Alice Vavasor's. She was among those very great relations with whom Alice was connected through her mother - being indeed first cousin, once removed, to Lady Macleod. Lady Midlothian was aunt to Lady Glencora, and the Marquis of Auld Reekie was her uncle. Alice had kept herself aloof from these grand relations. With Lady Glencora, however, she had for a short time - a week or ten days - been on terms of almost affectionate intimacy. It had been when the wayward heiress had been most strongly minded to give herself to Burgo Fitzgerald. She came to her cousin in Queen Anne Street, and told Alice all the tale. "Would Alice," she asked, "permit Lady Glencora and Burgo to see each other in the drawing-room at Queen Anne Street, just once?" Just once - so that they might arrange a little plan of an elopement. But Alice could not do that for her cousin. She tried to explain that she felt it was wrong. "Why should I not marry him?" said Lady Glencora, with her eyes flashing. "He is my equal." Alice explained that she had no word to say against such a marriage. But she could not help in that way. "If you will not help me, I am helpless!" said the Lady Glencora, and she kneeled at Alice's chair with her wavy hair on Alice's lap. "Next to him I will love you better than all the world." But Alice, though she kissed the fair forehead, could not take any bribe for such a cause. Then Lady Glencora had been angry with her, calling her heartless, and threatening her that she too might have sorrow and want help. Alice told nothing of her own tale - how she had loved her cousin and had been forced to give him up, but said what kind words she could, and Lady Glencora had been pacified. Then she had come again, had come daily - and Alice had been a comfort to her. So Lady Glencora M'Cluskie became Lady Glencora Palliser, instead of becoming wife to poor Burgo. She wrote a letter to Alice, very short but with a certain sweetness in it. "She had been counselled that it was not fitting for her to love as she had thought to love, and she had resolved to give up her dream. She knew Alice would respect her secret. She was going to become the wife of the best man in the world; and it should be the care of her life to make him happy." Glencora said not a word in her letter of loving her husband. "Would Alice be one of her bridesmaids?" Alice wished her joy heartily, and sent her cousin a little ring, but declined the office of bridesmaid. From that time to the present she had heard no more of Lady Glencora, who had gone away with Mr. Palliser to spend her honeymoon by some Italian lake. They had not returned to England till it was time to attend the magnificent Christmas festivities of Mr. Palliser's uncle, the Duke of Omnium. Gatherum Castle, the vast palace which the Duke had built at huge cost, was opened as it had never been opened before; for the Duke's heir had married to the Duke's liking, and the Duke was well pleased. There had been a throng of bridal guests, and a succession of bridal gaieties had continued past the time at which Mr. Palliser was due at Westminster, although Mr. Palliser served his country with the utmost assiduity. So the London season passed, and Alice heard nothing of her friend and cousin. But this had not troubled her. She had told no-one of her short intimacy with this fair child of the gold mines, but she had felt that such intimacy could not be sustained. It seemed strange that she should have listened to Glencora's passionate protestations of love for one man, only to be told the next week she was to marry another man! Alice reflected that her own career was much the same - only over a longer time. But her own career was not the same. Glencora had married Mr. Palliser without pausing to doubt; but Alice had gone on doubting till at last she had resolved not to marry Mr. Grey. She often thought of Glencora, and wondered whether she was happy in her marriage. One morning, about three days after Mr. Grey's visit, two letters came to Alice at Cheltenham. She recognised the writing of neither. Lady Macleod was not present when these letters arrived, but she knew one of them was coming: a letter from Lady Midlothian, who was shocked by Alice's treatment of Mr. Grey. Of the other Lady Macleod knew nothing. This other letter was from Lady Glencora. Alice opened them both very slowly. Lady Midlothian's was the first, and Alice flushed with anger as she saw the signature, and caught a word or two on the page. Then she opened the other, which was shorter, and when she saw her cousin's signature, "Glencora Palliser," she read that letter first, before she went back to the disagreeable task of perusing Lady Midlothian's lecture. The reader shall see both the letters, but that from the Countess of Midlothian shall have precedence. Castle Reekie My dear Miss Vavasor, I have not the pleasure of knowing you personally, though I have heard of you often from our dear mutual friend and relative Lady Macleod. Your grandmother Lady Flora Macleod, and my mother the Countess of Leith, were half-sisters; and though circumstances have prevented our seeing each other, I have always regarded you as one in whose welfare I am bound by ties of blood to take a warm interest. I had learned with great gratification that you were going to be married to a most worthy gentleman, Mr. John Grey of Nethercoats. When I made inquiries, I was heartily glad to find that your choice had done you so much credit. I was informed that Mr. Grey is in every respect a gentleman of excellent habits and very good means, and that there was no possible objection to such a marriage. All this gave me great satisfaction, in which I was joined by the Marchioness of Auld Reekie, who feels a considerable interest in your welfare. I am staying with her now, and in all that I say, she agrees with me. You may imagine then how dreadfully dismayed we were when informed by dear Lady Macleod that you intend to change your mind! My dear Miss Vavasor, can this be true? There are things in which a young lady has no right to change her mind; and when a young lady has accepted a gentleman, that is one of them. Have you considered that he has probably furnished his house - perhaps in compliance with your own special wishes? Have you any reason to give? I am told, none! Nothing should ever be done without a reason; much less such a thing as this in which your own interests and respectability are involved. I hope you will think of this before you persist in destroying your own happiness and perhaps that of a very worthy man. I had heard, some years ago, when you were much younger, that you had become imprudently attached in another direction -with a gentleman with none of excellent qualities possessed by Mr. Grey. It would grieve us very much if your rejection of Mr. Grey had been caused by any renewal of that project. Nothing, my dear Miss Vavasor, could be more unfortunate. I have been advised that a line from me, expressing Lady Auld Reekie's sentiments as well as my own, might be of service. I implore you, my dear Miss Vavasor, to remember what you owe to God and man, and to carry out an engagement made by yourself, which will give entire satisfaction to your friends and relatives. Margaret M. Midlothian. Lady Macleod had been wrong when she supposed that this could do any good. She should have known Alice better. But her own reverence for her own noble relatives was so great that she could not understand that the voice of a countess should have no weight whatever. Alice read it, slowly, and then replacing it in its envelope, leaned back quietly in her chair, with her eyes fixed upon the teapot. She had, however, the other letter to distract her. Lady Glencora's letter was as follows: Dear Cousin, I have just come home from Scotland, where they have been telling me something of your little troubles. I had little troubles once too, and you were so good to me! Will you come to us here for a few weeks? We shall be here till Christmas-time, when we go somewhere else. I have told my husband that you are a great friend of mine as well as a cousin, and that he must be good to you. He is very quiet, and works very hard at politics; but I think you will like him. Do come! There will be a good many people here, so that you will not find it dull. If you will name the day we will send the carriage for you at Matching Station, and I dare say I can manage to come myself. Yours affectionately, G. Palliser. P.S. I know you will say to yourself, why did not she come to me in London? Dear Alice, believe me, I had much to do and think of in London. And if I was wrong, forgive me. Mr. Palliser says I am to give you his love, as a cousin, and say that you must come! This letter was certainly better than the other, but Alice, on reading it, resolved that she would not accept the invitation. In the first place, even that allusion to her little troubles jarred upon her feelings; and then she thought it very possible that she might have been invited in order to meet Lady Midlothian there. She would answer Lady Glencora's letter, but to Lady Midlothian she would not make any reply whatever. When Lady Macleod came down to her, Alice said nothing; nor did Lady Macleod ask any question. She looked inquisitively at Alice, eyeing the letter lying by her niece's workbasket, but she said no word until at last Alice spoke. "Aunt," she said, "I have had a letter this morning from your friend, Lady Midlothian." "She is my cousin, Alice; and yours." "Your cousin then, aunt. But it matters more that she is your friend. She certainly is not mine, nor is cousinship any justification for her interfering in my affairs. There is her letter, which you can read if you please. After that you may burn it. I need hardly say that I shall not answer it." "What am I to say to her, Alice?" "Nothing from me, aunt; from yourself, whatever you please, of course." Then there was silence for a few minutes. "And I have had another letter, from Lady Glencora, who married Mr. Palliser, and whom I knew in London last spring." "And has that offended you, too?" "No, there is no offence in that. She asks me to go and see her at Matching Priory, her husband's house; but I shall not go." But at last Alice agreed to pay this visit. It happened this way. She wrote to Lady Glencora, declining, and explaining frankly that she thought she might meet Lady Midlothian there; and that Lady Midlothian had interfered unnecessarily in her affairs. To this Lady Glencora replied that she had intended no such horrid treachery, for Lady Midlothian would not be there; and then she named an early day in November, at which she would herself meet Alice at Matching Station. On receiving this letter, Alice accepted the invitation.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 18: Alice Vavasor's Great Relations

Alice had had a week allowed to her to write her answer; but she sent it off before the full week was past. "Why should I keep him in suspense?" she said. "If it is to be so, there can be no good in not saying so at once." Then she thought, also, that if this were to be her destiny it might be well for Mr. Grey that all his doubts on the matter should be dispelled. She had treated him badly,--very badly. She had so injured him that the remembrance of the injury must always be a source of misery to her; but she owed to him above everything to let him know what were her intentions as soon as they were settled. She tried to console herself by thinking that the wound to him would be easy to cure. "He also is not passionate," she said. But in so saying she deceived herself. He was a man in whom Love could be very passionate;--and was, moreover, one in whom Love could hardly be renewed. Each morning Kate asked her whether her answer was written; and on the third day after Christmas, just before dinner, Alice said that she had written it, and that it was gone. "But it isn't post-day," said Kate;--for the post illuminated Vavasor but three days a week. "I have given a boy sixpence to take it to Shap," said Alice, blushing. "And what have you said?" asked Kate, taking hold of the other's arm. "I have kept my promise," said Alice; "and do you keep yours by asking no further questions." "My sister,--my own sister," said Kate. And then, as Alice met her embrace, there was no longer any doubt as to the nature of the reply. After this there was of course much close discussion between them as to what other steps should now be taken. Kate wanted her cousin to write immediately to Mr. Grey, and was somewhat frightened when Alice declined to do so till she had received a further letter from George. "You have not proposed any horrid stipulations to him?" exclaimed Kate. "I don't know what you may call horrid stipulations," said Alice, gravely. "My conditions have not been very hard, and I do not think you would have disapproved them." "But he!--He is so impetuous! Will he disapprove them?" "I have told him-- But, Kate, this is just what I did not mean to tell you." "Why should there be secrets between us?" said Kate. "There shall be none, then. I have told him that I cannot bring myself to marry him instantly;--that he must allow me twelve months to wear off, if I can in that time, much of sadness and of self-reproach which has fallen to my lot." "Twelve months, Alice?" "Listen to me. I have said so. But I have told him also that if he wishes it still, I will at once tell papa and grandpapa that I hold myself as engaged to him, so that he may know that I bind myself to him as far as it is possible that I should do so. And I have added something else, Kate," she continued to say after a slight pause,--"something else which I can tell you, though I could tell it to no other person. I can tell you because you would do, and will do the same. I have told him that any portion of my money is at his service which may be needed for his purposes before that twelve months is over." "Oh, Alice! No;--no. You shall not do that. It is too generous." And Kate perhaps felt at the moment that her brother was a man to whom such an offer could hardly be made with safety. "But I have done it. Mercury, with sixpence in his pocket, is already posting my generosity at Shap. And, to tell the truth, Kate, it is no more than fair. He has honestly told me that while the old Squire lives he will want my money to assist him in a career of which I do much more than approve. It has been my earnest wish to see him in Parliament. It will now be the most earnest desire of my heart;--the one thing as to which I shall feel an intense anxiety. How then can I have the face to bid him wait twelve months for that which is specially needed in six months' time? It would be like the workhouses which are so long in giving bread, that in the mean time the wretches starve." "But the wretch shan't starve," said Kate. "My money, small as it is, will carry him over this bout. I have told him that he shall have it, and that I expect him to spend it. Moreover, I have no doubt that Aunt Greenow would lend me what he wants." "But I should not wish him to borrow from Aunt Greenow. She would advance him the money, as you say, upon stamped paper, and then talk of it." "He shall have mine," said Kate. "And who are you?" said Alice, laughing. "You are not going to be his wife?" "He shall not touch your money till you are his wife," said Kate, very seriously. "I wish you would consent to change your mind about this stupid tedious year, and then you might do as you pleased. I have no doubt such a settlement might be made as to the property here, when my grandfather hears of it, as would make you ultimately safe." "And do you think I care to be ultimately safe, as you call it? Kate, my dear, you do not understand me." "I suppose not. And yet I thought that I had known something about you." "It is because I do not care for the safety of which you speak that I am now going to become your brother's wife. Do you suppose that I do not see that I must run much risk?" "You prefer the excitement of London to the tranquillity, may I say, of Cambridgeshire." "Exactly;--and therefore I have told George that he shall have my money whenever he wants it." Kate was very persistent in her objection to this scheme till George's answer came. His answer to Alice was accompanied by a letter to his sister, and after that Kate said nothing more about the money question. She said no more then; but it must not therefore be supposed that she was less determined than she had been that no part of Alice's fortune should be sacrificed to her brother's wants;--at any rate before Alice should become her brother's wife. But her brother's letter for the moment stopped her mouth. It would be necessary that she should speak to him before she again spoke to Alice. In what words Alice had written her assent it will be necessary that the reader should know, in order that something may be understood of the struggle which she made upon the occasion; but they shall be given presently, when I come to speak of George Vavasor's position as he received them. George's reply was very short and apparently very frank. He deprecated the delay of twelve months, and still hoped to be able to induce her to be more lenient to him. He advised her to write to Mr. Grey at once,--and as regarded the Squire he gave her _carte blanche_ to act as she pleased. If the Squire required any kind of apology, expression of sorrow,--and asking for pardon, or such like, he, George, would, under the circumstances as they now existed, comply with the requisition most willingly. He would regard it as a simple form, made necessary by his coming marriage. As to Alice's money, he thanked her heartily for her confidence. If the nature of his coming contest at Chelsea should make it necessary, he would use her offer as frankly as it had been made. Such was his letter to Alice. What was contained in his letter to Kate, Alice never knew. Then came the business of telling this new love tale,--the third which poor Alice had been forced to tell her father and grandfather;--and a grievous task it was. In this matter she feared her father much more than her grandfather, and therefore she resolved to tell her grandfather first;--or, rather, she determined that she would tell the Squire, and that in the mean time Kate should talk to her father. "Grandpapa," she said to him the morning after she had received her cousin's second letter.--The old man was in the habit of breakfasting alone in a closet of his own, which was called his dressing-room, but in which he kept no appurtenances for dressing, but in lieu of them a large collection of old spuds and sticks and horse's-bits. There was a broken spade here, and a hoe or two; and a small table in the corner was covered with the debris of tradesmen's bills from Penrith, and dirty scraps which he was wont to call his farm accounts.--"Grandpapa," said Alice, rushing away at once into the middle of her subject, "you told me the other day that you thought I ought to be--married." "Did I, my dear? Well, yes; so I did. And so you ought;--I mean to that Mr. Grey." "That is impossible, sir." "Then what's the use of your coming and talking to me about it?" This made Alice's task not very easy; but, nevertheless, she persevered. "I am come, grandpapa, to tell you of another engagement." "Another!" said he. And by the tone of his voice he accused his granddaughter of having a larger number of favoured suitors than ought to fall to the lot of any young lady. It was very hard upon her, but still she went on. "You know," said she, "that some years ago I was to have been married to my cousin George;"--and then she paused. "Well," said the old man. "And I remember you told me then that you were much pleased." "So I was. George was doing well then; or,--which is more likely,--had made us believe that he was doing well. Have you made it up with him again?" "Yes, sir." "And that's the meaning of your jilting Mr. Grey, is it?" Poor Alice! It is hard to explain how heavy a blow fell upon her from the open utterance of that word! Of all words in the language it was the one which she now most dreaded. She had called herself a jilt, with that inaudible voice which one uses in making self-accusations;--but hitherto no lips had pronounced the odious word to her ears. Poor Alice! She was a jilt; and perhaps it may have been well that the old man should tell her so. "Grandpapa!" she said; and there was that in the tone of her voice which somewhat softened the Squire's heart. "Well, my dear, I don't want to be ill-natured. So you are going at last to marry George, are you? I hope he'll treat you well; that's all. Does your father approve of it?" "I have told you first, sir;--because I wish to obtain your consent to seeing George again here as your grandson." "Never," said the old man, snarling;--"never!" "If he has been wrong, he will beg your pardon." "If he has been wrong! Didn't he want to squander every shilling of the property,--property which has never belonged to him;--property which I could give to Tom, Dick, or Harry to-morrow, if I liked?--If he has been wrong!" "I am not defending him, sir;--but I thought that, perhaps, on such an occasion as this--" "A Tom Fool's occasion! You've got money of your own. He'll spend all that now." "He will be less likely to do so if you will recognise him as your heir. Pray believe, sir, that he is not the sort of man that he was." "He must be a very clever sort of man, I think, when he has talked you out of such a husband as John Grey. It's astounding to me,--with that ugly mug of his! Well, my dear, if your father approves of it, and if George will ask my pardon,--but I don't think he ever will--" "He will, sir. I am his messenger for as much as that." "Oh, you are, are you? Then you may also be my messenger to him, and tell him that, for your sake, I will let him come back here. I know he'll insult me the first day; but I'll try and put up with it,--for your sake, my dear. Of course I must know what your father thinks about it." It may be imagined that Kate's success was even less than that which Alice achieved. "I knew it would be so," said John Vavasor, when his niece first told him;--and as he spoke he struck his hand upon the table. "I knew all along how it would be." "And why should it not be so, Uncle John?" "He is your brother, and I will not tell you why." "You think that he is a spendthrift?" "I think that he is as unsafe a man as ever I knew to be intrusted with the happiness of any young woman. That is all." "You are hard upon him, uncle." "Perhaps so. Tell Alice this from me,--that as I have never yet been able to get her to think anything of my opinion, I do not at all expect that I shall be able to induce her to do so now. I will not even make the attempt. As my son-in-law I will not receive George Vavasor. Tell Alice that." Alice was told her father's message; but Kate in telling it felt no deep regret. She well knew that Alice would not be turned back from her present intention by her father's wishes. Nor would it have been very reasonable that she should. Her father had for many years relieved himself from the burden of a father's cares, and now had hardly the right to claim a father's privileges. We will now go once again to George Vavasor's room in Cecil Street, in which he received Alice's letter. He was dressing when it was first brought to him; and when he recognised the handwriting he put it down on his toilet table unopened. He put it down, and went on brushing his hair, as though he were determined to prove to himself that he was indifferent as to the tidings which it might contain. He went on brushing his hair, and cleaning his teeth, and tying his cravat carefully over his turned-down collar, while the unopened letter lay close to his hand. Of course he was thinking of it,--of course he was anxious,--of course his eye went to it from moment to moment. But he carried it with him into the sitting-room still unopened, and so it remained until after the girl had brought him his tea and his toast. "And now," said he, as he threw himself into his arm-chair, "let us see what the girl of my heart says to me." The girl of his heart said to him as follows:-- MY DEAR GEORGE, I feel great difficulty in answering your letter. Could I have my own way, I should make no answer to it at present, but leave it for the next six months, so that then such answer might hereafter be made as circumstances should seem to require. This will be little flattering to you, but it is less flattering to myself. Whatever answer I may make, how can anything in this affair be flattering either to you or to me? We have been like children who have quarrelled over our game of play, till now, at the close of our little day of pleasure, we are fain to meet each other in tears, and acknowledge that we have looked for delights where no delights were to be found. Kate, who is here, talks to me of passionate love. There is no such passion left to me;--nor, as I think, to you either. It would not now be possible that you and I should come together on such terms as that. We could not stand up together as man and wife with any hope of a happy marriage, unless we had both agreed that such happiness might be had without passionate love. You will see from all this that I do not refuse your offer. Without passion, I have for you a warm affection, which enables me to take a livelier interest in your career than in any other of the matters which are around me. Of course, if I become your wife that interest will be still closer and dearer, and I do feel that I can take in it that concern which a wife should have in her husband's affairs. If it suits you, I will become your wife;--but it cannot be quite at once. I have suffered much from the past conflicts of my life, and there has been very much with which I must reproach myself. I know that I have behaved badly. Sometimes I have to undergo the doubly bitter self-accusation of having behaved in a manner which the world will call unfeminine. You must understand that I have not passed through this unscathed, and I must beg you to allow me some time for a cure. A perfect cure I may never expect, but I think that in twelve months from this time I may so far have recovered my usual spirit and ease of mind as to enable me to devote myself to your happiness. Dear George, if you will accept me under such circumstances, I will be your wife, and will endeavour to do my duty by you faithfully. I have said that even now, as your cousin, I take a lively interest in your career,--of course I mean your career as a politician,--and especially in your hopes of entering Parliament. I understand, accurately as I think, what you have said about my fortune, and I perfectly appreciate your truth and frankness. If I had nothing of my own you, in your circumstances, could not possibly take me as your wife. I know, moreover, that your need of assistance from my means is immediate rather than prospective. My money may be absolutely necessary to you within this year, during which, as I tell you most truly, I cannot bring myself to become a married woman. But my money shall be less cross-grained than myself. You will take it as frankly as I mean it when I say, that whatever you want for your political purposes shall be forthcoming at your slightest wish. Dear George, let me have the honour and glory of marrying a man who has gained a seat in the Parliament of Great Britain! Of all positions which a man may attain that, to me, is the grandest. I shall wait for a further letter from you before I speak either to my father or to my grandfather. If you can tell me that you accede to my views, I will at once try to bring about a reconciliation between you and the Squire. I think that that will be almost easier than inducing my father to look with favour upon our marriage. But I need hardly say that should either one or the other oppose it,--or should both do so,--that would not turn me from my purpose. I also wait for your answer to write a last line to Mr. Grey. Your affectionate cousin, ALICE VAVASOR. George Vavasor when he had read the letter threw it carelessly from him on to the breakfast table, and began to munch his toast. He threw it carelessly from him, as though taking a certain pride in his carelessness. "Very well," said he; "so be it. It is probably the best thing that I could do, whatever the effect may be on her." Then he took up his newspaper. But before the day was over he had made many plans,--plans made almost unconsciously,--as to the benefit which might accrue to him from the offer which she had made of her money. And before night he had written that reply to her of which we have heard the contents; and had written also to his sister Kate a letter, of which Kate had kept the contents to herself.

Alice had a week to write her answer; but she sent it off before the full week was past. "Why should I keep him in suspense?" she thought. She thought, also, that it might be well for Mr. Grey that all his doubts on the matter should be dispelled. She had treated him very badly; but she owed it to him to let him know her intentions. She tried to console herself by thinking that his wound would be easy to cure. "He is not passionate," she said. But she deceived herself. Each morning Kate asked her whether her answer was written; and on the third day after Christmas, Alice said that she had written it, and that it was gone. "And what have you said?" asked Kate. "I have kept my promise," said Alice; "and do you keep yours by asking no further questions." "My sister - my own sister," said Kate. And as Alice met her embrace, there could be no doubt about the nature of the reply. After this they discussed what other steps should now be taken. Kate wanted her cousin to write immediately to Mr. Grey, and was somewhat frightened when Alice declined to do so till she had received a further letter from George. "You have not proposed any horrid stipulations to him?" exclaimed Kate. "I don't know what you may call horrid stipulations," said Alice gravely. "My conditions have not been very hard. I have told him that I cannot bring myself to marry him instantly; that he must allow me twelve months to wear off, if I can, the sadness and self-reproach I must feel." "Twelve months, Alice?" "I have said so. But I have told him also that if he wishes it, I will at once tell papa and grandpapa that I am engaged to him, so that he may know that I bind myself to him. And I have added something else, Kate," she continued after a slight pause, "something I could tell no other person. I can tell you because you would do the same. I have told him that my money is at his service if any is needed for his purposes before that year is over." "Oh, Alice! No. That is too generous." Kate perhaps felt that her brother was a man to whom such an offer could hardly be made with safety. "But I have done it. And, Kate, it is no more than fair. He has honestly told me that he will need my money to assist him in his career. It has been my earnest wish to see him in Parliament. How then can I bid him wait twelve months?" "But my money, small as it is, will carry him over till then. I have told him that I expect him to spend it. Moreover, I have no doubt that Aunt Greenow would lend me what he wants." "But I should not wish him to borrow from Aunt Greenow." "He shall not touch your money till you are his wife," said Kate, very seriously. "I wish you would change your mind about this stupid year. I have no doubt a settlement might be made from the property here, by my grandfather, to make you ultimately safe." "And do you think I care to be ultimately safe, as you call it? Kate, my dear, you do not understand me." "I suppose not." "It is because I do not care for that safety that I am going to become your brother's wife. Do you think I do not see the risk? But George shall have my money whenever he wants it." Kate was very persistent in her objection to this till George's answer came. He enclosed a letter to his sister, and after that Kate said nothing more about the money. She felt the same way about it, but her brother's letter stopped her mouth. In what words Alice had written her assent the reader will be told later. George's reply to it was very short and apparently very frank. He regretted the delay of twelve months, and hoped to be able to induce her to be more lenient to him. He advised her to write to Mr. Grey at once, and to tell the Squire if she pleased. If the Squire required any apology from George, he would comply most willingly. As to Alice's money, he thanked her heartily for her confidence in him. If the coming contest at Chelsea should make it necessary, he would use her offer. Such was his letter to Alice. What was contained in his letter to Kate, Alice never knew. Then came the business of telling this new love tale to Alice's father and grandfather; and a grievous task it was. In this matter she feared her father much more than her grandfather, so she decided that she would tell the Squire, and that meanwhile Kate should talk to her father. She went to the room where the old man breakfasted alone. It contained a broken spade, a hoe or two and some horses' bits; and a small table in the corner was covered with tradesmen's bills from Penrith, and dirty scraps which he called his farm accounts. "Grandpapa," said Alice, "you told me the other day that you thought I ought to be - married." "So I did. And so you ought, to that Mr. Grey." "That is impossible, sir." "Then what's the use of your coming and talking to me about it?" "I am come, grandpapa, to tell you of another engagement." "Another!" "You know that some years ago I was to have married my cousin George." She paused. "And I remember you told me that you were much pleased." "So I was. George was doing well then; or had made us believe that he was doing well. Have you made it up with him again?" "Yes, sir." "And that's why you jilted Mr. Grey, is it?" Poor Alice! No-one till now had said that odious word to her. But she was a jilt; and perhaps it may have been well that the old man should tell her so. "Grandpapa!" she said; and her tone softened the Squire's heart. "Well, my dear, I don't want to be ill-natured. So you are going to marry George, are you? I hope he'll treat you well, that's all. Does your father approve?" "I have told you first, sir, because I wish to obtain your consent to receiving George here as your grandson." "Never," said the old man, snarling; "never!" "If he has been wrong, he will beg your pardon." "If he has been wrong! Didn't he want to squander every shilling of the property? -If he has been wrong!" "I am not defending him, sir; but I thought that, perhaps" "You've got money of your own. He'll spend all that now." "He will be less likely to do so if you will recognise him as your heir. Pray believe, sir, that he is not the sort of man that he was." "He must be a very clever sort of man, I think, when he has talked you out of such a husband as John Grey. It's astounding to me! Well, my dear, if your father approves of it, and if George will ask my pardon; but I don't think he ever will." "He will, sir." "Well, you can tell him that, for your sake, I'll let him come here. I know he'll insult me; but I'll try and put up with it - for your sake, my dear. But I must know what your father thinks about it." Kate had even less success than Alice. "I knew it would be so," said John Vavasor, when his niece told him; and he struck his hand upon the table. "Why should it not be so, Uncle John?" "He is your brother, and I will not tell you why." "You think that he is a spendthrift?" "I think that he is as unsafe a man as ever. That is all." "You are hard upon him, uncle." "Perhaps so. Tell Alice that as I have never yet been able to influence her, I do not expect that I shall be able to do so now. I will not even try. But I will not receive George Vavasor as my son-in-law. Tell Alice that." Alice was told her father's message; but Kate felt deep regret about it. She knew that Alice would not be turned back by her father's wishes. Her father had for many years relieved himself from the burden of a father's cares, and now had hardly the right to claim a father's privileges. We will now return to George Vavasor's room in Cecil Street, where he received Alice's letter. He was dressing when it was brought to him; and he put it down, and went on brushing his hair, as though to prove to himself that he was indifferent about its contents. He cleaned his teeth, and tied his cravat carefully, while the unopened letter lay close by. His eye went to it from time to time; but he carried it with him into the sitting-room still unopened. After the girl had brought him his breakfast, he opened it, and read: My dear George, I feel great difficulty in answering your letter. Could I have my own way, I should make no answer at present, but leave it for the next six months. We have been like children who have quarrelled over our game, till now, at the close of our little day of pleasure, we meet each other in tears, and acknowledge that we have looked for delights where no delights were to be found. Kate talks to me of passionate love. There is no such passion left to me; nor, I think, to you either. It would not now be possible that you and I should come together on such terms as that. We could not marry with any hope of happiness, unless we had both agreed that happiness might be had without passionate love. You will see from all this that I do not refuse your offer. Without passion, I have for you a warm affection, which enables me to take a lively interest in your career. Of course, if I become your wife that interest will be still closer and dearer. If it suits you, I will become your wife; but it cannot be quite at once. I have suffered much from the past conflicts of my life, and there has been much with which I must reproach myself. I know that I have behaved badly, and in a manner which the world will call unfeminine. I must beg you to allow me some time for a cure. I think that in twelve months I may so far have recovered my usual spirit as to enable me to devote myself to your happiness. Dear George, if you will accept me under such circumstances, I will be your wife, and will endeavour to do my duty by you faithfully. I have said that I take a lively interest in your career as a politician, especially in your hopes of entering Parliament. I understand what you have said about my fortune, and I perfectly appreciate your frankness. If I had no fortune you could not possibly take me as your wife. I know, moreover, that my money may be necessary to you within this year. Therefore, even before we marry, whatever you want for your political purposes shall be forthcoming at your wish. Dear George, let me have the honour and glory of marrying a man who has gained a seat in the Parliament of Great Britain! Of all positions which a man may attain that, to me, is the grandest. I shall wait for a further letter from you before I speak either to my father or to my grandfather. If you agree, I will try to bring about a reconciliation between you and the Squire. I think that will be almost easier than inducing my father to look with favour upon our marriage. But I need hardly say that should either of them oppose it, that would not turn me from my purpose. Your affectionate cousin, Alice Vavasor. After reading this letter George Vavasor threw it carelessly on to the breakfast table, as if taking pride in his carelessness, and began to munch his toast. "Very well," said he; "so be it. It is probably the best thing that I could do." Then he took up his newspaper. But before the day was over he had made many plans about the use he could make of her money. And before night he had written his reply to her, and his letter to Kate.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 32: Containing an Answer to the Love Letter

"George," said Kate, speaking before she quite got up to them, "will you tell me whether you have been preparing all your things for an open sale by auction?" Then she stole a look at Alice, and having learned from that glance that something had occurred which prevented Alice from joining her in her raillery, she went on with it herself rapidly, as though to cover Alice's confusion, and give her time to rally before they should all move. "Would you believe it? he had three razors laid out on his table--" "A man must shave,--even at Basle." "But not with three razors at once; and three hair-brushes, and half a dozen toothbrushes, and a small collection of combs, and four or five little glass bottles, looking as though they contained poison,--all with silver tops. I can only suppose you desired to startle the weak mind of the chambermaid. I have put them all up; but remember this, if they are taken out again you are responsible. And I will not put up your boots, George. What can you have wanted with three pairs of boots at Basle?" "When you have completed the list of my wardrobe we'll go out upon the bridge. That is, if Alice likes it." "Oh, yes; I shall like it." "Come along then," said Kate. And so they moved away. When they got upon the bridge Alice and Kate were together, while George strolled behind them, close to them, but not taking any part in their conversation,--as though he had merely gone with them as an escort. Kate seemed to be perfectly content with this arrangement, chattering to Alice, so that she might show that there was nothing serious on the minds of any of them. It need hardly be said that Alice at this time made no appeal to George to join them. He followed them at their heels, with his hands behind his back, looking down upon the pavement and simply waiting upon their pleasure. "Do you know," said Kate, "I have a very great mind to run away." "Where do you want to run to?" "Well;--that wouldn't much signify. Perhaps I'd go to the little inn at Handek. It's a lonely place, where nobody would hear of me,--and I should have the waterfall. I'm afraid they'd want to have their bill paid. That would be the worst of it." "But why run away just now?" "I won't, because you wouldn't like going home with George alone,--and I suppose he'd be bound to look after me, as he's doing now. I wonder what he thinks of having to walk over the bridge after us girls. I suppose he'd be in that place down there drinking beer, if we weren't here." "If he wanted to go, I dare say he would, in spite of us." "That's ungrateful of you, for I'm sure we've never been kept in a moment by his failing us. But as I was saying, I do dread going home. You are going to John Grey, which may be pleasant enough; but I'm going--to Aunt Greenow." "It's your own choice." "No, it's not. I haven't any choice in the matter. Of course I might refuse to speak to Aunt Greenow, and nobody could make me;--but practically I haven't any choice in the matter. Fancy a month at Yarmouth with no companion but such a woman as that!" "I shouldn't mind it. Aunt Greenow always seems to me to be a very good sort of woman." "She may be a good woman, but I must say I think she's of a bad sort. You've never heard her talk about her husband?" "No, never; I think she did cry a little the first day she came to Queen Anne Street, but that wasn't unnatural." "He was thirty years older than herself." "But still he was her husband. And even if her tears are assumed, what of that? What's a woman to do? Of course she was wrong to marry him. She was thirty-five, and had nothing, while he was sixty-five, and was very rich. According to all accounts she made him a very good wife, and now that she's got all his money, you wouldn't have her go about laughing within three months of his death." "No; I wouldn't have her laugh; but neither would I have her cry. And she's quite right to wear weeds; but she needn't be so very outrageous in the depth of her hems, or so very careful that her caps are becoming. Her eyes will be worn out by their double service. They are always red with weeping, and yet she is ready every minute with a full battery of execution for any man that she sees." "Then why have you consented to go to Yarmouth with her?" "Just because she's got forty thousand pounds. If Mr. Greenow had left her with a bare maintenance I don't suppose I should ever have held out my hand to her." "Then you're as bad as she is." "Quite as bad;--and that's what makes me want to run away. But it isn't my own fault altogether. It's the fault of the world at large. Does anybody ever drop their rich relatives? When she proposed to take me to Yarmouth, wasn't it natural that the squire should ask me to go? When I told George, wasn't it natural that he should say, 'Oh, go by all means. She's got forty thousand pounds!' One can't pretend to be wiser or better than one's relatives. And after all what can I expect from her money?" "Nothing, I should say." "Not a halfpenny. I'm nearly thirty and she's only forty, and of course she'll marry again. I will say of myself, too, that no person living cares less for money." "I should think no one." "Yet one sticks to one's rich relatives. It's the way of the world." Then she paused a moment. "But shall I tell you, Alice, why I do stick to her? Perhaps you'll think the object as mean as though I wanted her money myself." "Why is it?" "Because it is on the cards that she may help George in his career. I do not want money, but he may. And for such purposes as his, I think it fair that all the family should contribute. I feel sure that he would make a name for himself in Parliament; and if I had my way I would spend every shilling of Vavasor money in putting him there. When I told the squire so I thought he would have eaten me. I really did think he would have turned me out of the house." "And serve you right too after what had happened." "I didn't care. Let him turn me out. I was determined he should know what I thought. He swore at me; and then he was so unhappy at what he had done that he came and kissed me that night in my bedroom, and gave me a ten-pound note. What do you think I did with it? I sent it as a contribution to the next election and George has it now locked up in a box. Don't you tell him that I told you." Then they stopped and leaned for a while over the parapet of the bridge. "Come here, George," said Kate; and she made room for him between herself and Alice. "Wouldn't you like to be swimming down there as those boys were doing when we went out into the balcony? The water looks so enticing." "I can't say I should;--unless it might be a pleasant way of swimming into the next world." "I should so like to feel myself going with the stream," said Kate; "particularly by this light. I can't fancy in the least that I should be drowned." "I can't fancy anything else," said Alice. "It would be so pleasant to feel the water gliding along one's limbs, and to be carried away headlong,--knowing that you were on the direct road to Rotterdam." "And so arrive there without your clothes," said George. "They would be brought after in a boat. Didn't you see that those boys had a boat with them? But if I lived here, I'd never do it except by moonlight. The water looks so clear and bright now, and the rushing sound of it is so soft! The sea at Yarmouth won't be anything like that I suppose." Neither of them any longer answered her, and yet she went on talking about the river, and their aunt, and her prospects at Yarmouth. Neither of them answered her, and yet it seemed that they had not a word to say to each other. But still they stood there looking down upon the river, and every now and then Kate's voice was to be heard, preventing the feeling which might otherwise have arisen that their hearts were too full for speech. At last Alice seemed to shiver. There was a slight trembling in her arms, which George felt rather than saw. "You are cold," he said. "No indeed." "If you are let us go in. I thought you shivered with the night air." "It wasn't that. I was thinking of something. Don't you ever think of things that make you shiver?" "Indeed I do, very often;--so often that I have to do my shiverings inwardly. Otherwise people would think I had the palsy." "I don't mean things of moment," said Alice. "Little bits of things make me do it;--perhaps a word that I said and ought not to have said ten years ago;--the most ordinary little mistakes, even my own past thoughts to myself about the merest trifles. They are always making me shiver." "It's not because you have committed any murder then." "No; but it's my conscience all the same, I suppose." "Ah! I'm not so good as you. I doubt it's not my conscience at all. When I think of a chance I've let go by, as I have thousands, then it is that I shiver. But, as I tell you, I shiver inwardly. I've been in one long shiver ever since we came out because of one chance that I let go by. Come, we'll go in. We've to be up at five o'clock, and now it's eleven. I'll do the rest of my shivering in bed." "Are you tired of being out?" said Kate, when the other two began to move. "Not tired of being out, but George reminds me that we have to be up at five." "I wish George would hold his tongue. We can't come to the bridge at Basle every night in our lives. If one found oneself at the top of Sinai I'm afraid the first feeling would be one of fear lest one wouldn't be down in time to dress for dinner. Are you aware, George, that the king of rivers is running beneath your feet, and that the moon is shining with a brilliance you never see at home?" "I'll stay here all night if you'll put off going to-morrow," said George. "Our money wouldn't hold out," said Kate. "Don't talk about Sinai any more after that," said he, "but let's go in to bed." They walked across the bridge back to the hotel in the same manner as before, the two girls going together with the young man after them, and so they went up the front steps of the hotel, through the hall, and on to the stairs. Here George handed Alice her candle, and as he did so he whispered a few words to her. "My shivering fit has to come yet," said he, "and will last me the whole night." She would have given much to be able to answer him lightly, as though what he had said had meant nothing;--but she couldn't do it; the light speech would not come to her. She was conscious of all this, and went away to her own room without answering him at all. Here she sat down at the window looking out upon the river till Kate should join her. Their rooms opened through from one to the other, and she would not begin her packing till her cousin should come. But Kate had gone with her brother, promising, as she did so, that she would be back in half a minute. That half minute was protracted beyond half an hour. "If you'll take my advice," said Kate, at last, standing up with her candle in her hand, "you'll ask her in plain words to give you another chance. Do it to-morrow at Strasbourg; you'll never have a better opportunity." "And bid her throw John Grey over!" "Don't say anything about John Grey; leave her to settle that matter with herself. Believe me that she has quite courage enough to dispose of John Grey, if she has courage enough to accept your offer." "Kate, you women never understand each other. If I were to do that, all her most powerful feelings would be arrayed in arms against me. I must leave her to find out first that she wishes to be rid of her engagement." "She has found that out long ago. Do you think I don't know what she wishes? But if you can't bring yourself to speak to her, she'll marry him in spite of her wishes." "Bring myself! I've never been very slow in bringing myself to speak to any one when there was need. It isn't very pleasant sometimes, but I do it, if I find occasion." "But surely it must be pleasant with her. You must be glad to find that she still loves you. You still love her, I suppose?" "Upon my word I don't know." "Don't provoke me, George. I'm moving heaven and earth to bring you two together; but if I didn't think you loved her, I'd go to her at once and bid her never see you again." "Upon my word, Kate, I sometimes think it would be better if you'd leave heaven and earth alone." "Then I will. But of all human beings, surely you're the most ungrateful." "Why shouldn't she marry John Grey if she likes him?" "But she doesn't like him. And I hate him. I hate the sound of his voice, and the turn of his eye, and that slow, steady movement of his,--as though he was always bethinking himself that he wouldn't wear out his clothes." "I don't see that your hating him ought to have anything to do with it." "If you're going to preach morals, I'll leave you. It's the darling wish of my heart that she should be your wife. If you ever loved anybody,--and I sometimes doubt whether you ever did,--but if you did, you loved her." "Did and do are different things." "Very well, George; then I have done. It has been the same in every twist and turn of my life. In everything that I have striven to do for you, you have thrown yourself over, in order that I might be thrown over too. But I believe you say this merely to vex me." "Upon my word, Kate, I think you'd better go to bed." "But not till I've told her everything. I won't leave her to be deceived and ill-used again." "Who is ill-using her now? Is it not the worst of ill-usage, trying to separate her from that man?" "No;--if I thought so, I would have no hand in doing it. She would be miserable with him, and make him miserable as well. She does not really love him. He loves her, but I've nothing to do with that. It's nothing to me if he breaks his heart." "I shall break mine if you don't let me go to bed." With that she went away and hurried along the corridor, till she came to her cousin's room. She found Alice still seated at the window, or rather kneeling on the chair, with her head out through the lattice. "Why, you lazy creature," said Kate; "I declare you haven't touched a thing." "You said we'd do it together." "But he has kept me. Oh, what a man he is! If he ever does get married, what will his wife do with him?" "I don't think he ever will," said Alice. "Don't you? I dare say you understand him better than I do. Sometimes I think that the only thing wanting to make him thoroughly good, is a wife. But it isn't every woman that would do for him. And the woman who marries him should have high courage. There are moments with him when he is very wild; but he never is cruel and never hard. Is Mr. Grey ever hard?" "Never; nor yet wild." "Oh, certainly not that. I'm quite sure he's never wild." "When you say that, Kate, I know that you mean to abuse him." "No; upon my word. What's the good of abusing him to you? I like a man to be wild,--wild in my sense. You knew that before." "I wonder whether you'd like a wild man for yourself?" "Ah! that's a question I've never asked myself. I've been often curious to consider what sort of husband would suit you, but I've had very few thoughts about a husband for myself. The truth is, I'm married to George. Ever since--" "Ever since what?" "Since you and he were parted, I've had nothing to do in life but to stick to him. And I shall do so to the end,--unless one thing should happen." "And what's that?" "Unless you should become his wife after all. He will never marry anybody else." "Kate, you shouldn't allude to such a thing now. You know that it's impossible." "Well, perhaps so. As far as I'm concerned, it is all the better for me. If George ever married, I should have nothing to do in the world;--literally nothing--nothing--nothing--nothing!" "Kate, don't talk in that way," and Alice came up to her and embraced her. "Go away," said she. "Go, Alice; you and I must part. I cannot bear it any longer. You must know it all. When you are married to John Grey, our friendship must be over. If you became George's wife I should become nobody. I've nothing else in the world. You and he would be so all-sufficient for each other, that I should drop away from you like an old garment. But I'd give up all, everything, every hope I have, to see you become George's wife. I know myself not to be good. I know myself to be very bad, and yet I care nothing for myself. Don't Alice, don't; I don't want your caresses. Caress him, and I'll kneel at your feet and cover them with kisses." She had now thrown herself upon a sofa, and had turned her face away to the wall. "Kate, you shouldn't speak in that way." "Of course I shouldn't,--but I do." "You, who know everything, must know that I cannot marry your brother,--even if he wished it." "He does wish it." "Not though I were under no other engagement." "And why not?" said Kate, again starting up. "What is there to separate you from George now, but that unfortunate affair, that will end in the misery of you all. Do you think I can't see? Don't I know which of the two men you like best?" "You are making me sorry, Kate, that I have ventured to come here in your brother's company. It is not only unkind of you to talk to me in this way, but worse than that--it is indelicate." "Oh, indelicate! How I do hate that word. If any word in the language reminds me of a whited sepulchre it is that;--all clean and polished outside with filth and rottenness within. Are your thoughts delicate? that's the thing. You are engaged to marry John Grey. That may be delicate enough if you love him truly, and feel yourself fitted to be his wife; but it's about the most indelicate thing you can do, if you love any one better than him. Delicacy with many women is like their cleanliness. Nothing can be nicer than the whole outside get-up, but you wouldn't wish to answer for anything beneath." "If you think ill of me like that--" "No; I don't think ill of you. How can I think ill of you when I know that all your difficulties have come from him? It hasn't been your fault; it has been his throughout. It is he who has driven you to sacrifice yourself on this altar. If we can, both of us, manage to lay aside all delicacy and pretence, and dare to speak the truth, we shall acknowledge that it is so. Had Mr. Grey come to you while things were smooth between you and George, would you have thought it possible that he could be George's rival in your estimation? It is Hyperion to Satyr." "And which is the Satyr?" "I'll leave your heart to tell you. You know what is the darling wish of my heart. But, Alice, if I thought that Mr. Grey was to you Hyperion,--if I thought that you could marry him with that sort of worshipping, idolatrous love which makes a girl proud as well as happy in her marriage, I wouldn't raise a little finger to prevent it." To this Alice made no answer, and then Kate allowed the matter to drop. Alice made no answer, though she felt that she was allowing judgement to go against her by default in not doing so. She had intended to fight bravely, and to have maintained the excellence of her present position as the affianced bride of Mr. Grey, but she felt that she had failed. She felt that she had, in some sort, acknowledged that the match was one to be deplored;--that her words in her own defence would by no means have satisfied Mr. Grey, if Mr. Grey could have heard them;--that they would have induced him to offer her back her troth rather than have made him happy as a lover. But she had nothing further to say. She could do something. She would hurry home and bid him name the earliest day he pleased. After that her cousin would cease to disturb her in her career. It was nearly one o'clock before the two girls began to prepare for their morning start, and Alice, when they had finished their packing, seemed to be worn out with fatigue. "If you are tired, dear, we'll put it off," said Kate. "Not for worlds," said Alice. "For half a word we'll do it," continued Kate. "I'll slip out to George and tell him, and there's nothing he'd like so much." But Alice would not consent. About two they got into bed, and punctually at six they were at the railway station. "Don't speak to me," said George, when he met them at their door in the passage. "I shall only yawn in your face." However, they were in time,--which means abroad that they were at the station half an hour before their train started,--and they went on upon their journey to Strasbourg. There is nothing further to be told of their tour. They were but two days and nights on the road from Basle to London; and during those two days and nights neither George nor Kate spoke a word to Alice of her marriage, nor was any allusion made to the balcony at the inn, or to the bridge over the river.

