Bleak House
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.
CHAPTER XLIV
The Letter and the Answer
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