"George," said Kate as she approached them, "have you been preparing all your things for sale by auction?" Then she stole a look at Alice, and gathering that something had occurred, she went on rapidly, as though to cover Alice's confusion, "Would you believe it? he had three razors laid out on his table-" "A man must shave, even at Basle." "But not with three razors at once; and three hair-brushes, and half a dozen toothbrushes, and several combs and little glass bottles. I have packed them all; but now you are responsible for them. And I will not pack your boots, George. What can you have wanted with three pairs of boots?" "When you have completed the list of my wardrobe we'll go out upon the bridge. That is, if Alice likes it." "Oh, yes; I shall like it." "Come along, then," said Kate. And so they moved away, Alice and Kate together, while George strolled behind, close to them, but not joining in their conversation - as though he had merely gone with them as an escort. Kate was chattering to Alice to show that there was nothing serious on their minds. George followed them with his hands behind his back, looking down at the pavement. "Do you know," said Kate, "I have a very great mind to run away - perhaps to the little inn at Handek. It's a lonely place, where nobody would hear of me - and I should have the waterfall." "But why run away just now?" "I won't. But I do dread going home. You are going to John Grey, which may be pleasant enough; but I'm going to Aunt Greenow." "It's your own choice." "No, it's not. I haven't any real choice in the matter. Fancy a month at Yarmouth with no companion but her!" "I shouldn't mind it. Aunt Greenow seems to be a very good sort of woman." "She may be a good woman, but I must say I think she's a bad sort. You've never heard her talk about her husband?" "No, never; I think she did cry a little the first day she came to Queen Anne Street after he died, but that was natural." "He was thirty years older than her." "But still he was her husband. And even if her tears are assumed, what of that? What's a woman to do? Of course she was wrong to marry him. She was thirty-five, and had nothing, while he was sixty-five, and very rich. But according to all accounts she made him a very good wife, and you wouldn't have her go about laughing within three months of his death." "No; but she needn't be so outrageous in wearing her mourning, or so very careful that her widow's caps are becoming. Her eyes are always red with weeping, and yet she is ready to flutter her eyelids at any man she sees." "Then why have you consented to go to Yarmouth with her?" "Because she's rich. It's the fault of the world. Does anybody ever drop their rich relatives? When I told George, wasn't it natural that he should say, 'Oh, go by all means. She's got forty thousand pounds!' And what can I expect from her money?" "Nothing, I should say." "Not a halfpenny. I'm nearly thirty and she's only forty, and of course she'll marry again. As for me, nobody cares less for money. Yet one sticks to one's rich relatives. It's the way of the world." Then she paused a moment. "But shall I tell you, Alice, why I do stick to her?" "Why?" "Because it's possible that she may help George in his career. I do not need money, but he may. And for such purposes as his, I think it fair that all the family should contribute. I feel sure that he would make a name for himself in Parliament; and if I had my way I would spend every shilling of Vavasor money in putting him there. When I told the squire so I thought he would turn me out of the house. He swore at me; and then he was so unhappy at swearing that he came and kissed me and gave me a ten-pound note. What do you think I did with it? I sent it to George as a contribution to the next election. Don't tell him that I told you." They stopped and leaned over the parapet of the bridge. "Come here, George," said Kate, making room for him between herself and Alice. "Wouldn't you like to be swimming down there? The water looks so enticing." "I can't say I should; unless it might be a pleasant way of swimming into the next world." "I should so like to feel myself going with the stream," said Kate. "I can't imagine that I should be drowned." "I can't imagine anything else," said Alice. "It would be so pleasant to be carried away headlong to Rotterdam." "And arrive there without your clothes," said George. "They would be brought after in a boat. The water looks so clear and bright in the moonlight, and the sound of it is so soft! The sea at Yarmouth won't be anything like that, I suppose." She went on talking about the river, and their aunt, and Yarmouth. Still they stood looking down upon the river, and every now and then Kate's voice was heard, preventing the feeling which might otherwise have arisen that their hearts were too full for speech. At last Alice seemed to shiver. "You are cold," said George. "It wasn't that. I was thinking of something. Don't you ever think of things that make you shiver?" "Indeed I do - so often that I have to do my shiverings inwardly." "I don't mean important things," said Alice. "Little bits of things make me do it; perhaps a word that I ought not to have said ten years ago. The most ordinary little mistakes are always making me shiver." "Ah! When I think of a chance I've let go by, as I have thousands, then I shiver - but inwardly. I've been in one long shiver ever since we came out because of one chance that I let go by. Come, we'll go in. We have to be up at five o'clock, and now it's eleven. I'll do the rest of my shivering in bed." They walked back to the hotel. On the stairs George handed Alice her candle, and as he did so he whispered a few words to her. "My shivering fit has to come yet," said he, "and will last me the whole night." She would have given much to be able to answer him lightly, as though he had meant nothing; but she couldn't. She went to her own room without answering him at all. Here she sat down at the window looking out upon the river till Kate should join her. Their rooms adjoined, and she would not begin her packing till her cousin came. But Kate was with her brother. "If you'll take my advice," said Kate to him, with her candle in her hand, "you'll ask her to give you another chance. Do it tomorrow at Strasbourg; you'll never have a better opportunity." "And bid her throw John Grey over!" "Don't say anything about John Grey. Leave her to settle that herself. She has quite courage enough to dispose of John Grey, if she has courage enough to accept your offer." "Kate, you women never understand each other. She must find out first that she wishes to be rid of her engagement." "She has found that out long ago, I am sure of it. But if you can't bring yourself to speak to her, she'll marry him in spite of her wishes. You must be glad to find that she still loves you. You still love her, I suppose?" "Upon my word I don't know." "Don't provoke me, George. I'm moving heaven and earth to bring you two together; but if I didn't think you loved her, I'd tell her never to see you again." "Upon my word, Kate, I sometimes think it would be better if you'd leave heaven and earth alone. Why shouldn't she marry John Grey if she likes him?" "But she doesn't like him. And I hate him. I hate the sound of his voice, and the turn of his eye, and that slow, steady movement of his - as though he was always reminding himself not to wear out his clothes." "I don't see that your hating him ought to have anything to do with it." "If you're going to preach, I'll leave you. It's the darling wish of my heart that she should be your wife. If you ever loved anybody, you loved her." "Did and do are different things." "Very well, George; I have done. It has been the same in every twist and turn of my life. In everything that I have striven to do for you, you have thrown yourself over, in order that I might be thrown over too. But I believe you say this merely to vex me." "Kate, I think you'd better go to bed." "But not till I've told her everything. I won't leave her to be deceived and ill-used again." "Who is ill-using her now? Is it not the worst of ill-usage, trying to separate her from that man?" "No. She would be miserable with him, and make him miserable as well. She does not really love him. He loves her, but it's nothing to me if he breaks his heart." "I shall break mine if you don't let me go to bed." With that she went away to her cousin's room. She found Alice still seated at the window, with her head out through the lattice. "Why, you lazy creature," said Kate; "I declare you haven't touched a thing." "You said we'd do it together." "But he has kept me. Oh, what a man he is! If he ever does get married, what will his wife do with him?" "I don't think he ever will," said Alice. "Don't you? Sometimes I think that the only thing needed to make him thoroughly good is a wife. But it isn't every woman that would do for him. And the woman who marries him should have high courage. There are moments when he is very wild; but he is never cruel or hard. Is Mr. Grey ever hard?" "Never; nor wild." "Oh, I'm quite sure he's never wild." "When you say that, Kate, I know that you mean to abuse him." "No; upon my word. What's the good of abusing him to you? I like a man to be wild, wild in my sense. You know that." "I wonder whether you'd like a wild man for yourself?" "Ah! I've never asked myself what sort of husband I would like. The truth is, I'm married to George. Ever since-" "Ever since what?" "Since you and he were parted, I've had nothing to do in life but to stick to him. And I shall do so to the end, unless one thing should happen." "And what's that?" "Unless you should become his wife after all. He will never marry anybody else." "Kate, you shouldn't say such a thing. You know that it's impossible." "Well, perhaps so. And it's all the better for me. If George ever married, I should have nothing to do in the world; literally nothing!" "Kate, don't talk in that way," and Alice embraced her. "Go away," said Kate. "Oh, Alice, I cannot bear it any longer. You must know it all. When you are married to John Grey, our friendship must be over. But I'd give up everything to see you become George's wife. I know I'm not good. Don't, Alice; I don't want your caresses. Caress him, and I'll kneel at your feet and cover them with kisses." She had now thrown herself upon a sofa, and had turned her face away to the wall. "Kate, you shouldn't speak in that way." "Of course I shouldn't - but I do." "You know that I cannot marry your brother - even if he wished it." "He does wish it." "Not even if I were bound to no other engagement." "And why not?" said Kate, again starting up. "That engagement will end in misery. Do you think I can't see which of the two men you like best?" "You are making me sorry, Kate, that I ventured to come here with your brother. It is not only unkind of you, it is indelicate." "Oh, indelicate! How I hate that word. Are your thoughts delicate? that's the thing. You are engaged to marry John Grey. If you love anyone better, marrying him is about the most indelicate thing you can do." "If you think ill of me like that-" "No; I don't think ill of you. It hasn't been your fault; it has been his. It is he who has driven you to sacrifice yourself on this altar. If we can, both of us, manage to lay aside all delicacy and pretence, and dare to speak the truth, we shall acknowledge that it is so. If Mr. Grey had come to you while things were smooth between you and George, would you have thought it possible that he could be George's rival?" Alice made no answer. She had intended to fight bravely, and to have shown the excellence of her position as Mr. Grey's fiance, but she felt that she had failed. She felt that she had somehow acknowledged that the match was to be deplored. But she would hurry home and bid Mr. Grey name the earliest day he pleased. After that her cousin would cease to disturb her. It was nearly one o'clock before the two girls began to pack, and about two when they got into bed. At six they were at the railway station. Half an hour later they were on their way to Strasbourg. There is nothing further to be told of their tour. They were two days and nights on the road from Basle to London; and during those two days and nights neither George nor Kate spoke a word to Alice of her marriage, nor was any allusion made to the balcony at the inn, or the bridge over the river.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 6: The Bridge over the Rhine

Kate Vavasor remained only three days in London before she started for Yarmouth; and during those three days she was not much with her cousin. "I'm my aunt's, body and soul, for the next six weeks," she said to Alice, when she did come to Queen Anne Street on the morning after her arrival. "And she is exigeant in a manner I can't at all explain to you. You mustn't be surprised if I don't even write a line. I've escaped by stealth now. She went up-stairs to try on some new weeds for the seaside, and then I bolted." She did not say a word about George; nor during those three days, nor for some days afterwards, did George show himself. As it turned out afterwards, he had gone off to Scotland, and had remained a week among the grouse. Thus, at least, he had accounted for himself and his movements; but all George Vavasor's friends knew that his goings out and comings in were seldom accounted for openly like those of other men. It will perhaps be as well to say a few words about Mrs. Greenow before we go with her to Yarmouth. Mrs. Greenow was the only daughter and the youngest child of the old squire at Vavasor Hall. She was just ten years younger than her brother John, and I am inclined to think that she was almost justified in her repeated assertion that the difference was much greater than ten years, by the freshness of her colour, and by the general juvenility of her appearance. She certainly did not look forty, and who can expect a woman to proclaim herself to be older than her looks? In early life she had been taken from her father's house, and had lived with relatives in one of the large towns in the north of England. It is certain she had not been quite successful as a girl. Though she had enjoyed the name of being a beauty, she had not the usual success which comes from such repute. At thirty-four she was still unmarried. She had, moreover, acquired the character of being a flirt; and I fear that the stories which were told of her, though doubtless more than half false, had in them sufficient of truth to justify the character. Now this was very sad, seeing that Arabella Vavasor had no fortune, and that she had offended her father and brothers by declining to comply with their advice at certain periods of her career. There was, indeed, considerable trouble in the minds of the various male Vavasors with reference to Arabella, when tidings suddenly reached the Hall that she was going to be married to an old man. She was married to the old man; and the marriage fortunately turned out satisfactorily, at any rate for the old man and for her family. The Vavasors were relieved from all further trouble, and were as much surprised as gratified when they heard that she did her duty well in her new position. Arabella had long been a thorn in their side, never having really done anything which they could pronounce to be absolutely wrong, but always giving them cause for fear. Now they feared no longer. Her husband was a retired merchant, very rich, not very strong in health, and devoted to his bride. Rumours soon made their way to Vavasor Hall, and to Queen Anne Street, that Mrs. Greenow was quite a pattern wife, and that Mr. Greenow considered himself to be the happiest old man in Lancashire. And now in her prosperity she quite forgave the former slights which had been put upon her by her relatives. She wrote to her dear niece Alice, and to her dearest niece Kate, and sent little presents to her father. On one occasion she took her husband to Vavasor Hall, and there was a regular renewal of all the old family feelings. Arabella's husband was an old man, and was very old for his age; but the whole thing was quite respectable, and there was, at any rate, no doubt about the money. Then Mr. Greenow died; and the widow, having proved the will, came up to London and claimed the commiseration of her nieces. "Why not go to Yarmouth with her for a month?" George had said to Kate. "Of course it will be a bore. But an aunt with forty thousand pounds has a right to claim attention." Kate acknowledged the truth of the argument and agreed to go to Yarmouth for a month. "Your aunt Arabella has shown herself to be a very sensible woman," the old squire had written; "much more sensible than anybody thought her before her marriage. Of course you should go with her if she asks you." What aunt, uncle, or cousin, in the uncontrolled possession of forty thousand pounds was ever unpopular in the family? Yarmouth is not a very prepossessing place to the eye. To my eye, at any rate, it is not so. There is an old town with which summer visitors have little or nothing to do; and there are the new houses down by the sea-side, to which, at any rate, belongs the full advantage of sea air. A kind of esplanade runs for nearly a mile along the sands, and there are built, or in the course of building, rows of houses appropriated to summer visitors all looking out upon the sea. There is no beauty unless the yellow sandy sea can be called beautiful. The coast is low and straight, and the east wind blows full upon it. But the place is healthy; and Mrs. Greenow was probably right in thinking that she might there revive some portion of the health which she had lost in watching beside the couch of her departing lord. "Omnibus;--no, indeed. Jeannette, get me a fly." These were the first words Mrs. Greenow spoke as she put her foot upon the platform at the Yarmouth station. Her maid's name was Jenny; but Kate had already found, somewhat to her dismay, that orders had been issued before they left London that the girl was henceforth to be called Jeannette. Kate had also already found that her aunt could be imperious; but this taste for masterdom had not shown itself so plainly in London as it did from the moment that the train had left the station at Shoreditch. In London Mrs. Greenow had been among Londoners, and her career had hitherto been provincial. Her spirit, no doubt, had been somewhat cowed by the novelty of her position. But when she felt herself to be once beyond the stones as the saying used to be, she was herself again; and at Ipswich she had ordered Jeannette to get her a glass of sherry with an air which had created a good deal of attention among the guards and porters. The fly was procured; and with considerable exertion all Mrs. Greenow's boxes, together with the more moderate belongings of her niece and maid, were stowed on the top of it, round upon the driver's body on the coach box, on the maid's lap, and I fear in Kate's also, and upon the vacant seat. "The large house in Montpelier Parade," said Mrs. Greenow. "They is all large, ma'am," said the driver. "The largest," said Mrs. Greenow. "They're much of a muchness," said the driver. "Then Mrs. Jones's," said Mrs. Greenow. "But I was particularly told it was the largest in the row." "I know Mrs. Jones's well," said the driver, and away they went. Mrs. Jones's house was handsome and comfortable; but I fear Mrs. Greenow's satisfaction in this respect was impaired by her disappointment in finding that it was not perceptibly bigger than those to the right and left of her. Her ambition in this and in other similar matters would have amused Kate greatly had she been a bystander, and not one of her aunt's party. Mrs. Greenow was good-natured, liberal, and not by nature selfish; but she was determined not to waste the good things which fortune had given, and desired that all the world should see that she had forty thousand pounds of her own. And in doing this she was repressed by no feeling of false shame. She never hesitated in her demands through bashfulness. She called aloud for such comfort and grandeur as Yarmouth could afford her, and was well pleased that all around should hear her calling. Joined to all this was her uncontrolled grief for her husband's death. "Dear Greenow! sweet lamb! Oh, Kate, if you'd only known that man!" When she said this she was sitting in the best of Mrs. Jones's sitting-rooms, waiting to have dinner announced. She had taken a drawing-room and dining-room, "because," as she had said, "she didn't see why people should be stuffy when they went to the seaside;--not if they had means to make themselves comfortable." "Oh, Kate, I do wish you'd known him!" "I wish I had," said Kate,--very untruly. "I was unfortunately away when he went to Vavasor Hall." "Ah, yes; but it was at home, in the domestic circle, that Greenow should have been seen to be appreciated. I was a happy woman, Kate, while that lasted." And Kate was surprised to see that real tears--one or two on each side--were making their way down her aunt's cheeks. But they were soon checked with a handkerchief of the broadest hem and of the finest cambric. "Dinner, ma'am," said Jeannette, opening the door. "Jeannette, I told you always to say that dinner was served." "Dinner's served then," said Jeannette in a tone of anger. "Come, Kate," said her aunt. "I've but little appetite myself, but there's no reason you shouldn't eat your dinner. I specially wrote to Mrs. Jones to have some sweetbread. I do hope she's got a decent cook. It's very little I eat myself, but I do like to see things nice." The next day was Sunday; and it was beautiful to see how Mrs. Greenow went to church in all the glory of widowhood. There had been a great unpacking after that banquet on the sweetbread, and all her funereal millinery had been displayed before Kate's wondering eyes. The charm of the woman was in this,--that she was not in the least ashamed of anything that she did. She turned over all her wardrobe of mourning, showing the richness of each article, the stiffness of the crape, the fineness of the cambric, the breadth of the frills,--telling the price of each to a shilling, while she explained how the whole had been amassed without any consideration of expense. This she did with all the pride of a young bride when she shows the glories of her trousseau to the friend of her bosom. Jeannette stood by the while, removing one thing and exhibiting another. Now and again through the performance, Mrs. Greenow would rest a while from her employment, and address the shade of the departed one in terms of most endearing affection. In the midst of this Mrs. Jones came in; but the widow was not a whit abashed by the presence of the stranger. "Peace be to his manes!" she said at last, as she carefully folded up a huge black crape mantilla. She made, however, but one syllable of the classical word, and Mrs. Jones thought that her lodger had addressed herself to the mortal "remains" of her deceased lord. [Illustration: "Peace be to his manes."] "He is left her uncommon well off, I suppose," said Mrs. Jones to Jeannette. "You may say that, ma'am. It's more nor a hundred thousand of pounds!" "No!" "Pounds of sterling, ma'am! Indeed it is;--to my knowledge." "Why don't she have a carriage?" "So she do;--but a lady can't bring her carriage down to the sea when she's only just buried her husband as one may say. What'd folks say if they saw her in her own carriage? But it ain't because she can't afford it, Mrs. Jones. And now we're talking of it you must order a fly for church to-morrow, that'll look private, you know. She said I was to get a man that had a livery coat and gloves." The man with the coat and gloves was procured; and Mrs. Greenow's entry into church made quite a sensation. There was a thoughtfulness about her which alone showed that she was a woman of no ordinary power. She foresaw all necessities, and made provision for all emergencies. Another would not have secured an eligible sitting, and been at home in Yarmouth church, till half the period of her sojourn there was over. But Mrs. Greenow had done it all. She walked up the middle aisle with as much self-possession as though the chancel had belonged to her family for years; and the respectable pew-opener absolutely deserted two or three old ladies whom she was attending, to show Mrs. Greenow into her seat. When seated, she was the cynosure of all eyes. Kate Vavasor became immediately aware that a great sensation had been occasioned by their entrance, and equally aware that none of it was due to her. I regret to say that this feeling continued to show itself throughout the whole service. How many ladies of forty go to church without attracting the least attention! But it is hardly too much to say that every person in that church had looked at Mrs. Greenow. I doubt if there was present there a single married lady who, on leaving the building, did not speak to her husband of the widow. There had prevailed during the whole two hours a general though unexpressed conviction that something worthy of remark had happened that morning. It had an effect even upon the curate's reading; and the incumbent, while preaching his sermon, could not keep his eyes off that wonderful bonnet and veil. On the next morning, before eleven, Mrs. Greenow's name was put down at the Assembly Room. "I need hardly say that in my present condition I care nothing for these things. Of course I would sooner be alone. But, my dear Kate, I know what I owe to you." Kate, with less intelligence than might have been expected from one so clever, began to assure her aunt that she required no society; and that, coming thus with her to the seaside in the early days of her widowhood, she had been well aware that they would live retired. But Mrs. Greenow soon put her down, and did so without the slightest feeling of shame or annoyance on her own part. "My dear," she said, "in this matter you must let me do what I know to be right. I should consider myself to be very selfish if I allowed my grief to interfere with your amusements." "But, aunt, I don't care for such amusements." "That's nonsense, my dear. You ought to care for them. How are you to settle yourself in life if you don't care for them?" "My dear aunt, I am settled." "Settled!" said Mrs. Greenow, astounded, as though there must have been some hidden marriage of which she had not heard. "But that's nonsense. Of course you're not settled; and how are you to be, if I allow you to shut yourself up in such a place as this,--just where a girl has a chance?" It was in vain that Kate tried to stop her. It was not easy to stop Mrs. Greenow when she was supported by the full assurance of being mistress of the place and of the occasion. "No, my dear; I know very well what I owe to you, and I shall do my duty. As I said before, society can have no charms now for such a one as I am. All that social intercourse could ever do for me lies buried in my darling's grave. My heart is desolate, and must remain so. But I'm not going to immolate you on the altars of my grief. I shall force myself to go out for your sake, Kate." "But, dear aunt, the world will think it so odd, just at present." "I don't care twopence for the world. What can the world do to me? I'm not dependent on the world,--thanks to the care of that sainted lamb. I can hold my own; and as long as I can do that the world won't hurt me. No, Kate, if I think a thing's right I shall do it. I mean to make the place pleasant for you if I can, and the world may object if it likes." Mrs. Greenow was probably right in her appreciation of the value of her independence. Remarks may perhaps have been made by the world of Yarmouth as to her early return to society. People, no doubt, did remind each other that old Greenow was hardly yet four months buried. Mrs. Jones and Jeannette probably had their little jokes down-stairs. But this did not hurt Mrs. Greenow. What was said, was not said in her hearing, Mrs. Jones's bills were paid every Saturday with admirable punctuality; and as long as this was done everybody about the house treated the lady with that deference which was due to the respectability of her possessions. When a recently bereaved widow attempts to enjoy her freedom without money, then it behoves the world to speak aloud;--and the world does its duty. Numerous people came to call at Montpelier Parade, and Kate was astonished to find that her aunt had so many friends. She was indeed so bewildered by these strangers that she could hardly ascertain whom her aunt had really known before, and whom she now saw for the first time. Somebody had known somebody who had known somebody else, and that was allowed to be a sufficient introduction,--always presuming that the existing somebody was backed by some known advantages of money or position. Mrs. Greenow could smile from beneath her widow's cap in a most bewitching way. "Upon my word then she is really handsome," Kate wrote one day to Alice. But she could also frown, and knew well how to put aside, or, if need be, to reprobate any attempt at familiarity from those whose worldly circumstances were supposed to be disadvantageous. "My dear aunt," said Kate one morning after their walk upon the pier, "how you did snub that Captain Bellfield!" "Captain Bellfield, indeed! I don't believe he's a captain at all. At any rate he has sold out, and the tradesmen have had a scramble for the money. He was only a lieutenant when the 97th were in Manchester, and I'm sure he's never had a shilling to purchase since that." "But everybody here seems to know him." "Perhaps they do not know so much of him as I do. The idea of his having the impudence to tell me I was looking very well! Nothing can be so mean as men who go about in that way when they haven't money enough in their pockets to pay their washerwomen." "But how do you know, aunt, that Captain Bellfield hasn't paid his washerwoman?" "I know more than you think, my dear. It's my business. How could I tell whose attentions you should receive and whose you shouldn't, if I didn't inquire into these things?" It was in vain that Kate rebelled, or attempted to rebel against this more than maternal care. She told her aunt that she was now nearly thirty, and that she had managed her own affairs, at any rate with safety, for the last ten years;--but it was to no purpose. Kate would get angry; but Mrs. Greenow never became angry. Kate would be quite in earnest; but Mrs. Greenow would push aside all that her niece said as though it were worth nothing. Kate was an unmarried woman with a very small fortune, and therefore, of course, was desirous of being married with as little delay as possible. It was natural that she should deny that it was so, especially at this early date in their mutual acquaintance. When the niece came to know her aunt more intimately, there might be confidence between them, and then they would do better. But Mrs. Greenow would spare neither herself nor her purse on Kate's behalf, and she would be a dragon of watchfulness in protecting her from the evil desires of such useless men as Captain Bellfield. "I declare, Kate, I don't understand you," she said one morning to her niece as they sat together over a late breakfast. They had fallen into luxurious habits, and I am afraid it was past eleven o'clock, although the breakfast things were still on the table. Kate would usually bathe before breakfast, but Mrs. Greenow was never out of her room till half-past ten. "I like the morning for contemplation," she once said. "When a woman has gone through all that I have suffered she has a great deal to think of." "And it is so much more comfortable to be a-thinking when one's in bed," said Jeannette, who was present at the time. "Child, hold your tongue," said the widow. "Yes, ma'am," said Jeannette. But we'll return to the scene at the breakfast-table. "What don't you understand, aunt?" "You only danced twice last night, and once you stood up with Captain Bellfield." "On purpose to ask after that poor woman who washes his clothes without getting paid for it." "Nonsense, Kate; you didn't ask him anything of the kind, I'm sure. It's very provoking. It is indeed." "But what harm can Captain Bellfield do me?" "What good can he do you? That's the question. You see, my dear, years will go by. I don't mean to say you ain't quite as young as ever you were, and nothing can be nicer and fresher than you are;--especially since you took to bathing." "Oh, aunt, don't!" "My dear, the truth must be spoken. I declare I don't think I ever saw a young woman so improvident as you are. When are you to begin to think about getting married if you don't do it now?" "I shall never begin to think about it, till I buy my wedding clothes." "That's nonsense,--sheer nonsense. How are you to get wedding clothes if you have never thought about getting a husband? Didn't I see Mr. Cheesacre ask you for a dance last night?" "Yes, he did; while you were talking to Captain Bellfield yourself, aunt." "Captain Bellfield can't hurt me, my dear. And why didn't you dance with Mr. Cheesacre?" "He's a fat Norfolk farmer, with not an idea beyond the virtues of stall-feeding." "My dear, every acre of it is his own land,--every acre! And he bought another farm for thirteen thousand pounds only last autumn. They're better than the squires,--some of those gentlemen farmers; they are indeed. And of all men in the world they're the easiest managed." "That's a recommendation, no doubt." "Of course it is;--a great recommendation." Mrs. Greenow had no idea of joking when her mind was intent on serious things. "He's to take us to the picnic to-morrow, and I do hope you'll manage to let him sit beside you. It'll be the place of honour, because he gives all the wine. He's picked up with that man Bellfield, and he's to be there; but if you allow your name to be once mixed up with his, it will be all over with you as far as Yarmouth is concerned." "I don't at all want to be mixed up with Captain Bellfield, as you call it," said Kate. Then she subsided into her novel, while Mrs. Greenow busied herself about the good things for the picnic. In truth, the aunt did not understand the niece. Whatsoever might be the faults of Kate Vavasor, an unmaidenly desire of catching a husband for herself was certainly not one of them.

Kate Vavasor remained only three days in London before she started for Yarmouth. "I'm my aunt's, body and soul, for the next six weeks," she told Alice when she visited. "And she is exacting in a way I can't describe. You mustn't be surprised if I don't even write a line. I've escaped by stealth now. She went upstairs to try on some new clothes for the seaside, and I bolted." She did not say a word about George; nor did George show himself. He said afterwards that he had gone off to Scotland, and had remained a week among the grouse. It will be as well to say a few words about Mrs. Greenow before we go with her to Yarmouth. Mrs. Greenow was the only daughter of the old squire at Vavasor Hall. She was ten years younger than her brother John, but looked younger still. In early life she lived with relatives in a town in the north of England. Although she had the reputation of being a beauty, at thirty-four she was still unmarried. She had, moreover, acquired the character of being a flirt; and I fear that there was some truth in this. Now this was very sad, seeing that Arabella Vavasor had no fortune, and that she had offended her father and brothers by declining to take their advice at various times. They were, indeed, quite troubled about her, when they heard the news that that she was going to be married to an old man. The marriage fortunately turned out satisfactorily. The Vavasors were relieved from their trouble, and were as much surprised as gratified when they heard that she did her wifely duty well. Her husband was a retired merchant, very rich, not very well, and devoted to his bride. Rumours soon reached Vavasor Hall that Mrs. Greenow was a model wife, and that Mr. Greenow considered himself to be the happiest old man in Lancashire. On one occasion she took her husband to Vavasor Hall; he was very old for his age, but the marriage was quite respectable, and there was, at any rate, no doubt about the money. Then Mr. Greenow died; and the widow came to London and claimed the commiseration of her nieces. "Why not go to Yarmouth with her for a month?" George had said to Kate. "Of course it will be a bore. But an aunt with forty thousand pounds has a right to claim attention." The old squire had also written to her, telling her to go if asked. So Kate agreed to go to Yarmouth for a month. Yarmouth is not a very prepossessing place. There is an old town which summer visitors do not venture into; and there are the new houses down by the sea-side. A kind of esplanade runs for nearly a mile along the sands, and there are rows of new houses for summer visitors, all looking out upon the sea. There is no beauty unless the yellow sandy sea can be called beautiful. The coast is low and straight, and the east wind blows full upon it. But the place is healthy. "Omnibus; no, indeed. Jeannette, get me a hackney cab." These were the first words Mrs. Greenow spoke as she put her foot upon the platform at Yarmouth station. Her maid's name was Jenny; but Kate had found, somewhat to her dismay, that the girl was to be called Jeannette. Mrs. Greenow's taste for masterdom had not shown itself so plainly in London as it did now. As a provincial person among Londoners, her spirit had been somewhat cowed. But outside London she was herself again; and at Ipswich she had ordered Jeannette to get her a glass of sherry with an air which had created a good deal of attention among the porters. The cab was found; and all Mrs. Greenow's boxes, together with the more moderate belongings of her niece and maid, were stowed on the top of it, around the driver, on the maid's lap, and Kate's also, and upon the vacant seat. "The large house in Montpelier Parade," said Mrs. Greenow. "They is all large, ma'am," said the driver. "The largest," said Mrs. Greenow. "Mrs. Jones's. I was told it was the largest in the row." "I know Mrs. Jones's," said the driver, and away they went. Mrs. Jones's house was handsome and comfortable; but I fear Mrs. Greenow was disappointed to find that it was not perceptibly bigger than those on either side. This ambition would have amused Kate greatly had she been a bystander, and not her aunt's companion. Mrs. Greenow was good-natured and generous; but she desired that all the world should see that she had forty thousand pounds. She had no bashfulness about this. She called aloud for such comfort and grandeur as Yarmouth could give her, and was well pleased that all around should hear her calling. Joined to all this was her uncontrolled grief for her husband's death. "Dear Greenow! sweet lamb! Oh, Kate, if you'd only known that man!" When she said this she was sitting in the best of Mrs. Jones's sitting-rooms, before dinner. "Oh, Kate, I do wish you'd known him!" "I wish I had," said Kate, untruthfully. "I was away when he came to Vavasor Hall." "Ah, yes; but it was at home that Greenow had to be seen to be appreciated. I was a happy woman, Kate." And Kate was surprised to see that real tears were making their way down her aunt's cheeks. But they were soon checked with a handkerchief of the finest cambric. "Dinner, ma'am," said Jeannette, opening the door. "Jeannette, I told you always to say that dinner was served." "Dinner's served then," said Jeannette angrily. "Come, Kate," said her aunt. "I've little appetite myself, but there's no reason you shouldn't eat your dinner. I do hope Mrs. Jones has got a decent cook." The next day was Sunday; and it was beautiful to see how Mrs. Greenow went to church in all the glory of widowhood. There had been a great unpacking after dinner, and all her funereal outfits had been displayed before Kate's wondering eyes. Mrs. Greenow had pointed out the richness of each garment, the fineness of the fabric, the breadth of the frills - telling the price of each to a shilling, while she explained how expense had been of no consideration. This she did with all the pride of a young bride showing off her trousseau. Now and again, Mrs. Greenow would pause and address the shade of the departed one with affectionate words. In the midst of this Mrs. Jones came in; but the widow was not at all abashed by her presence. "He left her uncommon well off, I suppose," said Mrs. Jones to Jeannette afterwards. "You may say that, ma'am. It's more nor a hundred thousand of pounds!" "No!" "Indeed it is." "Why don't she have a carriage?" "She do; but a lady can't bring her carriage down to the sea when she's only just buried her husband. What'd folks say? But it ain't because she can't afford it, Mrs. Jones. And now we're talking of it you must order a cab for church tomorrow. She said I was to get a man that had a livery coat and gloves." The man with the coat and gloves was procured; and Mrs. Greenow's entry into church made quite a sensation. She walked up the middle aisle as though the chancel had belonged to her family for years; and the respectable pew-opener deserted two or three old ladies to show Mrs. Greenow into her seat. All eyes were on her. I regret to say that this continued throughout the whole service. Every person in that church looked at Mrs. Greenow. There was a general conviction that something remarkable had happened that morning. Even the minister, while preaching his sermon, could not keep his eyes off that wonderful bonnet and veil. Next morning Mrs. Greenow's name was put down at the Assembly Room. "I need hardly say that in my present condition I care nothing for these things. But, my dear Kate, I know what I owe to you." Kate, with less intelligence than might have been expected from one so clever, began to assure her aunt that she needed no society, and was expecting a quiet time. But Mrs. Greenow soon corrected her, without any sign of annoyance. "My dear," she said, " you must let me do what I know to be right. I should be very selfish if I allowed my grief to interfere with your amusements." "But, aunt, I don't care for such amusements." "That's nonsense, my dear. You ought to care for them. How are you to settle yourself in life if you don't care for them?" "My dear aunt, I am settled." "Settled!" said Mrs. Greenow, astounded, as though there must have been some hidden marriage of which she had not heard. "But that's nonsense. Of course you're not settled; and how are you to be, if I allow you to shut yourself up?" It was in vain that Kate tried to stop her. "No, my dear; I shall do my duty by you. Although my heart is desolate, I'm not going to immolate you on the altars of my grief. I shall force myself to go out for your sake, Kate." "But, dear aunt, the world will think it so odd." "I don't care twopence for the world. What can the world do to me? I'm not dependent on the world - thanks to that sainted lamb. No, Kate; I mean to make the place pleasant for you if I can, and the world may object if it likes." The people of Yarmouth no doubt did remind each other that old Greenow was hardly yet four months buried. Mrs. Jones and Jeannette probably had their little jokes downstairs. But this did not hurt Mrs. Greenow. Mrs. Jones's bills were paid punctually; and everybody in the house treated the lady with due deference. Numerous people came to call at Montpelier Parade, and Kate was astonished to find that her aunt had so many friends. She was indeed so bewildered by these strangers that she could hardly work out whom her aunt had known before, and whom she met for the first time. Somebody had known somebody who had known somebody else, and that was sufficient introduction. Mrs. Greenow could smile from beneath her widow's cap in a most bewitching way, and look most handsome. But she could also frown, and knew how to quell any attempt at familiarity from unsuitable people. "My dear aunt," said Kate one morning after their walk upon the pier, "how you did snub that Captain Bellfield!" "Captain Bellfield, indeed! I don't believe he's a captain at all. At any rate he has sold out, and the tradesmen have scrambled for the money. He was only a lieutenant when the 97th were in Manchester." "But everybody here seems to know him." "Perhaps they do not know so much of him as I do. His impudence in telling me I was looking very well! Nothing can be so mean as men who go about in that way when they haven't enough money in their pockets to pay their washerwomen." "But, aunt, how do you know that Captain Bellfield hasn't paid his washerwoman?" "I know more than you think, my dear. It's my business. How could I tell whose attentions you should receive and whose you shouldn't, if I didn't inquire into these things?" It was in vain that Kate attempted to rebel against this care. She told her aunt that she was now nearly thirty, and that she had managed her own affairs for the last ten years; but it was to no purpose. Mrs. Greenow would push aside all that her niece said as though it were unimportant. Kate was an unmarried woman with a very small fortune, and therefore, of course, wished to get married as soon as possible. It was natural that she should deny this, although when she came to know her aunt more intimately, she might admit it. But Mrs. Greenow would spare neither herself nor her purse on Kate's behalf, and she would be a dragon of watchfulness in protecting her from such useless men as Captain Bellfield. "I declare, Kate, I don't understand you," she said one morning over a late breakfast. They had fallen into luxurious habits, and I am afraid it was past eleven o'clock. "What don't you understand, aunt?" "You only danced twice last night, and once with Captain Bellfield." "On purpose to ask after his poor washerwoman who doesn't get paid." "Nonsense, Kate; you didn't ask him anything of the kind. It's very provoking." "But what harm can Captain Bellfield do me?" "What good can he do you? That's the question. I don't think I ever saw a young woman so improvident as you are. When are you to begin to think about getting married if you don't do it now?" "I shall never begin to think about it." "That's nonsense. Didn't Mr. Cheesacre ask you for a dance last night?" "Yes, he did; while you were talking to Captain Bellfield yourself, aunt." "Captain Bellfield can't hurt me, my dear. And why didn't you dance with Mr. Cheesacre?" "He's a fat Norfolk farmer, with not an idea beyond the virtues of stall-feeding." "My dear, every acre of it is his own land! And he bought another farm for thirteen thousand pounds only last autumn. They're better than the squires, some of those gentlemen farmers; they are indeed. And of all men in the world they're the easiest managed." "That's a recommendation, no doubt." "Of course it is. He's to take us to the picnic tomorrow, and I do hope you'll let him sit beside you. It'll be the place of honour, because he provides the wine. That man Bellfield is to be there; but if you allow your name to be mixed up with his, it will be all over with you as far as Yarmouth is concerned." "I don't want to be mixed up with Captain Bellfield," said Kate. In truth, the aunt did not understand her niece. Whatever Kate's faults were, an unmaidenly desire of catching a husband was certainly not one of them.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 7: Aunt Greenow

George Vavasor's feeling of triumph was not unjustifiable. It is something to have sat in the House of Commons, though it has been but for one session! There is on the left-hand side of our great national hall,--on the left-hand side as one enters it, and opposite to the doors leading to the Law Courts,--a pair of gilded lamps, with a door between them, near to which a privileged old dame sells her apples and her oranges solely, as I presume, for the accommodation of the Members of the House and of the great policeman who guards the pass. Between those lamps is the entrance to the House of Commons, and none but Members may go that way! It is the only gate before which I have ever stood filled with envy,--sorrowing to think that my steps might never pass under it. There are many portals forbidden to me, as there are many forbidden to all men; and forbidden fruit, they say, is sweet; but my lips have watered after no other fruit but that which grows so high, within the sweep of that great policeman's truncheon. Ah, my male friend and reader, who earnest thy bread, perhaps, as a country vicar; or sittest, may-be, at some weary desk in Somerset House; or who, perhaps, rulest the yard behind the Cheapside counter, hast thou never stood there and longed,--hast thou never confessed, when standing there, that Fate has been unkind to thee in denying thee the one thing that thou hast wanted? I have done so; and as my slow steps have led me up that more than royal staircase, to those passages and halls which require the hallowing breath of centuries to give them the glory in British eyes which they shall one day possess, I have told myself, in anger and in grief, that to die and not to have won that right of way, though but for a session,--not to have passed by the narrow entrance through those lamps,--is to die and not to have done that which it most becomes an Englishman to have achieved. There are, doubtless, some who come out by that road, the loss of whose society is not to be regretted. England does not choose her six hundred and fifty-four best men. One comforts one's self, sometimes, with remembering that. The George Vavasors, the Calder Joneses, and the Botts are admitted. Dishonesty, ignorance, and vulgarity do not close the gate of that heaven against aspirants; and it is a consolation to the ambition of the poor to know that the ambition of the rich can attain that glory by the strength of its riches alone. But though England does not send thither none but her best men, the best of her Commoners do find their way there. It is the highest and most legitimate pride of an Englishman to have the letters M.P. written after his name. No selection from the alphabet, no doctorship, no fellowship, be it of ever so learned or royal a society, no knightship,--not though it be of the Garter,--confers so fair an honour. Mr. Bott was right when he declared that this country is governed from between the walls of that House, though the truth was almost defiled by the lips which uttered it. He might have added that from thence flow the waters of the world's progress,--the fullest fountain of advancing civilization. George Vavasor, as he went in by the lamps and the apple-stall, under the guardianship of Mr. Bott, felt all the pride of which I have been speaking. He was a man quite capable of feeling such pride as it should be felt,--capable, in certain dreamy moments, of looking at the thing with pure and almost noble eyes; of understanding the ambition of serving with truth so great a nation as that which fate had made his own. Nature, I think, had so fashioned George Vavasor, that he might have been a good, and perhaps a great man; whereas Mr. Bott had been born small. Vavasor had educated himself to badness with his eyes open. He had known what was wrong, and had done it, having taught himself to think that bad things were best. But poor Mr. Bott had meant to do well, and thought that he had done very well indeed. He was a tuft-hunter and a toady, but he did not know that he was doing amiss in seeking to rise by tuft-hunting and toadying. He was both mean and vain, both a bully and a coward, and in politics, I fear, quite unscrupulous in spite of his grand dogmas; but he believed that he was progressing in public life by the proper and usual means, and was troubled by no idea that he did wrong. Vavasor, in those dreamy moments of which I have spoken, would sometimes feel tempted to cut his throat and put an end to himself, because he knew that he had taught himself amiss. Again he would sadly ask himself whether it was yet too late; always, however, answering himself that it was too late. Even now, at this moment, as he went in between the lamps, and felt much of the honest pride of which I have spoken, he told himself that it was too late. What could he do now, hampered by such a debt as that which he owed to his cousin, and with the knowledge that it must be almost indefinitely increased, unless he meant to give up this seat in Parliament, which had cost him so dearly, almost before he had begun to enjoy it? But his courage was good, and he was able to resolve that he would go on with the business that he had in hand, and play out his game to the end. He had achieved his seat in the House of Commons, and was so far successful. Men who had ever been gracious to him were now more gracious than ever, and they who had not hitherto treated him with courtesy, now began to smile and to be very civil. It was, no doubt, a great thing to have the privilege of that entrance between the lamps. Mr. Bott had the new Member now in hand, not because there had been any old friendship between them, but Mr. Bott was on the look-out for followers, and Vavasor was on the look-out for a party. A man gets no great thanks for attaching himself to existing power. Our friend might have enrolled himself among the general supporters of the Government without attracting much attention. He would in such case have been at the bottom of a long list. But Mr. Palliser was a rising man, round whom, almost without wish of his own, a party was forming itself. If he came into power,--as come he must, according to Mr. Bott and many others,--then they who had acknowledged the new light before its brightness had been declared, might expect their reward. Vavasor, as he passed through the lobby to the door of the House, leaning on Mr. Bott's arm, was very silent. He had spoken but little since they had left their cab in Palace Yard, and was not very well pleased by the garrulity of his companion. He was going to sit among the first men of his nation, and to take his chance of making himself one of them. He believed in his own ability; he believed thoroughly in his own courage; but he did not believe in his own conduct. He feared that he had done,--feared still more strongly that he would be driven to do,--that which would shut men's ears against his words, and would banish him from high places. No man believes in himself who knows himself to be a rascal, however great may be his talent, or however high his pluck. "Of course you have heard a debate?" said Mr. Bott. "Yes," answered Vavasor, who wished to remain silent. "Many, probably?" "No." "But you have heard debates from the gallery. Now you'll hear them from the body of the House, and you'll find how very different it is. There's no man can know what Parliament is who has never had a seat. Indeed no one can thoroughly understand the British Constitution without it. I felt, very early in life, that that should be my line; and though it's hard work and no pay, I mean to stick to it. How do, Thompson? You know Vavasor? He's just returned for the Chelsea Districts, and I'm taking him up. We shan't divide to-night; shall we? Look! there's Farringcourt just coming out; he's listened to better than any man in the House now, but he'll borrow half-a-crown from you if you'll lend him one. How d'ye do, my lord? I hope I have the pleasure of seeing you well?" and Bott bowed low to a lord who was hurrying through the lobby as fast as his shuffling feet would carry him. "Of course you know him?" Vavasor, however, did not know the lord in question, and was obliged to say so. "I thought you were up to all these things?" said Bott. "Taking the peerage generally, I am not up to it," said Vavasor, with a curl on his lip. "But you ought to have known him. That was Viscount Middlesex; he has got something on to-night about the Irish Church. His father is past ninety, and he's over sixty. We'll go in now; but let me give you one bit of advice, my dear fellow--don't think of speaking this session. A Member can do no good at that work till he has learned something of the forms of the House. The forms of the House are everything; upon my word they are. This is Mr. Vavasor, the new Member for the Chelsea Districts." Our friend was thus introduced to the doorkeeper, who smiled familiarly, and seemed to wink his eye. Then George Vavasor passed through into the House itself, under the wing of Mr. Bott. Vavasor, as he walked up the House to the Clerk's table and took the oath and then walked down again, felt himself to be almost taken aback by the little notice which was accorded to him. It was not that he had expected to create a sensation, or that he had for a moment thought on the subject, but the thing which he was doing was so great to him, that the total indifference of those around him was a surprise to him. After he had taken his seat, a few men came up by degrees and shook hands with him; but it seemed, as they did so, merely because they were passing that way. He was anxious not to sit next to Mr. Bott, but he found himself unable to avoid this contiguity. That gentleman stuck to him pertinaciously, giving him directions which, at the spur of the moment, he hardly knew how not to obey. So he found himself sitting behind Mr. Palliser, a little to the right, while Mr. Bott occupied the ear of the rising man. There was a debate in progress, but it seemed to Vavasor, as soon as he was able to become critical, to be but a dull affair, and yet the Chancellor of the Exchequer was on his legs, and Mr. Palliser was watching him as a cat watches a mouse. The speaker was full of figures, as becomes a Chancellor of the Exchequer; and as every new budget of them fell from him, Mr. Bott, with audible whispers, poured into the ear of his chief certain calculations of his own, most of which went to prove that the financier in office was altogether wrong. Vavasor thought that he could see that Mr. Palliser was receiving more of his assistance than was palatable to him. He would listen, if he did listen, without making any sign that he heard, and would occasionally shake his head with symptoms of impatience. But Mr. Bott was a man not to be repressed by a trifle. When Mr. Palliser shook his head he became more assiduous than ever, and when Mr. Palliser slightly moved himself to the left, he boldly followed him. No general debate arose on the subject which the Minister had in hand, and when he sat down, Mr. Palliser would not get up, though Mr. Bott counselled him to do so. The matter was over for the night, and the time had arrived for Lord Middlesex. That nobleman got upon his feet, with a roll of papers in his hand, and was proceeding to address the House on certain matters of church reform, with great energy; but, alas, for him and for his feelings! before his energy had got itself into full swing, the Members were swarming away through the doors like a flock of sheep. Mr. Palliser got up and went, and was followed at once by Mr. Bott, who succeeded in getting hold of his arm in the lobby. Had not Mr. Palliser been an even-tempered, calculating man, with a mind and spirit well under his command, he must have learned to hate Mr. Bott before this time. Away streamed the Members, but still the noble lord went on speaking, struggling hard to keep up his fire as though no such exodus were in process. There was but little to console him. He knew that the papers would not report one sentence in twenty of those he uttered. He knew that no one would listen to him willingly. He knew that he had worked for weeks and months to get up his facts, and he was beginning to know that he had worked in vain. As he summoned courage to look round, he began to fear that some enemy would count the House, and that all would be over. He had given heart and soul to this affair. His cry was not as Vavasor's cry about the River Bank. He believed in his own subject with a great faith, thinking that he could make men happier and better, and bring them nearer to their God. I said that he had worked for weeks and months. I might have said that he had been all his life at this work. Though he shuffled with his feet when he walked, and knocked his words together when he talked, he was an earnest man, meaning to do well, seeking no other reward for his work than the appreciation of those whom he desired to serve. But this was never to be his. For him there was in store nothing but disappointment. And yet he will work on to the end, either in this House or in the other, labouring wearily, without visible wages of any kind, and, one may say, very sadly. But when he has been taken to his long rest, men will acknowledge that he has done something, and there will be left on the minds of those who shall remember him a conviction that he served a good cause diligently, and not altogether inefficiently. Invisible are his wages, yet in some coin are they paid. Invisible is the thing he does, and yet it is done. Let us hope that some sense of this tardy appreciation may soothe his spirit beyond the grave. On the present occasion there was nothing to soothe his spirit. The Speaker sat, urbane and courteous, with his eyes turned towards the unfortunate orator; but no other ears in the House seemed to listen to him. The corps of reporters had dwindled down to two, and they used their pens very listlessly, taking down here a sentence and there a sentence, knowing that their work was naught. Vavasor sat it out to the last, as it taught him a lesson in those forms of the House which Mr. Bott had truly told him it would be well that he should learn. And at last he did learn the form of a "count-out." Some one from a back seat muttered something, which the Speaker understood; and that high officer, having had his attention called to a fact of which he would never have taken cognizance without such calling, did count the House, and finding that it contained but twenty-three Members, he put an end to his own labours and to those of poor Lord Middlesex. With what feelings that noble lord must have taken himself home, and sat himself down in his study, vainly opening a book before his eyes, can we not all imagine? A man he was with ample means, with children who would do honour to his name; one whose wife believed in him, if no one else would do so; a man, let us say, with a clear conscience, to whom all good things had been given. But of whom now was he thinking with envy? Early on that same day Farringcourt had spoken in the House,--a man to whom no one would lend a shilling, whom the privilege of that House kept out of gaol, whose word no man believed; who was wifeless, childless, and unloved. But three hundred men had hung listening upon his words. When he laughed in his speech, they laughed; when he was indignant against the Minister, they sat breathless, as the Spaniard sits in the critical moment of the bull-killing. Whichever way he turned himself, he carried them with him. Crowds of Members flocked into the House from libraries and smoking-rooms when it was known that this ne'er-do-well was on his legs. The Strangers' Gallery was filled to overflowing. The reporters turned their rapid pages, working their fingers wearily till the sweat drops stood upon their brows. And as the Premier was attacked with some special impetus of redoubled irony, men declared that he would be driven to enrol the speaker among his colleagues, in spite of dishonoured bills and evil reports. A man who could shake the thunderbolts like that must be paid to shake them on the right side. It was of this man, and of his success, that Lord Middlesex was envious, as he sat, wretched and respectable, in his solitary study! Mr. Bott had left the House with Mr. Palliser; and Vavasor, after the count-out, was able to walk home by himself, and think of the position which he had achieved. He told himself over and over again that he had done a great thing in obtaining that which he now possessed, and he endeavoured to teach himself that the price he was paying for it was not too dear. But already there had come upon him something of that feeling,--that terribly human feeling,--which deprives every prize that is gained of half its value. The mere having it robs the diamond of its purity, and mixes vile alloy with the gold. Lord Middlesex, as he had floundered on into terrible disaster, had not been a subject to envy. There had been nothing of brilliance in the debate, and the Members had loomed no larger than ordinary men at ordinary clubs. The very doorkeepers had hardly treated them with respect. The great men with whose names the papers are filled had sat silent, gloomy, and apparently idle. As soon as a fair opportunity was given them they escaped out of the House, as boys might escape from school. Everybody had rejoiced in the break-up of the evening, except that one poor old lord who had worked so hard. Vavasor had spent everything that he had to become a Member of that House, and now, as he went alone to his lodgings, he could not but ask himself whether the thing purchased was worth the purchase-money. But his courage was still high. Though he was gloomy, and almost sad, he knew that he could trust himself to fight out the battle to the last. On the morrow he would go to Queen Anne Street, and would demand sympathy there from her who had professed to sympathize with him so strongly in his political desires. With her, at any rate, the glory of his Membership would not be dimmed by any untoward knowledge of the realities. She had only seen the play acted from the boxes; and to her eyes the dresses would still be of silk velvet, and the swords of bright steel.

George Vavasor's feeling of triumph was justifiable. It is something to have sat in the House of Commons. As one enters our great national hall, on the left-hand side are a pair of gilded lamps with a door between them. Between those lamps is the entrance to the House of Commons, and none but Members may go that way! It is the only gate before which I have ever stood filled with envy, sorrowing to think that my steps might never pass under it. For as my slow steps have led me up that more than royal staircase, to those hallowed passages and halls, I have told myself, in anger and in grief, that to die and not to have won that right of way - not to have passed by the narrow entrance through those lamps - is not to have done that which it most becomes an Englishman to have achieved. Doubtless, England does not always choose her six hundred and fifty-four best men. The George Vavasors, the Calder Joneses, and the Botts are admitted. Dishonesty, ignorance, and vulgarity do not close the gate of that heaven, though riches open it. Yet the best of England's Commoners do find their way there. It is the highest pride of an Englishman to have the letters M.P. written after his name. No other membership confers so fair an honour. From within the walls of that House flow the waters of the world's advancing civilization. George Vavasor, as he went in by the lamps under the guardianship of Mr. Bott, felt all due pride. He was capable, in dreamy moments, of looking at the thing with pure and almost noble eyes; of understanding the ambition of serving faithfully so great a nation. George Vavasor, I think, might have been a good, and perhaps a great man; whereas Mr. Bott had been born small. Vavasor had educated himself to badness knowingly. He had known what was wrong, and had done it. But poor Mr. Bott had meant to do well, and thought that he had done very well indeed. He was a flatterer and a toady, but he did not know this was wrong. He was both mean and vain, both a bully and a coward, and in politics, I fear, quite unscrupulous; but he believed that he was progressing by the proper means. Vavasor, in his dreamy moments, would sometimes feel tempted to cut his throat and put an end to himself, because he knew that he had taught himself wrongly. He would sadly ask himself whether it was still too late; and he always answered that it was. Even now, at this moment, as he went in between the lamps with honest pride, he told himself it was too late. What could he do now, hampered by the debt he owed his cousin, and with the knowledge that it must be hugely increased, unless he meant to give up this seat in Parliament almost before he had begun to enjoy it? But his courage was good, and he resolved to play out his game to the end. He had achieved his seat in the House of Commons. Men were gracious to him now, and those who had not treated him with courtesy began to be very civil. It was a great thing to have the privilege of that entrance between the lamps. Mr. Bott had the new Member in hand, not because there was any old friendship between them, but because Mr. Bott was on the look-out for followers, and Vavasor was on the look-out for a party. Vavasor, as he passed through the lobby to the door of the House with Mr. Bott, was very silent. He was not very well pleased by the garrulity of his companion. He believed in his own ability and his own courage; but he did not believe in his own conduct. He feared that he had done - and would in future be driven to do - that which would shut men's ears against his words, and would banish him from high places. No man believes in himself who knows himself to be a rascal. "Of course you have heard a debate?" said Mr. Bott. "Yes," answered Vavasor. "But you have heard debates from the gallery. Now you'll hear them from the body of the House, and you'll find how very different it is. No man can know what Parliament is who has never had a seat. I felt, very early in life, that that should be my line; and though it's hard work and no pay, I mean to stick to it. How do, Thompson? You know Vavasor? He's just returned for the Chelsea Districts, and I'm taking him up. We shan't divide tonight, shall we? Look! there's Farringcourt just coming out; he's listened to better than any man in the House, but he'll borrow half-a-crown from you if you'll lend him one. How d'ye do, my lord? I hope you are well?" and Bott bowed low to a lord who was shuffling through the lobby. "Of course you know him?" Vavasor was obliged to say he did not. "That was Viscount Middlesex; he has got something on tonight about the Irish Church. We'll go in now; but let me give you one bit of advice, my dear fellow - don't think of speaking this session. A Member can do no good by speaking till he has learned the forms of the House. This is Mr. Vavasor, the new Member for the Chelsea Districts." Our friend was thus introduced to the doorkeeper, who smiled familiarly, and seemed to wink. Then George Vavasor passed through into the House itself. Vavasor, as he walked up to the Clerk's table and took the oath and then walked down again, was almost taken aback by the little notice which was taken of him. It was not that he had expected to create a sensation, but the thing which he was doing was so great to him that the total indifference of those around him came as a surprise. After he had taken his seat, a few men came up and shook hands with him; but merely, it seemed, because they were passing that way. He was anxious not to sit next to Mr. Bott, but he was unable to avoid it. So he found himself sitting behind Mr. Palliser, a little to the right, while Mr. Bott occupied the ear of the rising man. There was a debate in progress. It seemed to Vavasor that it was a dull affair. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was on his legs, and Mr. Palliser was watching him as a cat watches a mouse. The speaker was full of figures; and Mr. Bott, with audible whispers, poured into the ear of his chief his own calculations, most of which went to prove that the Chancellor was altogether wrong. Vavasor thought that Mr. Palliser received more of this assistance than he liked. He would listen, if he did listen, without making any sign that he heard, and would occasionally shake his head impatiently. But Mr. Bott was not to be repressed. When Mr. Palliser shook his head he became more assiduous than ever, and when Mr. Palliser slightly moved himself to the left, he boldly followed him. No general debate arose on the subject, and when the Chancellor sat down, Mr. Palliser would not get up, though Mr. Bott counselled him to do so. The matter was over for the night, and the time had arrived for Lord Middlesex. That nobleman got upon his feet, with a roll of papers in his hand, and was proceeding to address the House on matters of church reform, with great energy; but, alas, for him! before he had got into full swing, the Members were swarming away through the doors like a flock of sheep. Mr. Palliser got up and went, and was followed at once by Mr. Bott, who succeeded in getting hold of his arm in the lobby. Had not Mr. Palliser been an even-tempered man, with a mind and spirit well under his command, he must have learned to hate Mr. Bott by now. Away streamed the Members, but still the noble lord went on speaking as though no such exodus were in process. He knew that the newspapers would not report one sentence in twenty of his speech. He knew that he had worked for weeks and months to get up his facts, and realised that he had worked in vain. He had given heart and soul to this affair. He believed in his own subject with a great faith, thinking that he could bring men nearer to their God. Though he shuffled when he walked, and knocked his words together when he talked, he was an earnest man, meaning to do well, seeking no reward other than appreciation. But this was never to be his. And yet he will work on to the end, either in this House or in the other, labouring wearily, without visible wages of any kind, and, one may say, very sadly. But when he has been taken to his long rest, men will remember that he served a good cause diligently, and not altogether inefficiently. Invisible is the thing he does, and yet it is done. But on the present occasion there was nothing to soothe his spirit. The Speaker sat, urbane and courteous, with his eyes turned towards the unfortunate orator; but no other ears in the House seemed to listen to him. Vavasor sat it out to the last, as it taught him those forms of the House which Mr. Bott had told him he needed to learn. And at last he did learn the form of a "count-out." Some one from a back seat muttered something, and the Speaker heard and counted the Members in the House. Finding only twenty-three Members, he put an end to the labours of poor Lord Middlesex. And yet earlier on that same day Farringcourt had spoken in the House - a man to whom no one would lend a shilling, and whose word no one believed; but three hundred men had hung upon his words. When he laughed in his speech, they laughed; when he was indignant, they sat breathless. Whichever way he turned, he carried them with him. Crowds of Members flocked into the House from libraries and smoking-rooms when it was known that this ne'er-do-well was speaking. The reporters filled their pages. And as the Premier was attacked with irony, men declared that he would have to enrol the speaker among his colleagues. A man who could shake the thunderbolts like that must be paid to shake them on the right side. It was this man that Lord Middlesex envied! Mr. Bott had left the House with Mr. Palliser; and after the count-out Vavasor walked home by himself, thinking of the position which he had achieved. He told himself over and over again that he had won a great thing, and tried to persuade himself that the price was not too dear. But already there had come upon him some feeling of anti-climax and disappointment. There had been no brilliance in the debate, and the Members had loomed no larger than ordinary men at ordinary clubs. The great men named in the papers had sat silent, gloomy, and apparently idle; as soon as they could, they escaped from the House, as boys might escape from school. Vavasor had spent everything that he had to become a Member of that House, and now, as he went alone to his lodgings, he could not help asking himself whether it was worth the purchase-money. But his courage was still high. Though he was gloomy, and almost sad, he knew that he would fight the battle to the last. In the morrow he would go to Queen Anne Street, and would demand sympathy from Alice. With her, at any rate, the glory of his Membership would not be dimmed by any knowledge of the realities. She had only seen the play acted from the boxes; and to her eyes the dresses would still be of silk velvet, and the swords of bright steel.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 45: George Vavasor Takes His Seat

We will leave Mrs. Greenow with her niece and two sisters at Yarmouth, and returning by stages to London, will call upon Mr. Grey at his place in Cambridgeshire as we pass by. I believe it is conceded by all the other counties, that Cambridgeshire possesses fewer rural beauties than any other county in England. It is very flat; it is not well timbered; the rivers are merely dikes; and in a very large portion of the county the farms and fields are divided simply by ditches--not by hedgerows. Such arrangements are, no doubt, well adapted for agricultural purposes, but are not conducive to rural beauty. Mr. Grey's residence was situated in a part of Cambridgeshire in which the above-named characteristics are very much marked. It was in the Isle of Ely, some few miles distant from the Cathedral town, on the side of a long straight road, which ran through the fields for miles without even a bush to cheer it. The name of his place was Nethercoats, and here he lived generally throughout the year, and here he intended to live throughout his life. His father had held a prebendal stall at Ely in times when prebendal stalls were worth more than they are at present, and having also been possessed of a living in the neighbourhood, had amassed a considerable sum of money. With this he had during his life purchased the property of Nethercoats, and had built on it the house in which his son now lived. He had married late in life, and had lost his wife soon after the birth of an only child. The house had been built in his own parish, and his wife had lived there for a few months and had died there. But after that event the old clergyman had gone back to his residence in the Close at Ely, and there John Grey had had the home of his youth. He had been brought up under his father's eye, having been sent to no public school. But he had gone to Cambridge, had taken college honours, and had then, his father dying exactly at this time, declined to accept a fellowship. His father had left to him an income of some fifteen hundred a year, and with this he sat himself down, near to his college friends, near also to the old cathedral which he loved, in the house which his father had built. But though Nethercoats possessed no beauty of scenery, though the country around it was in truth as uninteresting as any country could be, it had many delights of its own. The house itself was as excellent a residence for a country gentleman of small means as taste and skill together could construct. I doubt whether prettier rooms were ever seen than the drawing-room, the library, and the dining-room at Nethercoats. They were all on the ground-floor, and all opened out on to the garden and lawn. The library, which was the largest of the three, was a handsome chamber, and so filled as to make it well known in the University as one of the best private collections in that part of England. But perhaps the gardens of Nethercoats constituted its greatest glory. They were spacious and excellently kept up, and had been originally laid out with that knowledge of gardening without which no garden, merely as a garden, can be effective. And such, of necessity, was the garden of Nethercoats. Fine single forest trees there were none there, nor was it possible that there should have been any such. Nor could there be a clear rippling stream with steep green banks, and broken rocks lying about its bed. Such beauties are beauties of landscape, and do not of their nature belong to a garden. But the shrubs of Nethercoats were of the rarest kind, and had been long enough in their present places to have reached the period of their beauty. Nothing had been spared that a garden could want. The fruit-trees were perfect in their kind, and the glass-houses were so good and so extensive that John Grey in his prudence was some times tempted to think that he had too much of them. It must be understood that there were no grounds, according to the meaning usually given to that word, belonging to the house at Nethercoats. Between the garden and the public road there was a paddock belonging to the house, along the side of which, but divided from it by a hedge and shrubbery, ran the private carriageway up to the house. This swept through the small front flower-garden, dividing it equally; but the lawns and indeed the whole of that which made the beauty of the place lay on the back of the house, on which side opened the windows from the three sitting-rooms. Down on the public road there stood a lodge at which lived one of the gardeners. There was another field of some six or seven acres, to which there was a gate from the corner of the front paddock, and which went round two sides of the garden. This was Nethercoats, and the whole estate covered about twelve acres. It was not a place for much bachelor enjoyment of that sort generally popular with bachelors; nevertheless Mr. Grey had been constant in his residence there for the seven years which had now elapsed since he had left his college. His easy access to Cambridge had probably done much to mitigate what might otherwise have been the too great tedium of his life; and he had, prompted thereto by early associations, found most of his society in the Close of Ely Cathedral. But, with all the delight he could derive from these two sources, there had still been many solitary hours in his life, and he had gradually learned to feel that he of all men wanted a companion in his home. His visits to London had generally been short and far between, occasioned probably by some need in the library, or by the necessity of some slight literary transaction with the editor or publisher of a periodical. In one of these visits he had met Alice Vavasor, and had remained in Town,--I will not say till Alice had promised to share his home in Cambridgeshire, but so long that he had resolved before he went that he would ask her to do so. He had asked her, and we know that he had been successful. He had obtained her promise, and from that moment all his life had been changed for him. Hitherto at Nethercoats his little smoking-room, his books, and his plants had been everything to him. Now he began to surround himself with an infinity of feminine belongings, and to promise himself an infinity of feminine blessings, wondering much that he should have been content to pass so long a portion of his life in the dull seclusion which he had endured. He was not by nature an impatient man; but now he became impatient, longing for the fruition of his new idea of happiness,--longing to have that as his own which he certainly loved beyond all else in the world, and which, perhaps, was all he had ever loved with the perfect love of equality. But though impatient, and fully aware of his own impatience, he acknowledged to himself that Alice could not be expected to share it. He could plan nothing now,--could have no pleasure in life that she was not expected to share. But as yet it could not be so with her. She had her house in London, her town society, and her father. And, inasmuch as the change for her would be much greater than it would be for him, it was natural that she should require some small delay. He had not pressed her. At least he had not pressed her with that eager pressure which a girl must resist with something of the opposition of a contest, if she resist it at all. But in truth his impatience was now waxing strong, and during the absence in Switzerland of which we have spoken, he resolved that a marriage very late in the autumn,--that a marriage even in winter, would be better than a marriage postponed till the following year. It was not yet late in August when the party returned from their tour. Would not a further delay of two months suffice for his bride? Alice had written to him occasionally from Switzerland, and her first two letters had been very charming. They had referred almost exclusively to the tour, and had been made pleasant with some slightly coloured account of George Vavasor's idleness, and of Kate's obedience to her brother's behests. Alice had never written much of love in her love-letters, and Grey was well enough contented with her style, though it was not impassioned. As for doubting her love, it was not in the heart of the man to do so after it had been once assured to him by her word. He could not so slightly respect himself or her as to leave room for such a doubt in his bosom. He was a man who could never have suggested to himself that a woman loved him till the fact was there before him; but who having ascertained, as he might think, the fact, could never suggest to himself that her love would fail him. Her first two letters from Switzerland had been very pleasant; but after that there had seemed to have crept over her a melancholy which she unconsciously transferred to her words, and which he could not but taste in them,--at first unconsciously, also, but soon with so plain a flavour that he recognised it, and made it a matter of mental inquiry. During the three or four last days of the journey, while they were at Basle and on their way home, she had not written. But she did write on the day after her arrival, having then received from Mr. Grey a letter, in which he told her how very much she would add to his happiness if she would now agree that their marriage should not be postponed beyond the end of October. This letter she found in her room on her return, and this she answered at once. And she answered it in such words that Mr. Grey resolved that he would at once go to her in London. I will give her letter at length, as I shall then be best able to proceed with my story quickly. Queen Anne Street, -- August, 186--. DEAREST JOHN,-- We reached home yesterday tired enough, as we came through from Paris without stopping. I may indeed say that we came through from Strasbourg, as we only slept in Paris. I don't like Strasbourg. A steeple, after all, is not everything, and putting the steeple aside, I don't think the style is good. But the hotel was uncomfortable, which goes for so much;--and then we were saturated with beauty of a better kind. I got your letter directly I came in last night, and I suppose I had better dash at it at once. I would so willingly delay doing so, saying nice little things the while, did I not know that this would be mere cowardice. Whatever happens I won't be a coward, and therefore I will tell you at once that I cannot let you hope that we should be married this year. Of course you will ask me why, as you have a right to do, and of course I am bound to answer. I do not know that I can give any answer with which you will not have a right to complain. If it be so, I can only ask your pardon for the injury I am doing you. Marriage is a great change in life,--much greater to me than to you, who will remain in your old house, will keep your old pursuits, will still be your own master, and will change in nothing,--except in this, that you will have a companion who probably may not be all that you expect. But I must change everything. It will be to me as though I were passing through a grave to a new world. I shall see nothing that I have been accustomed to see, and must abandon all the ways of life that I have hitherto adopted. Of course I should have thought of this before I accepted you; and I did think of it. I made up my mind that, as I truly loved you, I would risk the change;--that I would risk it for your sake and for mine, hoping that I might add something to your happiness, and that I might secure my own. Dear John, do not suppose that I despair that it may be so; but, indeed, you must not hurry me. I must tune myself to the change that I have to make. What if I should wake some morning after six months living with you, and tell you that the quiet of your home was making me mad? You must not ask me again till the winter shall have passed away. If in the meantime I shall find that I have been wrong, I will humbly confess that I have wronged you, and ask you to forgive me. And I will freely admit this. If the delay which I now purpose is so contrary to your own plans as to make your marriage, under such circumstances, not that which you had expected, I know that you are free to tell me so, and to say that our engagement shall be over. I am well aware that I can have no right to bind you to a marriage at one period which you had only contemplated as to take place at another period. I think I may promise that I will obey any wish you may express in anything,--except in that one thing which you urged in your last letter. Kate is going down to Yarmouth with Mrs. Greenow, and I shall see no more of her probably till next year, as she will be due in Westmoreland after that. George left me at the door when he brought me home, and declared that he intended to vanish out of London. Whether in town or out, he is never to be seen at this period of the year. Papa offers to go to Ramsgate for a fortnight, but he looks so wretched when he makes the offer, that I shall not have the heart to hold him to it. Lady Macleod very much wants me to go to Cheltenham. I very much want not to go, simply because I can never agree with her about anything; but it will probably end in my going there for a week or two. Over and beyond that, I have no prospects before Christmas which are not purely domestic. There is a project that we shall all eat our Christmas dinner at Vavasor Hall,--of course not including George,--but this project is quite in the clouds, and, as far as I am concerned, will remain there. Dear John, let me hear that this letter does not make you unhappy. Most affectionately yours, ALICE VAVASOR. At Nethercoats, the post was brought in at breakfast-time, and Mr. Grey was sitting with his tea and eggs before him, when he read Alice's letter. He read it twice before he began to think what he would do in regard to it, and then referred to one or two others which he had received from Switzerland,--reading them also very carefully. After that, he took up the slouch hat which he had been wearing in the garden before he was called to his breakfast, and, with the letters in his hand, sauntered down among the shrubs and lawns. He knew, he thought he knew, that there was more in Alice's mind than a mere wish for delay. There was more in it than that hesitation to take at once a step which she really desired to take, if not now, then after some short interval. He felt that she was unhappy, and unhappy because she distrusted the results of her marriage; but it never for a moment occurred to him that, therefore, the engagement between them should be broken. In the first place he loved her too well to allow of his admitting such an idea without terrible sorrow to himself. He was a constant, firm man, somewhat reserved, and unwilling to make new acquaintances, and, therefore, specially unwilling to break away from those which he had made. Undoubtedly, had he satisfied himself that Alice's happiness demanded such a sacrifice of himself, he would have made it, and made it without a word of complaint. The blow would not have prostrated him, but the bruise would have remained on his heart, indelible, not to be healed but by death. He would have submitted, and no man would have seen that he had been injured. But it did not once occur to him that such a proceeding on his part would be beneficial to Alice. Without being aware of it, he reckoned himself to be the nobler creature of the two, and now thought of her as of one wounded, and wanting a cure. Some weakness had fallen on her, and strength must be given to her from another. He did not in the least doubt her love, but he knew that she had been associated, for a few weeks past, with two persons whose daily conversation would be prone to weaken the tone of her mind. He no more thought of giving her up than a man thinks of having his leg cut off because he has sprained his sinews. He would go up to town and see her, and would not even yet abandon all hope that she might be found sitting at his board when Christmas should come. By that day's post he wrote a short note to her. "Dearest Alice," he said, "I have resolved to go to London at once. I will be with you in the evening at eight, the day after to-morrow. "Yours, J. G." There was no more in the letter than that. "And now," she said, when she received it, "I must dare to tell him the whole truth."

We will leave Mrs. Greenow with her niece at Yarmouth, and will call upon Mr. Grey at his place in Cambridgeshire. That county has few rural beauties. It is very flat; there are few trees; the rivers are merely dikes; and in much of the county the fields are divided simply by ditches, not by hedgerows. Mr. Grey's residence was in the Isle of Ely, a few miles from the Cathedral town, beside a long straight road which ran through the fields for miles without even a bush to cheer it. The name of his place was Nethercoats, and here he lived throughout the year, and intended to live throughout his life. His father had been a prebendary at Ely Cathedral, and a minister in the neighbourhood, who had built the house in which his son now lived. His wife had lived there for only a few months, dying soon after the birth of their son. After that, the old clergyman had gone back to the Cathedral Close at Ely, and there John Grey grew up under his father's eye. He had taken honours at a Cambridge college, and had then, when his father died, declined a fellowship. His father had left him an income of some fifteen hundred a year, and with this he settled near to his college friends and the old cathedral he loved, in the house which his father had built. But though Nethercoats possessed no beautiful scenery, it was an excellent residence for a country gentleman of small means. I doubt whether prettier rooms were ever seen than the drawing-room, the library, and the dining-room at Nethercoats, which all opened out on to the garden. The library, which was a handsome chamber, was known as one of the best private collections in that part of England. But perhaps the spacious gardens of Nethercoats were its greatest glory. They were excellently tended, and had been laid out wisely. There could be no fine forest trees there; nor could there be a clear rippling stream with steep green banks. But the shrubs were of the rarest kind, and mature enough to be in their full beauty. The fruit-trees were perfect, and the glass-houses extensive. The whole estate, with gardens, lawns and fields, covered about twelve acres. Mr. Grey had lived there for seven years. He had easy access to Cambridge, and found most of his society in the Close of Ely Cathedral. But he had gradually learned to feel that he wanted a companion in his home. His visits to London had generally been short and far between, to visit libraries or the editor of some periodical. On one of these visits he had met Alice Vavasor, and had resolved to ask her to share his home. He had obtained her promise, and from that moment all his life had been changed. At Nethercoats he now began to surround himself with feminine belongings, and to promise himself an infinity of feminine blessings. He became impatient, longing for the fruition of his new idea of happiness - longing to have that as his own which he certainly loved beyond all else in the world. But he acknowledged that Alice could not be expected to share his impatience. She had her house in London, her town society, and her father; and as the change for her would be much greater than it would be for him, it was natural that she should require some small delay. He had not pressed her. But in truth his impatience was now growing strong, and during her absence in Switzerland, he resolved that a marriage late in the autumn - even in winter - would be better than a marriage postponed till the following year. Alice had written to him occasionally from Switzerland, and her first two letters had been very charming. They had described the tour pleasantly, with some slightly coloured account of George Vavasor's idleness, and of Kate's obedience to her brother. Alice had never written much of love in her love-letters, and Grey was contented. He did not doubt her love. He was a man who could never have suggested to himself that a woman loved him till she accepted him; but after that, he could never think that her love would fail. After those first two letters, however, there seemed to have crept into them an unconscious melancholy, which he soon recognised and thought much about. During the three or four last days of the journey, while they were on their way home, she had not written. But on her arrival she received from Mr. Grey a letter which told her how very much she would add to his happiness if she would agree that their marriage should not be postponed beyond October. She answered this letter at once, in such words that Mr. Grey resolved that he must go to her in London. I will give her letter here. Dearest John, We reached home yesterday tired, as we came through from Paris without stopping. I got your letter when I came in last night, and I suppose I had better dash at it at once. I would willingly delay doing so, if I did not know that this would be mere cowardice. I won't be a coward, and therefore I will tell you at once that I cannot let you hope that we should be married this year. Of course you have a right to ask me why, and of course I am bound to answer. I do not know that I can give any answer with which you will not have a right to complain. If so, I can only ask your pardon. Marriage is a great change in life - much greater to me than to you, who will remain in your old house, will keep your old pursuits, will still be your own master, and will change in nothing - except that you will have a companion who may not be all that you expect. But I must change everything. It will seem to me as though I were passing through a grave to a new world. I must abandon all the ways of life that I have hitherto adopted. Of course I should have thought of this before I accepted you; and I did think of it. I made up my mind that, as I truly loved you, I would risk the change for your sake and for mine, hoping that I might add something to your happiness, and that I might secure my own. Dear John, do not think that I despair that it may be so; but, indeed, you must not hurry me. I must tune myself to the change that I have to make. What if I should wake some morning after six months living with you, and tell you that the quiet of your home was making me mad? Do not ask me again till after winter. If in the meantime I shall find that I have been wrong, I will humbly confess it, and ask you to forgive me. And I will freely admit this: if a delay is so contrary to your own plans as to make your marriage not that which you had expected, you are free to tell me so, and to say that our engagement shall be over. I will obey your wishes in anything - except in that one thing which you urged in your letter. Kate is going down to Yarmouth with Mrs. Greenow, and I shall probably see no more of her till next year, as she will be in Westmorland after that. George left me at the door when he brought me home, and declared that he intended to leave London. Papa offers to go to Ramsgate for a fortnight, but he looks so wretched when he makes the offer that I shall not have the heart to hold him to it. Lady Macleod very much wants me to go to Cheltenham. I very much want not to go; but it will probably end in my going there for a week or two. Beyond that, I shall be at home. There is a project that we shall all eat our Christmas dinner at Vavasor Hall - not including George of course - but this project is quite in the clouds, and, as far as I am concerned, will remain there. Dear John, let me hear that this letter does not make you unhappy. Most affectionately yours, Alice Vavasor. At Nethercoats, the post was brought in at breakfast-time, and Mr. Grey was sitting with his tea and eggs before him, when he read Alice's letter. He read it twice, and then carefully referred to one or two others which he had received from Switzerland. After that, with the letters in his hand, he walked out into his garden. He thought that there was more in Alice's mind than a mere wish for delay. He felt that she was unhappy because she distrusted the results of her marriage; but it never for a moment occurred to him that therefore the engagement should be broken. In the first place he loved her too well. He was a constant, firm man, somewhat reserved, and unwilling to make new acquaintances, and, therefore, especially unwilling to break away from those which he had made. Breaking the engagement would have caused him great unhappiness. If he felt that that Alice's happiness demanded it, he would have made the sacrifice without a word of complaint, although the bruise would have remained on his heart, indelible but unseen by others. But it did not occur to him that his breaking the engagement could be beneficial to Alice. He thought of her as of one wounded, and wanting a cure. Some weakness had fallen on her, and strength must be given to her from another. He assumed himself to be the stronger. He did not doubt her love, but he knew that she had associated for the last few weeks with two people whose daily conversation would tend to weaken the tone of her mind. He would go up to town and see her. By that day's post he wrote a short note to her. Dearest Alice. I have resolved to go to London at once. I will be with you at eight in the evening, the day after tomorrow. Yours, J. G. "And now," she said, when she received it, "I must dare to tell him the whole truth."

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 10: Nethercoats

And what was the whole truth? Alice Vavasor, when she declared to herself that she must tell her lover the whole truth, was expressing to herself her intention of putting an end to her engagement with Mr. Grey. She was acknowledging that that which had to be told was not compatible with the love and perfect faith which she owed to the man who was her affianced husband. And yet, why should it be so? She did not intend to tell him that she had been false in her love to him. It was not that her heart had again veered itself round and given itself to that wild cousin of hers. Though she might feel herself constrained to part from John Grey, George Vavasor could never be her husband. Of that she assured herself fifty times during the two days' grace which had been allowed her. Nay, she went farther than that with herself, and pronounced a verdict against any marriage as possible to her if she now decided against this marriage which had for some months past been regarded as fixed by herself and all her friends. People often say that marriage is an important thing, and should be much thought of in advance, and marrying people are cautioned that there are many who marry in haste and repent at leisure. I am not sure, however, that marriage may not be pondered over too much; nor do I feel certain that the leisurely repentance does not as often follow the leisurely marriages as it does the rapid ones. That some repent no one can doubt; but I am inclined to believe that most men and women take their lots as they find them, marrying as the birds do by force of nature, and going on with their mates with a general, though not perhaps an undisturbed satisfaction, feeling inwardly assured that Providence, if it have not done the very best for them, has done for them as well as they could do for themselves with all the thought in the world. I do not know that a woman can assure to herself, by her own prudence and taste, a good husband any more than she can add two cubits to her stature; but husbands have been made to be decently good,--and wives too, for the most part, in our country,--so that the thing does not require quite so much thinking as some people say. That Alice Vavasor had thought too much about it, I feel quite sure. She had gone on thinking of it till she had filled herself with a cloud of doubts which even the sunshine of love was unable to drive from her heavens. That a girl should really love the man she intends to marry,--that, at any rate, may be admitted. But love generally comes easily enough. With all her doubts Alice never doubted her love for Mr. Grey. Nor did she doubt his character, nor his temper, nor his means. But she had gone on thinking of the matter till her mind had become filled with some undefined idea of the importance to her of her own life. What should a woman do with her life? There had arisen round her a flock of learned ladies asking that question, to whom it seems that the proper answer has never yet occurred. Fall in love, marry the man, have two children, and live happy ever afterwards. I maintain that answer has as much wisdom in it as any other that can be given;--or perhaps more. The advice contained in it cannot, perhaps, always be followed to the letter; but neither can the advice of the other kind, which is given by the flock of learned ladies who ask the question. A woman's life is important to her,--as is that of a man to him,--not chiefly in regard to that which she shall do with it. The chief thing for her to look to is the manner in which that something shall be done. It is of moment to a young man when entering life to decide whether he shall make hats or shoes; but not of half the moment that will be that other decision, whether he shall make good shoes or bad. And so with a woman;--if she shall have recognised the necessity of truth and honesty for the purposes of her life, I do not know that she need ask herself many questions as to what she will do with it. Alice Vavasor was ever asking herself that question, and had by degrees filled herself with a vague idea that there was a something to be done; a something over and beyond, or perhaps altogether beside that marrying and having two children;--if she only knew what it was. She had filled herself, or had been filled by her cousins, with an undefined ambition that made her restless without giving her any real food for her mind. When she told herself that she would have no scope for action in that life in Cambridgeshire which Mr. Grey was preparing for her, she did not herself know what she meant by action. Had any one accused her of being afraid to separate herself from London society, she would have declared that she went very little into society and disliked that little. Had it been whispered to her that she loved the neighbourhood of the shops, she would have scorned the whisperer. Had it been suggested that the continued rattle of the big city was necessary to her happiness, she would have declared that she and her father had picked out for their residence the quietest street in London because she could not bear noise;--and yet she told herself that she feared to be taken into the desolate calmness of Cambridgeshire. When she did contrive to find any answer to that question as to what she should do with her life,--or rather what she would wish to do with it if she were a free agent, it was generally of a political nature. She was not so far advanced as to think that women should be lawyers and doctors, or to wish that she might have the privilege of the franchise for herself; but she had undoubtedly a hankering after some second-hand political manoeuvering. She would have liked, I think, to have been the wife of the leader of a Radical opposition, in the time when such men were put into prison, and to have kept up for him his seditious correspondence while he lay in the Tower. She would have carried the answers to him inside her stays,--and have made long journeys down into northern parts without any money, if the cause required it. She would have liked to have around her ardent spirits, male or female, who would have talked of "the cause," and have kept alive in her some flame of political fire. As it was, she had no cause. Her father's political views were very mild. Lady Macleod's were deadly conservative. Kate Vavasor was an aspiring Radical just now, because her brother was in the same line; but during the year of the love-passages between George and Alice, George Vavasor's politics had been as conservative as you please. He did not become a Radical till he had quarrelled with his grandfather. Now, indeed, he was possessed of very advanced views,--views with which Alice felt that she could sympathize. But what would be the use of sympathizing down in Cambridgeshire? John Grey had, so to speak, no politics. He had decided views as to the treatment which the Roman Senate received from Augustus, and had even discussed with Alice the conduct of the Girondists at the time of Robespierre's triumph; but for Manchester and its cares he had no apparent solicitude, and had declared to Alice that he would not accept a seat in the British House of Commons if it were offered to him free of expense. What political enthusiasm could she indulge with such a companion down in Cambridgeshire? She thought too much of all this,--and was, if I may say, over-prudent in calculating the chances of her happiness and of his. For, to give her credit for what was her due, she was quite as anxious on the latter head as on the former. "I don't care for the Roman Senate," she would say to herself. "I don't care much for the Girondists. How am I to talk to him day after day, night after night, when we shall be alone together?" No doubt her tour in Switzerland with her cousin had had some effect in making such thoughts stronger now than they had ever been. She had not again learned to love her cousin. She was as firmly sure as ever that she could never love him more. He had insulted her love; and though she had forgiven him and again enrolled him among her dearest friends, she could never again feel for him that passion which a woman means when she acknowledges that she is in love. That, as regarded her and George Vavasor, was over. But, nevertheless, there had been a something of romance during those days in Switzerland which she feared she would regret when she found herself settled at Nethercoats. She envied Kate. Kate could, as his sister, attach herself on to George's political career, and obtain from it all that excitement of life which Alice desired for herself. Alice could not love her cousin and marry him; but she felt that if she could do so without impropriety she would like to stick close to him like another sister, to spend her money in aiding his career in Parliament as Kate would do, and trust herself and her career into the boat which he was to command. She did not love her cousin; but she still believed in him,--with a faith which he certainly did not deserve. As the two days passed over her, her mind grew more and more fixed as to its purpose. She would tell Mr. Grey that she was not fit to be his wife--and she would beg him to pardon her and to leave her. It never occurred to her that perhaps he might refuse to let her go. She felt quite sure that she would be free as soon as she had spoken the word which she intended to speak. If she could speak it with decision she would be free, and to attain that decision she would school herself with her utmost strength. At one moment she thought of telling all to her father and of begging him to break the matter to Mr. Grey; but she knew that her father would not understand her, and that he would be very hostile to her,--saying hard, uncomfortable words, which would probably be spared if the thing were done before he was informed. Nor would she write to Kate, whose letters to her at this time were full of wit at the expense of Mrs. Greenow. She would tell Kate as soon as the thing was done, but not before. That Kate would sympathize with her, she was quite certain. So the two days passed by and the time came at which John Grey was to be there. As the minute hand on the drawing-room clock came round to the full hour, she felt that her heart was beating with a violence which she could not repress. The thing seemed to her to assume bigger dimensions than it had hitherto done. She began to be aware that she was about to be guilty of a great iniquity, when it was too late for her to change her mind. She could not bring herself to resolve that she would, on the moment, change her mind. She believed that she could never pardon herself such weakness. But yet she felt herself to be aware that her purpose was wicked. When the knock at the door was at last heard she trembled and feared that she would almost be unable to speak to him. Might it be possible that there should yet be a reprieve for her? No; it was his step on the stairs, and there he was in the room with her. "My dearest," he said, coming to her. His smile was sweet and loving as it ever was, and his voice had its usual manly, genial, loving tone. As he walked across the room Alice felt that he was a man of whom a wife might be very proud. He was tall and very handsome, with brown hair, with bright blue eyes, and a mouth like a god. It was the beauty of his mouth,--beauty which comprised firmness within itself, that made Alice afraid of him. He was still dressed in his morning clothes; but he was a man who always seemed to be well dressed. "My dearest," he said, advancing across the room, and before she knew how to stop herself or him, he had taken her in his arms and kissed her. He did not immediately begin about the letter, but placed her upon the sofa, seating himself by her side, and looked into her face with loving eyes,--not as though to scrutinize what might be amiss there, but as though determined to enjoy to the full his privilege as a lover. There was no reproach at any rate in his countenance;--none as yet; nor did it seem that he thought that he had any cause for fear. They sat in this way for a moment or two in silence, and during those moments Alice was summoning up her courage to speak. The palpitation at her heart was already gone, and she was determined that she would speak. "Though I am very glad to see you," she said, at last, "I am sorry that my letter should have given you the trouble of this journey." "Trouble!" he said. "Nay, you ought to know that it is no trouble. I have not enough to do down at Nethercoats to make the running up to you at any time an unpleasant excitement. So your Swiss journey went off pleasantly?" "Yes; it went off very pleasantly." This she said in that tone of voice which clearly implies that the speaker is not thinking of the words spoken. "And Kate has now left you?" "Yes; she is with her aunt, at the seaside." "So I understand;--and your cousin George?" "I never know much of George's movements. He may be in Town, but I have not seen him since I came back." "Ah! that is the way with friends living in London. Unless circumstances bring them together, they are in fact further apart than if they lived fifty miles asunder in the country. And he managed to get through all the trouble without losing your luggage for you very often?" "If you were to say that we did not lose his, that would be nearer the mark. But, John, you have come up to London in this sudden way to speak to me about my letter to you. Is it not so?" "Certainly it is so. Certainly I have." "I have thought much, since, of what I then wrote, very much,--very much, indeed; and I have learned to feel sure that we had better--" "Stop, Alice; stop a moment, love. Do not speak hurriedly. Shall I tell you what I learned from your letter?" "Yes; tell me, if you think it better that you should do so." "Perhaps it may be better. I learned, love, that something had been said or done during your journey,--or perhaps only something thought, that had made you melancholy, and filled your mind for a while with those unsubstantial and indefinable regrets for the past which we are all apt to feel at certain moments of our life. There are few of us who do not encounter, now and again, some of that irrational spirit of sadness which, when over-indulged, drives men to madness and self-destruction. I used to know well what it was before I knew you; but since I have had the hope of having you in my house, I have banished it utterly. In that I think I have been stronger than you. Do not speak under the influence of that spirit till you have thought whether you, too, cannot banish it." "I have tried, and it will not be banished." "Try again, Alice. It is a damned spirit, and belongs neither to heaven nor to earth. Do not say to me the words that you were about to say till you have wrestled with it manfully. I think I know what those words were to be. If you love me, those words should not be spoken. If you do not--" "If I do not love you, I love no one upon earth." "I believe it. I believe it as I believe in my own love for you. I trust your love implicitly, Alice. I know that you love me. I think I can read your mind. Tell me that I may return to Cambridgeshire, and again plead my cause for an early marriage from thence. I will not take such speech from you to mean more than it says!" She sat quiet, looking at him--looking full into his face. She had in nowise changed her mind, but after such words from him, she did not know how to declare to him her resolution. There was something in his manner that awed her,--and something also that softened her. "Tell me," said he, "that I may see you again to-morrow morning in our usual quiet, loving way, and that I may return home to-morrow evening. Pronounce a yea to that speech from me, and I will ask for nothing further." "No; I cannot do so," she said. And the tone of her voice, as she spoke, was different to any tone that he had heard before from her mouth. "Is that melancholy fiend too strong for you?" He smiled as he said this, and as he smiled, he took her hand. She did not attempt to withdraw it, but sat by him in a strange calmness, looking straight before her into the middle of the room. "You have not struggled with it. You know, as I do, that it is a bad fiend and a wicked one,--a fiend that is prompting you to the worst cruelty in the world. Alice! Alice! Alice! Try to think of all this as though some other person were concerned. If it were your friend, what advice would you give her?" [Illustration: "If it were your friend, what advice would you give her?"] "I would bid her tell the man who had loved her,--that is, if he were noble, good, and great,--that she found herself to be unfit to be his wife; and then I would bid her ask his pardon humbly on her knees." As she said this, she sank before him on to the floor, and looked up into his face with an expression of sad contrition which almost drew him from his purposed firmness. He had purposed to be firm,--to yield to her in nothing, resolving to treat all that she might say as the hallucination of a sickened imagination,--as the effect of absolute want of health, for which some change in her mode of life would be the best cure. She might bid him begone in what language she would. He knew well that such was her intention. But he would not allow a word coming from her in such a way to disturb arrangements made for the happiness of their joint lives. As a loving husband would treat a wife, who, in some exceptionable moment of a melancholy malady, should declare herself unable to remain longer in her home, so would he treat her. As for accepting what she might say as his dismissal, he would as soon think of taking the fruit-trees from the southern wall because the sun sometimes shines from the north. He could not treat either his interests or hers so lightly as that. "But what if he granted no such pardon, Alice? I will grant none such. You are my wife, my own, my dearest, my chosen one. You are all that I value in the world, my treasure and my comfort, my earthly happiness and my gleam of something better that is to come hereafter. Do you think that I shall let you go from me in that way? No, love. If you are ill I will wait till your illness is gone by; and, if you will let me, I will be your nurse." "I am not ill." "Not ill with any defined sickness. You do not shake with ague, nor does your head rack you with aching; but yet you may be ill. Think of what has passed between us. Must you not be ill when you seek to put an end to all that without any cause assigned." "You will not hear my reasons,"--she was still kneeling before him and looking up into his face. "I will hear them if you will tell me that they refer to any supposed faults of my own." "No, no, no!" "Then I will not hear them. It is for me to find out your faults, and when I have found out any that require complaint, I will come and make it. Dear Alice, I wish you knew how I long for you." Then he put his hand upon her hair, as though he would caress her. But this she would not suffer, so she rose slowly, and stood with her hand upon the table in the middle of the room. "Mr. Grey--" she said. "If you will call me so, I shall think it only a part of your malady." "Mr. Grey," she continued, "I can only hope that you will take me at my word." "Oh, but I will not; certainly I will not, if that would be adverse to my own interests." "I am thinking of your interests; I am, indeed;--at any rate as much as of my own. I feel quite sure that I should not make you happy as your wife,--quite sure; and feeling that, I think that I am right, even after all that has passed, to ask your forgiveness, and to beg that our engagement may be over." "No, Alice, no; never with my consent. I cannot tell you with what contentment I would marry you to-morrow,--to-morrow, or next month, or the month after. But if it cannot be so, then I will wait. Nothing but your marriage with some one else would convince me." "I cannot convince you in that way," she said, smiling. "You will convince me in no other. You have not spoken to your father of this as yet?" "Not as yet." "Do not do so, at any rate for the present. You will own that it might be possible that you would have to unsay what you had said." "No; it is not possible." "Give yourself and me the chance. It can do no harm. And, Alice, I ask you now for no reasons. I will not ask your reasons, or even listen to them, because I do not believe that they will long have effect even on yourself. Do you still think of going to Cheltenham?" "I have decided nothing as yet." "If I were you, I would go. I think a change of air would be good for you." "Yes; you treat me as though I were partly silly, and partly insane; but it is not so. The change you speak of should be in my nature, and in yours." He shook his head and still smiled. There was something in the imperturbed security of his manner which almost made her angry with him. It seemed as though he assumed so great a superiority that he felt himself able to treat any resolve of hers as the petulance of a child. And though he spoke in strong language of his love, and of his longing that she should come to him, yet he was so well able to command his feelings, that he showed no sign of grief at the communication she had made to him. She did not doubt his love, but she believed him to be so much the master of his love,--as he was the master of everything else, that her separation from him would cause him no uncontrollable grief. In that she utterly failed to understand his character. Had she known him better, she might have been sure that such a separation now would with him have carried its mark to the grave. Should he submit to her decision, he would go home and settle himself to his books the next day; but on no following day would he be again capable of walking forth among his flowers with an easy heart. He was a strong, constant man, perhaps over-conscious of his own strength; but then his strength was great. "He is perfect!" Alice had said to herself often. "Oh that he were less perfect!" He did not stay with her long after the last word that has been recorded. "Perhaps," he said, as for a moment he held her hand at parting, "I had better not come to-morrow." "No, no; it is better not." "I advise you not to tell your father of this, and doubtless you will think of it before you do so. But if you do tell him, let me know that you have done so." "Why that?" "Because in such case I also must see him. God bless you, Alice! God bless you, dearest, dearest Alice!" Then he went, and she sat there on the sofa without moving, till she heard her father's feet as he came up the stairs. "What, Alice, are you not in bed yet?" "Not yet, papa." "And so John Grey has been here. He has left his stick in the hall. I should know it among a thousand." "Yes; he has been here." "Is anything the matter, Alice?" "No, papa, nothing is the matter." "He has not made himself disagreeable, has he?" "Not in the least. He never does anything wrong. He may defy man or woman to find fault with him." "So that is it, is it? He is just a shade too good. Well, I have always thought that myself. But it's a fault on the right side." "It's no fault, Papa. If there be any fault, it is not with him. But I am yawning and tired, and I will go to bed." "Is he to be here to-morrow?" "No; he returns to Nethercoats early. Good night, papa." Mr. Vavasor, as he went up to his bedroom, felt sure that there had been something wrong between his daughter and her lover. "I don't know how she'll ever put up with him," he said to himself, "he is so terribly conceited. I shall never forget how he went on about Charles Kemble, and what a fool he made of himself." Alice, before she went to bed, sat down and wrote a letter to her cousin Kate.

And what was the whole truth? Alice Vavasor intended to end her engagement with Mr. Grey. And yet, why? She had not been false in her love to him. It was not that her heart had veered round and given itself to her wild cousin George. Although she felt herself constrained to part from John Grey, George Vavasor could never be her husband. Of that she assured herself fifty times. Nay, she went farther, and vowed to herself that if she did not marry John Grey, she would never marry. People often say that marriage is an important thing, and should be deeply considered. However, I feel that marriage may be pondered over too much. I am inclined to believe that most men and women take their lots as they find them, marrying by force of nature, and going on with their mates with a general if not an undisturbed satisfaction. That Alice Vavasor had thought too much about it, I feel quite sure. She had gone on thinking of it till she had filled herself with a cloud of doubts which even the sunshine of love was unable to drive away. With all her doubts, Alice never doubted her love for Mr. Grey. Nor did she doubt his character. But she had gone on thinking of the matter till her mind had become filled with some undefined idea of the importance to her of her own life. What should a woman do with her life? At that time a flock of learned women asked that question. Fall in love, marry, have two children, and live happy ever afterwards - that answer has as much wisdom in it as any other. That advice cannot, perhaps, always be followed to the letter; but neither can the advice given by the flock of learned ladies. A woman's life is important to her - as is a man's to him - not chiefly with regard to what she shall do with it. The chief thing is the manner in which that something shall be done. It is important to a young man to decide whether he shall make hats or shoes; but not half so important as that other decision, whether he shall make good shoes or bad. And so with a woman; if she recognises the necessity of truth and honesty in her life, I do not know that she need ask what she will do with it. Alice Vavasor was always asking herself that question, and had filled herself with a vague idea that there was a something to be done beyond that marrying and having two children - if she only knew what it was. She was full of an undefined ambition that made her restless without giving her any real food for her mind. When she told herself that she would have no scope for action in life in Cambridgeshire with Mr. Grey, she did not herself know what she meant by action. She assured herself that she cared little for London society, or the shops, or the city's bustle; and yet she told herself that she feared the desolate calm of Cambridgeshire. When she did manage to find any answer to that question of what she should do with her life, it was generally of a political nature. She was not so far advanced as to think that women should be lawyers and doctors, or to wish for the vote; but she undoubtedly hankered after some second-hand political manuvering. She would have liked to have around her ardent spirits, male or female, who talked of "the cause," and kept alive in her some flame of political fire. As it was, she had no cause. Her father's political views were very mild. Lady Macleod's were deadly conservative. Kate Vavasor was an aspiring Radical just now, because her brother was; but during the year of the love-passages between George and Alice, George Vavasor's politics had been as conservative as you please. He did not become a Radical till he quarrelled with his grandfather. Now, indeed, George held very advanced Radical views, with which Alice felt that she could sympathize. But what would be the use of sympathizing down in Cambridgeshire? John Grey had no interest in modern politics. He had decided views about the Roman Senate and Augustus, and the Girondists in the French Revolution; but for Manchester and its concerns he cared nothing, and had declared to Alice that he would not accept a seat in the House of Commons if it were offered to him free. What political enthusiasm could she indulge with such a companion? She thought too much of all this; and to give her due credit, was quite as anxious for his happiness as for her own. "I don't care for the Roman Senate," she said to herself, "or for the Girondists. How am I to talk to him day after day, when we are alone together?" No doubt her tour in Switzerland with her cousin had strengthened these thoughts. She was not in love with her cousin, and was firmly sure that she never could be. He had insulted her love; and though she had forgiven him and he was a dear friend, she could never again feel that passion for him. That was over. But, nevertheless, there had been something of romance during those days in Switzerland which she feared she would regret when she found herself settled at Nethercoats. She envied Kate, who could attach herself to George's political career, and obtain from it all that excitement of life which Alice desired for herself. Alice could not marry her cousin; but she felt that if she could do so without impropriety, she would like to stick close to him like another sister, and to spend her money in aiding his career in Parliament as Kate would do. She did not love her cousin; but she still believed in him - with a faith which he certainly did not deserve. In the two days before she was to see Mr. Grey, her mind grew more fixed in its purpose. She would tell Mr. Grey that she was not fit to be his wife. It never occurred to her that he might refuse to let her go. She felt that she merely needed the strength to speak in order to be free. She thought of telling all to her father and of begging him to break the matter to Mr. Grey; but she knew that her father would not understand. Nor would she write to Kate, although Kate would sympathize with her. She would tell Kate once the thing was done, but not before. As the hour approached at which John Grey was to arrive, she felt her heart was beating with a violence which she could not repress. She began to be aware that she was about to be guilty of a great iniquity. She would not change her mind. Yet she felt that her purpose was wicked. When the knock at the door was at last heard she trembled. Then he was in the room with her. "My dearest," he said, coming towards her. His smile was sweet and loving as always, and his voice had its usual manly, loving tone. As he walked across the room Alice felt that he was a man of whom a wife might be very proud. He was tall and handsome, with bright blue eyes, and a mouth like a god. It was the firm beauty of his mouth that made Alice afraid of him. "My dearest," he said, advancing across the room, and before she knew how to stop him, he had taken her in his arms and kissed her. He did not immediately begin to talk about the letter, but placed her upon the sofa, sitting by her side, and looked at her lovingly. There was no reproach or scrutiny in his face - as yet; nor any fear. Alice summoned up her courage to speak. "Though I am very glad to see you," she said, "I am sorry that my letter should have given you the trouble of this journey." "Trouble!" he said. "Nay, you ought to know that it is no trouble. So your Swiss journey went pleasantly?" "Yes; very pleasantly." This she said as if not thinking of it. "And Kate has now left you?" "Yes; she is with her aunt, at the seaside." "And your cousin George?" "I never know much of George's movements. He may be in town, but I have not seen him since I came back. John, you have come to me about my letter. Is it not so?" "Certainly it is so." "I have thought much, since, of what I wrote; and I feel sure that we had better-" "Stop, Alice; stop a moment, love. Do not speak hurriedly. Shall I tell you what I learned from your letter?" "Yes; if you think it better that you should do so." "I learned, love, that something had been said or done during your journey - or perhaps only something thought, that had made you melancholy, and filled you with those indefinable regrets which we are all apt to feel at certain moments of our life. There are few of us who do not encounter, now and again, some of that irrational spirit of sadness which, when over-indulged, drives men to madness and self-destruction. I used to know it well, before I knew you; but since I have had the hope of having you in my house, I have banished it utterly. Do not speak under the influence of that spirit till you have thought whether you, too, cannot banish it." "I have tried, and it will not be banished." "Try again, Alice. It is an unholy spirit, and belongs neither to heaven nor to earth. Do not say to me the words that you were about to say till you have wrestled with it manfully. I think I know what those words were to be. If you love me, those words should not be spoken. If you do not-" "If I do not love you, I love no one." "I believe it. I trust your love implicitly, Alice. Tell me that I may again plead my cause for an early marriage!" She sat quiet, looking at him. She had not changed her mind, but she did not know how to declare her resolution to him. There was something in his manner that awed her, and also softened her. "Tell me," said he, "that I may see you again tomorrow morning in our usual quiet, loving way. I will ask for nothing further." "No; I cannot," she said. And the tone of her voice was different to any tone that he had heard before from her mouth. "Is that melancholy fiend too strong for you?" He smiled as he said this, and took her hand. She did not attempt to withdraw it, but sat by him in a strange calm. "You have not struggled with it. You know, as I do, that it is a wicked fiend, that is prompting you to the worst cruelty in the world. Alice! Alice! Try to think as though some other person were concerned. If it were your friend, what advice would you give her?" "I would bid her tell the good and noble man who loved her that she found herself unfit to be his wife; and then I would bid her ask his pardon humbly on her knees." And Alice sank before him to the floor, and looked up into his face with sad contrition. He had intended to yield to her in nothing, resolving to treat all that she might say as hallucination - as the effect of lack of health, for which some change in her mode of life would be the best cure. He knew what she intended. But he would not allow a word she said to disturb arrangements made for their joint happiness. He would treat her as a loving husband would treat a wife who was in the grip of a melancholy malady. "But what if he granted no such pardon, Alice? I will grant none such. You are my wife, my dearest chosen one. You are all that I value in the world, my treasure and my comfort. Do you think that I shall let you go from me in that way? No, love. If you are ill I will wait till your illness is gone; and, if you will let me, I will be your nurse." "I am not ill." "Not with any defined sickness. You do not shake with fever; but yet you must be ill." "You will not hear my reasons," she said, still kneeling before him and looking up into his face. "I will hear them if you refer to supposed faults of my own." "No, no!" "Then I will not hear them. It is for me to find out your faults, and when I have found any that require complaint, I will come and make it. Dear Alice, I wish you knew how I long for you." He put his hand upon her hair, as though he would caress her. But at this she rose, and stood in the middle of the room. "Mr. Grey," she said, "I hope that you will take me at my word." "Oh, but I will not, if that would be adverse to my own interests." "I am thinking of your interests as much as of my own. I feel quite sure that I should not make you happy as your wife; and feeling that, I think that I am right to ask your forgiveness, and to beg that our engagement may be over." "No, Alice, never with my consent. I would happily marry you tomorrow. But if it cannot be so, then I will wait. Nothing but your marriage with someone else would convince me." "I cannot convince you in that way," she said, smiling. "You will convince me in no other. You have not spoken to your father yet?" "Not yet." "Do not do so for the present. You will admit that it might be possible that you would have to unsay what you had said." "No; it is not possible." "Give us both the chance. It can do no harm. And, Alice, I ask you for no reasons, because I do not believe that they will long have an effect on you. Do you still think of going to Cheltenham?" "I have not decided." "I think a change of air would be good for you." "Yes; you treat me as though I were partly silly, and partly insane; but it is not so. The change you speak of should be in my nature, and in yours." He shook his head and still smiled. There was something in the unperturbed security of his manner which almost made her angry with him. It seemed as though he assumed so great a superiority that he felt himself able to treat any resolve of hers as the petulance of a child. And though he spoke of his love, yet he was so well able to command his feelings that he showed no sign of grief. She did not doubt his love, but she believed him to be so much the master of his love - as he was the master of everything else - that their separation would cause him no uncontrollable grief. In that she utterly failed to understand his character. Had she known him better, she might have been sure that such a separation would carry its mark on him to the grave. He would go home and settle himself to his books; but he would never again be capable of walking forth among his flowers with an easy heart. He was a strong, constant man, perhaps over-conscious of his own great strength. "He is perfect!" Alice had said to herself often. "Oh, if only he were less perfect!" He did not stay with her long. "Perhaps," he said, as he held her hand at parting, "I had better not come tomorrow." "No, better not." "I advise you not to tell your father of this; but if you do tell him, let me know." "Why?" "Because in that case I also must see him. God bless you, dearest, dearest Alice!" Then he went, and she sat on the sofa without moving, till she heard her father's feet coming up the stairs. "What, Alice, are you not in bed yet?" "Not yet, papa." "So John Grey has been here. He has left his stick in the hall." "Yes; he has been here." "Is anything the matter, Alice?" "No, papa, nothing." "He has not made himself disagreeable, has he?" "Not in the least. He never does anything wrong." "So that's it, is it? He is just a shade too good. Well, I have always thought that myself. But it's a fault on the right side." "It's no fault, Papa. If there be any fault, it is not with him. But I am tired, and I will go to bed." "Is he to be here tomorrow?" "No; he returns to Nethercoats early. Good night, papa." Mr. Vavasor, as he went to his bedroom, felt sure that something was wrong between his daughter and her lover. "I don't know how she'll ever put up with him," he said to himself, "he is so terribly conceited." Alice, before she went to bed, sat down and wrote a letter to her cousin Kate.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 11: John Grey Goes to London

About eleven o'clock on that night,--the night of the day on which Kate Vavasor's arm had been broken,--there came a gentle knock at Kate's bedroom door. There was nothing surprising in this, as of all the household Kate only was in bed. Her aunt was sitting at this time by her bedside, and the doctor, who had been summoned from Penrith and who had set her broken arm, was still in the house, talking over the accident with John Vavasor in the dining-room, before he proceeded back on his journey home. "She will do very well," said the doctor. "It's only a simple fracture. I'll see her the day after to-morrow." "Is it not odd that such an accident should come from a fall whilst walking?" asked Mr. Vavasor. The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "One never can say how anything may occur," said he. "I know a young woman who broke the os femoris by just kicking her cat;--at least, she said she did." "Indeed! I suppose you didn't take any trouble to inquire?" "Not much. My business was with the injury, not with the way she got it. Somebody did make inquiry, but she stuck to her story and nothing came of it. Good night, Mr. Vavasor. Don't trouble her with questions till she has had some hours' sleep, at any rate." Then the doctor went, and John Vavasor was left alone, standing with his back to the dining-room fire. There had been so much trouble and confusion in the house since Kate had fainted, almost immediately upon her reaching home, that Mr. Vavasor had not yet had time to make up his mind as to the nature of the accident which had occurred. Mrs. Greenow had at once ascertained that the bone was broken, and the doctor had been sent for. Luckily he had been found at home, and had reached the Hall a little before ten o'clock. In the meantime, as soon as Kate recovered her senses, she volunteered her account of what had occurred. Her brother had quarrelled with her about the will, she said, and had left her abruptly on the mountain. She had fallen, she went on to say, as she turned from him, and had at once found that she had hurt herself. But she had been too angry with him to let him know it; and, indeed, she had not known the extent herself till he had passed out of her sight. This was her story; and there was nothing in it that was false by the letter, though there was much that was false in the spirit. It was certainly true that George had not known that she was injured. It was true that she had asked him for no help. It was true, in one sense, that she had fallen, and it was true that she had not herself known how severe had been the injury done to her till he had gone beyond the reach of her voice. But she repressed all mention of his violence, and when she was pressed as to the nature of the quarrel, she declined to speak further on that matter. Neither her uncle nor her aunt believed her. That was a matter of course, and she knew that they did not believe her. George's absence, their recent experience of his moods, and the violence by which her arm must have been broken, made them certain that Kate had more to tell if she chose to tell it. But in her present condition they could not question her. Mrs. Greenow did ask as to the probability of her nephew's return. "I can only tell you," said Kate, "that he went away across the Fell in the direction of Bampton. Perhaps he has gone on to Penrith. He was very angry with us all; and as the house is not his own, he has probably resolved that he will not stay another night under the roof. But, who can say? He is not in his senses when he is angered." John Vavasor, as he stood alone after the doctor's departure, endeavoured to ascertain the truth by thinking of it. "I am sure," he said to himself, "that the doctor suspects that there has been violence. I know it from his tone, and I can see it in his eye. But how to prove it? and would there be good in proving it? Poor girl! Will it not be better for her to let it pass as though we believed her story?" He made up his mind that it would be better. Why should he take upon himself the terrible task of calling this insane relation to account for an act which he could not prove? The will itself, without that trouble, would give him trouble enough. Then he began to long that he was back at his club, and to think that the signing-room in Chancery Lane was not so bad. And so he went up to his bed, calling at Kate's door to ask after the patient. In the meantime there had come a messenger to Mrs. Greenow, who had stationed herself with her niece. One of the girls of the house brought up a scrap of paper to the door, saying that a boy had brought it over with a cart from Shap, and that it was intended for Miss Vavasor, and it was she who knocked at the sickroom door. The note was open and was not addressed; indeed, the words were written on a scrap of paper that was crumpled up rather than folded, and were as follows: "Send me my clothes by the bearer. I shall not return to the house." Mrs. Greenow took it in to Kate, and then went away to see her nephew's things duly put into his portmanteau. This was sent away in the cart, and Mr. Vavasor, as he went up-stairs, was told what had been done. Neither on that night or on the following day did Mrs. Greenow ask any further questions; but on the morning after that, when the doctor had left them with a good account of the broken limb, her curiosity would brook no further delay. And, indeed, indignation as well as curiosity urged her on. In disposition she was less easy, and, perhaps, less selfish, than her brother. If it were the case that that man had ill-treated his sister, she would have sacrificed much to bring him to punishment. "Kate," she said, when the doctor was gone, "I expect that you will tell me the whole truth as to what occurred between you and your brother when you had this accident." "I have told you the truth." "But not the whole truth." "All the truth I mean to tell, aunt. He has quarrelled with me, as I think, most unnecessarily, but you don't suppose that I am going to give an exact account of the quarrel? We were both wrong, probably, and so let there be an end of it." "Was he violent to you when he quarrelled with you?" "When he is angry he is always violent in his language." "But, did he strike you?" "Dear aunt, don't be angry with me if I say that I won't be cross-examined. I would rather answer no more questions about it. I know that questioning can do no good." Mrs. Greenow knew her niece well enough to be aware that nothing more would be told her, but she was quite sure now that Kate had not broken her arm by a simple fall. She was certain that the injury had come from positive violence. Had it not been so, Kate would not have contented herself with refusing to answer the last question that had been asked, but would also have repelled the charge made against her brother with indignation. "You must have it your own way," said Mrs. Greenow; "but let me just tell you this, that your brother George had better keep out of my way." "It is probable that he will," said Kate. "Especially if you remain here to nurse me." Kate's conduct in answering all the questions made to her was not difficult, but she found that there was much difficulty in planning her own future behaviour towards her own brother. Must she abandon him altogether from henceforth; divide herself from him, as it were; have perfectly separate interests, and interests that were indeed hostile? and must she see him ruined and overwhelmed by want of money, while she had been made a rich woman by her grandfather's will? It will be remembered that her life had hitherto been devoted to him; that all her schemes and plans had had his success as their object; that she had taught herself to consider it to be her duty to sacrifice everything to his welfare. It is very sad to abandon the only object of a life! It is very hard to tear out from one's heart and fling away from it the only love that one has cherished! What was she to say to Alice about all this--to Alice whom she had cheated of a husband worthy of her, that she might allure her into the arms of one so utterly unworthy? Luckily for Kate, her accident was of such a nature that any writing to Alice was now out of the question. But a blow! What woman can bear a blow from a man, and afterwards return to him with love? A wife may have to bear it and to return. And she may return with that sort of love which is a thing of custom. The man is the father of her children, and earns the bread which they eat and which she eats. Habit and the ways of the world require that she should be careful in his interests, and that she should live with him in what amity is possible to them. But as for love,--all that we mean by love when we speak of it and write of it,--a blow given by the defender to the defenceless crushes it all! A woman may forgive deceit, treachery, desertion,--even the preference given to a rival. She may forgive them and forget them; but I do not think that a woman can forget a blow. And as for forgiveness,--it is not the blow that she cannot forgive, but the meanness of spirit that made it possible. Kate, as she thought of it, told herself that everything in life was over for her. She had long feared her brother's nature,--had feared that he was hard and heartless; but still there had been some hope with her fear. Success, if he could be made to achieve it, would soften him, and then all might be right. But now all was wrong, and she knew that it was so. When he had compelled her to write to Alice for money, her faith in him had almost succumbed. That had been very mean, and the meanness had shocked her. But now he had asked her to perjure herself that he might have his own way, and had threatened to murder her, and had raised his hand against her because she had refused to obey him. And he had accused her of treachery to himself,--had accused her of premeditated deceit in obtaining this property for herself! "But he does not believe it," said Kate to herself. "He said that because he thought it would vex me; but I know he does not think it." Kate had watched her brother longing for money all his life,--had thoroughly understood the intensity of his wish for it,--the agony of his desire. But so far removed was she from any such longing on her own account, that she could not believe that her brother would in his heart accuse her of it. How often had she offered to give him, on the instant, every shilling that she had in the world! At this moment she resolved, in her mind, that she never wished to see him more; but even now, had it been practicable, she would have made over to him, without any drawback, all her interest in the Vavasor estate. But any such making over was impossible. John Vavasor remained in Westmoreland for a week, and during that time many discussions were, of course, held about the property. Mr. Round came down from London, and met Mr. Gogram at Penrith. As to the validity of the will Mr. Round said that there was no shadow of a doubt. So an agent was appointed for receiving the rents, and it was agreed that the old Hall should be let in six months from that date. In the meantime Kate was to remain there till her arm should become strong, and she could make her plans for the future. Aunt Greenow promised to remain at the Hall for the present, and offered, indeed, indefinite services for the future, as though she were quite forgetful of Captain Bellfield. Of Mr. Cheesacre she was not forgetful, for she still continued to speak of that gentleman to Kate, as though he were Kate's suitor. But she did not now press upon her niece the acceptance of Mr. Cheesacre's hand as an absolute duty. Kate was mistress of a considerable fortune, and though such a marriage might be comfortable, it was no longer necessary. Mrs. Greenow called him poor Cheesacre, pointing out how easily he might be managed, and how indubitable were his possessions; but she no longer spoke of Kate's chances in the marriage market as desperate, even though she should decline the Cheesacre alliance. "A young woman, with six hundred a year, my dear, may do pretty nearly what she pleases," said aunt Greenow. "It's better than having ten years' grace given you." "And will last longer, certainly," said Kate. Kate's desire was that Alice should come down to her for a while in Westmoreland, before the six months were over, and this desire she mentioned to her uncle. He promised to carry the message up to Alice, but could not be got to say more than that upon the subject. Then Mr. Vavasor went away, leaving the aunt and niece together at the Hall. "What on earth shall we do if that wild beast shows himself suddenly among us women?" asked Mrs. Greenow of her brother. The brother could only say, "that he hoped the wild beast would keep his distance." And the wild beast did keep his distance, at any rate as long as Mrs. Greenow remained at the Hall. We will now go back to the wild beast, and tell how he walked across the mountains, in the rain, to Bampton, a little village at the foot of Haweswater. It will be remembered that after he had struck his sister, he turned away from her, and walked with quick steps down the mountain-side, never turning back to look at her. He had found himself to be without any power of persuasion over her, as regarded her evidence to be given, if the will were questioned. The more he threatened her the steadier she had been in asserting her belief in her grandfather's capacity. She had looked into his eye and defied him, and he had felt himself to be worsted. What was he to do? In truth, there was nothing for him to do. He had told her that he would murder her; and in the state of mind to which his fury had driven him, murder had suggested itself to him as a resource to which he might apply himself. But what could he gain by murdering her,--or, at any rate, by murdering her then, out on the mountain-side? Nothing but a hanging! There would be no gratification even to his revenge. If, indeed, he had murdered that old man, who was now, unfortunately, gone beyond the reach of murder;--if he could have poisoned the old man's cup before that last will had been made--there might have been something in such a deed! But he had merely thought of it, letting "I dare not wait upon I would"--as he now told himself, with much self-reproach. Nothing was to be got by killing his sister. So he restrained himself in his passion, and walked away from her, solitary, down the mountain. The rain soon came on, and found him exposed on the hill-side. He thought little about it, but buttoned his coat, as I have said before, and strode on. It was a storm of rain, so that he was forced to hold his head to one side, as it hit him from the north. But with his hand to his hat, and his head bent against the wind, he went on till he had reached the valley at the foot, and found that the track by which he had been led thither had become a road. He had never known the mountains round the Hall as Kate had known them, and was not aware whither he was going. On one thing only had he made up his mind since he had left his sister, and that was that he would not return to the house. He knew that he could do nothing there to serve his purpose; his threats would be vain impotence; he had no longer any friend in the house. He could hardly tell himself what line of conduct he would pursue, but he thought that he would hurry back to London, and grasp at whatever money he could get from Alice. He was still, at this moment, a Member of Parliament; and as the rain drenched him through and through, he endeavoured to get consolation from the remembrance of that fact in his favour. As he got near the village he overtook a shepherd boy coming down from the hills, and learned his whereabouts from him. "Baampton," said the boy, with an accent that was almost Scotch, when he was asked the name of the place. When Vavasor further asked whether a gig were kept there, the boy simply stared at him, not knowing a gig by that name. At last, however, he was made to understand the nature of his companion's want, and expressed his belief that "John Applethwaite, up at the Craigs yon, had got a mickle cart." But the Craigs was a farm-house, which now came in view about a mile off, up across the valley; and Vavasor, hoping that he might still find a speedier conveyance than John Applethwaite's mickle cart, went on to the public-house in the village. But, in truth, neither there, nor yet from John Applethwaite, to whom at last an application was sent, could he get any vehicle; and between six and seven he started off again, through the rain, to make his weary way on foot to Shap. The distance was about five miles, and the little byways, lying between walls, were sticky, and almost glutinous with light-coloured, chalky mud. Before he started he took a glass of hot rum-and-water, but the effect of that soon passed away from him, and then he became colder and weaker than he had been before. Wearily and wretchedly he plodded on. A man may be very weary in such a walk as that, and yet be by no means wretched. Tired, hungry, cold, wet, and nearly penniless, I have sat me down and slept among those mountain tracks,--have slept because nature refused to allow longer wakefulness. But my heart has been as light as my purse, and there has been something in the air of the hills that made me buoyant and happy in the midst of my weariness. But George Vavasor was wretched as well as weary, and every step that he took, plodding through the mud, was a new misfortune to him. What are five miles of a walk to a young man, even though the rain be falling and the ways be dirty? what, though they may come after some other ten that he has already traversed on his feet? His sister Kate would have thought nothing of the distance. But George stopped on his way from time to time, leaning on the loose walls, and cursing the misfortune that had brought him to such a pass. He cursed his grandfather, his uncle, his sister, his cousin, and himself. He cursed the place in which his forefathers had lived, and he cursed the whole county. He cursed the rain, and the wind, and his town-made boots, which would not keep out the wet slush. He cursed the light as it faded, and the darkness as it came. Over and over again he cursed the will that had robbed him, and the attorney that had made it. He cursed the mother that had borne him and the father that had left him poor. He thought of Scruby, and cursed him, thinking how that money would be again required of him by that stern agent. He cursed the House of Commons, which had cost him so much, and the greedy electors who would not send him there without his paying for it. He cursed John Grey, as he thought of those two thousand pounds, with double curses. He cursed this world, and all worlds beyond; and thus, cursing everything, he made his way at last up to the inn at Shap. It was nearly nine when he got there. He had wasted over an hour at Bampton in his endeavour to get John Applethwaite's cart to carry him on, and he had been two hours on his walk from Bampton to Shap,--two hours amidst his cursing. He ordered supper and brandy-and-water, and, as we know, sent off a Mercury for his clothes. But the Mercuries of Westmoreland do not move on quick wings, and it was past midnight before he got his possessions. During all this time he had, by no means, ceased from cursing, but continued it over his broiled ham and while he swallowed his brandy-and-water. He swore aloud, so that the red-armed servant at the inn could not but hear him, that those thieves at the Hall intended to rob him of his clothes;--that they would not send him his property. He could not restrain himself, though he knew that every word he uttered would injure his cause, as regarded the property in Westmoreland, if ever he could make a cause. He knew that he had been mad to strike his sister, and cursed himself for his madness. Yet he could not restrain himself. He told himself that the battle for him was over, and he thought of poison for himself. He thought of poison, and a pistol,--of the pistols he had ever loaded at home, each with six shots, good for a life apiece. He thought of an express train, rushing along at its full career, and of the instant annihilation which it would produce. But if that was to be the end of him, he would not go alone. No, indeed! why should he go alone, leaving those pistols ready loaded in his desk? Among them they had brought him to ruin and to death. Was he a man to pardon his enemies when it was within his power to take them with him, down, down, down--? What were the last words upon his impious lips, as with bloodshot eyes, half drunk, and driven by the Fury, he took himself off to the bed prepared for him, cursing aloud the poor red-haired girl as he went, I may not utter here.

About eleven o'clock that night, there came a gentle knock at Kate's bedroom door. Her aunt was sitting by her bedside, and the doctor, who had been summoned from Penrith and who had set her broken arm, was still in the house, talking over the accident with John Vavasor in the dining-room. "She will do very well," said the doctor. "It's only a simple fracture. I'll see her the day after tomorrow." "Is it not odd that such an accident should come from a fall whilst walking?" asked Mr. Vavasor. The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "One never can say how anything may happen. Good night, Mr. Vavasor. Don't trouble her with questions till she has had some sleep." Then the doctor went, and John Vavasor was left alone in the dining-room. There had been so much confusion in the house since Kate had fainted that he had not yet had time to make up his mind about the nature of the accident. Mrs. Greenow had found that the bone was broken, and the doctor had been sent for, reaching the Hall a little before ten o'clock. In the meantime, as soon as Kate had recovered her senses, she gave her account of what had occurred. She said that her brother had quarrelled with her about the will, and had left her abruptly on the mountain. She had fallen as she turned from him, and had found that she had hurt herself. But she had been too angry with him to let him know it; and, indeed, she had not known the extent herself till he had passed out of her sight. This was her story; and there was nothing in it that was literally false. It was true, in one sense, that she had fallen, and had not known how severe had been the injury till he had gone. But she repressed all mention of his violence, and declined to speak further about the quarrel. Neither her uncle nor her aunt believed her, and she knew it. George's absence, their recent experience of his moods, and the violence by which her arm must have been broken, made them certain that Kate had more to tell. But in her present condition they could not question her. Mrs. Greenow did ask whether George was likely to return. "I can only tell you," said Kate, "that he went away in the direction of Bampton. Perhaps he has gone on to Penrith. He was very angry with us all; and he has probably resolved not to stay another night under this roof. But who can say? He is not in his senses when he is angered." John Vavasor, as he stood alone after the doctor's departure, thought, "There is more to this. But how to prove it? and would there be any good in proving it? Poor girl! Will it not be better for her to let it pass as though we believed her story?" Then he began to long that he was back at his club; and he went up to his bed. In the meantime a messenger came knocking at Kate's bedroom door. One of the girls of the house handed a scrap of paper to Mrs. Greenow, saying that a boy had brought it over with a cart from Shap, and that it was for Miss Vavasor. The note was open; it was written on a crumpled scrap of paper, and read as follows: "Send me my clothes by the bearer. I shall not return to the house." Mrs. Greenow took it to Kate, and then went away to see her nephew's things duly packed up. They were sent away in the cart, and Mr. Vavasor, as he went upstairs, was told what had been done. Neither on that night or on the following day did Mrs. Greenow ask any further questions; but on the morning after that, when the doctor had left them with a good account of the broken limb, her curiosity and indignation urged her on. She was less selfish than her brother. If George had ill-treated his sister, she would have sacrificed much to bring him to punishment. "Kate," she said, when the doctor was gone, "I expect that you will tell me the whole truth about this accident." "I have told you the truth." "But not the whole truth." "All the truth I mean to tell, aunt. You don't suppose that I am going to give an exact account of our quarrel? We were both wrong, probably, and so let there be an end of it." "Was he violent to you?" "When he is angry he is always violent in his language." "But did he strike you?" "Dear aunt, don't be angry, but I would rather answer no more questions about it." Mrs. Greenow was quite sure now that Kate had not broken her arm by a simple fall. She was certain that the injury had come from positive violence, or Kate would have denied it indignantly. "Have it your own way," said Mrs. Greenow; "but let me tell you that your brother George had better keep out of my path." "He probably will," said Kate. Kate found much difficulty in planning her own future behaviour towards her brother. Must she divide herself from him entirely? and must she see him ruined by lack of money, while she had been made rich by her grandfather's will? It will be remembered that her life had until now been devoted to him; all her schemes were for his success; she had taught herself to consider it her duty to sacrifice everything to his welfare. It is very hard to tear out from one's heart and fling away the only love that one has cherished! And what was she to say to Alice about all this - to Alice, whom she had cheated of a worthy husband, to allure her into the arms of one so utterly unworthy? Luckily for Kate, her broken arm meant that writing to Alice was out of the question. But what woman can bear a blow from a man, and afterwards return to him with love? A wife may have to bear it and to return. The man is the father of her children, and earns the bread which they eat. Habit and the ways of the world require that she should live with him in what amity is possible to them. But as for love - a blow given to the defenceless crushes it. A woman may forgive deceit, treachery, desertion; but I do not think that a woman can forget a blow. It is not the blow itself that she cannot forgive, but the meanness of spirit that made it possible. Kate told herself that everything in life was over for her. She had long feared her brother's nature as hard and heartless; but still she had hoped that success would soften him, and then all might be right. But now all was wrong. When he had compelled her to write to Alice for money, his meanness had shocked her. But now he had asked her to perjure herself, and had threatened to murder her, and had hit her because she had refused to obey. And he had accused her of treachery - of deceit in obtaining the property for herself! "But he does not believe it," thought Kate. "He said that to vex me; but I know he does not think it." She had watched her brother longing for money all his life. How often had she offered to give him every shilling that she had in the world! At this moment she never wished to see him again; but even now, if she could, she would have made over to him all her interest in the Vavasor estate. But any such making over was impossible. John Vavasor remained in Westmorland for a week, and during that time many discussions were held about the property. Mr. Round came from London, met Mr. Gogram and said there was no doubt about the validity of the will. It was agreed that the old Hall should be let in six months. In the meantime Kate was to remain there till her arm should mend, and she could make her plans for the future. Aunt Greenow promised to remain at the Hall, as though she were quite forgetful of Captain Bellfield. Of Mr. Cheesacre she was not forgetful, for she continued to speak of him as though he were Kate's suitor. But she did not press the acceptance of Mr. Cheesacre's hand upon her niece. Kate was mistress of a considerable fortune now, and such a marriage was no longer necessary. Mrs. Greenow pointed out how easily he might be managed; but she no longer spoke of Kate's chances in the marriage market as desperate. "A young woman with six hundred a year, my dear, may do pretty nearly what she pleases," said aunt Greenow. Kate hoped that Alice would come to her for a while in Westmorland, and her uncle promised to carry this message to Alice. Then Mr. Vavasor went away, leaving the aunt and niece together at the Hall. "What on earth shall we do if that wild beast suddenly appears?" Mrs. Greenow had asked her brother. He could only say that he hoped the wild beast would keep his distance. And the wild beast did keep his distance, at any rate as long as Mrs. Greenow remained at the Hall. We will now go back to him, and tell how he walked across the mountains, in the rain, to Bampton, a village at the foot of Haweswater. It will be remembered that after he had struck his sister, he turned away and walked quickly down the mountain-side. He had found himself to be without any power of persuasion over her. The more he threatened her, the steadier she had been. She had looked into his eye and defied him, and he had felt himself to be worsted. What was he to do? In truth, there was nothing for him to do. He had told her that he would murder her; but what could he gain by murdering her out on the mountain-side? Nothing but a hanging! If, indeed, he had murdered that old man - if he could have poisoned the old man's cup before that last will had been made - that might have been something! But nothing was to be got by killing his sister. So he walked away from her down the mountain. The rain soon came on, and he buttoned his coat, and strode on till he reached the valley, and found that the track had become a road. He had never known these mountains as Kate knew them, and was not aware of where he was going. He had simply made up his mind that he would not return to the house. He thought that he would hurry back to London, and grasp at whatever money he could get from Alice. He was still, at this moment, a Member of Parliament; and as the rain drenched him through, he tried to get consolation from remembering that fact. As he got near the village he overtook a shepherd boy coming down from the hills, and learned here he was. "Baampton," said the boy. When Vavasor asked whether a gig were kept there, the boy simply stared at him. At last, however, he was made to understand, and said that "John Applethwaite, up at the Craigs yon, had got a mickle cart." Vavasor, hoping that he might find a speedier conveyance than John Applethwaite's mickle cart, went on to the public-house in the village. But neither there, nor from John Applethwaite, to whom at last an application was sent, could he get any vehicle; and between six and seven he started off again, through the rain, to make his weary way on foot to Shap. The distance was about five miles, and the paths were sticky and almost glutinous with pale, chalky mud. Before he started he took a glass of hot rum-and-water, but the effect of that soon passed away, and he became colder and weaker than he had been before. Wearily and wretchedly he plodded on. A man may be very weary in such a walk as that, and yet be by no means wretched, if his heart is light. But George Vavasor was wretched as well as weary, and he stopped from time to time, leaning on the loose walls, and cursing his misfortune. He cursed his grandfather, his uncle, his sister, his cousin, and himself. He cursed the place in which his forefathers had lived, and he cursed the whole county. He cursed the rain, and the wind, and his town-made boots, which would not keep out the wet slush. He cursed the light as it faded, and the darkness as it came. Over and over again he cursed the will that had robbed him, and the attorney that had made it. He cursed the House of Commons, which had cost him so much, and the greedy electors who would not send him there without his paying for it. He cursed John Grey with double curses. Thus, cursing everything, he made his way at last up to the inn at Shap. It was nearly nine when he got there. He ordered supper and brandy-and-water, and, as we know, sent off a messenger for his clothes. But it was past midnight before he got his possessions. During all this time he had not ceased from cursing, but continued it over his broiled ham and brandy-and-water. He swore aloud, so that the servant could not help hearing, that those thieves at the Hall intended to rob him of his clothes. He could not restrain himself, though he knew that every word he uttered would injure his cause. He knew that he had been mad to strike his sister, and cursed himself for his madness. Yet he could not restrain himself. He thought of poison for himself, and of his pistols. He thought of an express train, and of the instant annihilation which it would produce. But he would not go alone. No, indeed! why should he go alone, leaving those pistols ready loaded in his desk? Was he a man to pardon his enemies when he could take them with him, down, down, down? With bloodshot eyes, half drunk, and driven by the Fury, he took himself off to bed, cursing the poor servant as he went.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 57: Showing How the Wild Beast Got Himself Back from the Mountains

On the night of Lady Monk's party, Burgo Fitzgerald disappeared; and when the guests were gone and the rooms were empty, his aunt inquired for him in vain. The old butler and factotum of the house, who was employed by Sir Cosmo to put out the lamps and to see that he was not robbed beyond a certain point on these occasions of his wife's triumphs, was interrogated by his mistress, and said that he thought Mr. Burgo had left the house. Lady Monk herself knocked at her nephew's door, when she went up-stairs, ascending an additional flight of stairs with her weary old limbs in order that she might do so; she even opened the door and saw the careless debris of his toilet about the room. But he was gone. "Perhaps, after all, he has arranged it," she said to herself, as she went down to her own room. But Burgo, as we know, had not "arranged it." It may be remembered that when Mr. Palliser came back to his wife in the supper-room at Lady Monk's, bringing with him the scarf which Lady Glencora had left up-stairs, Burgo was no longer with her. He had become well aware that he had no chance left, at any rate for that night. The poor fool, acting upon his aunt's implied advice rather than his own hopes, had secured a post-chaise, and stationed it in Bruton Street, some five minutes' walk from his aunt's house. And he had purchased feminine wrappings, cloaks, &c.--things that he thought might be necessary for his companion. He had, too, ordered rooms at the new hotel near the Dover Station,--the London Bridge Station,--from whence was to start on the following morning a train to catch the tidal boat for Boulogne. There was a dressing-bag there for which he had paid twenty-five guineas out of his aunt's money, not having been able to induce the tradesman to grant it to him on credit; and there were other things,--slippers, collars, stockings, handkerchiefs, and what else might, as he thought, under such circumstances be most necessary. Poor thoughtful, thoughtless fool! The butler was right. He did leave the house. He saw Lady Glencora taken to her carriage from some back hiding-place in the hall, and then slipped out, unmindful of his shining boots, and dress coat and jewelled studs. He took a Gibus hat,--his own, or that of some other unfortunate,--and slowly made his way down to the place in Bruton Street. There was the carriage and pair of horses, all in readiness; and the driver, when he had placed himself by the door of the vehicle, was not long in emerging from the neighbouring public-house. "All ready, your honour," said the man. "I shan't want you to-night," said Burgo, hoarsely;--"go away." "And about the things, your honour?" "Take them to the devil. No; stop. Take them back with you, and ask somebody to keep them till I send for them. I shall want them and another carriage in a day or two." Then he gave the man half a sovereign, and went away, not looking at the little treasures which he had spent so much of his money in selecting for his love. When he was gone, the waterman and the driver turned them over with careful hands and gloating eyes. "It's a 'eiress, I'll go bail," said the waterman. "Pretty dear! I suppose her parints was too many for her," said the driver. But neither of them imagined the enormity which the hirer of the chaise had in truth contemplated. Burgo from thence took his way back into Grosvenor Square, and from thence down Park Street, and through a narrow passage and a mews which there are in those parts, into Park Lane. He had now passed the position of Mr. Palliser's house, having come out on Park Lane at a spot nearer to Piccadilly; but he retraced his steps, walking along by the rails of the Park, till he found himself opposite to the house. Then he stood there, leaning back upon the railings, and looking up at Lady Glencora's windows. What did he expect to see? Or was he, in truth, moved by love of that kind which can take joy in watching the slightest shadow that is made by the one loved object,--that may be made by her, or, by some violent conjecture of the mind, may be supposed to have been so made? Such love as that is, I think, always innocent. Burgo Fitzgerald did not love like that. I almost doubt whether he can be said to have loved at all. There was in his breast a mixed, feverish desire, which he took no trouble to analyse. He wanted money. He wanted the thing of which this Palliser had robbed him. He wanted revenge,--though his desire for that was not a burning desire. And among other things, he wanted the woman's beauty of the woman whom he coveted. He wanted to kiss her again as he had once kissed her, and to feel that she was soft, and lovely, and loving for him. But as for seeing her shadow, unless its movement indicated some purpose in his favour,--I do not think that he cared much about that. And why then was he there? Because in his unreasoning folly he did not know what step to take, or what step not to take. There are men whose energies hardly ever carry them beyond looking for the thing they want. She might see him from the window, and come to him. I do not say that he thought that it would be so. I fancy that he never thought at all about that or about anything. If you lie under a tree, and open your mouth, a plum may fall into it. It was probably an undefined idea of some such chance as this which brought him against the railings in the front of Mr. Palliser's house; that, and a feeling made up partly of despair and partly of lingering romance that he was better there, out in the night air, under the gas-lamps, than he could be elsewhere. There he stood and looked, and cursed his ill-luck. But his curses had none of the bitterness of those which George Vavasor was always uttering. Through it all there remained about Burgo one honest feeling,--one conviction that was true,--a feeling that it all served him right, and that he had better, perhaps, go to the devil at once, and give nobody any more trouble. If he loved no one sincerely, neither did he hate any one; and whenever he made any self-inquiry into his own circumstances, he always told himself that it was all his own fault. When he cursed his fate, he only did so because cursing is so easy. George Vavasor would have ground his victims up to powder if he knew how; but Burgo Fitzgerald desired to hurt no one. There he stood till he was cold, and then, as the plum did not drop into his mouth, he moved on. He went up into Oxford Street, and walked along it the whole distance to the corner of Bond Street, passing by Grosvenor Square, to which he intended to return. At the corner of Bond Street, a girl took hold of him, and looked up into his face. "Ah!" she said, "I saw you once before."--"Then you saw the most miserable devil alive," said Burgo. "You can't be miserable," said the girl. "What makes you miserable? You've plenty of money."--"I wish I had," said Burgo. "And plenty to eat and drink," exclaimed the girl; "and you are so handsome! I remember you. You gave me supper one night when I was starving. I ain't hungry now. Will you give me a kiss?"--"I'll give you a shilling, and that's better," said Burgo. "But give me a kiss too," said the girl. He gave her first the kiss, and then the shilling, and after that he left her and passed on. "I'm d----d if I wouldn't change with her!" he said to himself. "I wonder whether anything really ails him?" thought the girl. "He said he was wretched before. Shouldn't I like to be good to such a one as him!" Burgo went on, and made his way into the house in Grosvenor Square, by some means probably unknown to his aunt, and certainly unknown to his uncle. He emptied his pockets as he got into bed, and counted a roll of notes which he had kept in one of them. There were still a hundred and thirty pounds left. Lady Glencora had promised that she would see him again. She had said as much as that quite distinctly. But what use would there be in that if all his money should then be gone? He knew that the keeping of money in his pocket was to him quite an impossibility. Then he thought of his aunt. What should he say to his aunt if he saw her in the course of the coming day? Might it not be as well for him to avoid his aunt altogether? He breakfasted up-stairs in his bedroom,--in the bed, indeed, eating a small pat de foie gras from the supper-table, as he read a French novel. There he was still reading his French novel in bed when his aunt's maid came to him, saying that his aunt wished to see him before she went out. "Tell me, Lucy," said he, "how is the old girl?" "She's as cross as cross, Mr. Burgo. Indeed, I shan't;--not a minute longer. Don't, now; will you? I tell you she's waiting for me." From which it may be seen that Lucy shared the general feminine feeling in favour of poor Burgo. Thus summoned Burgo applied himself to his toilet; but as he did so, he recruited his energies from time to time by a few pages of the French novel, and also by small doses from a bottle of curaoa which he had in his bedroom. He was utterly a pauper. There was no pauper poorer than he in London that day. But, nevertheless, he breakfasted on pat de foie gras and curaoa, and regarded those dainties very much as other men regard bread and cheese and beer. But though he was dressing at the summons of his aunt, he had by no means made up his mind that he would go to her. Why should he go to her? What good would it do him? She would not give him more money. She would only scold him for his misconduct. She might, perhaps, turn him out of the house if he did not obey her,--or attempt to do so; but she would be much more likely to do this when he had made her angry by contradicting her. In neither case would he leave the house, even though its further use were positively forbidden him, because his remaining there was convenient; but as he could gain nothing by seeing "the old girl," as he had called her, he resolved to escape to his club without attending to her summons. But his aunt, who was a better general than he, out-manoeuvred him. He crept down the back stairs; but as he could not quite condescend to escape through the area, he was forced to emerge upon the hall, and here his aunt pounced upon him, coming out of the breakfast-parlour. "Did not Lucy tell you that I wanted to see you?" Lady Monk asked, with severity in her voice. Burgo replied, with perfect ease, that he was going out just to have his hair washed and brushed. He would have been back in twenty minutes. There was no energy about the poor fellow, unless, perhaps, when he was hunting; but he possessed a readiness which enabled him to lie at a moment's notice with the most perfect ease. Lady Monk did not believe him; but she could not confute him, and therefore she let the lie pass. "Never mind your hair now," she said. "I want to speak to you. Come in here for a few minutes." As there was no way of escape left to him, he followed his aunt into the breakfast-parlour. "Burgo," she said, when she had seated herself, and had made him sit in a chair opposite to her, "I don't think you will ever do any good." "I don't much think I shall, aunt." "What do you mean, then, to do with yourself?" "Oh,--I don't know. I haven't thought much about it." "You can't stay here in this house. Sir Cosmo was speaking to me about you only yesterday morning." "I shall be quite willing to go down to Monkshade, if Sir Cosmo likes it better;--that is, when the season is a little more through." "He won't have you at Monkshade. He won't let you go there again. And he won't have you here. You know that you are turning what I say into joke." "No, indeed, aunt," "Yes, you are;--you know you are. You are the most ungrateful, heartless creature I ever met. You must make up your mind to leave this house at once." "Where does Sir Cosmo mean that I should go, then?" "To the workhouse, if you like. He doesn't care." "I don't suppose he does;--the least in the world," said Burgo, opening his eyes, and stretching his nostrils, and looking into his aunt's face as though he had great ground for indignation. But the turning of Burgo out of the house was not Lady Monk's immediate purpose. She knew that he would hang on there till the season was over. After that he must not be allowed to return again, unless he should have succeeded in a certain enterprise. She had now caught him in order that she might learn whether there was any possible remaining chance of success as to that enterprise. So she received his indignation in silence, and began upon another subject. "What a fool you made of yourself last night, Burgo!" "Did I;--more of a fool than usual?" "I believe that you will never be serious about anything. Why did you go on waltzing in that way when every pair of eyes in the room was watching you?" "I couldn't help going on, if she liked it." "Oh, yes,--say it was her fault. That's so like a man!" "Look here, aunt, I'm not going to sit here and be abused. I couldn't take her in my arms, and fly away with her out of a crowd." "Who wants you to fly away with her?" "For the matter of that, I suppose that you do." "No, I don't." "Well, then, I do." "You! you haven't spirit to do that, or anything else. You are like a child that is just able to amuse itself for the moment, and never can think of anything further. You simply disgraced yourself last night, and me too,--and her; but, of course, you care nothing about that." "I had a plan all ready;--only he came back." "Of course he came back. Of course he came back, when they sent him word how you and she were going on. And now he will have forgiven her, and after that, of course, the thing will be all over." "I tell you what, aunt; she would go if she knew how. When I was forced to leave her last night, she promised to see me again. And as for being idle, and not doing anything;--why, I was out in Park Lane last night, after you were in bed." "What good did that do?" "It didn't do any good, as it happened. But a fellow can only try. I believe, after all, it would be easier down in the country,--especially now that he has taken it into his head to look after her." Lady Monk sat silent for a few moments, and then she said in a low voice, "What did she say to you when you were parting? What were her exact words?" She, at any rate, was not deficient in energy. She was anxious enough to see her purpose accomplished. She would have conducted the matter with discretion, if the running away with Mr. Palliser's wife could, in very fact, have been done by herself. "She said she would see me again. She promised it twice." "And was that all?" "What could she say more, when she was forced to go away?" "Had she said that she would go with you?" "I had asked her,--half a dozen times, and she did not once refuse. I know she means it, if she knew how to get away. She hates him;--I'm sure of it. A woman, you know, wouldn't absolutely say that she would go, till she was gone." "If she really meant it, she would tell you." "I don't think she could have told me plainer. She said she would see me again. She said that twice over." Again Lady Monk sat silent. She had a plan in her head,--a plan that might, as she thought, give to her nephew one more chance. But she hesitated before she could bring herself to explain it in detail. At first she had lent a little aid to this desired abduction of Mr. Palliser's wife, but in lending it had said no word upon the subject. During the last season she had succeeded in getting Lady Glencora to her house in London, and had taken care that Burgo should meet her there. Then a hint or two had been spoken, and Lady Glencora had been asked to Monkshade. Lady Glencora, as we know, did not go to Monkshade, and Lady Monk had then been baffled. But she did not therefore give up the game. Having now thought of it so much, she began to speak of it more boldly, and had procured money for her nephew that he might thereby be enabled to carry off the woman. But though this had been well understood between them, though words had been spoken which were sufficiently explicit, the plan had not been openly discussed. Lady Monk had known nothing of the mode in which Lady Glencora was to have been carried off after her party, nor whither she was to have been taken. But now,--now she must arrange it herself, and have a scheme of her own, or else the thing must fail absolutely. Even she was almost reluctant to speak out plainly to her nephew on such a subject. What if he should be false to her, and tell of her? But when a woman has made such schemes, nothing distresses her so sadly as their failure. She would risk all rather than that Mr. Palliser should keep his wife. "I will try and help you," she said at last, speaking hoarsely, almost in a whisper, "if you have courage to make an attempt yourself." "Courage!" said he "What is it you think I am afraid of? Mr. Palliser? I'd fight him,--or all the Pallisers, one after another, if it would do any good." "Fighting! There's no fighting wanted, as you know well enough. Men don't fight nowadays. Look here! If you can get her to call here some day,--say on Thursday, at three o'clock,--I will be here to receive her; and instead of going back into her carriage, you can have a cab for her somewhere near. She can come, as it were, to make a morning call." "A cab!" "Yes; a cab won't kill her, and it is less easily followed than a carriage." "And where shall we go?" "There is a train to Southampton at four, and the boat sails for Jersey at half-past six; you will be in Jersey the next morning, and there is a boat goes on to St. Malo, almost at once. You can go direct from one boat to the other,--that is, if she has strength and courage." After that, who will say that Lady Monk was not a devoted aunt? "That would do excellently well," said the enraptured Burgo. "She will have difficulty in getting away from me, out of the house. Of course I shall say nothing about it, and shall know nothing about it. She had better tell her coachman to drive somewhere to pick some one up, and to return;--out somewhere to Tyburnia, or down to Pimlico. Then she can leave me, and go out on foot, to where you have the cab. She can tell the hall-porter that she will walk to her carriage. Do you understand?" Burgo declared that he did understand. "You must call on her, and make your way in, and see her, and arrange all this. It must be a Thursday, because of the boats." Then she made inquiry about his money, and took from him the notes which he had, promising to return them, with something added, on the Thursday morning; but he asked, with a little whine, for a five-pound note, and got it. Burgo then told her about the travelling-bags and the stockings, and they were quite pleasant and confidential. "Bid her come in a stout travelling-dress," said Lady Monk. "She can wear some lace or something over it, so that the servants won't observe it. I will take no notice of it." Was there ever such an aunt? After this, Burgo left his aunt, and went away to his club, in a state of most happy excitement.

On the night of Lady Monk's party, Burgo Fitzgerald disappeared; and when the guests were gone, his aunt inquired for him in vain. The old butler said that he thought Mr. Burgo had left the house. Lady Monk went to her nephew's door, and saw the careless debris of his dressing about the room. But he was gone. "Perhaps, after all, he has arranged it," she said to herself. But Burgo, as we know, had not "arranged it." It may be remembered that when Mr. Palliser came back to his wife in the supper-room, bringing her scarf, Burgo was no longer with her. He had become aware that he had no chance left, at any rate for that night. The poor fool, acting on his aunt's implied advice, had hired a post-chaise, and stationed it in Bruton Street, five minutes' walk away. And he had bought feminine cloaks and things that he thought might be necessary for his companion. He had booked rooms at the hotel near the Dover Station, from where a train was to start on the following morning to catch the boat for Boulogne. There was a dressing-bag there for which he had paid twenty-five guineas of his aunt's money, and there were other things - slippers, collars, stockings, handkerchiefs, and what else he thought might be most necessary. Poor thoughtful, thoughtless fool! The butler was right. He did leave the house. He saw Lady Glencora taken to her carriage, and then slipped out, and slowly made his way down to Bruton Street. There was the carriage ready; and the driver emerged from the nearby public-house. "I shan't want you tonight," said Burgo, hoarsely. "And what about the things, your honour?" "Take them to the devil. No; stop. Take them back with you, and ask somebody to keep them till I send for them. I shall want them and another carriage in a day or two." Then he gave the man half a sovereign, and went away. From there Burgo went back into Grosvenor Square, and down Park Street, and through a narrow passage and a mews into Park Lane. He walked along the rails of the Park, till he found himself opposite the Palliser house. Then he stood there, leaning on the railings, and looking up at Lady Glencora's windows. What did he expect to see? He was not impelled by love. He felt a mixed, feverish desire, which he took no trouble to analyse. He wanted money. He wanted the thing of which this Palliser had robbed him. He wanted revenge. And he wanted the woman's beauty. He wanted to kiss her again as he had once kissed her, and to feel that she was soft and loving. But in his unreasoning folly he did not know what step to take. He stood there with an undefined feeling that she might see him from the window, and come to him; in the way that if you lie under a tree long enough, a plum may drop into your mouth. He stood and looked, and cursed his ill-luck, though with none of the bitterness of George Vavasor's oaths. Burgo had one honest feeling - a feeling that it served him right, and that he had perhaps better go to the devil at once, and give nobody any more trouble. If he loved no one sincerely, neither did he hate anyone. When he cursed his fate, he only did so because cursing is so easy. There he stood till he was cold, and then, as the plum did not drop into his mouth, he moved on. He went up into Oxford Street, and walked along to the corner of Bond Street. There a girl took hold of him, and looked up into his face. "Ah!" she said, "I saw you once before." "Then you saw the most miserable devil alive," said Burgo. "You can't be miserable," said the girl. "You've plenty of money." "I wish I had," said Burgo. "You gave me supper one night when I was starving. I ain't hungry now. Will you give me a kiss?" "I'll give you a shilling, and that's better," said Burgo. "But give me a kiss too," said the girl. He gave her first the kiss, and then the shilling, and then he left her and passed on. He made his way into the house in Grosvenor Square, by some means unknown to his aunt. He emptied his pockets as he got into bed, and counted a roll of notes in one of them. There were still a hundred and thirty pounds left. Lady Glencora had promised that she would see him again. But what use would that be if all his money should then be gone? He knew that keeping money was impossible for him. Then he thought of his aunt. What should he say to her the next day? Might it not be as well to avoid her altogether? He breakfasted in his bedroom, reading a French novel. He was still there when his aunt's maid came to him, saying that his aunt wished to see him. "Tell me, Lucy," said he, "how is the old girl?" "She's as cross as cross, Mr. Burgo." Burgo applied himself to his toilet, from time to time reading a few pages of the French novel, and also taking small doses from a bottle of curaao liqueur. He had by no means made up his mind to go to his aunt. Why should he? She would only scold him. She might, perhaps, turn him out of the house if he did not obey her, or if he contradicted her. So he resolved to escape to his club without attending to her summons. But his aunt out-manuvred him. He crept down the back stairs; but he was forced to emerge into the hall, and here his aunt pounced upon him. "Did not Lucy tell you that I wanted to see you?" Lady Monk asked severely. Burgo replied, with perfect ease, that he was going out just to have his hair washed. He would have been back in twenty minutes. Lady Monk did not believe him; but she let it pass. "Never mind your hair now," she said. "I want to speak to you. Come in here for a few minutes." As there was no way of escape, he followed his aunt into the breakfast-parlour. "Burgo," she said, "I don't think you will ever do any good." "I don't think I shall, aunt." "What do you mean, then, to do with yourself?" "Oh, I don't know. I haven't thought much about it." "You can't stay here. Sir Cosmo was speaking to me about you only yesterday morning." "I shall be quite willing to go down to Monkshade, if Sir Cosmo likes it better." "He won't have you at Monkshade. He won't let you go there again. And he won't have you here. You are the most ungrateful, heartless creature I ever met. You must make up your mind to leave this house at once." "Where does Sir Cosmo mean that I should go, then?" "To the workhouse, if you like. He doesn't care." "I don't suppose he does," said Burgo. But Lady Monk did not intend to turn Burgo out of the house. She knew that he would hang on there till the season was over. After that he must not be allowed to return again, unless he succeeded in his enterprise. She wished to learn whether there was any possible remaining chance of success. "What a fool you made of yourself last night, Burgo!" she said. "Why did you go on waltzing in that way when every pair of eyes in the room was watching you?" "I couldn't help it, if she liked it." "Oh, yes, say it was her fault. That's so like a man!" "Look here, aunt, I'm not going to sit here and be abused. I couldn't take her in my arms, and fly away with her." "Who wants you to fly away with her?" "You do." "No, I don't." "Well, then, I do." "You! you haven't spirit to do that, or anything else. You simply disgraced yourself last night, and me too." "I had a plan all ready; only he came back." "Of course he came back, when they sent him word how you and she were going on. And now he will have forgiven her, and the thing will be all over." "I tell you what, aunt; she would go if she knew how. She promised to see me again. And as for being idle, and not doing anything; why, I was out in Park Lane last night, after you were in bed." "What good did that do?" "It didn't do any good, as it happened. But a fellow can only try." Lady Monk sat silent for a few moments, and then she said in a low voice, "What exactly did she say to you when you were parting?" "She said she would see me again. She promised it twice." "Had she said that she would go with you?" "I had asked her half a dozen times, and she did not once refuse. I know she means it, if she knew how to get away. She hates him; I'm sure of it. A woman, you know, wouldn't absolutely say that she would go, till she was gone." "If she really meant it, she would tell you." "I don't think she could have told me plainer." Again Lady Monk sat silent. She had a plan in her head, that might, she thought, give her nephew one more chance. But she hesitated before she could bring herself to explain it in detail. At first she had lent a little aid to this desired abduction of Mr. Palliser's wife. She had succeeded in getting Lady Glencora to her house in London, and had taken care that Burgo should meet her there. Then Lady Glencora had been asked to Monkshade. Lady Glencora, as we know, did not go to Monkshade, and Lady Monk had been baffled. But she did not therefore give up the game. Now she must arrange it herself, and have a scheme of her own, or else the thing must fail. Yet she was almost reluctant to speak out plainly to her nephew. "I will try and help you," she said at last, speaking hoarsely, almost in a whisper, "if you have courage to make an attempt yourself." "Courage!" said he. "What do you think I am afraid of? Mr. Palliser? I'd fight him, if it would do any good." "There's no fighting wanted, as you know well enough! If you can get her to call here, say on Thursday, at three o'clock, I will be here to receive her; and instead of going back into her carriage, you can have a cab for her somewhere near. She can come, as it were, to make a morning call." "And where shall we go?" "There is a train to Southampton at four, and the boat sails for Jersey at half-past six; you will be in Jersey the next morning, and there is a boat goes on to St. Malo, almost at once." Who will say that Lady Monk was not a devoted aunt? "That would do excellently well," said the enraptured Burgo. "She had better tell her coachman to drive somewhere else to pick someone up. Then she can leave me, and go out on foot, to where you have the cab. She can tell the hall-porter that she will walk to her carriage. Do you understand?" Burgo declared that he did understand. "You must call on her, and make your way in, and see her, and arrange all this. It must be a Thursday, because of the boats." Then she asked about his money, and took the banknotes from him, promising to return them with something added, on the Thursday morning; but he asked, with a little whine, for a five-pound note, and got it. Burgo then told her about the travelling-bags and the stockings, and they were quite pleasant and confidential. "Bid her come in a travelling-dress," said Lady Monk. "She can wear some lace or something over it, so that the servants won't observe it. I will take no notice of it." Was there ever such an aunt? After this, Burgo left her, and went away to his club, in a state of most happy excitement.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 66: Lady Monk's Plan

Early in that conversation which Mr. Vavasor had with his daughter, and which was recorded a few pages back, he implored her to pause a while before she informed Mr. Grey of her engagement with her cousin. Nothing, however, on that point had been settled between them. Mr. Vavasor had wished her to say that she would not write till he should have assented to her doing so. She had declined to bind herself in this way, and then they had gone off to other things;--to George Vavasor's character and the disposition of her money. Alice, however, had felt herself bound not to write to Mr. Grey quite at once. Indeed, when her cousin left her she had no appetite for writing such a letter as hers was to be. A day or two passed by her in this way, and nothing more was said by her or her father. It was now the middle of January, and the reader may remember that Mr. Grey had promised that he would come to her in London in that month, as soon as he should know that she had returned from Westmoreland. She must at any rate do something to prevent that visit. Mr. Grey would not come without giving her notice. She knew enough of the habits of the man to be sure of that. But she desired that her letter to him should be in time to prevent his to her; so when those few days were gone, she sat down to write without speaking to her father again upon the subject. It was a terrible job;--perhaps the most difficult of all the difficult tasks which her adverse fate had imposed upon her. She found when she did attempt it, that she could have done it better if she had done it at the moment when she was writing the other letter to her cousin George. Then Kate had been near her, and she had been comforted by Kate's affectionate happiness. She had been strengthened at that moment by a feeling that she was doing the best in her power, if not for herself, at any rate for others. All that comfort and all that strength had left her now. The atmosphere of the fells had buoyed her up, and now the thick air of London depressed her. She sat for hours with the pen in her hand, and could not write the letter. She let a day go by and a night, and still it was not written. She hardly knew herself in her unnatural weakness. As the mental photographs of the two men forced themselves upon her, she could not force herself to forget those words--"Look here, upon this picture--and on this." How was it that she now knew how great was the difference between the two men, how immense the pre-eminence of him whom she had rejected;--and that she had not before been able to see this on any of those many previous occasions on which she had compared the two together? As she thought of her cousin George's face when he left her room a few days since, and remembered Mr. Grey's countenance when last he held her hand at Cheltenham, the quiet dignity of his beauty which would submit to show no consciousness of injury, she could not but tell herself that when Paradise had been opened to her, she had declared herself to be fit only for Pandemonium. In that was her chief misery; that now,--now when it was too late,--she could look at it aright. But the letter must be written, and on the second day she declared to herself that she would not rise from her chair till it was done. The letter was written on that day and was posted. I will now ask the reader to go down with me to Nethercoats that we may be present with John Grey when he received it. He was sitting at breakfast in his study there, and opposite to him, lounging in an arm-chair, with a _Quarterly_ in his hand, was the most intimate of his friends, Frank Seward, a fellow of the college to which they had both belonged. Mr. Seward was a clergyman, and the tutor of his college, and a man who worked very hard at Cambridge. In the days of his leisure he spent much of his time at Nethercoats, and he was the only man to whom Grey had told anything of his love for Alice and of his disappointment. Even to Seward he had not told the whole story. He had at first informed his friend that he was engaged to be married, and as he had told this as no secret,--having even said that he hated secrets on such matters,--the engagement had been mentioned in the common room of their college, and men at Cambridge knew that Mr. Grey was going to take to himself a wife. Then Mr. Seward had been told that trouble had come, and that it was not improbable that there would be no such marriage. Even when saying this Mr. Grey told none of the particulars, though he owned to his friend that a heavy blow had struck him. His intimacy with Seward was of that thorough kind which is engendered only out of such young and lasting friendship as had existed between them; but even to such a friend as this Mr. Grey could not open his whole heart. It was only to a friend who should also be his wife that he could do that,--as he himself thoroughly understood. He had felt that such a friend was wanting to him, and he had made the attempt. "Don't speak of this as yet," he had said to Mr. Seward. "Of course when the matter is settled, those few people who know me must know it. But perhaps there may be a doubt as yet, and as long as there is a doubt, it is better that it should not be discussed." He had said no more than this,--had imputed no blame to Alice,--had told none of the circumstances; but Seward had known that the girl had jilted his friend, and had made up his mind that she must be heartless and false. He had known also that his friend would never look for any other such companion for his home. Letters were brought to each of them on this morning, and Seward's attention was of course occupied by those which he received. Grey, as soon as the envelopes had touched his hand, became aware that one of them was from Alice, and this he at once opened. He did it very calmly, but without any of that bravado of indifference with which George Vavasor had received Alice's letter from Westmoreland. "It is right that I should tell you at once," said Alice, rushing into the middle of her subject without even the formality of the customary address--"It is right that I should tell you at once that--." Oh, the difficulty which she had encountered when her words had carried her as far as this!--"that my cousin, George Vavasor, has repeated to me his offer of marriage, and that I have accepted it. I tell you, chiefly in order that I may save you from the trouble which you purposed to take when I last saw you at Cheltenham. I will not tell you any of the circumstances of this engagement, because I have no right to presume that you will care to hear them. I hardly dare to ask you to believe of me that in all that I have done, I have endeavoured to act with truth and honesty. That I have been very ignorant, foolish,--what you will that is bad, I know well; otherwise there could not have been so much in the last few years of my life on which I am utterly ashamed to look back. For the injury that I have done you, I can only express deep contrition. I do not dare to ask you to forgive me.--ALICE VAVASOR." She had tormented herself in writing this,--had so nearly driven herself distracted with attempts which she had destroyed, that she would not even read once to herself these last words. "He'll know it, and that is all that is necessary," she said to herself as she sent the letter away from her. Mr. Grey read it twice over, leaving the other letters unnoticed on the table by his tea-cup. He read it twice over, and the work of reading it was one to him of intense agony. Hitherto he had fed himself with hope. That Alice should have been brought to think of her engagement with him in a spirit of doubt and with a mind so troubled, that she had been inclined to attempt an escape from it, had been very grievous to him; but it had been in his mind a fantasy, a morbid fear of himself, which might be cured by time. He, at any rate, would give all his energies towards achieving such a cure. There had been one thing, however, which he most feared;--which he had chiefly feared, though he had forbidden himself to think that it could be probable, and this thing had now happened. He had ever disliked and feared George Vavasor;--not from any effect which the man had upon himself, for as we know his acquaintance with Vavasor was of the slightest;--but he had feared and disliked his influence upon Alice. He had also feared the influence of her cousin Kate. To have cautioned Alice against her cousins would have been to him impossible. It was not his nature to express suspicion to one he loved. Is the tone of that letter remembered in which he had answered Alice when she informed him that her cousin George was to go with Kate and her to Switzerland? He had written, with a pleasant joke, words which Alice had been able to read with some little feeling of triumph to her two friends. He had not so written because he liked what he knew of the man. He disliked all that he knew of him. But it had not been possible for him to show that he distrusted the prudence of her, whom, as his future wife, he was prepared to trust in all things. I have said that he read Alice's letter with an agony of sorrow; as he sat with it in his hand he suffered as, probably, he had never suffered before. But there was nothing in his countenance to show that he was in pain. Seward had received some long epistle, crossed from end to end,--indicative, I should say, of a not far distant termination to that college tutorship,--and was reading it with placid contentment. It did not occur to him to look across at Grey, but had he done so, I doubt whether he would have seen anything to attract his attention. But Grey, though he was wounded, would not allow himself to be dismayed. There was less hope now than before, but there might still be hope;--hope for her, even though there might be none for him. Tidings had reached his ears also as to George Vavasor, which had taught him to believe that the man was needy, reckless, and on the brink of ruin. Such a marriage to Alice Vavasor would be altogether ruinous. Whatever might be his own ultimate fate he would still seek to save her from that. Her cousin, doubtless, wanted her money. Might it not be possible that he would be satisfied with her money, and that thus the woman might be saved? "Seward," he said at last, addressing his friend, who had not yet come to the end of the last crossed page. "Is there anything wrong?" said Seward. "Well;--yes; there is something a little wrong. I fear I must leave you, and go up to town to-day." "Nobody ill, I hope?" "No;--nobody is ill. But I must go up to London. Mrs. Bole will take care of you, and you must not be angry with me for leaving you." Seward assured him that he would not be in the least angry, and that he was thoroughly conversant with the capabilities and good intentions of Mrs. Bole the housekeeper; but added, that as he was so near his own college, he would of course go back to Cambridge. He longed to say some word as to the purpose of Grey's threatened journey; to make some inquiry as to this new trouble; but he knew that Grey was a man who did not well bear close inquiries, and he was silent. "Why not stay here?" said Grey, after a minute's pause. "I wish you would, old fellow; I do, indeed." There was a tone of special affection in his voice which struck Seward at once. "If I can be of the slightest service or comfort to you, I will of course." Grey again sat silent for a little while. "I wish you would; I do, indeed." "Then I will." And again there was a pause. "I have got a letter here from--Miss Vavasor," said Grey. "May I hope that--" "No;--it does not bring good news to me. I do not know that I can tell it you all. I would if I could, but the whole story is one not to be told in a hurry. I should leave false impressions. There are things which a man cannot tell." "Indeed there are," said Seward. "I wish with all my heart that you knew it all as I know it; but that is impossible. There are things which happen in a day which it would take a lifetime to explain." Then there was another pause. "I have heard bad news this morning, and I must go up to London at once. I shall go into Ely so as to be there by twelve; and if you will, you shall drive me over. I may be back in a day; certainly in less than a week; but it will be a comfort to me to know that I shall find you here." The matter was so arranged, and at eleven they started. During the first two miles not a word was spoken between them. "Seward," Grey said at last, "if I fail in what I am going to attempt, it is probable that you will never hear Alice Vavasor's name mentioned by me again; but I want you always to bear this in mind;--that at no moment has my opinion of her ever been changed, nor must you in such case imagine from my silence that it has changed. Do you understand me?" "I think I do." "To my thinking she is the finest of God's creatures that I have known. It may be that in her future life she will be severed from me altogether; but I shall not, therefore, think the less well of her; and I wish that you, as my friend, should know that I so esteem her, even though her name should never be mentioned between us." Seward, in some few words, assured him that it should be so, and then they finished their journey in silence. From the station at Ely, Grey sent a message by the wires up to John Vavasor, saying that he would call on him that afternoon at his office in Chancery Lane. The chances were always much against finding Mr. Vavasor at his office; but on this occasion the telegram did reach him there, and he remained till the unaccustomed hour of half past four to meet the man who was to have been his son-in-law. "Have you heard from her?" he asked as soon as Grey entered the dingy little room, not in Chancery Lane, but in its neighbourhood, which was allocated to him for his signing purposes. "Yes,"--said Grey; "she has written to me." "And told you about her cousin George. I tried to hinder her from writing, but she is very wilful." "Why should you have hindered her? If the thing was to be told, it is better that it should be done at once." "But I hoped that there might be an escape. I don't know what you think of all this, Grey, but to me it is the bitterest misfortune that I have known. And I've had some bitter things, too," he added,--thinking of that period of his life, when the work of which he was ashamed was first ordained as his future task. "What is the escape that you hoped?" asked Grey. "I hardly know. The whole thing seems to me to be so mad, that I partly trusted that she would see the madness of it. I am not sure whether you know anything of my nephew George?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "Very little," said Grey. "I believe him to be utterly an adventurer,--a man without means and without principle,--upon the whole about as bad a man as you may meet. I give you my word, Grey, that I don't think I know a worse man. He's going to marry her for her money; then he will beggar her, after that he'll ill-treat her, and yet what can I do?" "Prevent the marriage." "But how, my dear fellow? Prevent it! It's all very well to say that, and it's the very thing I want to do. But how am I to prevent it? She's as much her own master as you are yours. She can give him every shilling of her fortune to-morrow. How am I to prevent her from marrying him?" "Let her give him every shilling of her fortune to-morrow," said Grey. "And what is she to do then?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "Then--then,--then,--then let her come to me," said John Grey; and as he spoke there was the fragment of a tear in his eye, and the hint of quiver in his voice. [Illustration: "Then--then,--then let her come to me."] Even the worldly, worn-out, unsympathetic nature of John Vavasor was struck, and, as it were, warmed by this. "God bless you; God bless you, my dear fellow. I heartily wish for her sake that I could look forward to any such an end to this affair." "And why not look forward to it? You say that he merely wants her money. As he wants it let him have it!" "But Grey, you do not know Alice; you do not understand my girl. When she had lost her fortune nothing would induce her to become your wife." "Leave that to follow as it may," said John Grey. "Our first object must be to sever her from a man, who is, as you say, himself on the verge of ruin; and who would certainly make her wretched. I am here now, not because I wish her to be my own wife, but because I wish that she should not become the wife of such a one as your nephew. If I were you I would let him have her money." "If you were I, you would have nothing more to do with it than the man that is as yet unborn. I know that she will give him her money because she has said so; but I have no power as to her giving it or as to her withholding it. That's the hardship of my position;--but it is of no use to think of that now." John Grey certainly did not think about it. He knew well that Alice was independent, and that she was not inclined to give up that independence to anyone. He had not expected that her father would be able to do much towards hindering his daughter from becoming the wife of George Vavasor, but he had wished that he himself and her father should be in accord in their views, and he found that this was so. When he left Mr. Vavasor's room nothing had been said about the period of the marriage. Grey thought it improbable that Alice would find herself able to give herself in marriage to her cousin immediately,--so soon after her breach with him; but as to this he had no assurance, and he determined to have the facts from her own lips, if she would see him. So he wrote to her, naming a day on which he would call upon her early in the morning; and having received from her no prohibition, he was in Queen Anne Street at the hour appointed. He had conceived a scheme which he had not made known to Mr. Vavasor, and as to the practicability of which he had much doubt; but which, nevertheless, he was resolved to try if he should find the attempt possible. He himself would buy off George Vavasor. He had ever been a prudent man, and he had money at command. If Vavasor was such a man as they, who knew him best, represented him, such a purchase might be possible. But then, before this was attempted, he must be quite sure that he knew his man, and he must satisfy himself also that in doing so he would not, in truth, add to Alice's misery. He could hardly bring himself to think it possible that she did, in truth, love her cousin with passionate love. It seemed to him, as he remembered what Alice had been to himself, that this must be impossible. But if it were so, that of course must put an end to his interference. He thought that if he saw her he might learn all this, and therefore he went to Queen Anne Street. "Of course he must come if he will," she said to herself when she received his note. "It can make no matter. He will say nothing half so hard to me as what I say to myself all day long." But when the morning came, and the hour came, and the knock at the door for which her ears were on the alert, her heart misgave her, and she felt that the present moment of her punishment, though not the heaviest, would still be hard to bear. He came slowly up-stairs,--his step was ever slow,--and gently opened the door for himself. Then, before he even looked at her, he closed it again. I do not know how to explain that it was so; but it was this perfect command of himself at all seasons which had in part made Alice afraid of him, and drove her to believe that they were not fitted for each other. She, when he thus turned for a moment from her, and then walked slowly towards her, stood with both her hands leaning on the centre table of the room, and with her eyes fixed upon its surface. "Alice," he said, walking up to her very slowly. Her whole frame shuddered as she heard the sweetness of his voice. Had I not better tell the truth of her at once? Oh, if she could only have been his again! What madness during these last six months had driven her to such a plight as this! The old love came back upon her. Nay; it had never gone. But that trust in his love returned to her,--that trust which told her that such love and such worth would have sufficed to make her happy. But this confidence in him was worthless now! Even though he should desire it, she could not change again. "Alice," he said again. And then, as slowly she looked up at him, he asked her for her hand. "You may give it me," he said, "as to an old friend." She put her hand in his hand, and then, withdrawing it, felt that she must never trust herself to do so again. "Alice," he continued, "I do not expect you to say much to me; but there is a question or two which I think you will answer. Has a day been fixed for this marriage?" "No," she said. "Will it be in a month?" "Oh, no;--not for a year," she replied hurriedly;--and he knew at once by her voice that she already dreaded this new wedlock. Whatever of anger he might before have felt for her was banished. She had brought herself by her ill-judgement,--by her ignorance, as she had confessed,--to a sad pass; but he believed that she was still worthy of his love. "And now one other question, Alice;--but if you are silent, I will not ask it again. Can you tell me why you have again accepted your cousin's offer?" "Because--," she said very quickly, looking up as though she were about to speak with all her old courage. "But you would never understand me," she said,--"and there can be no reason why I should dare to hope that you should ever think well of me again." He knew that there was no love,--no love for that man to whom she had pledged her hand. He did not know, on the other hand, how strong, how unchanged, how true was her love for himself. Indeed, of himself he was thinking not at all. He desired to learn whether she would suffer, if by any scheme he might succeed in breaking off this marriage. When he had asked her whether she were to be married at once, she had shuddered at the thought. When he asked her why she had accepted her cousin, she had faltered, and hinted at some excuse which he might fail to understand. Had she loved George Vavasor, he could have understood that well enough. "Alice," he said, speaking still very slowly, "nothing has ever yet been done which need to a certainty separate you and me. I am a persistent man, and I do not even yet give up all hope. A year is a long time. As you say yourself, I do not as yet quite understand you. But, Alice,--and I think that the position in which we stood a few months since justifies me in saying so without offence,--I love you now as well as ever, and should things change with you, I cannot tell you with how much joy and eagerness I should take you back to my bosom. My heart is yours now as it has been since I knew you." Then he again just touched her hand, and left her before she had been able to answer a word.

Mr. Vavasor had implored Alice to wait before she informed Mr. Grey of her engagement with her cousin. Although she had declined, she did not feel bound to write to Mr. Grey at once. Indeed, when her cousin left her she had no appetite for writing such a letter. It was now the middle of January, and the reader may remember that Mr. Grey had promised that he would visit her in London that month. She must do something to prevent that visit. So she sat down to write. It was a terrible job; perhaps the most difficult of all the difficult tasks which she had faced. She felt that it would have been easier if Kate had been nearby, as she was when Alice wrote the other letter to her cousin George. Then she had been comforted by Kate's affectionate happiness, and strengthened by a feeling that she was doing the best, if not for herself, then for others. All that comfort and strength had left her now. The atmosphere of the fells had buoyed her up, and now the thick air of London depressed her. She sat for hours with the pen in her hand, and could not write. As the mental photographs of the two men forced themselves upon her, she could not help comparing them. How was it that she now knew how great was the difference between the two men, how immense the pre-eminence of him whom she had rejected? Why had she not been able to see this before? In that was her chief misery; that now - when it was too late - she could look at it aright. But the letter was at last written and posted. John Grey received it at Nethercoats, at breakfast in his study. Lounging in an arm-chair opposite was his closest friend, Frank Seward, a fellow of the Cambridge college to which they had both belonged. Mr. Seward was a clergyman, and the tutor of his college. He spent much of his leisure time at Nethercoats, and he was the only man to whom Grey had told anything of his love for Alice and of his disappointment. Even to Seward he had not told the whole story. "Don't speak of this yet," he had said to Mr. Seward. "Of course when the matter is settled, people must know it. But as long as there is any doubt, it is better not discussed." He had said no more than this; but Seward had known that the girl had jilted his friend, and had made up his mind that she must be heartless and false. He also knew that his friend would never look for any other wife. Letters were brought to both of them this morning, and Seward's attention was occupied by his own. Grey opened his letter from Alice at once, very calmly, but without any of that pretended indifference with which George Vavasor had received Alice's letter. "It is right that I should tell you at once," said Alice - oh, the difficulty of writing this! - "that my cousin, George Vavasor, has repeated to me his offer of marriage, and that I have accepted it. I tell you chiefly in order to save you from the trouble of visiting. I will not tell you the circumstances of this engagement, because I do not think that you will care to hear them. I hardly dare to ask you to believe that I have endeavoured to act with truth and honesty. That I have been very ignorant, foolish and bad, I know well; there is much in the last few years of my life of which I am utterly ashamed. For the injury that I have done you, I can only express deep contrition. I do not dare to ask you to forgive me. "Alice Vavasor." She had tormented herself in writing this. "He'll know, and that is all that is necessary," she said to herself. Mr. Grey read it twice. The work of reading it was one of intense agony. Until now he had fed himself with hope. That Alice should have thought of her engagement with doubt had been very grievous to him; but he had considered it a fantasy which might be cured by time. He would give all his energies towards achieving such a cure. There had been one thing, however, which he feared; and this thing had now happened. He had always disliked and feared George Vavasor and his influence upon Alice, although he barely knew him. He had also feared the influence of her cousin Kate. But to have cautioned Alice against her cousins would have been impossible. It was not his nature. As he sat with the letter in his hand he suffered as, probably, he had never suffered before. But there was nothing in his face to show that he was in pain. Seward was reading a long letter with placid contentment. It did not occur to him to look across at Grey, but had he done so, I doubt whether he would have seen anything unusual. But Grey, though wounded, would not allow himself to be dismayed. There was less hope now than before, but there might still be hope - hope for her, if not for him. He had heard that George Vavasor was needy, reckless, and on the brink of ruin. Such a marriage would be altogether ruinous to Alice. Whatever might be his own ultimate fate, he would still seek to save her from that. Her cousin, doubtless, wanted her money. Might it not be possible that he would be satisfied with her money, and that thus the woman might be saved? "Seward," he said at last. "Is there anything wrong?" said Seward. "Well; yes. I fear I must leave you, and go up to town today." "Nobody ill, I hope?" "No. But I must go up to London. Mrs. Bole will take care of you." Seward assured him that Mrs. Bole was an excellent housekeeper; but that as he was so near his own college, he would return to Cambridge. He longed to ask about Grey's trouble; but he knew that Grey was a man who did not well bear close inquiries. "Why not stay here?" said Grey, after a minute's pause. "I wish you would, old fellow; I do, indeed." The affection in his voice struck Seward at once. "Then I will." There was a pause. "I have got a letter here from - Miss Vavasor," said Grey. "May I hope that-" "No; it does not bring good news. I would tell you if I could, but the whole story is one not to be told in a hurry. I should leave false impressions. There are things which a man cannot tell." "Indeed there are," said Seward. "I wish with all my heart that you knew it as I know it; but that is impossible." Then there was another pause. "I have heard bad news, and I must go up to London at once. I shall go into Ely by noon, if you will drive me over. I may be back in a day; certainly in less than a week; but it will be a comfort to me to know that I shall find you here." The matter was arranged, and at eleven they started. "Seward," said Grey on the journey, "if I fail in what I am going to attempt, you will probably never hear Alice Vavasor's name mentioned by me again; but I want you always to remember that at no moment has my opinion of her ever been changed. Do you understand me?" "I think so." "To my thinking she is the finest of God's creatures that I have known. It may be that in future she will be severed from me altogether; but I shall not, therefore, think the less well of her; and I wish that you should know that, even if her name should never be mentioned between us." Seward assured him that it should be so, and they finished their journey in silence. From the station at Ely, Grey wired a message to John Vavasor, saying that he would call on him that afternoon at his office in Chancery Lane. The telegram reached Vavasor there, and he remained till half past four to meet Grey. "Have you heard from her?" he asked as soon as Grey entered. "Yes," said Grey; "she has written to me." "And told you about her cousin George. I tried to prevent her from writing, but she is very wilful." "Why should you have prevented her? If the thing was to be told, better that it should be done at once." "But I hoped that there might be an escape. I don't know what you think of all this, Grey, but to me it is the bitterest misfortune that I have known." "What escape did you hope for?" asked Grey. "I hardly know. The whole thing seems to me to be so mad, that I trusted that she would see the madness of it. I am not sure whether you know anything of my nephew George?" "Very little," said Grey. "I believe him to be a man without means and without principle, on the whole about as bad a man as you may meet. He's going to marry her for her money; then he will beggar her, after that he'll ill-treat her, and yet what can I do?" "Prevent the marriage." "But how, my dear fellow? She's as much her own master as you are yours. She can give him every shilling of her fortune tomorrow. How am I to prevent her from marrying him?" "Let her give him every shilling of her fortune tomorrow," said Grey. "And what is she to do then?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "Then - then - then let her come to me," said John Grey; and as he spoke there was the fragment of a tear in his eye, and the hint of a quiver in his voice. Even the worldly, unsympathetic John Vavasor was struck. "God bless you, my dear fellow. I heartily wish for her sake that I could look forward to such an end to this affair." "And why not look forward to it? You say that he merely wants her money. So let him have it!" "But Grey, you do not understand my girl. Once she had lost her fortune, nothing would induce her to become your wife." "Leave that to follow as it may," said John Grey. "Our first object must be to sever her from a man who is on the verge of ruin; and who would certainly make her wretched. I am here not because I wish her to be my own wife, but because I wish that she should not marry such a one as your nephew. If I were you I would let him have her money." "If you were me, you would have no say in the matter. I know that she will give him her money; but I have no power over her." John Grey knew well that Alice was independent, and he had not expected that her father would be able to do much, but he had wished that the two men should agree in their views. Grey thought it improbable that Alice would marry her cousin immediately, so soon after her breach with him; but there was no certainty of this, and he determined to ask her, if she would see him. So he wrote to her, naming a day on which he would call upon her; and when she did not refuse, he arrived at the hour appointed. He had thought of a scheme which he had not told to Mr. Vavasor. He was not sure if it was practicable, but, nevertheless, he was resolved to try it. He himself would buy off George Vavasor. He had money at command. If Vavasor was such a man as people said, this might be possible. But before trying this, he must be quite sure that he knew his man, and he must satisfy himself also that in doing so he would not, in truth, add to Alice's misery. He could hardly bring himself to think it possible that she actually loved her cousin with passionate love. But if it were so, that of course must put an end to his interference. It was to learn all this that he went to Queen Anne Street. "Of course he must come if he wishes," she said to herself when she received his note. "It can make no difference. He will say nothing half so hard to me as what I say to myself all day long." But when the morning came, and she heard the knock, her heart misgave her, and she felt that this moment of her punishment would be hard to bear. He came slowly upstairs - his step was always slow - and gently opened the door for himself. Then, before he even looked at her, he closed it again. It was this perfect command of himself at all times which had in part made Alice afraid of him, and drove her to believe that they were not fitted for each other. She stood with both her hands leaning on the centre table of the room, and with her eyes fixed upon its surface. "Alice," he said, walking up to her very slowly. Her whole frame shuddered as she heard the sweetness of his voice. Oh, if she could only have been his again! What madness during these last six months had driven her to such a plight as this! The old love came back upon her. Nay; it had never gone. That trust in his love returned to her - but this confidence in him was worthless now! Even if he desired it, she could not change her mind again. "Alice," he said. "May I take your hand - as an old friend?" She put her hand in his, and then, withdrawing it, felt that she must never trust herself to do so again. "Alice," he continued, "I do not expect you to say much to me; but there is a question or two which I think you will answer. Has a day been fixed for this marriage?" "No," she said. "Will it be in a month?" "Oh, no - not for a year," she replied hurriedly; and he knew at once by her voice that she already dreaded this new wedlock. Whatever anger he might have felt for her was banished. She had brought herself by her ill-judgement - by her ignorance - to a sad pass; but he believed that she was still worthy of his love. "And now one other question, Alice; but if you are silent, I will not ask it again. Can you tell me why you have again accepted your cousin's offer?" "Because-," she said very quickly, looking up as though she were about to speak with all her old courage. "But you would never understand me," she said, "and there can be no reason why you should ever think well of me again." He knew that there was no love for that other man. However, he did not know how unchanged and true was her love for himself. Indeed, he was not thinking of himself at all. He wished to learn whether she would suffer, if the marriage were prevented. But it seemed that she shuddered at the thought of the marriage. "Alice," he said, "nothing has yet been done which need totally separate you and me. I am a persistent man, and I do not even yet give up all hope. A year is a long time. As you say yourself, I do not quite understand you. But, Alice , I love you now as well as ever, and should things change with you, I cannot tell you with how much joy and eagerness I should take you back to my bosom. My heart is yours now as it has been since I knew you." Then he again just touched her hand, and left her before she could answer a word.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 36: John Grey Goes a Second Time to London

Lady Midlothian went away on her road to London on the Wednesday morning, and Alice was to follow her on the next day. It was now December, and the weather was very clear and frosty, but at night there was bright moonlight. On this special night the moon would be full, and Lady Glencora had declared that she and Alice would go out amidst the ruins. It was no secret engagement, having been canvassed in public, and having been met with considerable discouragement by some of the party. Mr. Palliser had remarked that the night air would be very cold, and Mr. Bott had suggested all manner of evil consequences. Had Mr. Palliser alone objected, Lady Glencora might have given way, but Mr. Bott's word riveted her purpose. "We are not going to be frightened," Lady Glencora said. "People do not generally walk out at night in December," Mr. Palliser observed. "That's just the reason why we want to do it," said Lady Glencora. "But we shall wrap ourselves up, and nobody need be afraid. Jeffrey, we shall expect you to stand sentinel at the old gate, and guard us from the ghosts." Jeffrey Palliser, bargaining that he might be allowed a cigar, promised that he would do as he was bidden. The party at Matching Priory had by this time become very small. There were indeed no guests left, not counting those of the Palliser family, excepting Miss Vavasor, Mr. Bott, and an old lady who had been a great friend of Mr. Palliser's mother. It was past ten in the evening when Lady Glencora declared that the time had arrived for them to carry out their purpose. She invited the two Miss Pallisers to join her, but they declined, urging their fear of the night air, and showing by their manner that they thought the proposition a very imprudent one. Mr. Bott offered to accompany them, but Lady Glencora declined his attendance very stoutly. "No, indeed, Mr. Bott; you were one of those who preached a sermon against my dissipation in the morning, and I'm not going to allow you to join it, now the time for its enjoyment has come." "My dear Lady Glencora, if I were you, indeed I wouldn't," said the old lady, looking round towards Mr. Palliser. "My dear Mrs. Marsham, if you were me, indeed you would," and Lady Glencora also looked at her husband. "I think it a foolish thing to do," said Mr. Palliser, sternly. "If you forbid it, of course we won't go," said Lady Glencora. "Forbid it:--no; I shall not forbid it." "Allons donc," said Lady Glencora. She and Alice were already muffled in cloaks and thick shawls, and Alice now followed her out of the room. There was a door which opened from the billiard-room out on to the grand terrace, which ran in front of the house, and here they found Jeffrey Palliser already armed with his cigar. Alice, to tell the truth, would much have preferred to abandon the expedition, but she had felt that it would be cowardly in her to desert Lady Glencora. There had not arisen any very close intimacy between her and Mr. Palliser, but she entertained a certain feeling that Mr. Palliser trusted her, and liked her to be with his wife. She would have wished to justify this supposed confidence, and was almost sure that Mr. Palliser expected her to do so in this instance. She did say a word or two to her cousin up-stairs, urging that perhaps her husband would not like it. "Let him say so plainly," said Lady Glencora, "and I'll give it up instantly. But I'm not going to be lectured out of my purposes secondhand by Mr. Bott or old Mother Marsham. I understand all these people, my dear. And if you throw me over, Alice, I'll never forgive you," Lady Glencora added. After this Alice resolved that she would not throw her friend over. She was afraid to do so. But she was also becoming a little afraid of her friend,--afraid that she would be driven some day either to throw her over, or to say words to her that would be very unpalatable. "Now, Jeffrey," said Lady Glencora as they walked abreast along the broad terrace towards the ruins, "when we get under the old gateway you must let me and Alice go round the dormitory and the chapel alone. Then we'll come back by the cloisters, and we'll take another turn outside with you. The outside is the finest by this light,--only I want to show Alice something by ourselves." "You're not afraid, I know, and if Miss Vavasor is not--" "Miss Vavasor,--who, I think, would have allowed you to call her by her other name on such an occasion as this,--is never afraid." "Glencora, how dare you say so?" said Alice. "I really think we had better go back." She felt herself to be very angry with her cousin. She almost began to fear that she had mistaken her, and had thought better of her than she had deserved. What she had now said struck Alice as being vulgar,--as being premeditated vulgarity, and her annoyance was excessive. Of course Mr. Palliser would think that she was a consenting party to the proposition made to him. "Go back!" said Glencora. "No, indeed. We'll go on, and leave him here. Then he can call nobody anything. Don't be angry with me," she said, as soon as they were out of hearing. "The truth is this;--if you choose to have him for your husband, you may." "But if I do not choose." "Then there can be no harm done, and I will tell him so. But, Alice,--think of this. Whom will you meet that would suit you better? And you need not decide now. You need not say a word, but leave me to tell him, that if it is to be thought of at all, it cannot be thought of till he meets you in London. Trust me, you will be safe with me." "You shall tell him nothing of the kind," said Alice. "I believe you to be joking throughout, and I think the joke is a bad one." "No; there you wrong me. Indeed I am not joking. I know that in what I am saying I am telling you the simple truth. He has said enough to me to justify me in saying so. Alice, think of it all. It would reconcile me to much, and it would be something to be the mother of the future Duke of Omnium." "To me it would be nothing," said Alice; "less than nothing. I mean to say that the temptation is one so easily resisted that it acts in the other way. Don't say anything more about it, Glencora." "If you don't wish it, I will not." "No;--I do not wish it. I don't think I ever saw moonlight so bright as this. Look at the lines of that window against the light. They are clearer than you ever see them in the day." They were now standing just within the gateway of the old cruciform chapel, having entered the transept from a ruined passage which was supposed to have connected the church with the dormitory. The church was altogether roofless, but the entire walls were standing. The small clerestory windows of the nave were perfect, and the large windows of the two transepts and of the west end were nearly so. Of the opposite window, which had formed the back of the choir, very little remained. The top of it, with all its tracery, was gone, and three broken upright mullions of uneven heights alone remained. This was all that remained of the old window, but a transom or cross-bar of stone had been added to protect the carved stone-work of the sides, and save the form of the aperture from further ruin. That this transom was modern was to be seen from the magnificent height and light grace of the workmanship in the other windows, in which the long slender mullions rose from the lower stage or foundation of the whole up into the middle tracery of the arch without protection or support, and then lost themselves among the curves, not running up into the roof or soffit, and there holding on as though unable to stand alone. Such weakness as that had not as yet shown itself in English church architecture when Matching Priory was built. [Illustration: The Priory Ruins.] "Is it not beautiful!" said Glencora. "I do love it so! And there is a peculiar feeling of cold about the chill of the moon, different from any other cold. It makes you wrap yourself up tight, but it does not make your teeth chatter; and it seems to go into your senses rather than into your bones. But I suppose that's nonsense," she added, after a pause. "Not more so than what people are supposed to talk by moonlight." "That's unkind. I'd like what I say on such an occasion to be more poetical or else more nonsensical than what other people say under the same circumstances. And now I'll tell you why I always think of you when I come here by moonlight." "But I suppose you don't often come." "Yes, I do; that is to say, I did come very often when we had the full moon in August. The weather wasn't like this, and I used to run out through the open windows and nobody knew where I was gone. I made him come once, but he didn't seem to care about it. I told him that part of the refectory wall was falling; so he looked at that, and had a mason sent the next day. If anything is out of order he has it put to rights at once. There would have been no ruins if all the Pallisers had been like him." "So much the better for the world." "No;--I say no. Things may live too long. But now I'm going to tell you. Do you remember that night I brought you home from the play to Queen Anne Street?" "Indeed I do,--very well." Alice had occasion to remember it, for it had been in the carriage on that evening that she had positively refused to give any aid to her cousin in that matter relating to Burgo Fitzgerald. "And do you remember how the moon shone then?" "Yes, I think I do." "I know I do. As we came round the corner out of Cavendish Square he was standing there,--and a friend of yours was standing with him." "What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits.

Lady Midlothian went away on Wednesday morning, and Alice was to leave the next day. It was now December, and the weather was clear and frosty, but at night there was bright moonlight. On this night the moon would be full, and Lady Glencora had declared that she and Alice would go out amidst the ruins. Mr. Palliser had remarked that the night air would be very cold, and Mr. Bott had suggested all manner of evil consequences. Had Mr. Palliser alone objected, Lady Glencora might have given way, but Mr. Bott's word strengthened her purpose. "We shall wrap ourselves up warm," she said, "and nobody need be afraid. Jeffrey, we shall expect you to stand sentinel at the old gate, and guard us from the ghosts." Jeffrey Palliser promised to do so. The party at Matching Priory had by this time become very small. There were indeed no guests left, except Miss Vavasor, Mr. Bott, and an old lady who had been a great friend of Mr. Palliser's mother. It was past ten in the evening when Lady Glencora declared that the time had come to go out. She invited the two Miss Pallisers to join her, but they declined. Mr. Bott offered to accompany them. "No, indeed, Mr. Bott," said Lady Glencora. "You were one of those who preached a sermon against my dissipation, and I'm not going to allow you to join it." "My dear Lady Glencora, if I were you, indeed I wouldn't," said the old lady, looking round towards Mr. Palliser. "My dear Mrs. Marsham, if you were me, indeed you would," and Lady Glencora also looked at her husband. "I think it a foolish thing to do," said Mr. Palliser sternly. "If you forbid it, of course we won't go," said Lady Glencora. "Forbid it - no; I shall not forbid it." "Then let us go," said Lady Glencora. She and Alice were already muffled in cloaks and thick shawls. Alice followed her out onto the grand terrace which ran in front of the house. Here they found Jeffrey Palliser armed with a cigar. Alice, to tell the truth, would have preferred to abandon the expedition, but could not desert Lady Glencora. She had a feeling that Mr. Palliser trusted her, and liked her to be with his wife. She wished to justify this supposed trust, and had said a word or two to her cousin upstairs, urging that perhaps her husband would not like it. "Let him say so plainly," said Lady Glencora, "and I'll give it up instantly. But I'm not going to be lectured out of my purposes by Mr. Bott or old Mother Marsham. I understand all these people, my dear. And if you throw me over, Alice, I'll never forgive you." After this Alice resolved that she would not throw her friend over. But she was becoming a little afraid of her friend - afraid that she would be driven some day either to throw her over, or to say words to her that she would not like. "Now, Jeffrey," said Lady Glencora as they walked towards the ruins, "when we get under the old gateway you must let me and Alice go round the dormitory and the chapel alone. Then we'll come back by the cloisters, and we'll take another turn outside with you. I want to show Alice something by ourselves." "You're not afraid, I know. If Miss Vavasor is not-" "Miss Vavasor - who, I think, would allow you to call her Alice tonight - is never afraid." "Glencora, how dare you say so?" said Alice. "I really think we had better go back." She felt very angry with her cousin for inviting Mr. Palliser to be familiar with her. Of course he would assume it was with Alice's consent. "Go back!" said Glencora. "No, indeed. We'll go on, and leave him here. Then he can call nobody anything. Don't be angry with me," she said, as soon as they were out of hearing. "The truth is, if you choose to have him for your husband, you may." "But if I do not choose?" "Then no harm is done. But, Alice, who will you meet that would suit you better? And you need not decide now. Let me to tell him to wait until he meets you in London." "You shall tell him nothing of the kind," said Alice. "I believe you are joking, and the joke is a bad one." "No; indeed I am not joking. He has said enough to me to justify me in saying so. Alice, think of it. It would reconcile me to much, and it would be something to be the mother of the future Duke of Omnium." "To me it would be nothing," said Alice. "Don't say anything more about it, Glencora." "If you don't wish it, I will not." "I do not wish it. I don't think I ever saw moonlight so bright as this. Look at the lines of that window against the light. They are clearer than you ever see them in the day." They were now standing just within the gateway of the old chapel. The church was roofless, but the walls were standing. The small windows of the nave were perfect, and the large windows of the two transepts and of the west end were nearly so. Of the opposite window, which had formed the back of the choir, very little remained. The top of it, with all its tracery, was gone, and three broken upright mullions alone remained. "Is it not beautiful!" said Glencora. "I do love it so! And there is a peculiar feeling of cold about the chill of the moon, different from any other cold. It seems to go into your senses rather than into your bones. But I suppose that's nonsense." "No more than what people are supposed to talk by moonlight." "That's unkind. And now I'll tell you why I always think of you when I come here by moonlight." "But I suppose you don't often come." "I did come very often when we had the full moon in August. I used to run out through the open windows and nobody knew where I was gone. I made him come once, but he didn't seem to care about it. I told him that part of the refectory wall was falling; so he had a mason sent the next day. If anything is out of order he has it put to rights at once. There would have been no ruins if all the Pallisers had been like him." "So much the better." "I say no. Things may live too long. But now I'm going to tell you: do you remember that night I brought you home from the play to Queen Anne Street?" "Indeed I do." It had been on that evening that she had positively refused to give any aid to her cousin about Burgo Fitzgerald. "And do you remember how the moon shone? As we came round the corner from Cavendish Square he was standing there - and a friend of yours was standing with him." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been stony cruel that night, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spoke she shivered and wrapped her furs closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, not yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. We should have escaped that night if you had allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora, you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. Though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me. I do not believe it; but even if that should have been so, I regret it." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;- and now - what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." Alice took hold of her arm. "No; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love him. But Burgo I love with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I would be true to him. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him; so that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know that." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not. Maybe he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. Every hour of every day and every night, I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation, no friends to talk to. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me-" "Oh, Glencora!" "Do you begrudge me telling you the truth? You said that you would be my friend. And this is what I want to tell you. Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go." "That is easily said; but I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him as plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said - and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master - 'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be anyone whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I went? Could I threaten that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms? What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have loved a man ten times better than myself - even though he had ill-treated me - if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man-! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it now. And therefore she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the visit to Monkshade. All this she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." They walked all round the ruin, on a gravel-path; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak, was surprised to find that Glencora could go on in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were nothing to depress her spirits.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 27: The Priory Ruins

It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a calculation of the combined advantage that he had made his second offer to his cousin. As he would by no means have consented to proceed with the arrangement without the benefit of his cousin's money, so also did he feel unwilling to dispense with some expression of her love for him, which would be to him triumphant. Hitherto in their present interview there had certainly been no expression of her love. "Alice," he said, "your greeting to me is hardly all that I had hoped." "Is it not?" said she. "Indeed, George, I am sorry that you should be disappointed; but what can I say? You would not have me affect a lightness of spirit which I do not feel?" "If you wish," said he, very slowly,--"if you wish to retract your letter to me, you now have my leave to do so." What an opportunity was this of escape! But she had not the courage to accept it. What girl, under such circumstances, would have had such courage? How often are offers made to us which we would almost give our eyes to accept, but dare not accept because we fear the countenance of the offerer? "I do not wish to retract my letter," said she, speaking as slowly as he had spoken; "but I wish to be left awhile, that I may recover my strength of mind. Have you not heard doctors say, that muscles which have been strained, should be allowed rest, or they will never entirely renew their tension? It is so with me now; if I could be quiet for a few months, I think I could learn to face the future with a better courage." "And is that all you can say to me, Alice?" "What would you have me say?" "I would fain hear one word of love from you; is that unreasonable? I would wish to know from your own lips that you have satisfaction in the renewed prospect of our union; is that too ambitious? It might have been that I was over-bold in pressing my suit upon you again; but as you accepted it, have I not a right to expect that you should show me that you have been happy in accepting it?" But she had not been happy in accepting it. She was not happy now that she had accepted it. She could not show to him any sign of such joy as that which he desired to see. And now, at this moment, she feared with an excessive fear that there would come some demand for an outward demonstration of love, such as he in his position might have a right to make. She seemed to be aware that this might be prevented only by such demeanour on her part as that which she had practised, and she could not, therefore, be stirred to the expression of any word of affection. She listened to his appeal, and when it was finished she made no reply. If he chose to take her in dudgeon, he must do so. She would make for him any sacrifice that was possible to her, but this sacrifice was not possible. "And you have not a word to say to me?" he asked. She looked up at him, and saw that the cicature on his face was becoming ominous; his eyes were bent upon her with all their forbidding brilliance, and he was assuming that look of angry audacity which was so peculiar to him, and which had so often cowed those with whom he was brought in contact. "No other word, at present, George; I have told you that I am not at ease. Why do you press me now?" He had her letter to him in the breast-pocket of his coat, and his hand was on it, that he might fling it back to her, and tell her that he would not hold her to be his promised wife under such circumstances as these. The anger which would have induced him to do so was the better part of his nature. Three or four years since, this better part would have prevailed, and he would have given way to his rage. But now, as his fingers played upon the paper, he remembered that her money was absolutely essential to him,--that some of it was needed by him almost instantly,--that on this very morning he was bound to go where money would be demanded from him, and that his hopes with regard to Chelsea could not be maintained unless he was able to make some substantial promise of providing funds. His sister Kate's fortune was just two thousand pounds. That, and no more, was now the capital at his command, if he should abandon this other source of aid. Even that must go, if all other sources should fail him; but he would fain have that untouched, if it were possible. Oh, that that old man in Westmoreland would die and be gathered to his fathers, now that he was full of years and ripe for the sickle! But there was no sign of death about the old man. So his fingers released their hold on the letter, and he stood looking at her in his anger. "You wish me then to go from you?" he said. "Do not be angry with me, George!" "Angry! I have no right to be angry. But, by heaven, I am wrong there. I have the right, and I am angry. I think you owed it me to give me some warmer welcome. Is it to be thus with us always for the next accursed year?" "Oh, George!" "To me it will be accursed. But is it to be thus between us always? Alice, I have loved you above all women. I may say that I have never loved any woman but you; and yet I am sometimes driven to doubt whether you have a heart in you capable of love. After all that has passed, all your old protestations, all my repentance, and your proffer of forgiveness, you should have received me with open arms. I suppose I may go now, and feel that I have been kicked out of your house like a dog." "If you speak to me like that, and look at me like that, how can I answer you?" "I want no answer. I wanted you to put your hand in mine, to kiss me, and to tell me that you are once more my own. Alice, think better of it; kiss me, and let me feel my arm once more round your waist." She shuddered as she sat, still silent, on her seat, and he saw that she shuddered. With all his desire for her money,--his instant need of it,--this was too much for him; and he turned upon his heel, and left the room without another word. She heard his quick step as he hurried down the stairs, but she did not rise to arrest him. She heard the door slam as he left the house, but still she did not move from her seat. Her immediate desire had been that he should go,--and now he was gone. There was in that a relief which almost comforted her. And this was the man from whom, within the last few days, she had accepted an offer of marriage. George, when he left the house, walked hurriedly into Cavendish Square, and down along the east side, till he made his way out along Princes Street, into the Circus in Oxford Street. Close to him there, in Great Marlborough Street, was the house of his parliamentary attorney, Mr. Scruby, on whom he was bound to call on that morning. As he had walked away from Queen Anne Street, he had thought of nothing but that too visible shudder which his cousin Alice had been unable to repress. He had been feeding on his anger, and indulging it, telling himself at one moment that he would let her and her money go from him whither they list,--and making inward threats in the next that the time should come in which he would punish her for this ill-usage. But there was the necessity of resolving what he would say to Mr. Scruby. To Mr. Scruby was still due some trifle on the cost of the last election; but even if this were paid, Mr. Scruby would make no heavy advance towards the expense of the next election. Whoever might come out at the end of such affairs without a satisfactory settlement of his little bill, as had for a while been the case with Mr. Grimes, from the "Handsome Man,"--and as, indeed, still was the case with him, as that note of hand at three months' date was not yet paid,--Mr. Scruby seldom allowed himself to suffer. It was true that the election would not take place till the summer; but there were preliminary expenses which needed ready money. Metropolitan voters, as Mr. Scruby often declared, required to be kept in good humour,--so that Mr. Scruby wanted the present payment of some five hundred pounds, and a well-grounded assurance that he would be put in full funds by the beginning of next June. Even Mr. Scruby might not be true as perfect steel, if he thought that his candidate at the last moment would not come forth properly prepared. Other candidates, with money in their pockets, might find their way into Mr. Scruby's offices. As George Vavasor crossed Regent Street, he gulped down his anger, and applied his mind to business. Should he prepare himself to give orders that Kate's little property should be sold out, or would he resolve to use his cousin's money? That his cousin's money would still be at his disposal, in spite of the stormy mood in which he had retreated from her presence, he felt sure; but the asking for it on his part would be unpleasant. That duty he must entrust to Kate. But as he reached Mr. Scruby's door, he had decided that for such purposes as those now in hand, it was preferable that he should use his wife's fortune. It was thus that in his own mind he worded the phrase, and made for himself an excuse. Yes;--he would use his wife's fortune, and explain to Mr. Scruby that he would be justified in doing so by the fact that his own heritage would be settled on her at her marriage. I do not suppose that he altogether liked it. He was not, at any rate as yet, an altogether heartless swindler. He could not take his cousin's money without meaning,--without thinking that he meant, to repay her in full all that he took. Her behaviour to him this very morning had no doubt made the affair more difficult to his mind, and more unpleasant than it would have been had she smiled on him; but even as it was, he managed to assure himself that he was doing her no wrong, and with this self-assurance he entered Mr. Scruby's office. The clerks in the outer office were very civil to him, and undertook to promise him that he should not be kept waiting an instant. There were four gentlemen in the little parlour, they said, waiting to see Mr. Scruby, but there they should remain till Mr. Vavasor's interview was over. One gentleman, as it seemed, was even turned out to make way for him; for as George was ushered into the lawyer's room, a little man, looking very meek, was hurried away from it. "You can wait, Smithers," said Mr. Scruby, speaking from within. "I shan't be very long." Vavasor apologized to his agent for the injury he was doing Smithers; but Mr. Scruby explained that he was only a poor devil of a printer, looking for payment of his little account. He had printed and posted 30,000 placards for one of the late Marylebone candidates, and found some difficulty in getting his money. "You see, when they're in a small way of business, it ruins them," said Scruby. "Now that poor devil,--he hasn't had a shilling of his money yet, and the greater part has been paid out of his pocket to the posters. It is hard." It comforted Vavasor when he thus heard that there were others who were more backward in their payments, even than himself, and made him reflect that a longer credit than had yet been achieved by him, might perhaps be within his reach. "It is astonishing how much a man may get done for him," said he, "without paying anything for years." "Yes; that's true. So he may, if he knows how to go about it. But when he does pay, Mr. Vavasor, he does it through the nose;--cent. per cent., and worse, for all his former shortcomings." "How many there are who never pay at all," said George. "Yes, Mr. Vavasor;--that's true, too. But see what a life they lead. It isn't a pleasant thing to be afraid of coming into your agent's office; not what you would like, Mr. Vavasor;--not if I know you." "I never was afraid of meeting anyone yet," said Vavasor; "but I don't know what I may come to." "Nor never will, I'll go bail. But, Lord love you, I could tell you such tales! I've had Members of Parliament, past, present, and future, almost down on their knees to me in this little room. It's about a month or six weeks before the elections come on when they're at their worst. There is so much you see, Mr. Vavasor, for which a gentleman must pay ready money. It isn't like a business in which a lawyer is supposed to find the capital. If I had money enough to pay out of my own pocket all the cost of all the metropolitan gentlemen for whom I act, why, I could live on the interest without any trouble, and go into Parliament myself like a man." George Vavasor perfectly understood that Mr. Scruby was explaining to him, with what best attempt at delicacy he could make, that funds for the expense of the Chelsea election were not to be forthcoming from the Great Marlborough Street establishment. "I suppose so," said he. "But you do do it sometimes." "Never, Mr. Vavasor," said Mr. Scruby, very solemnly. "As a rule, never. I may advance the money, on interest, of course, when I receive a guarantee from the candidate's father, or from six or seven among the committee, who must all be very substantial,--very substantial indeed. But in a general way I don't do it. It isn't my place." "I thought you did;--but at any rate I don't want you to do it for me." "I'm quite sure you don't," said Mr. Scruby, with a brighter tone of voice than that he had just been using. "I never thought you did, Mr. Vavasor. Lord bless you, Mr. Vavasor, I know the difference between gentlemen as soon as I see them." Then they went to business, and Vavasor became aware that it would be thought convenient that he should lodge with Mr. Scruby, to his own account, a sum not less than six hundred pounds within the next week, and it would be also necessary that he should provide for taking up that bill, amounting to ninety-two pounds, which he had given to the landlord of the "Handsome Man." In short, it would be well that he should borrow a thousand pounds from Alice, and as he did not wish that the family attorney of the Vavasors should be employed to raise it, he communicated to Mr. Scruby as much of his plans as was necessary,--feeling more hesitation in doing it than might have been expected from him. When he had done so, he was very intent on explaining also that the money taken from his cousin, and future bride, would be repaid to her out of the property in Westmoreland, which was,--did he say settled on himself? I am afraid he did. "Yes, yes;--a family arrangement," said Mr. Scruby, as he congratulated him on his proposed marriage. Mr. Scruby did not care a straw from what source the necessary funds might be drawn.

It had not occurred to Alice that he would come to her so soon. She had not reflected that Kate would inform him of the date of her return. When George's step was heard outside, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? Would he try to embrace her? But he was there in the room with her before she could think. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that his appearance and dress were brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than usual. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should be without any sign of exaltation. To come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his hand out, "Dearest Alice!" She muttered some inaudible word, gave him her hand, and immediately tried to draw it back; but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. She could not escape from him, and was trembling with fear. She had promised to marry him, and now she was dismayed as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving him. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, and she knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly; but she was unable to act with ordinary ease. "Alice, will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! She must say some word which sounded kind. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated to a sofa where she sat, leaving him still standing. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans which you must share with me. But at the moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her. He should already have seen how it was. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, he had thrown aside her letter of acceptance as though the matter was indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that she most dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied. "I have myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that she blamed herself for separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. Hair will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;" and he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead to show the greying hair behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband" was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it. "I spoke of my own heart," said she. "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so. Give me a few months in which I may learn - not to forget them, for that will be impossible, but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look and voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. But, nevertheless, he desired more; he wanted the triumph of being preferred to John Grey. He would not have offered for Alice without her money; but he also wished for some expression of her love for him, to make him triumphant. "Alice," he said, "your greeting to me is hardly all that I had hoped." "Is it not?" said she. "Indeed, George, I am sorry that you should be disappointed; but what can I say? You would not have me pretend a lightness of spirit which I do not feel?" "If you wish to retract your letter," said he, very slowly, "you now have my leave to do so." What an opportunity was this of escape! But she had not the courage to accept it. What girl, under such circumstances, would have had such courage? "I do not wish to retract my letter," said she; "but I wish to be left awhile, to recover my strength of mind. If I could be quiet for a few months, I think I could learn to face the future with better courage." "And is that all you can say to me, Alice?" "What would you have me say?" "I would wish to hear one word of love from you; is that unreasonable? Maybe I was over-bold in pressing my suit upon you again; but as you accepted it, have I not a right to expect that you should show me you are happy in accepting it?" But she was not happy in accepting it. She could not show him any sign of joy. And now she feared he would demand some demonstration of love; and she could not think of anything to do other than to keep aloof. So she made no reply. She would make for him any sacrifice that was possible to her, but this sacrifice was not possible. "And you have not a word to say to me?" he asked. She looked up at him, and saw that the scar on his face was becoming ominous; his eyes were bent upon her with all their forbidding, angry brilliance. "No other word, at present, George; I have told you that I am not at ease. Why do you press me now?" He had her letter in the breast-pocket of his coat, and his hand was on it: he almost flung it back to her, telling her that he would not hold her to be his promised wife under these circumstances. The anger which would have induced him to do so was the better part of his nature. Three or four years ago, this better part would have prevailed, and he would have given way to his rage. But now he remembered that her money was absolutely essential to him - that some of it was needed almost instantly - and that his hopes of Chelsea could not be maintained unless he was able to promise funds. His sister Kate's fortune was just two thousand pounds: and that was all the money he had at his command, if he did not use Alice's. Oh, if only that that old man in Westmorland would die! But there was no sign of that. So his fingers released their hold on the letter, and he stood looking at her in his anger. "You wish me to leave?" he said. "Do not be angry with me, George!" "Angry! I have no right to be angry. But, by heaven, I am wrong there. I have the right, and I am angry. I think you owed me some warmer welcome. Is it to be thus with us always for the next accursed year?" "Oh, George!" "To me it will be accursed. But is it to be thus between us always? Alice, I have loved you above all women. I may say that I have never loved any woman but you; yet I am sometimes driven to doubt whether you have a heart capable of love. After all that has passed, you should have received me with open arms. I suppose I may go now, and feel that I have been kicked out of your house like a dog." "If you speak to me like that, how can I answer you?" "I want no answer. I wanted you to put your hand in mine, to kiss me, and to tell me that you are once more my own. Alice; kiss me, and let me feel my arm once more round your waist." She shuddered, and he saw that she shuddered. This was too much for him; he turned and left the room without another word. She did not rise to stop him. She heard his quick steps, and the door slam as he left the house, but still she did not move from her seat. He was gone. There was in that a relief which almost comforted her. And this was the man from whom, within the last few days, she had accepted an offer of marriage. George, when he left the house, walked hurriedly into Cavendish Square, and down to Piccadilly. Close by was the house of his parliamentary attorney, Mr. Scruby, on whom he had to call on that morning. As he walked away from Queen Anne Street, he thought of nothing but that visible shudder which Alice had been unable to repress. He indulged his anger, telling himself at one moment that he would let her and her money go - and the next moment making inward threats to punish her. But he had to think of what he would say to Mr. Scruby. He still owed Mr. Scruby some trifle of the cost of the last election; but even if this were paid, Mr. Scruby would not advance much towards the expense of the next. He wanted the payment of some five hundred pounds, and an assurance that he would be repaid by the beginning of next June. As George Vavasor crossed Regent Street, he gulped down his anger, and applied his mind to business. Should he prepare himself to give orders that Kate's little property should be sold, or would he use Alice's money? Asking for it would be unpleasant. That duty he must entrust to Kate. But as he reached Mr. Scruby's door, he had decided that for these purposes, it was preferable that he should use his wife's fortune. It was thus that in his own mind he worded it. He would use his wife's fortune, and explain to Mr. Scruby that his own heritage would be settled on her at her marriage. I do not suppose that he altogether liked it. He was not yet a completely heartless swindler. He could not take his cousin's money without thinking that he meant to repay her in full. He managed to assure himself that he was doing her no wrong, and with this self-assurance he entered Mr. Scruby's office. The clerks in the outer office were very civil, and promised that he should not be kept waiting an instant. There were four gentlemen, they said, wanting to see Mr. Scruby, but they should wait till Mr. Vavasor's interview was over. One gentleman, it seemed, was even turned out to make way for him; for as George was ushered into the lawyer's room, a meek little man was hurried away from it. "You can wait, Smithers," said Mr. Scruby to him. "I shan't be long." Then he explained to Vavasor that Smithers was a poor devil of a printer, looking for payment of his little account. He had printed 30,000 placards for one of the Marylebone candidates, and found some difficulty in getting his money. "You see, when they're in a small way of business, it ruins them. That poor devil hasn't had a shilling of his money yet." It comforted Vavasor to hear that there were others who were even more backward in their payments than himself, and it made him reflect that a longer credit might be within his reach. "It is astonishing how much a man may get done for him," said he, "without paying anything for years." "Yes, if he knows how to go about it. But when he does pay, Mr. Vavasor, he pays through the nose." "How many there are who never pay at all," said George. "True, Mr. Vavasor. But see what a life they lead. Lord love you, I could tell you such tales! I've had Members of Parliament almost down on their knees to me in this little room. It's about a month before the elections when they're at their worst. There is so much for which a gentleman must pay ready money." George Vavasor perfectly understood that Mr. Scruby was explaining to him that funds for the Chelsea election were not to be forthcoming. Then they went to business, and Vavasor became aware that he needed to lodge with Mr. Scruby a sum of six hundred pounds within the next week, and that he also needed to provide for that bill for ninety-two pounds which he had given to the landlord of the "Handsome Man." In short, it would be well that he should borrow a thousand pounds from Alice. As he did not wish that the family attorney of the Vavasors should be asked to raise it, he told Mr. Scruby as much of his plans as was necessary, feeling more hesitation than might have been expected from him. "Yes, yes; a family arrangement," said Mr. Scruby, as he congratulated him on his proposed marriage. Mr. Scruby did not care a straw where the money came from.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 35: Passion versus Prudence

Kate Vavasor, in writing to her cousin Alice, felt some little difficulty in excusing herself for remaining in Norfolk with Mrs. Greenow. She had laughed at Mrs. Greenow before she went to Yarmouth, and had laughed at herself for going there. And in all her letters since, she had spoken of her aunt as a silly, vain, worldly woman, weeping crocodile tears, for an old husband whose death had released her from the tedium of his company, and spreading lures to catch new lovers. But yet she agreed to stay with her aunt, and remain with her in lodgings at Norwich for a month. But Mrs. Greenow had about her something more than Kate had acknowledged when she first attempted to read her aunt's character. She was clever, and in her own way persuasive. She was very generous, and possessed a certain power of making herself pleasant to those around her. In asking Kate to stay with her she had so asked as to make it appear that Kate was to confer the favour. She had told her niece that she was all alone in the world. "I have money," she had said, with more appearance of true feeling than Kate had observed before. "I have money, but I have nothing else in the world. I have no home. Why should I not remain here in Norfolk, where I know a few people? If you'll say that you'll go anywhere else with me, I'll go to any place you'll name." Kate had believed this to be hardly true. She had felt sure that her aunt wished to remain in the neighbourhood of her seaside admirers; but, nevertheless, she had yielded, and at the end of October the two ladies, with Jeannette, settled themselves in comfortable lodgings within the precincts of the Close at Norwich. Mr. Greenow at this time had been dead very nearly six months, but his widow made some mistakes in her dates and appeared to think that the interval had been longer. On the day of their arrival at Norwich it was evident that this error had confirmed itself in her mind. "Only think," she said, as she unpacked a little miniature of the departed one, and sat with it for a moment in her hands, as she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, "only think, that it is barely nine months since he was with me?" "Six, you mean, aunt," said Kate, unadvisedly. "Only nine months" repeated Mrs. Greenow, as though she had not heard her niece. "Only nine months!" After that Kate attempted to correct no more such errors. "It happened in May, Miss," Jeannette said afterwards to Miss Vavasor, "and that, as we reckons, it will be just a twelvemonth come Christmas." But Kate paid no attention to this. And Jeannette was very ungrateful, and certainly should have indulged herself in no such sarcasms. When Mrs. Greenow made a slight change in her mourning, which she did on her arrival at Norwich, using a little lace among her crapes, Jeannette reaped a rich harvest in gifts of clothes. Mrs. Greenow knew well enough that she expected more from a servant than mere service;--that she wanted loyalty, discretion, and perhaps sometimes a little secrecy;--and as she paid for these things, she should have had them. Kate undertook to stay a month with her aunt at Norwich, and Mrs. Greenow undertook that Mr. Cheesacre should declare himself as Kate's lover, before the expiration of the month. It was in vain that Kate protested that she wanted no such lover, and that she would certainly reject him if he came. "That's all very well, my dear," Aunt Greenow would say. "A girl must settle herself some day, you know;--and you'd have it all your own way at Oileymead." But the offer certainly showed much generosity on the part of Aunt Greenow, inasmuch as Mr. Cheesacre's attentions were apparently paid to herself rather than to her niece. Mr. Cheesacre was very attentive. He had taken the lodgings in the Close, and had sent over fowls and cream from Oileymead, and had called on the morning after their arrival; but in all his attentions he distinguished the aunt more particularly than the niece. "I am all for Mr. Cheesacre, Miss," said Jeannette once. "The Captain is perhaps the nicerer-looking gentleman, and he ain't so podgy like; but what's good looks if a gentleman hasn't got nothing? I can't abide anything that's poor; neither can't Missus." From which it was evident that Jeannette gave Miss Vavasor no credit in having Mr. Cheesacre in her train. Captain Bellfield was also at Norwich, having obtained some quasi-military employment there in the matter of drilling volunteers. Certain capacities in that line it may be supposed that he possessed, and, as his friend Cheesacre said of him, he was going to earn an honest penny once in his life. The Captain and Mr. Cheesacre had made up any little differences that had existed between them at Yarmouth, and were close allies again when they left that place. Some little compact on matters of business must have been arranged between them,--for the Captain was in funds again. He was in funds again through the liberality of his friend,--and no payment of former loans had been made, nor had there been any speech of such. Mr. Cheesacre had drawn his purse-strings liberally, and had declared that if all went well the hospitality of Oileymead should not be wanting during the winter. Captain Bellfield had nodded his head and declared that all should go well. "You won't see much of the Captain, I suppose," said Mr. Cheesacre to Mrs. Greenow on the morning of the day after her arrival at Norwich. He had come across the whole way from Oileymead to ask her if she found herself comfortable,--and perhaps with an eye to the Norwich markets at the same time. He now wore a pair of black riding boots over his trousers, and a round topped hat, and looked much more at home than he had done by the seaside. "Not much, I dare say," said the widow. "He tells me that he must be on duty ten or twelve hours a day. Poor fellow!" "It's a deuced good thing for him, and he ought to be very much obliged to me for putting him in the way of getting it. But he told me to tell you that if he didn't call, you were not to be angry with him." "Oh, no;--I shall remember, of course." "You see, if he don't work now he must come to grief. He hasn't got a shilling that he can call his own." "Hasn't he really?" "Not a shilling, Mrs. Greenow;--and then he's awfully in debt. He isn't a bad fellow, you know, only there's no trusting him for anything." Then after a few further inquiries that were almost tender, and a promise of further supplies from the dairy, Mr. Cheesacre took his leave, almost forgetting to ask after Miss Vavasor. But as he left the house he had a word to say to Jeannette. "He hasn't been here, has he, Jenny?" "We haven't seen a sight of him yet, sir,--and I have thought it a little odd." Then Mr. Cheesacre gave the girl half-a-crown, and went his way. Jeannette, I think, must have forgotten that the Captain had looked in after leaving his military duties on the preceding evening. The Captain's ten or twelve hours of daily work was performed, no doubt, at irregular intervals,--some days late and some days early,--for he might be seen about Norwich almost at all times, during the early part of that November;--and he might be very often seen going into the Close. In Norwich there are two weekly market-days, but on those days the Captain was no doubt kept more entirely to his military employment, for at such times he never was seen near the Close. Now Mr. Cheesacre's visits to the town were generally made on market-days, and so it happened that they did not meet. On such occasions Mr. Cheesacre always was driven to Mrs. Greenow's door in a cab,--for he would come into town by railway,--and he would deposit a basket bearing the rich produce of his dairy. It was in vain that Mrs. Greenow protested against these gifts,--for she did protest and declared that if they were continued, they would be sent back. They were, however, continued, and Mrs. Greenow was at her wits' end about them. Cheesacre would not come up with them; but leaving them, would go about his business, and would return to see the ladies. On such occasions he would be very particular in getting his basket from Jeannette. As he did so he would generally ask some question about the Captain, and Jeannette would give him answers confidentially,--so that there was a strong friendship between these two. "What am I to do about it?" said Mrs. Greenow, as Kate came into the sitting-room one morning, and saw on the table a small hamper lined with a clean cloth. "It's as much as Jeannette has been able to carry." "So it is, ma'am,--quite; and I'm strong in the arm, too, ma'am." "What am I to do, Kate? He is such a good creature." "And he do admire you both so much," said Jeannette. "Of course I don't want to offend him for many reasons," said the aunt, looking knowingly at her niece. "I don't know anything about your reasons, aunt, but if I were you, I should leave the basket just as it is till he comes in the afternoon." "Would you mind seeing him yourself, Kate, and explaining to him that it won't do to get on in this way. Perhaps you wouldn't mind telling him that if he'll promise not to bring any more, you won't object to take this one." "Indeed, aunt, I can't do that. They're not brought to me." "Oh, Kate!" "Nonsense, aunt;--I won't have you say so;--before Jeannette, too." "I think it's for both, ma'am; I do indeed. And there certainly ain't any cream to be bought like it in Norwich:--nor yet eggs." "I wonder what there is in the basket." And the widow lifted up the corner of the cloth. "I declare if there isn't a turkey poult already." "My!" said Jeannette. "A turkey poult! Why, that's worth ten and sixpence in the market if it's worth a penny." "It's out of the question that I should take upon myself to say anything to him about it," said Kate. "Upon my word I don't see why you shouldn't, as well as I," said Mrs. Greenow. "I'll tell you what, ma'am," said Jeannette: "let me just ask him who they're for;--he'll tell me anything." "Don't do anything of the kind, Jeannette," said Kate. "Of course, aunt, they're brought for you. There's no doubt about that. A gentleman doesn't bring cream and turkeys to-- I've never heard of such a thing!" "I don't see why a gentleman shouldn't bring cream and turkeys to you just as well as to me. Indeed, he told me once as much himself." "Then, if they're for me, I'll leave them down outside the front door, and he may find his provisions there." And Kate proceeded to lift the basket off the table. "Leave it alone, Kate," said Mrs. Greenow, with a voice that was rather solemn; and which had, too, something of sadness in its tone. "Leave it alone. I'll see Mr. Cheesacre myself." "And I do hope you won't mention my name. It's the most absurd thing in the world. The man never spoke two dozen words to me in his life." "He speaks to me, though," said Mrs. Greenow. "I dare say he does," said Kate. "And about you, too, my dear." "He doesn't come here with those big flowers in his button-hole for nothing," said Jeannette,--"not if I knows what a gentleman means." "Of course he doesn't," said Mrs. Greenow. "If you don't object, aunt," said Kate, "I will write to grandpapa and tell him that I will return home at once." "What!--because of Mr. Cheesacre?" said Mrs. Greenow. "I don't think you'll be so silly as that, my dear." On the present occasion Mrs. Greenow undertook that she would see the generous gentleman, and endeavour to stop the supplies from his farmyard. It was well understood that he would call about four o'clock, when his business in the town would be over; and that he would bring with him a little boy, who would carry away the basket. At that hour Kate of course was absent, and the widow received Mr. Cheesacre alone. The basket and cloth were there, in the sitting-room, and on the table were laid out the rich things which it had contained;--the turkey poult first, on a dish provided in the lodging-house, then a dozen fresh eggs in a soup plate, then the cream in a little tin can, which, for the last fortnight, had passed regularly between Oileymead and the house in the Close, and as to which Mr. Cheesacre was very pointed in his inquiries with Jeannette. Then behind the cream there were two or three heads of broccoli, and a stick of celery as thick as a man's wrist. Altogether the tribute was a very comfortable assistance to the housekeeping of a lady living in a small way in lodgings. Mr. Cheesacre, when he saw the array on the long sofa-table, knew that he was to prepare himself for some resistance; but that resistance would give him, he thought, an opportunity of saying a few words that he was desirous of speaking, and he did not altogether regret it. "I just called in," he said, "to see how you were." "We are not likely to starve," said Mrs. Greenow, pointing to the delicacies from Oileymead. "Just a few trifles that my old woman asked me to bring in," said Cheesacre. "She insisted on putting them up." "But your old woman is by far too magnificent," said Mrs. Greenow. "She really frightens Kate and me out of our wits." Mr. Cheesacre had no wish that Miss Vavasor's name should be brought into play upon the occasion. "Dear Mrs. Greenow," said he, "there is no cause for you to be alarmed, I can assure you. Mere trifles;--light as air, you know. I don't think anything of such things as these." "But I and Kate think a great deal of them,--a very great deal, I can assure you. Do you know, we had a long debate this morning whether or no we would return them to Oileymead?" "Return them, Mrs. Greenow!" "Yes, indeed: what are women, situated as we are, to do under such circumstances? When gentlemen will be too liberal, their liberality must be repressed." "And have I been too liberal, Mrs. Greenow? What is a young turkey and a stick of celery when a man is willing to give everything that he has in the world?" "You've got a great deal more in the world, Mr. Cheesacre, than you'd like to part with. But we won't talk of that, now." "When shall we talk of it?" "If you really have anything to say, you had by far better speak to Kate herself." "Mrs. Greenow, you mistake me. Indeed, you mistake me." Just at this moment, as he was drawing close to the widow, she heard, or fancied that she heard, Jeannette's step, and, going to the sitting-room door, called to her maid. Jeannette did not hear her, but the bell was rung, and then Jeannette came. "You may take these things down, Jeannette," she said. "Mr. Cheesacre has promised that no more shall come." "But I haven't promised," said Mr. Cheesacre. "You will oblige me and Kate, I know;--and, Jeannette, tell Miss Vavasor that I am ready to walk with her." Then Mr. Cheesacre knew that he could not say those few words on that occasion; and as the hour of his train was near, he took his departure, and went out of the Close, followed by the little boy, carrying the basket, the cloth, and the tin can.

Kate Vavasor, in writing to Alice, felt some difficulty in excusing herself for remaining in Norfolk with Mrs. Greenow. In all her letters, she had spoken of her aunt as a silly, vain, worldly woman, weeping crocodile tears for an old husband, and spreading lures to catch new lovers. Yet she agreed to stay with her aunt in Norwich for another month. For Mrs. Greenow had more about her than Kate had acknowledged. She was clever and persuasive, and very generous. In asking Kate to stay, she had made it appear that Kate was to confer the favour. "I have money," she had said, with more appearance of true feeling than Kate had seen before, "but I have nothing else in the world. I have no home. Why should I not remain here in Norfolk, where I know a few people? If you'll say that you'll go anywhere else with me, I'll go to any place you'll name." Kate had yielded, and at the end of October the two ladies, with Jeannette, settled in comfortable lodgings within the precincts of the Cathedral Close at Norwich. Mr. Greenow had now been dead nearly six months, but his widow appeared to think that the interval had been longer. On the day of their arrival at Norwich, she unpacked a little miniature of the departed one, and sat with it for a moment in her hands, saying, as she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, "Only think, it is barely nine months since he was with me!" "Six, you mean, aunt," said Kate, ill-advisedly. "Only nine months," repeated Mrs. Greenow, as though she had not heard her niece. After that Kate attempted to correct no more such errors. "It happened in May, Miss," Jeannette said afterwards to Miss Vavasor, "and that, as we reckons, it will be just a twelvemonth come Christmas." But Jeannette was very ungrateful to indulge in such sarcasms. When Mrs. Greenow made a slight change in her mourning garments, adding a little lace to her crapes, Jeannette reaped a rich harvest in gifts of clothes. Kate promised to stay a month with her aunt at Norwich; and Mrs. Greenow promised that Mr. Cheesacre should declare himself as Kate's lover before the end of that month. It was in vain that Kate protested that she wanted no such lover. "That's all very well, my dear," Aunt Greenow would say. "A girl must settle herself some day, you know; and you'd have it all your own way at Oileymead." But the offer certainly showed much generosity on Aunt Greenow's part, considering that Mr. Cheesacre's attentions were paid to herself rather than to her niece. Mr. Cheesacre was very attentive. He had found their lodgings in the Close for them, and had sent over fowls and cream from Oileymead, and called on then the morning after their arrival; but in all his attentions he distinguished the aunt more than the niece. "I am all for Mr. Cheesacre, Miss," said Jeannette. "The Captain is nicer-looking, and he ain't so podgy like; but what's good looks if a gentleman hasn't got nothing?" Captain Bellfield was also at Norwich, having obtained some quasi-military employment in drilling volunteers. As his friend Cheesacre said, he was going to earn an honest penny for once in his life. The Captain and Mr. Cheesacre had made up any differences that had existed between them at Yarmouth, and were close allies again. Some little business arrangement must have been made, for the Captain was in funds, thanks to his friend. Mr. Cheesacre had been generous, and had declared that if all went well the hospitality of Oileymead should not be lacking during the winter. Captain Bellfield had nodded and declared that all should go well. "You won't see much of the Captain, I suppose," said Mr. Cheesacre to Mrs. Greenow on the morning after her arrival at Norwich. He had come the whole way from Oileymead to see her. He wore a pair of black riding boots, and a round topped hat, and looked much more at home than he had done by the seaside. "Not much, I dare say," said the widow. "He tells me that he must be on duty ten or twelve hours a day. Poor fellow!" "It's a deuced good thing for him, and he ought to be very much obliged to me for putting him in the way of getting it. But he told me to tell you that if he didn't call, you were not to be angry with him." "Oh, no; of course not." "You see, if he don't work now he must come to grief. He hasn't got a shilling to call his own, Mrs. Greenow; and he's awfully in debt. He isn't a bad fellow, you know, only there's no trusting him for anything." Then after a few further tender inquiries, Mr. Cheesacre took his leave, almost forgetting to ask after Miss Vavasor. But as he left the house he had a word to say to Jeannette. "He hasn't been here, has he, Jenny?" "We haven't seen him yet, sir, and I have thought it a little odd." Then Mr. Cheesacre gave the girl half-a-crown, and went his way. Jeannette, I think, must have forgotten that the Captain had looked in on the previous evening. The Captain's ten or twelve hours of daily work must have been performed at irregular times, for he might be seen about Norwich at all times of day, very often going to the Close. On Norwich's two weekly market-days, however, the Captain kept to his military employment. Mr. Cheesacre's visits to the town were generally made on market-days, and so they did not meet. On such occasions Mr. Cheesacre came by train and was driven to Mrs. Greenow's door in a cab, with a basket bearing the rich produce of his dairy. In vain Mrs. Greenow protested against these gifts, saying she would send them back; but they continued, and she was at her wits' end about them. Cheesacre would come to get his basket from Jeannette, and would ask about the Captain, and Jeannette would give him confidential answers. "What am I to do about it?" said Mrs. Greenow, as Kate came into the sitting-room one morning, and saw a small hamper on the table. "He is such a good creature. I don't want to offend him." "If I were you, aunt, I should leave the basket just as it is till he comes in the afternoon." "Would you mind seeing him yourself, Kate, and explaining to him that he can't carry on in this way? Perhaps you could tell him that if he'll promise not to bring any more, you won't object to taking this one." "Indeed, aunt, I can't do that. They're not brought to me." "Oh, Kate!" "I won't have you say so, aunt; in front of Jeannette, too." "I think it's for both of you, ma'am," said Jeanette. "I wonder what is in it." And the widow lifted up the corner of the cloth. "I declare if there isn't a turkey!" "My!" said Jeannette. "Why, that's worth ten and sixpence." "It's out of the question that I should say anything to him about it," said Kate. "I don't see why you shouldn't," said Mrs. Greenow. "I'll tell you what, ma'am," said Jeannette: "let me just ask him who they're for." "Don't do anything of the kind, Jeannette," said Kate. "Of course they're brought for you, aunt." "I don't see why a gentleman shouldn't bring cream and turkeys to you just as well as to me." "Then, if they're for me, I'll leave them outside the front door, for him to find." And Kate proceeded to lift the basket off the table. "Leave it alone, Kate," said Mrs. Greenow, with a voice that was rather solemn and sad. "I'll see Mr. Cheesacre myself." "I do hope you won't mention my name. It's the most absurd thing in the world. The man never spoke two dozen words to me in his life." "He speaks to me, though," said Mrs. Greenow. "And about you, my dear." However, Mrs. Greenow promised to see the gentleman, and try to stop the supplies from his farmyard. He would generally call about four o'clock, after his business in the town, bringing a little boy to carry away the basket. At that hour Kate was absent, and the widow received Mr. Cheesacre alone. The basket was in the sitting-room, and on the table were laid out the rich things which it had contained; the turkey, a dozen fresh eggs, cream in a little tin can, two or three heads of broccoli, and a stick of celery as thick as a man's wrist. Altogether the tribute was a very comfortable assistance to a lady living in a small way in lodgings. Mr. Cheesacre, when he saw the array on the table, prepared himself for some resistance; but he thought it would give him an opportunity of saying a few words. "I just called in," he said, "to see how you were." "We are not likely to starve," said Mrs. Greenow, pointing to the delicacies. "Just a few trifles my old housekeeper asked me to bring." "But she is far too magnificent," said Mrs. Greenow. "She really frightens Kate and me out of our wits." Mr. Cheesacre had no wish to bring Miss Vavasor's name into the conversation. "Dear Mrs. Greenow," said he, "there is no cause for you to be alarmed. Mere trifles, you know. I don't think anything of them." "But Kate and I think a great deal of them. Do you know, we had a long debate this morning whether we would return them to Oileymead?" "Return them, Mrs. Greenow!" "Yes, indeed: consider our circumstances. When gentlemen are too liberal, their liberality must be repressed." "Have I been too liberal, Mrs. Greenow? What is a young turkey and a stick of celery when a man is willing to give everything that he has in the world?" "We won't talk of that now, Mr. Cheesacre." "When shall we talk of it?" "If you really have anything to say, you had better speak to Kate herself." "Mrs. Greenow, you mistake me." The widow called her maid, who did not hear her; but the bell was rung, and then Jeannette came. "You may take these things down, Jeannette," she said. "Mr. Cheesacre has promised that no more shall come." "But I haven't promised," said Mr. Cheesacre. "You will oblige me and Kate, I know. And, Jeannette, tell Miss Vavasor that I am ready to walk with her." Then Mr. Cheesacre knew that he could not say those few words this time; so he departed, followed by the little boy carrying the basket.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 19: Tribute from Oileymead

But Lady Glencora was not brought to repentance by her husband's last words. It seemed to her to be so intolerably cruel, this demand of his, that she should be made to pass the whole of her first evening in town with an old woman for whom it was impossible that she should entertain the slightest regard, that she resolved upon rebellion. Had he positively ordered Mrs. Marsham, she would have sent for that lady, and have contented herself with enduring her presence in disdainful silence; but Mr. Palliser had not given any order. He had made a request, and a request, from its very nature, admits of no obedience. The compliance with a request must be voluntary, and she would not send for Mrs. Marsham, except upon compulsion. Had not she also made a request to him, and had not he refused it? It was his prerogative, undoubtedly, to command; but in that matter of requests she had a right to expect that her voice should be as potent as his own. She wrote a line, therefore, to Alice before she went to bed, begging her cousin to come to her early on the following day, so that they might go out together, and then afterwards dine in company with Mr. Bott. "I know that will be an inducement to you," Lady Glencora said, "because your generous heart will feel of what service you may be to me. Nobody else will be here,--unless, indeed, Mrs. Marsham should be asked, unknown to myself." Then she sat herself down to think,--to think especially about the cruelty of husbands. She had been told over and over again, in the days before her marriage, that Burgo would ill-use her if he became her husband. The Marquis of Auld Reekie had gone so far as to suggest that Burgo might probably beat her. But what hard treatment, even what beating, could be so unendurable as this total want of sympathy, as this deadness in life, which her present lot entailed upon her? As for that matter of beating, she ridiculed the idea in her very soul. She sat smiling at the absurdity of the thing as she thought of the beauty of Burgo's eyes, of the softness of his touch, of the loving, almost worshipping, tones of his voice. Would it not even be better to be beaten by him than to have politics explained to her at one o'clock at night by such a husband as Plantagenet Palliser? The British Constitution, indeed! Had she married Burgo they would have been in sunny Italy, and he would have told her some other tale than that as they sat together under the pale moonlight. She had a little water-coloured drawing called Raphael and Fornarina, and she was infantine enough to tell herself that the so-called Raphael was like her Burgo--no, not her Burgo, but the Burgo that was not hers. At any rate, all the romance of the picture she might have enjoyed had they allowed her to dispose as she had wished of her own hand. She might have sat in marble balconies, while the vines clustered over her head, and he would have been at her knee, hardly speaking to her, but making his presence felt by the halo of its divinity. He would have called upon her for no hard replies. With him near her she would have enjoyed the soft air, and would have sat happy, without trouble, lapped in the delight of loving. It was thus that Fornarina sat. And why should not such a lot have been hers? Her Raphael would have loved her, let them say what they would about his cruelty. Poor, wretched, overburthened child, to whom the commonest lessons of life had not yet been taught, and who had now fallen into the hands of one who was so ill-fitted to teach them! Who would not pity her? Who could say that the fault was hers? The world had laden her with wealth till she had had no limb free for its ordinary uses, and then had turned her loose to run her race! "Have you written to your cousin?" her husband asked her the next morning. His voice, as he spoke, clearly showed that his anger was either over or suppressed. "Yes; I have asked her to come and drive, and then to stay for dinner. I shall send the carriage for her if she can come. The man is to wait for an answer." "Very well," said Mr. Palliser, mildly. And then, after a short pause, he added, "As that is settled, perhaps you would have no objection to ask Mrs. Marsham also?" "Won't she probably be engaged?" "No; I think not," said Mr. Palliser. And then he added, being ashamed of the tinge of falsehood of which he would otherwise have been guilty, "I know she is not engaged." "She expects to come, then?" said Lady Glencora. "I have not asked her, if you mean that, Glencora. Had I done so, I should have said so. I told her that I did not know what your engagements were." "I will write to her, if you please," said the wife, who felt that she could hardly refuse any longer. "Do, my dear!" said the husband. So Lady Glencora did write to Mrs. Marsham, who promised to come,--as did also Alice Vavasor. Lady Glencora would, at any rate, have Alice to herself for some hours before dinner. At first she took comfort in that reflection; but after a while she bethought herself that she would not know what to tell Alice, or what not to tell. Did she mean to show that letter to her cousin? If she did show it, then,--so she argued with herself,--she must bring herself to endure the wretchedness of her present lot, and must give up for ever all her dreams about Raphael and Fornarina. If she did not show it,--or, at any rate, tell of it,--then it would come to pass that she would leave her husband under the protection of another man, and she would become--what she did not dare to name even to herself. She declared that so it must be. She knew that she would go with Burgo, should he ever come to her with the means of going at his and her instant command. But should she bring herself to let Alice know that such a letter had been conveyed to her, Burgo would never have such power. I remember the story of a case of abduction in which a man was tried for his life, and was acquitted, because the lady had acquiesced in the carrying away while it was in progress. She had, as she herself declared, armed herself with a sure and certain charm or talisman against such dangers, which she kept suspended round her neck; but whilst she was in the post-chaise she opened the window and threw the charm from her, no longer desiring, as the learned counsel for the defence efficiently alleged, to be kept under the bonds of such protection. Lady Glencora's state of mind was, in its nature, nearly the same as that of the lady in the post-chaise. Whether or no she would use her charm, she had not yet decided, but the power of doing so was still hers. Alice came, and the greeting between the cousins was very affectionate. Lady Glencora received her as though they had been playmates from early childhood; and Alice, though such impulsive love was not natural to her as to the other, could not bring herself to be cold to one who was so warm to her. Indeed, had she not promised her love in that meeting at Matching Priory in which her cousin had told her of all her wretchedness? "I will love you!" Alice had said; and though there was much in Lady Glencora that she could not approve,--much even that she could not bring herself to like,--still she would not allow her heart to contradict her words. They sat so long over the fire in the drawing-room that at last they agreed that the driving should be abandoned. "What's the use of it?" said Lady Glencora. "There's nothing to see, and the wind is as cold as charity. We are much more comfortable here; are we not?" Alice quite acquiesced in this, having no great desire to be driven through the parks in the gloom of a February afternoon. "If I had Dandy and Flirt up here, there would be some fun in it; but Mr. Palliser doesn't wish me to drive in London." "I suppose it would be dangerous?" "Not in the least. I don't think it's that he minds; but he has an idea that it looks fast." "So it does. If I were a man, I'm sure I shouldn't like my wife to drive horses about London." "And why not? Just because you'd be a tyrant,--like other husbands? What's the harm of looking fast, if one doesn't do anything improper? Poor Dandy, and dear Flirt! I'm sure they'd like it." "Perhaps Mr. Palliser doesn't care for that?" "I can tell you something else he doesn't care for. He doesn't care whether Dandy's mistress likes it." "Don't say that, Glencora." "Why not say it,--to you?" "Don't teach yourself to think it. That's what I mean. I believe he would consent to anything that he didn't think wrong." "Such as lectures about the British Constitution! But never mind about that, Alice. Of course the British Constitution is everything to him, and I wish I knew more about it;--that's all. But I haven't told you whom you are to meet at dinner." "Yes, you have--Mr. Bott." "But there's another guest, a Mrs. Marsham. I thought I'd got rid of her for to-day, when I wrote to you; but I hadn't. She's coming." "She won't hurt me at all," said Alice. "She will hurt me very much. She'll destroy the pleasure of our whole evening. I do believe that she hates you, and that she thinks you instigate me to all manner of iniquity. What fools they all are!" "Who are they all, Glencora?" "She and that man, and--. Never mind. It makes me sick when I think that they should be so blind. Alice, I hardly know how much I owe to you; I don't, indeed. Everything, I believe." Lady Glencora, as she spoke, put her hand into her pocket, and grasped the letter which lay there. "That's nonsense," said Alice. "No; it's not nonsense. Who do you think came to Matching when I was there?" "What;--to the house?" said Alice, feeling almost certain that Mr. Fitzgerald was the person to whom Lady Glencora was alluding. "No; not to the house." "If it is the person of whom I am thinking," said Alice, solemnly, "let me implore you not to speak of him." "And why should I not speak of him? Did I not speak of him before to you, and was it not for good? How are you to be my friend, if I may not speak to you of everything?" "But you should not think of him." "What nonsense you talk, Alice! Not think of him! How is one to help one's thoughts? Look here." Her hand was on the letter, and it would have been out in a moment, and thrown upon Alice's lap, had not the servant opened the door and announced Mrs. Marsham. "Oh, how I do wish we had gone to drive!" said Lady Glencora, in a voice which the servant certainly heard, and which Mrs. Marsham would have heard had she not been a little hard of hearing,--in her bonnet. "How do, my dear?" said Mrs. Marsham. "I thought I'd just come across from Norfolk Street and see you, though I am coming to dinner in the evening. It's only just a step, you know. How d'ye do, Miss Vavasor?" and she made a salutation to Alice which was nearly as cold as it could be. Mrs. Marsham was a woman who had many good points. She was poor, and bore her poverty without complaint She was connected by blood and friendship with people rich and titled; but she paid to none of them egregious respect on account of their wealth or titles. She was staunch in her friendships, and staunch in her enmities. She was no fool, and knew well what was going on in the world. She could talk about the last novel, or--if need be--about the Constitution. She had been a true wife, though sometimes too strong-minded, and a painstaking mother, whose children, however, had never loved her as most mothers like to be loved. The catalogue of her faults must be quite as long as that of her virtues. She was one of those women who are ambitious of power, and not very scrupulous as to the manner in which they obtain it. She was hardhearted, and capable of pursuing an object without much regard to the injury she might do. She would not flatter wealth or fawn before a title, but she was not above any artifice by which she might ingratiate herself with those whom it suited her purpose to conciliate. She thought evil rather than good. She was herself untrue in action, if not absolutely in word. I do not say that she would coin lies, but she would willingly leave false impressions. She had been the bosom friend, and in many things the guide in life, of Mr. Palliser's mother; and she took a special interest in Mr. Palliser's welfare. When he married, she heard the story of the loves of Burgo and Lady Glencora; and though she thought well of the money, she was not disposed to think very well of the bride. She made up her mind that the young lady would want watching, and she was of opinion that no one would be so well able to watch Lady Glencora as herself. She had not plainly opened her mind on this matter to Mr. Palliser; she had not made any distinct suggestion to him that she would act as Argus to his wife. Mr. Palliser would have rejected any such suggestion, and Mrs. Marsham knew that he would do so; but she had let a word or two drop, hinting that Lady Glencora was very young,--hinting that Lady Glencora's manners were charming in their childlike simplicity; but hinting also that precaution was, for that reason, the more necessary. Mr. Palliser, who suspected nothing as to Burgo or as to any other special peril, whose whole disposition was void of suspicion, whose dry nature realized neither the delights nor the dangers of love, acknowledged that Glencora was young. He especially wished that she should be discreet and matronly; he feared no lovers, but he feared that she might do silly things,--that she would catch cold,--and not know how to live a life becoming the wife of a Chancellor of the Exchequer. Therefore he submitted Glencora,--and, to a certain extent, himself,--into the hands of Mrs. Marsham. Lady Glencora had not been twenty-four hours in the house with this lady before she recognized in her a duenna. In all such matters no one could be quicker than Lady Glencora. She might be very ignorant about the British Constitution, and, alas! very ignorant also as to the real elements of right and wrong in a woman's conduct, but she was no fool. She had an eye that could see, and an ear that could understand, and an abundance of that feminine instinct which teaches a woman to know her friend or her enemy at a glance, at a touch, at a word. In many things Lady Glencora was much quicker, much more clever, than her husband, though he was to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and though she did know nothing of the Constitution. She knew, too, that he was easily to be deceived,--that though his intelligence was keen, his instincts were dull,--that he was gifted with no fineness of touch, with no subtle appreciation of the characters of men and women; and, to a certain extent, she looked down upon him for his obtusity. He should have been aware that Burgo was a danger to be avoided; and he should have been aware also that Mrs. Marsham was a duenna not to be employed. When a woman knows that she is guarded by a watch-dog, she is bound to deceive her Cerberus, if it be possible, and is usually not ill-disposed to deceive also the owner of Cerberus. Lady Glencora felt that Mrs. Marsham was her Cerberus, and she was heartily resolved that if she was to be kept in the proper line at all, she would not be so kept by Mrs. Marsham. Alice rose and accepted Mrs. Marsham's salutation quite as coldly as it had been given, and from that time forward those two ladies were enemies. Mrs. Marsham, groping quite in the dark, partly guessed that Alice had in some way interfered to prevent Lady Glencora's visit to Monkshade, and, though such prevention was, no doubt, good in that lady's eyes, she resented the interference. She had made up her mind that Alice was not the sort of friend that Lady Glencora should have about her. Alice recognized and accepted the feud. "I thought I might find you at home," said Mrs. Marsham, "as I know you are lazy about going out in the cold,--unless it be for a foolish midnight ramble," and Mrs. Marsham shook her head. She was a little woman, with sharp small eyes, with a permanent colour in her face, and two short, crisp, grey curls at each side of her face; always well dressed, always in good health, and, as Lady Glencora believed, altogether incapable of fatigue. "The ramble you speak of was very wise, I think," said Lady Glencora; "but I never could see the use of driving about in London in the middle of winter." "One ought to go out of the house every day," said Mrs. Marsham. "I hate all those rules. Don't you, Alice?" Alice did not hate them, therefore she said nothing. "My dear Glencora, one must live by rules in this life. You might as well say that you hated sitting down to dinner." "So I do, very often; almost always when there's company." "You'll get over that feeling after another season in town," said Mrs. Marsham, pretending to suppose that Lady Glencora alluded to some remaining timidity in receiving her own guests. "Upon my word I don't think I shall. It's a thing that seems always to be getting more grievous, instead of less so. Mr. Bott is coming to dine here to-night." There was no mistaking the meaning of this. There was no pretending even to mistake it. Now, Mrs. Marsham had accepted the right hand of fellowship from Mr. Bott,--not because she especially liked him, but in compliance with the apparent necessities of Mr. Palliser's position. Mr. Bott had made good his ground about Mr. Palliser; and Mrs. Marsham, as she was not strong enough to turn him off from it, had given him the right hand of fellowship. "Mr. Bott is a Member of Parliament, and a very serviceable friend of Mr. Palliser's," said Mrs. Marsham. "All the same; we do not like Mr. Bott--do we, Alice? He is Doctor Fell to us; only I think we could tell why." "I certainly do not like him," said Alice. "It can be but of small matter to you, Miss Vavasor," said Mrs. Marsham, "as you will not probably have to see much of him." "Of the very smallest moment," said Alice. "He did annoy me once, but will never, I dare say, have an opportunity of doing so again." "I don't know what the annoyance may have been." "Of course you don't, Mrs. Marsham." "But I shouldn't have thought it likely that a person so fully employed as Mr. Bott, and employed, too, on matters of such vast importance, would have gone out of his way to annoy a young lady whom he chanced to meet for a day or two in a country-house." "I don't think that Alice means that he attempted to flirt with her," said Lady Glencora, laughing. "Fancy Mr. Bott's flirtation!" "Perhaps he did not attempt," said Mrs. Marsham; and the words, the tone, and the innuendo together were more than Alice was able to bear with equanimity. "Glencora," said she, rising from her chair, "I think I'll leave you alone with Mrs. Marsham. I'm not disposed to discuss Mr. Bott's character, and certainly not to hear his name mentioned in disagreeable connection with my own." But Lady Glencora would not let her go. "Nonsense, Alice," she said. "If you and I can't fight our little battles against Mr. Bott and Mrs. Marsham without running away, it is odd. There is a warfare in which they who run away never live to fight another day." "I hope, Glencora, you do not count me as your enemy?" said Mrs. Marsham, drawing herself up. "But I shall,--certainly, if you attack Alice. Love me, love my dog. I beg your pardon, Alice; but what I meant was this, Mrs. Marsham; Love me, love the best friend I have in the world." "I did not mean to offend Miss Vavasor," said Mrs. Marsham, looking at her very grimly. Alice merely bowed her head. She had been offended, and she would not deny it. After that, Mrs. Marsham took herself off, saying that she would be back to dinner. She was angry, but not unhappy. She thought that she could put down Miss Vavasor, and she was prepared to bear a good deal from Lady Glencora--for Mr. Palliser's sake, as she said to herself, with some attempt at a sentimental remembrance of her old friend. "She's a nasty old cat," said Lady Glencora, as soon as the door was closed; and she said these words with so droll a voice, with such a childlike shaking of her head, with so much comedy in her grimace, that Alice could not but laugh. "She is," said Lady Glencora. "I know her, and you'll have to know her, too, before you've done with her. It won't at all do for you to run away when she spits at you. You must hold your ground, and show your claws,--and make her know that if she spits, you can scratch." "But I don't want to be a cat myself." "She'll find I'm of the genus, but of the tiger kind, if she persecutes me. Alice, there's one thing I have made up my mind about. I will not be persecuted. If my husband tells me to do anything, as long as he is my husband I'll do it; but I won't be persecuted." "You should remember that she was a very old friend of Mr. Palliser's mother." "I do remember; and that may be a very good reason why she should come here occasionally, or go to Matching, or to any place in which we may be living. It's a bore, of course; but it's a natural bore, and one that ought to be borne." "And that will be the beginning and the end of it." "I'm afraid not, my dear. It may perhaps be the end of it, but I fear it won't be the beginning. I won't be persecuted. If she gives me advice, I shall tell her to her face that it's not wanted; and if she insults any friend of mine, as she did you, I shall tell her that she had better stay away. She'll go and tell him, of course; but I can't help that. I've made up my mind that I won't be persecuted." After that, Lady Glencora felt no further inclination to show Burgo's letter to Alice on that occasion. They sat over the drawing-room fire, talking chiefly of Alice's affairs, till it was time for them to dress. But Alice, though she spoke much of Mr. Grey, said no word as to her engagement with George Vavasor. How could she speak of it, inasmuch as she had already resolved,--already almost resolved,--that that engagement also should be broken? Alice, when she came down to the drawing-room, before dinner, found Mr. Bott there alone. She had dressed more quickly than her friend, and Mr. Palliser had not yet made his appearance. "I did not expect the pleasure of meeting Miss Vavasor to-day," he said, as he came up, offering his hand. She gave him her hand, and then sat down, merely muttering some word of reply. "We spent a very pleasant month down at Matching together;--didn't you think so?" "I spent a pleasant month there certainly." "You left, if I remember, the morning after that late walk out among the ruins? That was unfortunate, was it not? Poor Lady Glencora! it made her very ill; so much so, that she could not go to Monkshade, as she particularly wished. It was very sad. Lady Glencora is very delicate,--very delicate, indeed. We, who have the privilege of being near her, ought always to remember that." "I don't think she is at all delicate." "Oh! don't you? I'm afraid that's your mistake, Miss Vavasor." "I believe she has very good health, which is the greatest blessing in the world. By delicate I suppose you mean weak and infirm." "Oh, dear, no,--not in the least,--not infirm certainly! I should be very sorry to be supposed to have said that Lady Glencora is infirm. What I mean is, not robust, Miss Vavasor. Her general organization, if you understand me, is exquisitely delicate. One can see that, I think, in every glance of her eye." Alice was going to protest that she had never seen it at all, when Mr. Palliser entered the room along with Mrs. Marsham. The two gentlemen shook hands, and then Mr. Palliser turned to Alice. She perceived at once by his face that she was unwelcome, and wished herself away from his house. It might be all very well for Lady Glencora to fight with Mrs. Marsham,--and with her husband, too, in regard to the Marsham persecution,--but there could be no reason why she should do so. He just touched her hand, barely closing his thumb upon her fingers, and asked her how she was. Then he turned away from her side of the fire, and began talking to Mrs. Marsham on the other. There was that in his face and in his manner which was positively offensive to her. He made no allusion to his former acquaintance with her,--spoke no word about Matching, no word about his wife, as he would naturally have done to his wife's friend. Alice felt the blood mount into her face, and regretted greatly that she had ever come among these people. Had she not long since made up her mind that she would avoid her great relations, and did not all this prove that it would have been well for her to have clung to that resolution? What was Lady Glencora to her that she should submit herself to be treated as though she were a poor companion,--a dependent, who received a salary for her attendance,--an indigent cousin, hanging on to the bounty of her rich connection? Alice was proud to a fault. She had nursed her pride till it was very faulty. All her troubles and sorrows in life had come from an overfed craving for independence. Why, then, should she submit to be treated with open want of courtesy by any man; but, of all men, why should she submit to it from such a one as Mr. Palliser,--the heir of a ducal house, rolling in wealth, and magnificent with all the magnificence of British pomp and pride? No; she would make Lady Glencora understand that the close intimacies of daily life were not possible to them! "I declare I'm very much ashamed," said Lady Glencora, as she entered the room. "I shan't apologize to you, Alice, for it was you who kept me talking; but I do beg Mrs. Marsham's pardon." Mrs. Marsham was all smiles and forgiveness, and hoped that Lady Glencora would not make a stranger of her. Then dinner was announced, and Alice had to walk down stairs by herself. She did not care a doit for that, but there had been a disagreeable little contest when the moment came. Lady Glencora had wished to give up Mr. Bott to her cousin, but Mr. Bott had stuck manfully to Lady Glencora's side. He hoped to take Lady Glencora down to dinner very often, and was not at all disposed to abate his privilege. During dinner-time Alice said very little, nor was there given to her opportunity of saying much. She could not but think of the day of her first arrival at Matching Priory, when she had sat between the Duke of St. Bungay and Jeffrey Palliser, and when everybody had been so civil to her! She now occupied one side of the table by herself, away from the fire, where she felt cold and desolate in the gloom of the large half-lighted room. Mr. Palliser occupied himself with Mrs. Marsham, who talked politics to him; and Mr. Bott never lost a moment in his endeavours to say some civil word to Lady Glencora. Lady Glencora gave him no encouragement; but she hardly dared to snub him openly in her husband's immediate presence. Twenty times during dinner she said some little word to Alice, attempting at first to make the time pleasant, and then, when the matter was too far gone for that, attempting to give some relief. But it was of no avail. There are moments in which conversation seems to be impossible,--in which the very gods interfere to put a seal upon the lips of the unfortunate one. It was such a moment now with Alice. She had never as yet been used to snubbing. Whatever position she had hitherto held, in that she had always stood foremost,--much more so than had been good for her. When she had gone to Matching, she had trembled for her position; but there all had gone well with her; there Lady Glencora's kindness had at first been able to secure for her a reception that had been flattering, and almost better than flattering. Jeffrey Palliser had been her friend, and would, had she so willed it, have been more than her friend. But now she felt that the halls of the Pallisers were too cold for her, and that the sooner she escaped from their gloom and hard discourtesy the better for her. Mrs. Marsham, when the three ladies had returned to the drawing-room together, was a little triumphant. She felt that she had put Alice down; and with the energetic prudence of a good general who knows that he should follow up a victory, let the cost of doing so be what it may, she determined to keep her down. Alice had resolved that she would come as seldom as might be to Mr. Palliser's house in Park Lane. That resolution on her part was in close accordance with Mrs. Marsham's own views. "Is Miss Vavasor going to walk home?" she asked. "Walk home;--all along Oxford Street! Good gracious! no. Why should she walk? The carriage will take her." "Or a cab," said Alice. "I am quite used to go about London in a cab by myself." "I don't think they are nice for young ladies after dark," said Mrs. Marsham. "I was going to offer my servant to walk with her. She is an elderly woman, and would not mind it." "I'm sure Alice is very much obliged," said Lady. Glencora; "but she will have the carriage." "You are very good-natured," said Mrs. Marsham; "but gentlemen do so dislike having their horses out at night." "No gentleman's horses will be out," said Lady Glencora, savagely; "and as for mine, it's what they are there for." It was not often that Lady Glencora made any allusion to her own property, or allowed any one near her to suppose that she remembered the fact that her husband's great wealth was, in truth, her wealth. As to many matters her mind was wrong. In some things her taste was not delicate as should be that of a woman. But, as regarded her money, no woman could have behaved with greater reticence, or a purer delicacy. But now, when she was twitted by her husband's special friend with ill-usage to her husband's horses, because she chose to send her own friend home in her own carriage, she did find it hard to bear. "I dare say it's all right," said Mrs. Marsham. "It is all right," said Lady Glencora. "Mr. Palliser has given me my horses for my own use, to do as I like with them; and if he thinks I take them out when they ought to be left at home, he can tell me so. Nobody else has a right to do it." Lady Glencora, by this time, was almost in a passion, and showed that she was so. "My dear Lady Glencora, you have mistaken me," said Mrs. Marsham; "I did not mean anything of that kind." "I am so sorry," said Alice. "And it is such a pity, as I am quite used to going about in cabs." "Of course you are," said Lady Glencora. "Why shouldn't you? I'd go home in a wheelbarrow if I couldn't walk, and had no other conveyance. That's not the question. Mrs. Marsham understands that." "Upon my word, I don't understand anything," said that lady. "I understand this," said Lady Glencora; "that in all such matters as that, I intend to follow my own pleasure. Come, Alice, let us have some coffee,"--and she rang the bell. "What a fuss we have made about a stupid old carriage!" The gentlemen did not return to the drawing-room that evening, having, no doubt, joint work to do in arranging the great financial calculations of the nation; and, at an early hour, Alice was taken home in Lady Glencora's brougham, leaving her cousin still in the hands of Mrs. Marsham.

But Lady Glencora was not brought to repentance by her husband's words. It seemed to her to be intolerably cruel, this demand that she should pass her first evening in town with an old woman whom she disliked. She resolved upon rebellion. He had not ordered that she invite Mrs. Marsham, merely requested, and a request does not demand obedience. She would not send for Mrs. Marsham unless he forced her to. Had she not also made a request to him, and had he not refused it? She wrote a line, therefore, to Alice before she went to bed, begging her cousin to come to her early on the following day, so that they might go out together, and then afterwards dine in company with Mr. Bott. "I know that will be an inducement to you," Lady Glencora said, "because your generous heart will feel how that will help me. Nobody else will be here - unless, indeed, Mrs. Marsham should be asked, unknown to me." Then she sat down to think about the cruelty of husbands. She had been told in the days before her marriage that Burgo would ill-use her if he became her husband. The Marquis of Auld Reekie had gone so far as to suggest that Burgo might beat her. But what hard treatment could be so unendurable as this total lack of sympathy on her husband's part? As for that matter of beating, she ridiculed the idea. She sat smiling at the absurdity of the thing as she thought of the beauty of Burgo's eyes, of the softness of his touch, of his loving voice. Would it not even be better to be beaten by him than to have politics explained to her at one o'clock at night by Plantagenet Palliser? The British Constitution, indeed! If she had married Burgo they would have been in sunny Italy, sitting together under the pale moonlight. She might have sat on marble balconies, while the vines clustered over her head, and he would have been at her knee, hardly speaking to her, but making her happy, lapped in the delight of loving. Poor, wretched, overburdened child, to whom the commonest lessons of life had not yet been taught, and who was now in the hands of one so ill-fitted to teach them! Who would not pity her? Who could say that the fault was hers? The world had laden her with wealth till she could barely move, then turned her loose to run her race! "Have you written to your cousin?" her husband asked her the next morning, with no anger in his voice. "Yes; I have asked her to come and drive, and then to stay for dinner." "Very well," said Mr. Palliser, mildly. After a short pause, he added, "As that is settled, perhaps you would have no objection to ask Mrs. Marsham also?" "Won't she be engaged?" "No; I think not," said Mr. Palliser. And then he added, so as to avoid a falsehood, "I know she is not engaged." "She expects to come, then?" said Lady Glencora. "I have not asked her. If I had, I should have said so." "I will write to her, if you wish," said the wife, who felt that she could hardly refuse any longer. "Do, my dear!" said the husband. So Lady Glencora did write to Mrs. Marsham, who promised to come - as did Alice. Lady Glencora would, at any rate, have Alice to herself for some hours before dinner. She took comfort in that reflection; but after a while she realised that she would not know how much to tell Alice. Did she mean to show that letter to her cousin? If she did show it, then - she told herself - she must give up for ever all her dreams about life with Burgo. If she did not show it, then she would leave her husband, and would become - something she did not dare to name even to herself. She declared that so it must be. She knew that she would go with Burgo if he found a way. But if she let Alice know about his letter, Burgo would never have such power. Alice came, and the greeting between the cousins was very affectionate. Lady Glencora received her as though they had been playmates from early childhood; and Alice, though such impulsive love was not as natural to her, responded to Glencora's warmth. Indeed, had she not promised to love her, at Matching Priory? Although there was much in Lady Glencora that she could not approve - much even that she could not like - still she would keep to her promise. They sat so long over the fire in the drawing-room that at last they agreed that their drive should be abandoned. "What's the use of it?" said Lady Glencora. "There's nothing to see, and the wind is as cold as charity. We are much more comfortable here; are we not?" Alice agreed, having no great desire to be driven through the park on a gloomy February afternoon. "If I had Dandy and Flirt up here, there would be some fun in it; but Mr. Palliser doesn't wish me to drive in London. He thinks it is unladylike." "So it is. If I were a man, I wouldn't like my wife to drive horses about London." "Why not? Just because you'd be a tyrant, like other husbands? But Mr. Palliser doesn't care about what I want." "Don't say that, Glencora. I believe he would consent to anything that he didn't think wrong." "Such as lectures about the British Constitution! But never mind about that. I haven't told you whom you are to meet at dinner." "Mr. Bott, you said." "But there's another guest, a Mrs. Marsham. I thought I'd got rid of her when I wrote to you; but she's coming." "She won't hurt me," said Alice. "She'll destroy the pleasure of our evening. I do believe that she hates you, and that she thinks you instigate me to all kinds of wickedness. What fools they all are! It makes me sick when I think that they should be so blind. Alice, I hardly know how much I owe to you; everything, I believe." Lady Glencora, as she spoke, put her hand into her pocket, and grasped the letter which lay there. "That's nonsense," said Alice. "No; it's not nonsense. Who do you think came to Matching when I was there?" "If it is the person of whom I am thinking," said Alice solemnly, "let me implore you not to speak of him." "Why should I not speak of him? How are you to be my friend, if I may not speak to you of everything?" "But you should not think of him." "What nonsense! How is one to help one's thoughts? Look here." Her hand was on the letter, and it would have been out in a moment, and thrown upon Alice's lap, had not the servant opened the door and announced Mrs. Marsham. "How do, my dear?" said Mrs. Marsham. "I thought I'd just come across from Norfolk Street and see you, though I am coming to dinner in the evening. It's only just a step, you know. How d'ye do, Miss Vavasor?" and she made a cold salutation to Alice. Mrs. Marsham was a woman who had many good points. She was poor, and bore her poverty without complaint. She was connected with rich and titled people; but she was no flatterer. She was staunch in her friendships, and staunch in her enmities. She knew well what was going on in the world. She could talk about the last novel, or - if need be - about the Constitution. She had been a true wife, though sometimes too strong-minded, and a painstaking mother, whose children, however, had never loved her as most mothers like to be loved. The catalogue of her faults was as long as that of her virtues. She was ambitious of power, hardhearted, and unscrupulous. She would not fawn before a title, but she was not above ingratiating herself with those whom she wished to conciliate. She thought evil rather than good. Although she would not invent lies, she would willingly leave false impressions. She had been a close friend of Mr. Palliser's mother; and she took a special interest in Mr. Palliser's welfare. When he married, she heard the story of Burgo and Lady Glencora, and she was not disposed to think well of the bride. She made up her mind that the young lady would want watching, and felt that no one could so this so well as herself. She had not openly suggested this to Mr. Palliser; but she had let a word or two drop, hinting that Lady Glencora was very young, and that precaution was, for that reason, more necessary. Mr. Palliser, whose nature was devoid of suspicion, and who knew nothing of the delights and dangers of love, acknowledged that Glencora was young. He especially wished that she should be discreet and matronly; he feared no lovers, but he feared that she might do silly things, not befitting the wife of a Chancellor of the Exchequer. Therefore he submitted Glencora - and, to a certain extent, himself - into the hands of Mrs. Marsham. Lady Glencora had not been twenty-four hours with this lady before she recognized her as a duenna. She might be very ignorant about some things, but she was no fool. In many things Lady Glencora was much quicker and cleverer than her husband. Though his intelligence was keen, his instincts were dull; he had no understanding of character. He should have been aware that Burgo was a danger; and he should have been aware also that Mrs. Marsham was a duenna not to be employed. When a woman knows that she is guarded by a watch-dog, she is bound to deceive it, if possible. Alice accepted Mrs. Marsham's greeting as coldly as it had been given, and from that time those two ladies were enemies. Mrs. Marsham partly guessed that Alice had in some way interfered to prevent Lady Glencora's visit to Monkshade, and she resented the interference. She had made up her mind that Alice was not the sort of friend that Lady Glencora should have. Alice recognized and accepted the feud. "I thought I might find you at home," said Mrs. Marsham, "as I know you are lazy about going out in the cold - unless it be for a foolish midnight ramble," and Mrs. Marsham shook her head. "The ramble you speak of was very wise, I think," said Lady Glencora; "but I never could see the use of driving about in London in the middle of winter." "One ought to go out of the house every day," said Mrs. Marsham. "I hate all those rules. Don't you, Alice?" Alice said nothing. "My dear Glencora, one must live by rules in this life. You might as well say that you hated sitting down to dinner." "So I do, very often; almost always when there's company." "You'll get over that feeling after another season in town," said Mrs. Marsham. "I don't think I shall. It seems to get worse instead of better. Mr. Bott is coming to dine here tonight." There was no mistaking the meaning of this. Mrs. Marsham had accepted the hand of fellowship from Mr. Bott, not because she especially liked him, but because they both supported Mr. Palliser's position. "Mr. Bott is a Member of Parliament, and a very useful friend of Mr. Palliser's," said Mrs. Marsham. "All the same; we do not like Mr. Bott - do we, Alice? " "I certainly do not like him," said Alice. "He did annoy me once, but I dare say, will never have an opportunity of doing so again." "I don't know what the annoyance may have been." "Of course you don't, Mrs. Marsham." "I shouldn't have thought it likely that a person so busy as Mr. Bott, and employed on matters of such vast importance, would have gone out of his way to annoy a young lady whom he chanced to meet for a day or two in a country-house." "I don't think that Alice means that he attempted to flirt with her," said Lady Glencora, laughing. "Fancy Mr. Bott's flirtation!" "Perhaps he did not attempt," said Mrs. Marsham; and her tone was more than Alice was able to bear with equanimity. "Glencora," said she, rising, "I think I'll leave you alone with Mrs. Marsham. I'm not disposed to discuss Mr. Bott's character, nor to hear his name mentioned in disagreeable connection with my own." But Lady Glencora would not let her go. "Nonsense, Alice," she said. "If you and I can't fight our little battles against Mr. Bott and Mrs. Marsham without running away, it is odd." "I hope, Glencora, you do not count me as your enemy?" said Mrs. Marsham, drawing herself up. "But I shall, certainly, if you attack Alice, who is the best friend I have in the world." "I did not mean to offend Miss Vavasor," said Mrs. Marsham, looking at her very grimly. Alice merely bowed her head. After that, Mrs. Marsham took herself off, saying that she would be back to dinner. She was angry, but not unhappy. She thought that she could put down Miss Vavasor, and she was prepared to bear a good deal from Lady Glencora - for Mr. Palliser's sake, as she said to herself. "She's a nasty old cat," said Lady Glencora, as soon as the door was closed; and she said this with so droll a voice and with so much comedy in her grimace, that Alice could only laugh. "It won't do for you to run away when she spits at you. You must hold your ground, and show your claws." "But I don't want to be a cat myself." "She'll find I'm of the tiger kind, if she persecutes me. Alice, I have made up my mind not to be persecuted. If my husband tells me to do anything, I'll do it; but I won't be persecuted." "You should remember that she was an old friend of Mr. Palliser's mother." "I do remember. But I won't be persecuted. If she gives me advice, I shall tell her that it's not wanted; and if she insults any friend of mine, I shall tell her to stay away." After that, Lady Glencora felt no further inclination to show Burgo's letter to Alice. They sat over the drawing-room fire, talking chiefly of Alice's affairs, till it was time for them to dress. But Alice said no word about her engagement with George Vavasor. How could she speak of it, seeing that she had already almost resolved that the engagement should be broken? When Alice came down to the drawing-room before dinner, she found Mr. Bott there alone. "I did not expect the pleasure of meeting Miss Vavasor today," he said, offering his hand. She gave him hers, and then sat down, muttering some word of reply. "We spent a very pleasant month at Matching together; didn't you think so?" "I spent a pleasant month there certainly." "You left, if I remember, the morning after that late walk out among the ruins? That was unfortunate, was it not? Poor Lady Glencora! it made her very ill; so that she could not go to Monkshade, as she particularly wished. It was very sad. Lady Glencora is very delicate indeed. We ought always to remember that." "I don't think she is at all delicate. I believe she has very good health. But by delicate I suppose you mean weak and infirm." "Oh, dear, no, not in the least - not infirm certainly! What I mean is, not robust, Miss Vavasor." Alice was going to protest, when Mr. Palliser entered the room along with Mrs. Marsham. The two gentlemen shook hands, and then Mr. Palliser turned to Alice. She perceived at once by his face that she was unwelcome, and wished herself away from his house. He just touched her hand, and asked her how she was. Then he turned away, and began talking to Mrs. Marsham on the other side. He spoke no word about Matching, no word about his wife, as he would naturally have done to his wife's friend. Alice felt the blood mount into her face, and regretted greatly that she had ever come here. She should have avoided her great relations. What was Lady Glencora to her that she should be treated like a poor companion, dependent on the bounty of her rich connection? Alice was proud. She had nursed her pride till it was very faulty. Why, then, should she submit to such an open lack of courtesy by such a one as Mr. Palliser, who was rolling in wealth and magnificence? She would make Lady Glencora understand that a close friendship was not possible. "I declare I'm very much ashamed," said Lady Glencora, as she entered the room late. "I do beg Mrs. Marsham's pardon." Mrs. Marsham was all smiles and forgiveness. Then dinner was announced, and Alice had to walk downstairs by herself, because Mr. Bott stuck manfully to Lady Glencora's side. During dinner-time Alice said very little, nor did she have the opportunity of saying much. She thought of her first day at Matching Priory, when she had sat between the Duke of St. Bungay and Jeffrey Palliser, and when everybody had been so civil to her! Now she had one side of the table to herself, away from the fire, where she felt cold and desolate in the gloom of the large half-lit room. Mr. Palliser occupied himself with Mrs. Marsham, who talked politics to him; and Mr. Bott was constantly trying to make conversation with Lady Glencora, who gave him no encouragement, but did not dare to snub him openly. She frequently said some little word to Alice; but it was of no avail. Alice was dumb. She was not used to being snubbed. But now she felt that the halls of the Pallisers were too cold for her, and that the sooner she escaped from their gloom and discourtesy the better. Mrs. Marsham, when the three ladies returned to the drawing-room together, was a little triumphant. She felt that she had put Alice down; and with the energetic prudence of a good general, she determined to keep her down. "Is Miss Vavasor going to walk home?" she asked. "Walk home - along Oxford Street! Good gracious! no. The carriage will take her." "Or a cab," said Alice. "I am quite used to go about London in a cab by myself." "I don't think they are nice for young ladies after dark," said Mrs. Marsham. "I was going to offer my servant to walk with her." "I'm sure Alice is very much obliged," said Lady Glencora; "but she will have the carriage." "But gentlemen do so dislike having their horses out at night." "No gentleman's horses will be out," said Lady Glencora, savagely; "and as for mine, it's what they are there for." It was not often that Lady Glencora made any allusion to her own property; there she behaved with great reticence and delicacy. But now, when she was twitted by her husband's friend about her husband's horses, because she chose to send her own friend home in her own carriage, she did find it hard to bear. "I dare say it's all right," said Mrs. Marsham. "It is all right," said Lady Glencora. "Mr. Palliser has given me my horses for my own use, to do as I like with them; and if he thinks I take them out when I ought not, he can tell me so. Nobody else has a right to do it." Lady Glencora, by this time, was almost in a passion, and showed it. "My dear Lady Glencora, you have mistaken me," said Mrs. Marsham. "I did not mean anything of that kind." "I am so sorry," said Alice. "And it is such a pity, as I am quite used to going about in cabs." "Of course you are," said Lady Glencora. "Why shouldn't you? That's not the question. Mrs. Marsham understands that." "Upon my word, I don't understand anything," said that lady. "I understand this," said Lady Glencora; "that in all such matters as that, I intend to follow my own pleasure. Come, Alice, let us have some coffee," and she rang the bell. "What a fuss we have made about a stupid old carriage!" So Alice was taken home, leaving her cousin still in the hands of Mrs. Marsham.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 43: Mrs. Marsham

Alice was resolved that she would keep her promise to Kate, and pay her visit to Westmoreland before she started with the Pallisers. Kate had written to her three lines with her left hand, begging her to come, and those three lines had been more eloquent than anything she could have written had her right arm been uninjured. Alice had learned something of the truth as to the accident from her father; or, rather, had heard her father's surmises on the subject. She had heard, too, how her cousin George had borne himself when the will was read, and how he had afterwards disappeared, never showing himself again at the hall. After all that had passed she felt that she owed Kate some sympathy. Sympathy may, no doubt, be conveyed by letter; but there are things on which it is almost impossible for any writer to express himself with adequate feeling; and there are things, too, which can be spoken, but which cannot be written. Therefore, though the journey must be a hurried one, Alice sent word down to Westmoreland that she was to be expected there in a day or two. On her return she was to go at once to Park Lane, and sleep there for the two nights which would intervene before the departure of the Pallisers. On the day before she started for Westmoreland her father came to her in the middle of the day, and told her that John Grey was going to dine with him in Queen Anne Street on that evening. "To-day, papa?" she asked. "Yes, to-day. Why not? No man is less particular as to what he eats than Grey." "I was not thinking of that, papa," she said. To this Mr. Vavasor made no reply, but stood for some minutes looking out of the window. Then he prepared to leave the room, getting himself first as far as the table, where he lifted a book, and then on half-way to the door before Alice arrested him. "Perhaps, papa, you and Mr. Grey had better dine alone." "What do you mean by alone?" "I meant without me,--as two men generally like to do." "If I wanted that I should have asked him to dine at the club," said Mr. Vavasor, and then he again attempted to go. "But, papa--" "Well, my dear! If you mean to say that because of what has passed you object to meet Mr. Grey, I can only tell you it's nonsense,--confounded nonsense. If he chooses to come there can be no reason why you shouldn't receive him." "It will look as though--" "Look what?" "As though he were asked as my guest." "That's nonsense. I saw him yesterday, and I asked him to come. I saw him again to-day, and he said he would come. He's not such a fool as to suppose after that, that you asked him." "No; not that I asked him." "And if you run away you'll only make more of the thing than it's worth. Of course I can't make you dine with me if you don't like." Alice did not like it, but, after some consideration, she thought that she might be open to the imputation of having made more of the thing than it was worth if she ran away, as her father called it. She was going to leave the country for some six or eight months,--perhaps for a longer time than that, and it might be as well that she should have an opportunity of telling her plans to Mr. Grey. She could do it, she thought, in such a way as to make him understand that her last quarrel with George Vavasor was not supposed to alter the footing on which she stood with him. She did not doubt that her father had told everything to Mr. Grey. She knew well enough what her father's wishes still were. It was not odd that he should be asking John Grey to his house, though such exercises of domestic hospitality were very unusual with him. But,--so she declared to herself,--such little attempts on his part would be altogether thrown away. It was a pity that he had not yet learned to know her better. She would receive Mr. Grey as the mistress of her father's house now, for the last time; and then, on her return in the following year, he would be at Nethercoats, and the whole thing would be over. She dressed herself very plainly, simply changing one black frock for another, and then sat herself in her drawing-room awaiting the two gentlemen. It was already past the hour of dinner before her father came up-stairs. She knew that he was in the house, and in her heart she accused him of keeping out of the way, in order that John Grey might be alone with her. Whether or no she were right in her suspicions John Grey did not take advantage of the opportunity offered to him. Her father came up first, and had seated himself silently in his arm-chair before the visitor was announced. As Mr. Grey entered the room Alice knew that she was flurried, but still she managed to carry herself with some dignity. His bearing was perfect. But then, as she declared to herself afterwards, no possible position in life would put him beside himself. He came up to her with his usual quiet smile,--a smile that was genial even in its quietness, and took her hand. He took it fairly and fully into his; but there was no squeezing, no special pressure, no love-making. And when he spoke to her he called her Alice, as though his doing so was of all things the most simply a matter of course. There was no tell-tale hesitation in his voice. When did he ever hesitate at anything? "I hear you are going abroad," he said, "with your cousin, Lady Glencora Palliser." [Illustration: She managed to carry herself with some dignity.] "Yes," said Alice; "I am going with them for a long tour. We shall not return, I fancy, till the end of next winter." "Plans of that sort are as easily broken as they are made," said her father. "You won't be your own mistress; and I advise you not to count too surely upon getting further than Baden." "If Mr. Palliser changes his mind of course I shall come home," said Alice, with a little attempt at a smile. "I should think him a man not prone to changes," said Grey. "But all London is talking about his change of mind at this moment. They say at the clubs that he might have been in the Cabinet if he would, but that he has taken up this idea of going abroad at the moment when he was wanted." "It's his wife's doing, I take it," said Mr. Vavasor. "That's the worst of being in Parliament," said Grey. "A man can't do anything without giving a reason for it. There must be men for public life, of course; but, upon my word, I think we ought to be very much obliged to them." Alice, as she took her old lover's arm, and walked down with him to dinner, thought of all her former quarrels with him on this very subject. On this very point she had left him. He had never argued the matter with her. He had never asked her to argue with him. He had not condescended so far as that. Had he done so, she thought that she would have brought herself to think as he thought. She would have striven, at any rate, to do so. But she could not become unambitious, tranquil, fond of retirement, and philosophic, without an argument on the matter,--without being allowed even the poor grace of owning herself to be convinced. If a man takes a dog with him from the country up to town, the dog must live a town life without knowing the reason why;--must live a town life or die a town death. But a woman should not be treated like a dog. "Had he deigned to discuss it with me!" Alice had so often said. "But, no; he will read his books, and I am to go there to fetch him his slippers, and make his tea for him." All this came upon her again as she walked down-stairs by his side; and with it there came a consciousness that she had been driven by this usage into the terrible engagement which she had made with her cousin. That, no doubt, was now over. There was no longer to her any question of her marrying George Vavasor. But the fact that she had been mad enough to think and talk of such a marriage, had of itself been enough to ruin her. "Things of that sort are so often over with you!" After such a speech as that to her from her father, Alice told herself that there could be no more "things of that sort" for her. But all her misery had been brought about by this scornful superiority to the ordinary pursuits of the world,--this looking down upon humanity. "It seems to me," she said, very quietly, while her hand was yet upon his arm, "that your pity is hardly needed. I should think that no persons can be happier than those whom you call our public men." "Ah!" said he, "that is our old quarrel." He said it as though the quarrel had simply been an argument between them, or a dozen arguments,--as arguments do come up between friends; not as though it had served to separate for life two persons who had loved each other dearly. "It's the old story of the town mouse and the country mouse,--as old as the hills. Mice may be civil for a while, and compliment each other; but when they come to speak their minds freely, each likes his own life best." She said nothing more at the moment, and the three sat down to their small dinner-table. It was astonishing to Alice that he should be able to talk in this way, to hint at such things, to allude to their former hopes and present condition, without a quiver in his voice, or, as far as she could perceive, without any feeling in his heart. "Alice," said her father, "I can't compliment your cook upon her soup." "You don't encourage her, papa, by eating it often enough. And then you only told me at two o'clock to-day." "If a cook can't make soup between two and seven, she can't make it in a week." "I hope Mr. Grey will excuse it," said Alice. "Isn't it good?" said he. "I won't say that it is, because I should be pretending to have an opinion; but I should not have found out anything against it of myself." "Where do you dine usually, now you are in London?" Mr. Vavasor asked. "At the old club, at the corner of Suffolk Street. It's the oldest club in London, I believe. I never belonged to any other, and therefore can't compare them; but I can't imagine anything much nicer." "They give you better soup than ours?" said Alice. "You've an excellent cook," said Mr. Vavasor, with great gravity; "one of the best second-class cooks in London. We were very nearly getting him, but you nicked him just in time. I know him well." "It's a great deal more than I do, or hope to do. There's another branch of public life for which I'm quite unfitted. I'd as soon be called on to choose a Prime Minister for the country, as I would a cook for a club." "Of course you would," said Mr. Vavasor. "There may be as many as a dozen cooks about London to be looked up, but there are never more than two possible Prime Ministers about. And as one of them must be going out when the other is coming in, I don't see that there can be any difficulty. Moreover, now-a-days, people do their politics for themselves, but they expect to have their dinners cooked for them." The little dinner went on quietly and very easily. Mr. Vavasor found fault with nearly everything. But as, on this occasion, the meat and the drink, with the manner of the eating and drinking, did not constitute the difficulty, Alice was indifferent to her father's censures. The thing needed was that she and Mr. Grey should be able to sit together at the same table without apparent consciousness of their former ties. Alice felt that she was succeeding indifferently well while she was putting in little mock defences for the cook. And as for John Grey, he succeeded so well that his success almost made Alice angry with him. It required no effort with him at all to be successful in this matter. "If he can forget all that has passed, so much the better," said Alice to herself when she got up into the drawing-room. Then she sat herself down on the sofa, and cried. Oh! what had she not lost! Had any woman ever been so mad, so reckless, so heartless as she had been! And she had done it, knowing that she loved him! She cried bitterly, and then went away to wash her eyes, that she might be ready to give him his coffee when he should come up-stairs. "She does not look well," said Grey as soon as she had left the room. "Well;--no: how can she look well after what she has gone through? I sometimes think, that of all the people I ever knew, she has been the most foolish. But, of course, it is not for me to say anything against my own child; and, of all people, not to you." "Nothing that you could say against her would make any difference to me. I sometimes fancy that I know her better than you do." "And you think that she'll still come round again?" "I cannot say that I think so. No one can venture to say whether or not such wounds as hers may be cured. There are hearts and bodies so organized, that in them severe wounds are incurable, whereas in others no injury seems to be fatal. But I can say that if she be not cured it shall not be from want of perseverance on my part." "Upon my word, Grey, I don't know how to thank you enough. I don't, indeed." "It doesn't seem to me to be a case for thanking." "Of course it isn't. I know that well enough. And in the ordinary way of the world no father would think of thanking a man for wanting to marry his daughter. But things have come to such a pass with us, that, by George! I don't feel like any other father. I don't mind saying anything to you, you know. That claret isn't very good, but you might as well take another glass." "Thank you, I will. I should have said that that was rather good wine, now." "It's not just the thing. What's the use of my having good wine here, when nobody comes to drink it? But, as I was saying about Alice, of course I've felt all this thing very much. I feel as though I were responsible, and yet what could I do? She's her own mistress through it all. When she told me she was going to marry that horrible miscreant, my nephew, what could I do?" "That's over now, and we need not talk about it." "It's very kind of you to say so,--very. I believe she's a good girl. I do, indeed, in spite of it all." "I've no doubt of her being what you call a good girl,--none in the least. What she has done to me does not impair her goodness. I don't think you have ever understood how much all this has been a matter of conscience with her." "Conscience!" said the angry father. "I hate such conscience. I like the conscience that makes a girl keep her word, and not bring disgrace upon those she belongs to." "I shall not think that I am disgraced," said Grey, quietly, "if she will come and be my wife. She has meant to do right, and has endeavoured to take care of the happiness of other people rather than her own." "She has taken very little care of mine," said Mr. Vavasor. "I shall not be at all afraid to trust mine to her,--if she will let me do so. But she has been wounded sorely, and it must take time." "And, in the meantime, what are we to do when she tells us that Mr. George Vavasor wants another remittance? Two thousand pounds a quarter comes heavy, you know!" "Let us hope that he has had enough." "Enough! Did such a man ever have enough?" "Let us hope, then, that she thinks he has had enough. Come;--may I go up-stairs?" "Oh, yes. I'll follow you. She'll think that I mean something if I leave you together." From all this it will be seen that Alice's father and her lover still stood together on confidential terms. Not easily had Mr. Vavasor brought himself to speak of his daughter to John Grey, in such language as he had now used; but he had been forced by adverse circumstances to pass the Rubicon of parental delicacy; he had been driven to tell his wished-for son-in-law that he did wish to have him as a son-in-law; he had been compelled to lay aside those little airs of reserve with which a father generally speaks of his daughter,--and now all was open between them. "And you really start to-morrow?" said Grey, as he stood close over Alice's work-table. Mr. Vavasor had followed him into the drawing-room, but had seated himself in an easy-chair on the other side of the fire. There was no tone of whispering in Grey's voice, but yet he spoke in a manner which showed that he did not intend to be audible on the other side of the room. "I start for Westmoreland to-morrow. We do not leave London for the continent till the latter end of next week." "But you will not be here again?" "No; I shall not come back to Queen Anne Street." "And you will be away for many months?" "Mr. Palliser talked of next Easter as the term of his return. He mentioned Easter to Lady Glencora. I have not seen him myself since I agreed to go with him." "What should you say if you met me somewhere in your travels?" He had now gently seated himself on the sofa beside her;--not so close to her as to give her just cause to move away, but yet so near as to make his conversation with her quite private. "I don't think that will be very likely," she replied, not knowing what to say. "I think it is very likely. For myself, I hate surprises. I could not bring myself to fall in upon your track unawares. I shall go abroad, but it will not be till the late autumn, when the summer heats are gone,--and I shall endeavour to find you." "To find me, Mr. Grey!" There was a quivering in her voice, as she spoke, which she could not prevent, though she would have given worlds to prevent it. "I do not think that will be quite fair." "It will not be unfair, I think, if I give you notice of my approach. I will not fall upon you and your friends unawares." "I was not thinking of them. They would be glad to know you, of course." "And equally, of course! or, rather, much more of course, you will not be glad to see me? That's what you mean?" "I mean that we had better not meet more than we can help." "I think differently, Alice,--quite differently. The more we meet the better,--that is what I think. But I will not stop to trouble you now. Good night!" Then he got up and went away, and her father went with him. Mr. Vavasor, as he rose from his chair, declared that he would just walk through a couple of streets; but Alice knew that he was gone to his club.

Alice was resolved to visit Westmorland before she set out with the Pallisers. Kate had written to her three lines with her left hand, begging her to come. Alice had learned something of the truth about the accident from her father; or, rather, had heard her father's surmises. She had heard, too, how her cousin George had behaved when the will was read, and how he had afterwards disappeared. On her return from Westmorland she was to go at once to Park Lane for two nights before the departure of the Pallisers. On the day before she started for Westmorland, her father told her that John Grey was going to dine with him in Queen Anne Street that evening. "Today, papa?" she asked. "Yes. Why not?" "Perhaps, papa, you and Mr. Grey had better dine alone, without me, as two men generally like to do." "If I wanted that I should have asked him to dine at the club," said Mr. Vavasor. "If you mean to say that you object to meet Mr. Grey, I can only tell you it's nonsense. There can be no reason why you shouldn't receive him." "It will look as though he were asked as my guest." "I saw him yesterday, and I asked him to come. He's not such a fool as to suppose that you asked him. And if you run away you'll only make more of the thing than it's worth. Of course I can't make you dine with me if you don't like." Alice did not like it, but she saw her father's point. She was going to leave the country for some six or eight months, and it might be as well that she should have an opportunity of telling her plans to Mr. Grey. She did not doubt that her father had told him everything. She knew what her father's wishes still were; but she declared to herself that any attempts on his part would be thrown away. She dressed very plainly, simply changing one black frock for another, and then sat in her drawing-room awaiting the two gentlemen. Her father came up first, and then the visitor was announced. As Mr. Grey entered the room Alice knew that she was flurried, but she managed to carry herself with dignity. His bearing was perfect, as always. He came up to her with his usual quiet smile, and took her hand; but there was no squeezing, no special pressure. And when he called her Alice, it was simply as a matter of course. There was no tell-tale hesitation in his voice. "I hear you are going abroad," he said, "with your cousin, Lady Glencora Palliser." "Yes," said Alice. "We shall not return, I fancy, till the end of next winter." "Plans of that sort are easily broken," said her father. "I advise you not to count too surely upon getting further than Baden." "If Mr. Palliser changes his mind of course I shall come home," said Alice, with an attempt at a smile. "I should think him a man not prone to changes," said Grey. "But all London is talking about his change of mind at this moment. They say he might have been in the Cabinet, but that he has taken up this idea of going abroad." "It's his wife's doing, I presume," said Mr. Vavasor. "That's the worst of being in Parliament," said Grey. "A man can't do anything without giving a reason for it. There must be men in public life, of course; but, upon my word, I think we ought to be very much obliged to them." Alice, as she took her old lover's arm, and walked down with him to dinner, thought of all her former quarrels with him on this very subject. On this very point she had left him. He had never argued the matter with her. Had he done so, she thought that she would have tried to think as he thought. But she could not become unambitious, tranquil, and fond of retirement, without an argument on the matter. "If only he had deigned to discuss it with me!" Alice had often said. "But, no; he will read his books, and I am to fetch him his slippers, and make his tea." All this came upon her again now; and with it there came a consciousness that it had driven her into the terrible engagement with her cousin. That was now over. There was no longer any question of her marrying George Vavasor; but merely thinking about such a marriage had been enough to ruin her. But all her misery had been brought about by Grey's scornful superiority to the ordinary pursuits of the world - this looking down upon humanity. "It seems to me," she said, very quietly, while her hand was on his arm, "that your pity is hardly needed. I should think that nobody can be happier than those public men." "Ah!" said he, "that is our old quarrel." He said it as though the quarrel had simply been an argument between friends; not as though it had separated for life two people who had loved each other dearly. "It's the old story of the town mouse and the country mouse. Mice may be civil for a while, but when they come to speak their minds freely, each likes his own life best." She said nothing more, and the three sat down to their small dinner-table. It was astonishing to Alice that he should be able to talk in this way, to allude to their former hopes, without a quiver in his voice, and, as far as she could tell, without any feeling in his heart. "Alice," said her father, "I can't compliment your cook upon her soup." "Papa, you only told me at two o'clock today." "If a cook can't make soup between two and seven, she can't make it in a week." "I hope Mr. Grey will excuse it," said Alice. "Isn't it good?" said he. "I should not have found out anything against it myself." "Where do you usually dine, now you are in London?" Mr. Vavasor asked. "At the old club, at the corner of Suffolk Street." "They give you better soup than ours?" said Alice. "You've an excellent cook," said Mr. Vavasor, with great gravity. The little dinner went on quietly and easily. Mr. Vavasor found fault with nearly everything. But Alice was indifferent to her father's censures. The thing needed was that she and Mr. Grey should be able to sit together at the same table without apparent consciousness of their former ties. Alice felt that she was succeeding fairly well while she was putting in little mock defences for the cook. And as for John Grey, he succeeded so well that his success almost made Alice angry with him. "If he can forget all that has passed, so much the better," she said to herself when she went alone into the drawing-room. Then she sat down on the sofa, and cried. Oh! what had she not lost! Had any woman ever been so mad, so reckless, so heartless as she had been! And she had done it, knowing that she loved him! She cried bitterly, and then went away to wash her eyes, so that she might be ready to give him his coffee when he should come upstairs. "She does not look well," said Grey as soon as she had left the room. "How can she look well after what she has gone through? I think, that of all the people I ever knew, she has been the most foolish. But, of course, it is not for me to say anything against my own child; especially to you." "Nothing that you could say would make any difference to me. I sometimes fancy that I know her better than you do." "And you think that she'll still come round again?" "I do not know. No one can say whether such wounds as hers may be cured. But if she is not cured, it shall not be from lack of perseverance on my part." "Upon my word, Grey, I don't know how to thank you enough. Take another glass of wine. I feel responsible, and yet what could I do? Alice is her own mistress. When she told me she was going to marry that horrible miscreant, my nephew, what could I do?" "That's over now, and we need not talk about it." "It's very kind of you to say so. I believe she's a good girl, in spite of it all." "I've no doubt of that. I don't think you have ever understood how much all this has been a matter of conscience with her." "Conscience!" said the angry father. "I hate such conscience. I like the conscience that makes a girl keep her word, and not bring disgrace upon those she belongs to." "I shall not think that I am disgraced," said Grey quietly, "if she will be my wife. She has meant to do right, and has tried to take care of other people's happiness rather than her own." "She has taken very little care of mine," said Mr. Vavasor. "I shall not be afraid to trust mine to her - if she will let me. But she has been wounded sorely, and it must take time." "And, in the meantime, what are we to do when Mr. George Vavasor wants another payment?" "Let us hope that he has had enough." "Enough! Did such a man ever have enough?" "Let us hope, then, that she thinks he has had enough. May I go upstairs?" "Oh, yes. I'll follow you. She'll think that I mean something if I leave you together." From all this it will be seen that Alice's father and her lover were on confidential terms. "And you really start tomorrow?" said Grey, as he stood close to Alice's work-table. Mr. Vavasor had seated himself in an easy-chair on the other side of the fire, and although Grey did not whisper, he spoke in a low voice, inaudible to her father. "I start for Westmorland tomorrow. We leave London for the continent at the end of next week. I shall not come back to Queen Anne Street." "And you will be away for many months?" "Mr. Palliser talked of returning next Easter." "What should you say if you met me somewhere in your travels?" He had now gently seated himself on the sofa beside her, but not too close. "I don't think that will be very likely," she replied, not knowing what to say. "I think it is very likely. For myself, I hate surprises. I could not bring myself to fall in your way unawares. I shall go abroad in the late autumn, when the summer heats are gone - and I shall try to find you." "To find me, Mr. Grey!" There was a quivering in her voice, which she could not prevent. "I do not think that will be quite fair." "It will not be unfair, I think, if I give you notice of my approach. I will not fall upon you and your friends unexpectedly." "I was not thinking of them. They would be glad to meet you, of course." "But you will not be glad to see me? That's what you mean?" "I mean that we had better not meet more than we can help." "I think differently, Alice. The more we meet the better, that is what I think. But I will not stay to trouble you now. Good night!" Then he got up and went away, and her father went to his club.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 63: Mr. John Grey in Queen Anne Street

It must be acknowledged that Mrs. Greenow was a woman of great resources, and that she would be very prudent for others, though I fear the verdict of those who know her must go against her in regard to prudence in herself. Her marriage with Captain Bellfield was a rash act,--certainly a rash act, although she did take so much care in securing the payment of her own income into her own hands; but the manner in which she made him live discreetly for some months previous to his marriage, the tact with which she renewed the friendship which had existed between him and Mr. Cheesacre, and the skill she used in at last providing Mr. Cheesacre with a wife, oblige us all to admit that, as a general, she had great powers. When Alice reached Vavasor Hall she found Charlie Fairstairs established there on a long visit. Charlie and Kate were to be the two bridesmaids, and, as Kate told her cousin in their first confidential intercourse on the evening of Alice's arrival, there were already great hopes in the household that the master of Oileymead might be brought to surrender. It was true that Charlie had not a shilling, and that Mr. Cheesacre had set his heart on marrying an heiress. It was true that Miss Fairstairs had always stood low in the gentleman's estimation, as being connected with people who were as much without rank and fashion as they were without money, and that the gentleman loved rank and fashion dearly. It was true that Charlie was no beauty, and that Cheesacre had an eye for feminine charms. It was true that he had despised Charlie, and had spoken his contempt openly;--that he had seen the girl on the sands at Yarmouth every summer for the last ten years, and about the streets of Norwich every winter, and had learned to regard her as a thing poor and despicable, because she was common in his eyes. It is thus that the Cheesacres judge of people. But in spite of all these difficulties Mrs. Greenow had taken up poor Charlie's case, and Kate Vavasor expressed a strong opinion that her aunt would win. "What has she done to the man?" Alice asked. "Coaxed him; simply that. She has made herself so much his master that he doesn't know how to say no to her. Sometimes I have thought that he might possibly run away, but I have abandoned that fear now. She has little confidences with him from day to day, which are so alluring to him that he cannot tear himself off. In the middle of one of them he will find himself engaged." "But, the unfortunate girl! Won't it be a wretched marriage for her?" "Not at all. She'll make him a very good wife. He's one of those men to whom any woman, after a little time, will come to be the same. He'll be rough with her once a month or so, and perhaps tell her that she brought no money with her; but that won't break any bones, and Charlie will know how to fight her own battles. She'll save his money if she brings none, and in a few years' time they will quite understand each other." Mr. Cheesacre and Captain Bellfield were at this time living in lodgings together, at Penrith, but came over and spent every other day at Vavasor, returning always to their lodgings in the evening. It wanted but eight days to the marriage when Alice arrived, and preparations for that event were in progress. "It's to be very quiet, Alice," said her aunt; "as quiet as such a thing can be made. I owe that to the memory of the departed one. I know that he is looking down upon me, and that he approves all that I do. Indeed, he told me once that he did not want me to live desolate for his sake. If I didn't feel that he was looking down and approving it, I should be wretched indeed." She took Alice up to see her trousseau, and gave the other expectant bride some little hints which, under present circumstances, might be useful. "Yes, indeed; only three-and-sixpence a piece, and they're quite real. Feel them. You wouldn't get them in the shops under six." Alice did feel them, and wondered whether her aunt could have saved the half-crown honestly. "I had my eyes about me when I was up in town, my dear. And look here, these are quite new,--have never been on yet, and I had them when I was married before. There is nothing like being careful, my dear. I hate meanness, as everybody knows who knows me; but there is nothing like being careful. You have a lot of rich people about you just now, and will have ever so many things given you which you won't want. Do you put them all by, and be careful. They may turn out useful, you know." Saying this, Mrs. Greenow folded up, among her present bridal belongings, sundries of the wealth which had accrued to her in an earlier stage of her career. And then Mrs. Greenow opened her mind to Alice about the Captain. "He's as good as gold, my dear; he is, indeed,--in his own way. Of course, I know that he has faults, and I should like to know who hasn't. Although poor dear Greenow certainly was more without them than anybody else I ever knew." As this remembrance came upon Mrs. Greenow she put her handkerchief to her eyes, and Alice observed that that which she held still bore the deepest hem of widowhood. They would be used, no doubt, till the last day, and then put by in lavender for future possible occasions. "Bellfield may have been a little extravagant. I dare say he has. But how can a man help being extravagant when he hasn't got any regular income? He has been ill-treated in his profession; very. It makes my blood curdle when I think of it. After fighting his country's battles through blood, and dust, and wounds;--but I'll tell you about that another time." "I suppose a man seldom does make a fortune, aunt, by being a soldier?" "Never, my dear; much better be a tailor. Don't you ever marry a soldier. But as I was saying, he is the best-tempered creature alive, and the staunchest friend I ever met. You should hear what Mr. Cheesacre says of him! But you don't know Mr. Cheesacre?" "No, aunt, not yet. If you remember, he went away before I saw him when he came here before." "Yes, I know, poor fellow! Between you and me, Kate might have had him if she liked; but perhaps Kate was right." "I don't think he would have suited Kate at all." "Because of the farmyard, you mean? Kate shouldn't give herself airs. Money's never dirty, you know. But perhaps it's all for the best. There's a sweet girl here to whom he is violently attached, and who I hope will become Mrs. Cheesacre. But as I was saying, the friendship between these two men is quite wonderful, and I have always observed that when a man can create that kind of affection in the bosom of another man, he invariably is,--the sort of man,--the man, in fact, who makes a good husband." Alice knew the story of Charlie Fairstairs and her hopes; knew of the quarrels between Bellfield and Cheesacre; knew almost as much of Bellfield's past life as Mrs. Greenow did herself; and Mrs. Greenow was no doubt aware that such was the case. Nevertheless, she had a pleasure in telling her own story, and told it as though she believed every word that she spoke. On the following day the two gentlemen came over, according to custom, and Alice observed that Miss Fairstairs hardly spoke to Mr. Cheesacre. Indeed her manner of avoiding that gentleman was so very marked, that it was impossible not to observe it. They drank tea out of doors, and when Mr. Cheesacre on one occasion sauntered across towards the end of the bench on which Charlie was sitting, Charlie got up and walked away. And in strolling about the place afterwards, and in going up through the wood, she was at great pains to attach herself to some other person, so that there should be no such attaching between her and the owner of Oileymead. At one time Mr. Cheesacre did get close up to her and spoke some word, some very indifferent word. He knew that he was being cut and he wanted to avoid the appearance of a scene. "I don't know, sir," said Charlie, again moving away with excellent dignity, and she at once attached herself to Alice who was close by. "I know you have just come home from Switzerland," said Charlie. "Beautiful Switzerland! My heart pants for Switzerland. Do tell me something about Switzerland!" Mr. Cheesacre had heard that Alice was the dear friend of a lady who would probably some day become a duchess. He therefore naturally held her in awe, and slunk away. On this occasion Mrs. Greenow clung lovingly to her future husband, and the effect was that Mr. Cheesacre found himself to be very much alone and unhappy. He had generally enjoyed these days at Vavasor Hall, having found himself, or fancied himself, to be the dominant spirit there. That Mrs. Greenow was always in truth the dominant spirit I need hardly say; but she knew how to make a companion happy, and well also how to make him wretched. On the whole of this day poor Cheesacre was very wretched. "I don't think I shall go there any more," he said to Bellfield, as he drove the gig back to Penrith that evening. "Not go there any more, Cheesy," said Bellfield; "why, we are to have the dinner out in the field on Friday. It's your own bespeak." "Well, yes; I'll go on Friday, but not after that." "You'll stop and see me turned off, old fellow?" "What's the use? You'll get your wife, and that's enough for you. The truth is, that since that girl came down from London with her d----d airs;"--the girl from London with the airs was poor Alice,--"the place is quite changed. I'm blessed if the whole thing isn't as dark as ditch-water. I'm a plain man, I am; and I do hate your swells." Against this view of the case Captain Bellfield argued stoutly; but Cheesacre had been offended, and throughout the next day he was cross and touchy. He wouldn't play billiards, and on one occasion hinted that he hoped he should get that money soon. "You did it admirably, my dear," said Mrs. Greenow that night to Charlie Fairstairs. The widow was now on terms almost more confidential with Miss Fairstairs than with her own niece, Kate Vavasor. She loved a little bit of intrigue; and though Kate could intrigue, as we have seen in this story, Kate would not join her aunt's intrigues. "You did it admirably. I really did not think you had so much in you." "Oh, I don't know," said Charlie, blushing at the praise. "And it's the only way, my dear;--the only way, I mean, for you with such a one as him. And if he does come round, you'll find him an excellent husband." "I don't think he cares for me a bit," said Charlie whimpering. "Pooh, nonsense! Girls never know whether men care for them or not. If he asks you to marry him, won't that be a sign that he cares for you? and if he don't, why, there'll be no harm done." "If he thinks it's his money--" began Charlie. "Now, don't talk nonsense, Charlie," said Mrs. Greenow, "or you'll make me sick. Of course it's his money, more or less. You don't mean to tell me you'd go and fall in love with him if he was like Bellfield, and hadn't got a rap? I can afford that sort of thing; you can't. I don't mean to say you ain't to love him. Of course, you're to love him; and I've no doubt you will, and make him a very good wife. I always think that worldliness and sentimentality are like brandy-and-water. I don't like either of them separately, but taken together they make a very nice drink. I like them warm, with ---- as the gentlemen say." To this little lecture Miss Fairstairs listened with dutiful patience, and when it was over she said nothing more of her outraged affections or of her disregard for money. "And now, my dear, mind you look your best on Friday. I'll get him away immediately after dinner, and when he's done with me you can contrive to be in his way, you know." The next day was what Kate called the blank day at the Hall. The ladies were all alone, and devoted themselves, as was always the case on the blank days, to millinery and household cares. Mrs. Greenow, as has before been stated, had taken a lease of the place, and her troubles extended beyond her mere bridal wardrobe. Large trunks of household linen had arrived, and all this linen was marked with the name of Greenow; Greenow, 5.58; Greenow, 7.52; and a good deal had to be done before this ancient wealth of housewifery could probably be converted to Bellfield purposes. "We must cut out the pieces, Jeannette, and work 'em in again ever so carefully," said the widow, after some painful consideration. "It will always show," said Jeannette, shaking her head. "But the other would show worse," said the widow; "and if you finedraw it, not one person in ten will notice it. We'd always put them on with the name to the feet, you know." It was not quite true that Cheesacre had bespoke the dinner out in the field, although no doubt he thought he had done so. The little treat, if treat it was, had all been arranged by Mrs. Greenow, who was ever ready to create festivities. There was not much scope for a picnic here. Besides their own party, which, of course, included the Captain and Mr. Cheesacre, no guest could be caught except the clergyman;--that low-church clergyman, who was so anxious about his income, and with whom the old Squire had quarrelled. Mrs. Greenow had quickly obtained the advantage of his alliance, and he, who was soon to perform on her behalf the marriage ceremony, had promised to grace this little festival. The affair simply amounted to this, that they were to eat their dinner uncomfortably in the field instead of comfortably in the dining-room. But Mrs. Greenow knew that Charlie's charms would be much strengthened by a dinner out-of-doors. "Nothing," she said to Kate, "nothing makes a man come forward so well as putting him altogether out of his usual tack. A man who wouldn't think of such a thing in the drawing-room would be sure to make an offer if he spent an evening with a young lady down-stairs in the kitchen." At two o'clock the gig from Penrith arrived at the Hall, and for the next hour both Cheesacre and the Captain were engaged in preparing the tables and carrying out the viands. The Captain and Charlie Fairstairs were going to lay the cloth. "Let me do it," said Cheesacre taking it out of the Captain's hands. "Oh, certainly," said the Captain, giving up his prize. "Captain Bellfield would do it much better," said Charlie, with a little toss of her head; "he's as good as a married man, and they always do these things best." The day was fine, and although the shade was not perfect, and the midges were troublesome, the dinner went off very nicely. It was beautiful to see how well Mrs. Greenow remembered herself about the grace, seeing that the clergyman was there. She was just in time, and would have been very angry with herself, and have thought herself awkward, had she forgotten it. Mr. Cheesacre sat on her right hand, and the clergyman on her left, and she hardly spoke a word to Bellfield. Her sweetest smiles were all given to Cheesacre. She was specially anxious to keep her neighbour, the parson, in good-humour, and therefore illuminated him once in every five minutes with a passing ray, but the full splendour of her light was poured out upon Cheesacre, as it never had before been poured. How she did flatter him, and with what a capacious gullet did he swallow her flatteries! Oileymead was the only paradise she had ever seen. "Ah, me; when I think of it sometimes,--but never mind." A moment came to him when he thought that even yet he might win the race, and send Bellfield away howling into outer darkness. A moment came to him, and the widow saw the moment well. "I know I have done for the best," said she, "and therefore I shall never regret it; at any rate, it's done now." "Not done yet," said he plaintively. "Yes; done, and done, and done. Besides, a man in your position in the county should always marry a wife younger than yourself,--a good deal younger." Cheesacre did not understand the argument, but he liked the allusion to his position in the county, and he perceived that it was too late for any changes in the present arrangements. But he was happy; and all that feeling of animosity to Alice had vanished from his breast. Poor Alice! she, at any rate, was innocent. With so much of her own to fill her mind, she had been but little able to take her share in the Greenow festivities; and we may safely say, that if Mr. Cheesacre's supremacy was on any occasion attacked, it was not attacked by her. His supremacy on this occasion was paramount, and during the dinner, and after the dinner, he was allowed to give his orders to Bellfield in a manner that must have gratified him much. "You must have another glass of champagne with me, my friend," said Mrs. Greenow; and Mr. Cheesacre drank the other glass of champagne. It was not the second nor the third that he had taken. After dinner they started off for a ramble through the fields, and Mrs. Greenow and Mr. Cheesacre were together. I think that Charlie Fairstairs did not go with them at all. I think she went into the house and washed her face, and brushed her hair, and settled her muslin. I should not wonder if she took off her frock and ironed it again. Captain Bellfield, I know, went with Alice, and created some astonishment by assuring her that he fully meant to correct the error of his ways. "I know what it is," he said, "to be connected with such a family as yours, Miss Vavasor." He too had heard about the future duchess, and wished to be on his best behaviour. Kate fell to the lot of the parson. "This is the last time we shall ever be together in this way," said the widow to her friend. "Oh, no," said Cheesacre; "I hope not." "The last time. On Wednesday I become Mrs. Bellfield, and I need hardly say that I have many things to think of before that; but Mr. Cheesacre, I hope we are not to be strangers hereafter?" Mr. Cheesacre said that he hoped not. Oileymead would always be open to Captain and Mrs. Bellfield. "We all know your hospitality," said she; "it is not to-day nor to-morrow that I or my husband,--that is to be,--will have to learn that. He always declares that you are the very beau ideal of an English country gentleman." "Merely a poor Norfolk farmer," said Cheesacre. "I never want to put myself beyond my own place. There has been some talk about the Commission of the Peace, but I don't think anything of it." "It has been the greatest blessing in the world for him that he has ever known you," said Mrs. Greenow, still talking about her future husband. "I've tried to be good-natured; that's all. D---- me, Mrs. Greenow, what's the use of living if one doesn't try to be good-natured? There isn't a better fellow than Bellfield living. He and I ran for the same plate, and he has won it. He's a lucky fellow, and I don't begrudge him his luck." "That's so manly of you, Mr. Cheesacre! But, indeed, the plate you speak of was not worth your running for." "I may have my own opinion about that, you know." "It was not. Nobody knows that as well as I do, or could have thought over the whole matter so often. I know very well what my mission is in life. The mistress of your house, Mr. Cheesacre, should not be any man's widow." "She wouldn't be a widow then, you know." "A virgin heart should be yours; and a virgin heart may be yours, if you choose to accept it." "Oh, bother!" "If you choose to take my solicitude on your behalf in that way, of course I have done. You were good enough to say just now that you wished to see me and my husband in your hospitable halls. After all that has passed, do you think that I could be a visitor at your house unless there is a mistress there?" "Upon my word, I think you might." "No, Mr. Cheesacre; certainly not. For all our sakes, I should decline. But if you were married--" "You are always wanting to marry me, Mrs. Greenow." "I do, I do. It is the only way in which there can be any friendship between us, and not for worlds would I lose that advantage for my husband,--let alone what I may feel for myself." "Why didn't you take me yourself, Mrs. Greenow?" "If you can't understand, it is not for me to say anything more, Mr. Cheesacre. If you value the warm affection of a virgin heart--" "Why, Mrs. Greenow, all yesterday she wouldn't say a word to me." "Not say a word to you? Is that all you know about it? Are you so ignorant that you cannot see when a girl's heart is breaking beneath her stays?" This almost improper allusion had quite an effect on Mr. Cheesacre's sensitive bosom. "Did you say a word to her yesterday? And if not, why have you said so many words before?" "Oh, Mrs. Greenow; come!" "It is, oh, Mrs. Greenow. But it is time that we should go back to them." They had been sitting all this time on a bank, under a hedge. "We will have our tea, and you shall have your pipe and brandy-and-water, and Charlie shall bring it to you. Shall she, Mr. Cheesacre?" "If she likes she shall, of course." "Do you ask her, and she'll like it it quick enough. But remember, Mr. Cheesacre, I'm quite serious in what I say about your having a mistress for your house. Only think what an age you'll be when your children grow up, if you don't marry soon now." They returned to the field in which they had dined, and found Charlie under the trees, with her muslin looking very fresh. "What, all a-mort?" said Mrs. Greenow. Charlie did not quite understand this, but replied that she preferred being alone. "I have told him that you should fill his pipe for him," said Mrs. Greenow. "He doesn't care for ladies to fill his pipe for him," said Charlie. "Do you try," said the widow, "while I go indoors and order the tea." It had been necessary to put the bait very close before Cheesacre's eyes, or there would have been no hope that he might take it. The bait had been put so very close that we must feel sure that he saw the hook. But there are fish so silly that they will take the bait although they know the hook is there. Cheesacre understood it all. Many things he could not see, but he could see that Mrs. Greenow was trying to catch him as a husband for Charlie Fairstairs; and he knew also that he had always despised Charlie, and that no worldly advantage whatever would accrue to him by a marriage with such a girl. But there she was, and he didn't quite know how to avoid it. She did look rather nice in her clear-starched muslin frock, and he felt that he should like to kiss her. He needn't marry her because he kissed her. The champagne which had created the desire also gave him the audacity. He gave one glance around him to see that he was not observed, and then he did kiss Charlie Fairstairs under the trees. "Oh, Mr. Cheesacre," said Charlie. "Oh, Mr. Cheesacre," echoed a laughing voice; and poor Cheesacre, looking round, saw that Mrs. Greenow, who ought to have been inside the house looking after the boiling water, was moving about for some unknown reason within sight of the spot which he had chosen for his dalliance. "Mr. Cheesacre," said Charlie sobbing, "how dare you do that?--and where all the world could see you?" "It was only Mrs. Greenow," said Cheesacre. "And what will she think of me?" "Lord bless you--she won't think anything about it." "But I do;--I think a great deal about it. I don't know what to do, I don't;--I don't." Whereupon Charlie got up from her seat under the trees and began to move away slowly. Cheesacre thought about it for a moment or two. Should he follow her or should he not? He knew that he had better not follow her. He knew that she was bait with a very visible hook. He knew that he was a big fish for whom these two women were angling. But after all, perhaps it wouldn't do him much harm to be caught. So he got up and followed her. I don't suppose she meant to take the way towards the woods,--towards the little path leading to the old summer-house up in the trees. She was too much beside herself to know where she was going, no doubt. But that was the path she did take, and before long she and Cheesacre were in the summerhouse together. "Don't, Sam, don't! Somebody really will be coming. Well, then, there. Now I won't do it again." 'Twas thus she spoke when the last kiss was given on this occasion;--unless there may have been one or two later in the evening, to which it is not necessary more especially to allude here. But on the occasion of that last kiss in the summer-house Miss Fairstairs was perfectly justified by circumstances, for she was then the promised bride of Mr. Cheesacre. But how was he to get down again among his friends? That consideration troubled Mr. Cheesacre as he rose from his happy seat after that last embrace. He had promised Charlie, and perhaps he would keep his promise, but it might be as well not to make it all too public at once. But Charlie wasn't going to be thrown over;--not if she knew it, as she said to herself. She returned therefore triumphantly among them all,--blushing indeed, and with her eyes turned away, and her hand now remained upon her lover's arm;--but still so close to him that there could be no mistake. "Goodness, gracious, Charlie! where have you and Mr. Cheesacre been?" said Mrs. Greenow. "We got up into the woods and lost ourselves," said Charlie. "Oh, indeed," said Mrs. Greenow. It would be too long to tell now, in these last pages of our story, how Cheesacre strove to escape, and with what skill Mrs. Greenow kept him to his bargain. I hope that Charlie Fairstairs was duly grateful. Before that evening was over, under the comfortable influence of a glass of hot brandy-and-water,--the widow had, I think, herself mixed the second glass for Mr. Cheesacre, before the influence became sufficiently comfortable,--he was forced to own that he had made himself the happy possessor of Charlie Fairstairs' heart and hand. "And you are a lucky man," said the widow with enthusiasm; "and I congratulate you with all my heart. Don't let there be any delay now, because a good thing can't be done too soon." And indeed, before that night was over, Mrs. Greenow had the pair together in her own presence, and then fixed the day. "A fellow ought to be allowed to turn himself," Cheesacre said to her, pleading for himself in a whisper. But no; Mrs. Greenow would give him no such mercy. She knew to what a man turning himself might probably lead. She was a woman who was quite in earnest when she went to work, and I hope that Miss Fairstairs was grateful. Then, in that presence, was in truth the last kiss given on that eventful evening. "Come, Charlie, be good-natured to him. He's as good as your own now," said the widow. And Charlie was good-natured. "It's to be as soon as ever we come back from our trip," said Mrs. Greenow to Kate, the next day, "and I'm lending her money to get all her things at once. He shall come to the scratch, though I go all the way to Norfolk by myself and fetch him by his ears. He shall come, as sure as my name's Greenow,--or Bellfield, as it will be then, you know." "And I shouldn't wonder if she did have to go to Norfolk," said Kate to her cousin. That event, however, cannot be absolutely concluded in these pages. I can only say that, when I think of Mrs. Greenow's force of character and warmth of friendship, I feel that Miss Fairstairs' prospects stand on good ground. Mrs. Greenow's own marriage was completed with perfect success. She took Captain Bellfield for better or for worse, with a thorough determination to make the best of his worst, and to put him on his legs, if any such putting might be possible. He, at any rate, had been in luck. If any possible stroke of fortune could do him good, he had found that stroke. He had found a wife who could forgive all his past offences,--and also, if necessary, some future offences; who had money enough for all his wants, and kindness enough to gratify them, and who had, moreover,--which for the Captain was the most important,--strength enough to keep from him the power of ruining them both. Reader, let us wish a happy married life to Captain and Mrs. Bellfield! The day after the ceremony Alice Vavasor and Kate Vavasor started for Matching Priory.

It must be acknowledged that Mrs. Greenow was a resourceful woman, and very prudent for others, though perhaps not for herself. Her marriage with Captain Bellfield was certainly a rash act, although she did take so much care to keep her income in her own hands; but the manner in which she made him live discreetly for some months before their marriage, the tact with which she renewed the friendship between him and Mr. Cheesacre, and the skill she used in at last providing Mr. Cheesacre with a wife, oblige us to admit that, as a general, she had great powers. When Alice reached Vavasor Hall she found Charlie Fairstairs staying there on a long visit. Charlie and Kate were to be the two bridesmaids, and, as Kate told her cousin in their first confidential talk that evening, there were already great hopes that the master of Oileymead might be brought to surrender. It was true that Charlie had not a shilling, and that Mr. Cheesacre had set his heart on marrying an heiress. It was true that Miss Fairstairs' connections were without rank or fashion, and that the gentleman loved rank and fashion dearly. It was true that Charlie was no beauty, and that Cheesacre had an eye for feminine charms. It was true that he had despised Charlie, and had spoken his contempt openly; that he had learned to regard her as poor and despicable, because she was common in his eyes. It is thus that the Cheesacres judge of people. But in spite of all these difficulties Mrs. Greenow had taken up poor Charlie's case, and Kate Vavasor expressed a strong opinion that her aunt would win. "What has she done to the man?" Alice asked. "Coaxed him; simply that. He doesn't know how to say no to her. Sometimes I have thought that he might run away, but I don't think so now. She has little chats with him from day to day, which are so alluring to him that he cannot tear himself off. In the middle of one of them he will find himself engaged." "But the unfortunate girl! Won't it be a wretched marriage for her?" "Not at all. She'll make him a very good wife. He's one of those men to whom any woman, after a little time, will be the same. He'll be rough with her once a month or so, and perhaps tell her that she brought no money; but that won't break any bones, and Charlie will know how to fight her own battles. She'll save his money if she brings none, and in a few years' time they will quite understand each other." Mr. Cheesacre and Captain Bellfield were at this time living in lodgings together, at Penrith, but came over and spent every other day at Vavasor, returning to their lodgings in the evening. It was eight days to the marriage when Alice arrived. "It's to be very quiet, Alice," said her aunt; "as quiet as can be. I owe that to the memory of the departed one. I know that he is looking down upon me, and that he approves all that I do." She took Alice up to see her trousseau, and gave the other expectant bride some useful little hints about linen. "Look here, these are quite new - have never been on yet, and I had them when I was married before. I hate meanness; but there is nothing like being careful, my dear. You have a lot of rich people about you just now, and will have ever so many things given you which you won't want. Do keep them all carefully. They may turn out useful, you know." And then Mrs. Greenow opened her mind about the Captain. "He's as good as gold, my dear, in his own way. Of course, I know that he has faults, and I should like to know who hasn't. Bellfield may have been a little extravagant, I dare say. But how can a man help being extravagant when he hasn't got any regular income? He has been ill-treated in his profession. After fighting his country's battles through blood, and dust, and wounds - but I'll tell you about that another time." "I suppose a man seldom does make a fortune, aunt, by being a soldier?" "Never, my dear. But he is the best-tempered creature alive, and the staunchest friend I ever met. You should hear what Mr. Cheesacre says of him! But you don't know Mr. Cheesacre?" "No, aunt, not yet." "Between you and me, Kate might have had him if she liked; but perhaps Kate was right." "I don't think he would have suited Kate at all." "Because of the farmyard, you mean? Kate shouldn't give herself airs. But perhaps it's all for the best. But as I was saying, the friendship between those two men is quite wonderful, and I have always observed that when a man can create that kind of affection in the bosom of another man, he is the sort of man who makes a good husband." Alice knew almost as much of Bellfield's past life as Mrs. Greenow did herself; and Mrs. Greenow was aware of it. Nevertheless, she had a pleasure in telling her own story, and seemed to believe every word that she spoke. On the following day the two gentlemen came over, and Alice observed that Miss Fairstairs hardly spoke to Mr. Cheesacre, but avoided him very markedly. They drank tea out of doors, and when Mr. Cheesacre sauntered towards the end of the bench on which Charlie was sitting, Charlie got up and walked away. And when they strolled about the place afterwards, she was at great pains to attach herself to some other person, so that Mr. Cheesacre could not attach himself to her. At one time Mr. Cheesacre did get close to her and spoke some indifferent word. He knew that he was being cut. "I don't know, sir," said Charlie, again moving away with dignity to Alice, who was close by. "I know you have just come home from Switzerland," said Charlie. "Beautiful Switzerland! Do tell me something about Switzerland!" Mr. Cheesacre had heard that Alice was the dear friend of a lady who would some day become a duchess. He therefore naturally held her in awe, and slunk away. Mrs. Greenow clung lovingly to her future husband, and Mr. Cheesacre was very much alone and unhappy. He had generally enjoyed these days at Vavasor Hall, having fancied himself to be the dominant spirit there. That Mrs. Greenow was always in truth the dominant spirit I need hardly say; but she knew how to make a companion happy, and also how to make him wretched. On this day poor Cheesacre was very wretched. "I don't think I shall go there any more," he said to Bellfield, as they drove back to Penrith that evening. "Not go there any more, Cheesy?" said Bellfield; "why, we are to have the dinner in the field on Friday. It's your own doing." "Well, yes; I'll go on Friday, but not after that." "You'll stop and see me married, old fellow?" "What's the use? You'll get your wife, and that's enough for you. The truth is, that since that girl came down from London with her d---d airs;" - he meant poor Alice - "the place is quite changed. I do hate your swells." Captain Bellfield argued with him; but Cheesacre was cross and touchy. "You did it admirably, my dear," said Mrs. Greenow that night to Charlie Fairstairs. "I really did not think you had so much in you." "Oh, I don't know," said Charlie, blushing at the praise. "And it's the only way, my dear, with such a one as him. If he does come round, you'll find him an excellent husband." "I don't think he cares for me a bit," said Charlie, whimpering. "Pooh, nonsense! Girls never know whether men care for them or not. If he asks you to marry him, won't that be a sign that he cares for you? and if he don't, why, there'll be no harm done." "If he thinks it's his money-" began Charlie. "Now, don't talk nonsense, Charlie," said Mrs. Greenow, "Of course it's his money, more or less. You don't mean to tell me you'd go and fall in love with him if he was like Bellfield, and hadn't got a rap? I can afford that sort of thing; you can't. I don't mean to say you ain't to love him. I've no doubt you will, and make him a very good wife. And now, my dear, mind you look your best on Friday. I'll get him away immediately after dinner, and when he's done with me you can contrive to be in his way, you know." The next day the ladies were all alone, and devoted themselves to millinery and household cares. Large trunks of household linen had arrived, all of it marked with the name of Greenow. "We must cut out the pieces, Jeannette, and work 'em in again ever so carefully," said the widow. "It will always show," said Jeannette, shaking her head. "But not one person in ten will notice it. We'd always put them on the beds with the name to the feet, you know." It was not quite true that Cheesacre had arranged the dinner out in the field, although no doubt he thought he had done so. The little treat had been arranged by Mrs. Greenow. There was not much scope for a picnic here. Besides their own party, no guest could be caught except the clergyman. He was soon to perform Mrs. Greenow's marriage ceremony, and had promised to grace this little festival. It amounted to this: that they were to eat their dinner uncomfortably in the field instead of comfortably in the dining-room. But Mrs. Greenow knew that Charlie's charms would be much strengthened by a dinner out-of-doors. "Nothing," she said to Kate, "makes a man come forward so well as putting him of his usual track." At two o'clock the gig from Penrith arrived at the Hall, and for the next hour both Cheesacre and the Captain were engaged in preparing the tables and carrying out the food. The Captain and Charlie Fairstairs were going to lay the cloth. "Let me do it," said Cheesacre, taking it out of the Captain's hands. "Oh, certainly," said the Captain. "Captain Bellfield would do it much better," said Charlie, with a little toss of her head; "he's as good as a married man, and they always do these things best." The day was fine, and although the midges were troublesome, the dinner went off very nicely. Mrs. Greenow remembered the grace just in time, with the clergyman there. Mr. Cheesacre sat on her right, and the clergyman on her left, and she hardly spoke a word to Bellfield. Her sweetest smiles were all given to Cheesacre. She was anxious to keep the parson in good-humour, and therefore illuminated him once in every five minutes with a passing ray, but the full splendour of her light was poured out upon Cheesacre, as it never had before been poured. How she did flatter him! Oileymead was the only paradise she had ever seen. "Ah, me; when I think of it sometimes - but never mind." A moment came to him when he thought that even yet he might win the race, and send Bellfield away howling into outer darkness. The widow saw the moment well. "I know I have done for the best," said she, "and at any rate, it's done now." "Not done yet," said he plaintively. "Yes; done. Besides, a man in your position in the county should always marry a wife younger than yourself." Cheesacre did not understand the argument, but he liked the allusion to his position in the county, and he was happy. Both during and after the dinner, he was allowed to give his orders to Bellfield in a manner that gratified him much. "You must have another glass of champagne with me, my friend," said Mrs. Greenow; and Mr. Cheesacre drank the other glass of champagne. After dinner they started off for a ramble through the fields, and Mrs. Greenow and Mr. Cheesacre were together. Charlie Fairstairs did not go with them at all. I think she went into the house and washed her face, and brushed her hair, and settled her muslin. Captain Bellfield went with Alice, and assured her that he fully meant to correct the error of his ways. "I know what it is," he said, "to be connected with such a family as yours, Miss Vavasor." He too had heard about the future duchess, and wished to be on his best behaviour. Kate fell to the lot of the parson. "This is the last time we shall ever be together in this way," said the widow to her friend. "On Wednesday I become Mrs. Bellfield; but Mr. Cheesacre, I hope we are not to be strangers hereafter?" Mr. Cheesacre said that he hoped not. Oileymead would always be open to Captain and Mrs. Bellfield. "We all know your hospitality," said she; "my husband to be always declares that you are the very ideal of an English country gentleman." "Merely a poor Norfolk farmer," said Cheesacre. "There has been some talk about the Commission of the Peace, but I don't think anything of it." "It has been the greatest blessing in the world for him that he has known you," said Mrs. Greenow. "I've tried to be good-natured; that's all. There isn't a better fellow than Bellfield living. He and I ran for the same plate, and he has won it. He's a lucky fellow, and I don't begrudge him his luck." "That's so manly of you, Mr. Cheesacre! But, indeed, the plate you speak of was not worth your running for." "I may have my own opinion about that, you know." "It was not. I know very well what my mission is in life. The mistress of your house, Mr. Cheesacre, should not be any man's widow. A virgin heart should be yours; and a virgin heart may be yours, if you choose to accept it." "Oh, bother!" "If you choose to take my solicitude in that way, of course I will stop. You were good enough to say that you wished to see me and my husband in your hospitable halls. But do you think that I could be a visitor at your house unless there is a mistress there?" "Upon my word, I think you might." "No, Mr. Cheesacre; certainly not. But if you were married-" "You are always wanting to marry me off, Mrs. Greenow." "I am. It is the only way in which there can be any friendship between us. If you value the warm affection of a virgin heart-" "Why, Mrs. Greenow, all yesterday she wouldn't say a word to me." "Is that all you know about it? Are you so ignorant that you cannot see when a girl's heart is breaking beneath her stays?" This almost improper allusion had quite an effect on Mr. Cheesacre's sensitive bosom. "Did you say a word to her yesterday?" "Oh, Mrs. Greenow; come!" "But it is time that we should go back to them. We will have our tea, and you shall have your pipe and brandy-and-water, and Charlie shall bring it to you. Shall she, Mr. Cheesacre?" "If she likes she shall, of course." "But remember, Mr. Cheesacre, I'm quite serious in what I say about your having a mistress for your house. Only think what an age you'll be when your children grow up, if you don't marry soon." They returned to the field in which they had dined, and found Charlie under the trees, with her muslin looking very fresh. "I have told him that you should fill his pipe for him," said Mrs. Greenow. "He doesn't care for ladies to fill his pipe for him," said Charlie. "Try," said the widow, "while I go indoors and order the tea." It had been necessary to put the bait very close before Cheesacre's eyes, or there would have been no hope that he might take it. The bait had been put so very close that we must feel sure that he saw the hook. But there are fish so silly that they will take the bait although they know the hook is there. Cheesacre understood it all. He could see that Mrs. Greenow was trying to catch him as a husband for Charlie Fairstairs; and he knew also that he had always despised Charlie, and that no worldly advantage whatever would accrue to him by a marriage with such a girl. But there she was, and he didn't quite know how to avoid it. She did look rather nice in her muslin frock, and he felt that he should like to kiss her. He needn't marry her because he kissed her. The champagne which had created the desire also gave him the audacity. He gave one glance around him to see that he was not observed, and then he did kiss Charlie Fairstairs under the trees. "Oh, Mr. Cheesacre," said Charlie. "Oh, Mr. Cheesacre," echoed a laughing voice; and poor Cheesacre, looking round, saw that Mrs. Greenow, who ought to have been inside the house looking after the boiling water, was for some reason quite close by. "Mr. Cheesacre," said Charlie sobbing, "how dare you do that? - where all the world could see you?" "It was only Mrs. Greenow," said Cheesacre. "And what will she think of me?" "Lord bless you - she won't think anything about it." "But I do; I think a great deal about it. I don't know what to do." Whereupon Charlie got up from her seat under the trees and began to move away slowly. Cheesacre thought about it for a moment or two. Should he follow her or should he not? He knew that he had better not follow her. He knew that she was bait with a very visible hook. But after all, perhaps it wouldn't do him much harm to be caught. So he got up and followed her. I don't suppose she meant to take the way towards the woods and the old summer-house: she was too much beside herself to know where she was going, no doubt. But that was the path she did take, and before long she and Cheesacre were in the summerhouse together. "Don't, Sam, don't! Somebody really will be coming. Well, then, there. Now I won't do it again." 'Twas thus she spoke when the last kiss was given; unless there may have been one or two later in the evening, to which it is not necessary to allude here. But by the time of that last kiss in the summer-house Miss Fairstairs was the promised bride of Mr. Cheesacre. However, Mr. Cheesacre was troubled as he rose from his happy seat after that last embrace. How would he tell his friends? He had promised Charlie, and perhaps he would keep his promise, but it might be as well not to make it all too public at once. But Charlie wasn't going to be thrown over. She returned therefore triumphantly among them all, blushing indeed, and with her hand upon her lover's arm; but so close to him that there could be no mistake. "Goodness, gracious, Charlie! where have you and Mr. Cheesacre been?" said Mrs. Greenow. "We got up into the woods and lost ourselves," said Charlie. It would be too long to tell now, in these last pages of our story, how Cheesacre strove to escape, and with what skill Mrs. Greenow kept him to his bargain. Before that evening was over, under the comfortable influence of a glass of hot brandy-and-water, he was forced to confess that he had made himself the happy possessor of Charlie Fairstairs' heart and hand. "And you are a lucky man," said the widow with enthusiasm; "and I congratulate you with all my heart. Don't let there be any delay now, because a good thing can't be done too soon." And indeed, before that night was over, Mrs. Greenow had fixed the day. She was a woman who was quite in earnest when she went to work, and I hope that Miss Fairstairs was grateful. Then, in her presence, the last kiss on that eventful evening was given. "Come, Charlie, be good-natured to him. He's as good as your own now," said the widow. And Charlie was good-natured. Mrs. Greenow said to Kate, the next day, "I'm lending her money to get all her things. He shall come to the scratch, if I have to go all the way to Norfolk and fetch him by his ears." "And I shouldn't wonder if she did have to go to Norfolk," said Kate to her cousin. I cannot relate that far. I can only say that, when I think of Mrs. Greenow's force of character and warmth of friendship, I feel that Miss Fairstairs' prospects are good. Mrs. Greenow's own marriage was completed. She took Captain Bellfield for better or for worse, with a thorough determination to make the best of his worst. He was a lucky man. He had found a wife who could forgive all his past offences - and also, if necessary, some future ones; who had money enough for all his wants, and kindness enough to gratify them, and who had, most importantly, strength enough to keep him from ruining them both. Reader, let us wish a happy married life to Captain and Mrs. Bellfield! The day after the ceremony Alice and Kate started for Matching Priory.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 78: Mr. Cheesacre's Fate

I am inclined to think that Mr. Palliser did not much enjoy this part of his tour abroad. When he first reached Lucerne there was no one there with whom he could associate pleasantly, nor had he any occupation capable of making his time run easily. He did not care for scenery. Close at his elbow was the finest to be had in Europe; but it was nothing to him. Had he been simply journeying through Lucerne at the proper time of the year for such a journey, when the business of the Session was over, and a little change of air needed, he could have enjoyed the thing in a moderate way, looking about him, passing on, and knowing that it was good for him to be there at that moment. But he had none of that passion for mountains and lakes, none of that positive joy in the heather, which would have compensated many another man for the loss of all that Mr. Palliser was losing. His mind was ever at home in the House of Commons, or in that august assembly which men call the Cabinet, and of the meetings of which he read from week to week the simple records. Therein were mentioned the names of those heroes to whom Fortune had been so much kinder than she had been to him; and he envied them. He took short, solitary walks, about the town, over the bridges, and along the rivers, making to himself the speeches which he would have made to full houses, had not his wife brought ruin upon all his hopes. And as he pictured to himself the glorious successes which probably never would have been his had he remained in London, so did he prophesy to himself an absolute and irremediable downfall from all political power as the result of his absence,--having, in truth, no sufficient cause for such despair. As yet, he was barely thirty, and had he been able to judge his own case as keenly as he could have judged the case of another, he would have known that a short absence might probably raise his value in the estimation of others rather than lower it. But his personal annoyance was too great to allow of his making such calculations aright. So he became fretful and unhappy; and though he spoke no word of rebuke to his wife, though he never hinted that she had robbed him of his glories, he made her conscious by his manner that she had brought him to this miserable condition. Lady Glencora herself had a love for the mountains and lakes, but it was a love of that kind which requires to be stimulated by society, and which is keenest among cold chickens, picnic-pies, and the flying of champagne corks. When they first entered Switzerland she was very enthusiastic, and declared her intention of climbing up all the mountains, and going through all the passes. She endeavoured to induce her husband to promise that she should be taken up Mont Blanc. And I think she would have carried this on, and would have been taken up Mont Blanc, had Mr. Palliser's aspirations been congenial. But they were not congenial, and Lady Glencora soon lost all her enthusiasm. By the time that they were settled at Lucerne she had voted the mountains to be bores, and had almost learned to hate the lake, which she declared always made her wet through when she got into a small boat, and sea-sick when she put her foot in a large one. At Lucerne they made no acquaintances, Mr. Palliser being a man not apt to new friendships. They did not even dine at the public table, though Lady Glencora had expressed a wish to do so. Mr. Palliser did not like it, and of course Lady Glencora gave way. There were, moreover, some marital passages which were not pleasant to a third person. They did not scold each other; but Lady Glencora would make little speeches of which her husband disapproved. She would purposely irritate him by continuing her tone of badinage, and then Mr. Palliser would become fretful, and would look as though the cares of the world were too many for him. I cannot, therefore, say that Alice had much to make the first period of her sojourn at Lucerne a period of enjoyment. But when they had been there about a fortnight, a stranger arrived, whose coming at any rate lent the grace of some excitement to their lives. Their custom was to breakfast at nine,--or as near nine as Lady Glencora could be induced to appear,--and then Mr. Palliser would read till three. At that hour he would walk forth by himself, after having handed the two ladies into their carriage, and they would be driven about for two hours. "How I do hate this carriage," Lady Glencora said one day. "I do so wish it would come to grief, and be broken to pieces. I wonder whether the Swiss people think that we are going to be driven about here for ever." There were moments, however, which seemed to indicate that Lady Glencora had something to tell her cousin, which, if told, would alter the monotony of their lives. Alice, however, would not press her for her secret. "If you have anything to tell, why don't you tell it?" Alice once said. "You are so hard," said Lady Glencora. "So you tell me very often," Alice replied; "and it is not complimentary. But hard or soft, I won't make a petition for your confidence." Then Lady Glencora said something savage, and the subject was dropped for a while. But we must go back to the stranger. Mr. Palliser had put the ladies into their carriage, and was standing between the front door of the hotel and the lake on a certain day, doubting whether he would walk up the hill to the left or turn into the town on the right, when he was accosted by an English gentleman, who, raising his hat, said that he believed that he spoke to Mr. Palliser. "I am Mr. Palliser," said our friend, very courteously, returning the salute, and smiling as he spoke. But though he smiled, and though he was courteous, and though he raised his hat, there was something in his look and voice which would not have encouraged any ordinary stranger to persevere. Mr. Palliser was not a man with whom it was easy to open an acquaintance. "My name is John Grey," said the stranger. Then the smile was dropped, the look of extreme courtesy disappeared, the tone of Mr. Palliser's voice was altered, and he put out his hand. He knew enough of Mr. John Grey's history to be aware that Mr. John Grey was a man with whom he might permit himself to become acquainted. After the interchange of a very few words, the two men started off for a walk together. "Perhaps you don't wish to meet the carriage?" said Mr. Palliser. "If so, we had better go through the town and up the river." They went through the town, and up the river, and when Mr. Palliser, on his return, was seen by Alice and Lady Glencora, he was alone. They dined together, and nothing was said. Together they sauntered out in the evening, and together came in and drank their tea; but still nothing was said. At last, Alice and her cousin took their candles from Mr. Palliser's hands and left the sitting-room for the night. "Alice," said Lady Glencora, as soon as they were in the passage together, "I have been dying for this time to come. I could not speak before, or I should have made blunders, and so would you. Let us go into your room at once. Who do you think is here, at Lucerne, in this house, at this very moment?" Alice knew at once who it was. She knew, immediately, that Mr. Grey had followed her, though no word had been written to her or spoken to her on the subject since that day on which he himself had told her that they would meet abroad. But though she was quite sure, she did not mention his name. "Who is it, Glencora?" she asked, very calmly. "Whom in all the world would you best like to see?" said Glencora. "My cousin Kate, certainly," said Alice. "Then it is not your cousin Kate. And I don't believe you;--or else you're a fool." Alice was accustomed to Lady Glencora's mode of talking, and therefore did not think much of this. "Perhaps I am a fool," she said. "Only I know you are not. But I am not at all so sure as to your being no hypocrite. The person I mean is a gentleman, of course. Why don't you show a little excitement, at any rate? When Plantagenet told me, just before dinner, I almost jumped out of my shoes. He was going to tell you himself after dinner, in the politest way in the world, no doubt, and just as the servants were carrying away the apples. I thought it best to save you from that; but, I declare, I believe I might have left him to do it; it would have had no effect upon you. Who is it that has come, do you suppose?" "Of course I know now," said Alice, very calmly, "that Mr. John Grey has come." "Yes, Mr. John Grey has come. He is here in this house at this minute;--or, more probably, waiting outside by the lake till he shall see a light in your bedroom." Then Lady Glencora paused for a moment, waiting that Alice might say something. But Alice said nothing. "Well?" said Lady Glencora, rising up from her chair. "Well?" "Well?" said Alice. "Have you nothing to say? Is it the same to you as though Mr. Smith had come?" "No; not exactly the same. I am quite alive to the importance of Mr. Grey's arrival, and shall probably lie awake all night thinking about it,--if it will do you any good to know that; but I don't feel that I have much to say about it." "I wish I had let Mr. Palliser tell you, in an ordinary way, before all the servants. I do indeed." "It would not have made much difference." "Not the least, I believe. I wonder whether you ever did care for anybody in your life,--for him, or for that other one, or for anybody. For nobody, I believe;--except your cousin Kate. Still waters, they say, run deep; and sometimes I think your waters run too deep for me to fathom. I suppose I may go now, if you have got nothing more to say?" "What do you want me to say? Of course I know why he has come here. He told me he should come." "And you have never said a word about it." "He told me he should come, and I thought it better not to say a word about it. He might change his mind, or anything might happen. I told him not to come; and it would have been much better that he should have remained away." "Why;--why;--why would it be better?" "Because his being here will do no good to any one." "No good! It seems to me impossible but that it should do all the good in the world. Look here, Alice. If you do not altogether make it up with him before to-morrow evening, I shall believe you to be utterly heartless. Had I been you I should have been in his arms before this. I'll go now, and leave you to lie awake, as you say you will." Then she left the room, but returned in a moment to ask another question. "What is Plantagenet to say to him about seeing you to-morrow? Of course he has asked permission to come and call." "He may come if he pleases. You don't think I have quarrelled with him, or would refuse to see him!" "And may we ask him to dine with us?" "Oh, yes." "And make up a picnic, and all the rest of it. In fact, he is to be regarded as only an ordinary person. Well;--good night. I don't understand you, that's all." It may be doubted whether Alice understood herself. As soon as her friend was gone, she put out her candle and seated herself at the open window of her room, looking out upon the moonlight as it played upon the lake. Would he be there, thinking of her, looking up, perhaps, as Glencora had hinted, to see if he could distinguish her light among the hundred that would be flickering across the long front of the house. If it were so, at any rate he should not see her, so she drew the curtain, and sat there watching the lake. It was a pity that he should have come, and yet she loved him dearly for coming. It was a pity that he should have come, as his coming could lead to no good result. Of this she assured herself over and over again, and yet she hardly knew why she was so sure of it. Glencora had called her hard; but her conviction on that matter had not come from hardness. Now that she was alone, her heart was full of love, of the soft romance of love towards this man; and yet she felt that she ought not to marry him, even though he might still be willing to take her. That he was still willing to take her, that he desired to have her for his wife in spite of all the injury she had done him, there could be no doubt. Why else had he followed her to Switzerland? And she remembered, now at this moment, how he had told her at Cheltenham that he would never consider her to be lost to him, unless she should, in truth, become the wife of another man. Why, then, should it not be as he wished it? [Illustration: Alice.] She asked herself the question, and did not answer it; but still she felt that it might not be so. She had no right to such happiness after the evil that she had done. She had been driven by a frenzy to do that which she herself could not pardon; and having done it, she could not bring herself to accept the position which should have been the reward of good conduct. She could not analyse the causes which made her feel that she must still refuse the love that was proffered to her; she could not clearly read her own thoughts; but the causes were as I have said, and such was the true reading of her thoughts. Had she simply refused his hand after she had once accepted it,--had she refused it, and then again changed her mind, she could have brought herself to ask him to forgive her. But she had done so much more than this, and so much worse! She had affianced herself to another man since she had belonged to him,--since she had been his, as his future wife. What must he not think of her, and what not suspect? Then she remembered those interviews which she had had with her cousin since she had written to him, accepting his offer. When he had been with her in Queen Anne Street she had shrunk from all outward signs of a love which she did not feel. There had been no caress between them. She had not allowed him to touch her with his lips. But it was impossible that the nature of that mad engagement between her and her cousin George should ever be made known to Mr. Grey. She sat there wiping the tears from her eyes as she looked for his figure among the figures by the lake-side; but, as she sat there, she promised herself no happiness from his coming. Oh! reader, can you forgive her in that she had sinned against the softness of her feminine nature? I think that she may be forgiven, in that she had never brought herself to think lightly of her own fault. If he were there, by the lake-side, she did not see him. I think we may say that John Grey was not a man to console himself in his love by looking up at his lady's candle. He was one who was capable of doing as much as most men in the pursuit of his love,--as he proved to be the case when he followed Alice to Cheltenham, and again to London, and now again to Lucerne; but I doubt whether a glimmer from her bedroom-window, had it been unmistakably her own glimmer, and not that of some ugly old French woman who might chance to sleep next to her, would have done him much good. He had come to Lucerne with a purpose, which purpose, if it might be possible, he meant to carry out; but I think he was already in bed, being tired with long travel, before Lady Glencora had left Alice's room. At breakfast the next morning nothing was said for a while about the new arrival. At last Mr. Palliser ventured to speak. "Glencora has told you, I think, that Mr. Grey is here? Mr. Grey is an old friend of yours, I believe?" Alice, keeping her countenance as well as she was able, said Mr. Grey had been, and, indeed, was, a very dear friend of hers. Mr. Palliser knew the whole story, and what was the use of any little attempt at dissimulation? "I shall be glad to see him,--if you will allow me?" she went on to say. "Glencora suggests that we should ask him to dinner," said Mr. Palliser; and then that matter was settled. But Mr. Grey did not wait till dinner-time to see Alice. Early in the morning his card was brought up, and Lady Glencora, as soon as she saw the name, immediately ran away. "Indeed you need not go," said Alice. "Indeed I shall go," said her ladyship. "I know what's proper on these occasions, if you don't." So she went, whisking herself along the passages with a little run; and Mr. Grey, as he was shown into her ladyship's usual sitting-room, saw the skirt of her ladyship's dress as she whisked herself off towards her husband. "I told you I should come," he said, with his ordinary sweet smile. "I told you that I should follow you, and here I am." He took her hand, and held it, pressing it warmly. She hardly knew with what words first to address him, or how to get her hand back from him. "I am very glad to see you,--as an old friend," she said; "but I hope--" "Well;--you hope what?" "I hope you have had some better cause for travelling than a desire to see me?" "No, dearest; no. I have had no better cause, and, indeed, none other. I have come on purpose to see you; and had Mr. Palliser taken you off to Asia or Africa, I think I should have felt myself compelled to follow him. You know why I follow you?" "Hardly," said she,--not finding at the moment any other word that she could say. "Because I love you. You see what a plain-spoken John Bull I am, and how I come to the point at once. I want you to be my wife; and they say that perseverance is the best way when a man has such a want as that." "You ought not to want it," she said, whispering the words as though she were unable to speak them out loud. "But I do, you see. And why should I not want it?" "I am not fit to be your wife." "I am the best judge of that, Alice. You have to make up your mind whether I am fit to be your husband." "You would be disgraced if you were to take me, after all that has passed;--after what I have done. What would other men say of you when they knew the story?" "Other men, I hope, would be just enough to say, that when I had made up my mind, I was tolerably constant in keeping to it. I do not think they could say much worse of me than that." "They would say that you had been jilted, and had forgiven the jilt." "As far as the forgiveness goes, they would tell the truth. But, indeed, Alice, I don't very much care what men do say of me." "But I care, Mr. Grey;--and though you may forgive me, I cannot forgive myself. Indeed I know now, as I have known all along, that I am not fit to be your wife. I am not good enough. And I have done that which makes me feel that I have no right to marry anyone." These words she said, jerking out the different sentences almost in convulsions; and when she had come to the end of them, the tears were streaming down her cheeks. "I have thought about it, and I will not. I will not. After what has passed, I know that it will be better,--more seemly, that I should remain as I am." Soon after that she left him, not, however, till she had told him that she would meet him again at dinner, and had begged him to treat her simply as a friend. "In spite of everything, I hope that we may always be friends,--dear friends," she said. "I hope we may," he answered;--"the very dearest." And then he left her. In the afternoon he again encountered Mr. Palliser, and having thought over the matter since his interview with Alice, he resolved to tell his whole story to his new acquaintance,--not in order that he might ask for counsel from him, for in this matter he wanted no man's advice,--but that he might get some assistance. So the two men walked off together, up the banks of the clear-flowing Reuss, and Mr. Palliser felt the comfort of having a companion. "I have always liked her," said Mr. Palliser, "though, to tell the truth, I have twice been very angry with her." "I have never been angry with her," said the lover. "And my anger was in both instances unjust. You may imagine how great is my confidence in her, when I have thought she was the best companion my wife could have for a long journey, taken under circumstances that were--that were--; but I need not trouble you with that." So great had been the desolation of Mr. Palliser's life since his banishment from London that he almost felt tempted to tell the story of his troubles to this absolute stranger. But he bethought himself of the blood of the Pallisers, and refrained. There are comforts which royalty may never enjoy, and luxuries in which such men as Plantagenet Palliser may not permit themselves to indulge. "About her and her character I have no doubt in the world," said Grey. "In all that she has done I think that I have seen her motives; and though I have not approved of them, I have always known them to be pure and unselfish. She has done nothing that I did not forgive as soon as it was done. Had she married that man, I should have forgiven her even that,--though I should have known that all her future life was destroyed, and much of mine also. I think I can make her happy if she will marry me, but she must first be taught to forgive herself. Living as she is with you, and with your wife, she may, perhaps, just now be more under your influence and your wife's than she can possibly be under mine." Whereupon, Mr. Palliser promised that he would do what he could. "I think she loves me," said Mr. Grey. Mr. Palliser said that he was sure she did, though what ground he had for such assurance I am quite unable to surmise. He was probably desirous of saying the most civil thing which occurred to him. The little dinner-party that evening was pleasant enough, and nothing more was said about love. Lady Glencora talked nonsense to Mr. Grey, and Mr. Palliser contradicted all the nonsense which his wife talked. But this was all done in such a way that the evening passed away pleasantly. It was tacitly admitted among them that Mr. Grey was to be allowed to come among them as a friend, and Lady Glencora managed to say one word to him aside, in which she promised to give him her most cordial cooperation.

Mr. Palliser did not much enjoy this part of his tour abroad. When he first reached Lucerne there was no one with whom he could associate pleasantly, nor had he any occupation to pass his time. He did not care for scenery. Close at his elbow was the finest to be had in Europe; but it was nothing to him. Had he been simply journeying through Lucerne when the business of Parliament was over, for a little change of air, he could have enjoyed the thing in a moderate way. But he had no passion for mountains and lakes. His mind was always in the House of Commons, or the Cabinet, and in the meetings of which he read from week to week. He took short, solitary walks about the town, making to himself the speeches which he would have made to full houses, had not his wife brought ruin upon all his hopes. And as he pictured to himself the glorious successes which probably never would have been his, so did he prophesy an absolute downfall from all political power as the result of his absence - having, in truth, no cause for such despair. He was barely thirty, and if he had been able to judge his own case as keenly as he could have judged the case of another, he would have known that a short absence might raise his value rather than lower it. But his personal annoyance was too great to allow him to make such calculations aright. So he became fretful and unhappy; and though he spoke no word of rebuke to his wife, he made her conscious that she had brought him to this miserable condition. Lady Glencora herself had a love for the mountains and lakes, but it was a love of that kind which needs to be stimulated by society, and which is keenest among cold chickens, picnic-pies, and the flying of champagne corks. When they first entered Switzerland she was very enthusiastic, and declared her intention of climbing up all the mountains, and going through all the passes. But Mr. Palliser did not share her aspirations, and Lady Glencora soon lost her enthusiasm. By the time that they were settled at Lucerne she had voted the mountains to be bores, and had almost learned to hate the lake, which she declared always made her wet through when she got into a small boat, and sea-sick in a large one. At Lucerne they made no acquaintances, Mr. Palliser being a man not apt to make new friendships. They did not even dine at the public table, because Mr. Palliser did not like it, and of course Lady Glencora gave way. There were, moreover, some marital passages which were not pleasant to a third person. They did not scold each other; but Lady Glencora would purposely irritate her husband by her flippant tone, and then Mr. Palliser would become fretful, and would look as though the cares of the world were too many for him. I cannot, therefore, say that Alice had much enjoyment at this time. But when they had been there about a fortnight, a stranger arrived, whose coming at any rate lent some excitement to their lives. They usually breakfasted at nine, and then Mr. Palliser would read till three. At that hour he would walk forth by himself, after handing the two ladies into their carriage, and they would be driven about for two hours. "How I hate this carriage," Lady Glencora said one day. "I wonder whether the Swiss people think that we are going to be driven about here for ever." At some moments, it seemed that Lady Glencora had something to tell her cousin. Alice, however, would not press her for her secret. "If you have anything to tell, why don't you tell it?" Alice once said. "You are so hard," said Lady Glencora. "So you say very often," Alice replied. "But hard or soft, I won't beg for your confidence." Then Lady Glencora said something savage, and the subject was dropped for a while. But we must go back to the stranger. One day Mr. Palliser had put the ladies into their carriage, and was standing by the front door of the hotel, wondering whether to walk up the hill to the left or turn into the town on the right, when he was accosted by an English gentleman, who, raising his hat, said that he believed that he spoke to Mr. Palliser. "I am Mr. Palliser," said our friend, very courteously. But though he smiled and raised his hat, there was something in his look and voice which would not have encouraged any ordinary stranger to persevere. "My name is John Grey," said the stranger. Then the smile was dropped, the tone of Mr. Palliser's voice was altered, and he put out his hand. He knew enough of Mr. John Grey's history to be aware that he was a man with whom he might permit himself to become acquainted. After exchanging a few words, the two men started off for a walk together. They went through the town, and up the river, where they would not meet the ladies' carriage, and when Mr. Palliser returned, he was alone. The three dined together, and nothing was said. Together they sauntered out in the evening, and came in and drank their tea; but still nothing was said. At last, Alice and her cousin took their candles and left the sitting-room for the night. "Alice," said Lady Glencora, as soon as they were in the passage together, "I have been dying to say something. Let us go into your room at once. Who do you think is here, at Lucerne, in this hotel, at this very moment?" Alice knew, immediately, that Mr. Grey had followed her, though she had heard no word since that day on which he had told her that they would meet abroad. "Who is it, Glencora?" she asked calmly. "Whom in all the world would you best like to see?" said Glencora. "My cousin Kate," said Alice. "It is not your cousin Kate. And I don't believe you. It is a gentleman, of course. Why don't you show a little excitement? When Plantagenet told me, just before dinner, I almost jumped out of my shoes. He was going to tell you himself after dinner, but I thought it best to save you from that. Who has come, do you suppose?" "Of course I know now," said Alice, very calmly, "that Mr. John Grey has come." "Yes, he is in this house; or, more probably, waiting outside by the lake till he shall see a light in your bedroom." Then Lady Glencora paused. But Alice said nothing. "Well?" said Lady Glencora. "Well?" said Alice. "Have you nothing to say?" "I am quite aware of the importance of Mr. Grey's arrival, and shall probably lie awake all night thinking about it; but I don't feel that I have much to say about it." "I wish I had let Mr. Palliser tell you before all the servants. I do indeed." "It would not have made much difference." "Not the least, I believe. I wonder whether you ever did care for anybody in your life - except your cousin Kate. Still waters run deep; and sometimes I think your waters run too deep for me to fathom. I suppose I may go now, if you have got nothing more to say?" "What do you want me to say? He told me he would come." "And you never said a word about it." "I thought it better not to. He might change his mind, or anything might happen. I told him not to come; and it would have been much better if he had stayed away." "Why?" "Because his being here will do no good to anyone." "No good! Look here, Alice. If you do not make it up with him before tomorrow evening, I shall believe you to be utterly heartless. I'll go now, and leave you to lie awake." Then she left the room, but returned in a moment to ask, "What is Plantagenet to say to him about seeing you tomorrow? Of course he has asked permission to come and call." "He may come if he pleases. I haven't quarrelled with him." "And may we ask him to dine with us?" "Oh, yes." "In fact, he is to be regarded as an ordinary person. Well; good night. I don't understand you, that's all." It may be doubted whether Alice understood herself. As soon as her friend was gone, she put out her candle and sat at the open window of her room, looking out upon the moonlight as it played upon the lake. Would he be there, thinking of her, as Glencora had hinted? If it were so, he should not see her, so she drew the curtain. It was a pity that he should have come, as his coming could lead to no good result; and yet she loved him dearly for coming. Now that she was alone, her heart was full of love towards this man; and yet she felt that she ought not to marry him, even though he might still be willing to take her. There could be no doubt that he was still willing. Why else had he followed her to Switzerland? Why should it not be as he wished? She asked herself the question, and did not answer it; but she felt she had no right to such happiness after the evil that she had done. She had been driven by a frenzy to do something which she herself could not pardon; and she could not bring herself to accept a reward. If she had simply refused his hand, she could have brought herself to ask him to forgive her. But she had done so much more than this, and so much worse! She had affianced herself to another man. What must he not think of her, and what not suspect? Then she remembered those interviews with George Vavasor in Queen Anne Street. She had shrunk from him. There had been no caress, no kiss. But it was impossible that the nature of that mad engagement between her and her cousin George should ever be made known to Mr. Grey. She sat there wiping the tears from her eyes as she looked for his figure among the figures by the lake-side; but she promised herself no happiness from his coming. Oh! reader, can you forgive her for sinning against the softness of her feminine nature? I think that she may be forgiven, in that she never thought lightly of her own fault. If he were there, by the lake-side, she did not see him. John Grey was not a man to console himself by looking up at his lady's candle. He had come to Lucerne with a purpose, which, if possible, he meant to carry out; but he was already in bed, tired with long travel, before Lady Glencora had left Alice's room. At breakfast the next morning, Mr. Palliser ventured to speak. "Glencora has told you, I think, that Mr. Grey is here? He is an old friend of yours, I believe?" Alice, remaining as composed as she could, said Mr. Grey was a very dear friend of hers. "I shall be glad to see him - if you will allow me?" she added. "Glencora suggests that we should ask him to dinner," said Mr. Palliser. But Mr. Grey did not wait till dinner-time to see Alice. Early in the morning his card was brought up, and Lady Glencora, as soon as she saw the name, ran away. Mr. Grey, when he was shown into her ladyship's sitting-room, saw the skirt of her ladyship's dress as she whisked herself off to her husband. "I told you I should come," he said, with his ordinary sweet smile. "And here I am." He took her hand, and held it, pressing it warmly. She hardly knew how to address him, or how to get her hand back. "I am very glad to see you - as an old friend," she said; "but I hope-" "You hope what?" "I hope you have had some better cause for travelling than a desire to see me?" "No, dearest; no. I have had no better cause. I have come on purpose to see you; and if Mr. Palliser had taken you off to Africa, I should have felt compelled to follow. You know why?" "Hardly," said she - not finding any other word to say. "Because I love you. I want you to be my wife; and they say that perseverance is the best way when a man has such a want as that." "You ought not to want it," she said, whispering. "But I do, you see. And why should I not want it?" "I am not fit to be your wife." "I am the best judge of that, Alice. You have to make up your mind whether I am fit to be your husband." "You would be disgraced if you were to take me, after what I have done. What would other men say of you when they knew the story?" "Other men, I hope, would say that when I had made up my mind, I was tolerably constant in keeping to it. I do not think they could say much worse of me than that." "They would say that you had been jilted, and had forgiven the jilt." "As far as the forgiveness goes, they would tell the truth. But, indeed, Alice, I don't very much care what men do say of me." "But I care, Mr. Grey; and though you may forgive me, I cannot forgive myself. Indeed I know now, as I have known all along, that I am not fit to be your wife. I am not good enough. And I have done that which makes me feel that I have no right to marry anyone." She said this, jerking out the sentences almost in convulsions; the tears were streaming down her cheeks. "I have thought about it, and I will not. I will not. After what has passed, I know that it will be better - that I should remain as I am." Soon after that she left him; not, however, till she had begged him to treat her simply as a friend. "In spite of everything, I hope that we may always be dear friends," she said. "I hope we may," he answered; "the very dearest." In the afternoon he again met Mr. Palliser, and resolved to tell his whole story to his new acquaintance - not in order to ask for advice, but so that he might get some assistance. So the two men walked off together, and Mr. Palliser felt the comfort of having a companion. "I have always liked her," said Mr. Palliser, "though, to tell the truth, I have twice been very angry with her." "I have never been angry with her," said the lover. "And my anger was unjust both times. You may imagine how great is my confidence in her, when I have thought she was the best companion my wife could have for a long journey, under circumstances that were - but I need not trouble you with that." So great had been the desolation of Mr. Palliser's life since his banishment from London that he almost felt tempted to tell the story of his troubles to this absolute stranger. But he thought of the blood of the Pallisers, and refrained. "About her character I have no doubt in the world," said Grey. "In all that she has done I think that I have seen her motives; and though I have not approved of them, I have always known them to be pure and unselfish. She has done nothing that I did not forgive as soon as it was done. If she had married that man, I should have forgiven her even that - though I should have known that all her future life was destroyed, and much of mine also. I think I can make her happy if she will marry me, but she must first be taught to forgive herself. Just now, she may, perhaps, be more under your influence and your wife's than she can be under mine." Mr. Palliser promised that he would do what he could. "I think she loves me," said Mr. Grey. Mr. Palliser said that he was sure she did, though he had no way of knowing, and said it merely to be civil. The little dinner-party that evening was pleasant enough, and nothing was said about love. Lady Glencora talked nonsense to Mr. Grey, and Mr. Palliser contradicted all the nonsense which his wife talked. But this was done in such a way that the evening passed away pleasantly. It was tacitly admitted among them that Mr. Grey was to be allowed to come among them as a friend, and Lady Glencora managed to say one word to him aside, in which she promised to give him her most cordial cooperation.

Can You Forgive Her?

Chapter 70: At Lucerne