Bleak House
with no inconsiderable cost, to my knowledge, for before Peepy was
sufficiently decorated to walk hand in hand with the professor of
deportment, he had to be newly dressed, at the expense of Caddy and
her husband, from top to toe.
Last of our visitors, there was Mr. Jellyby. Really when he used to
come in of an evening, and ask Caddy in his meek voice how she was,
and then sit down with his head against the wall, and make no attempt
to say anything more, I liked him very much. If he found me bustling
about doing any little thing, he sometimes half took his coat off, as
if with an intention of helping by a great exertion; but he never got
any further. His sole occupation was to sit with his head against the
wall, looking hard at the thoughtful baby; and I could not quite
divest my mind of a fancy that they understood one another.
I have not counted Mr. Woodcourt among our visitors because he was
now Caddy’s regular attendant. She soon began to improve under his
care, but he was so gentle, so skilful, so unwearying in the pains he
took that it is not to be wondered at, I am sure. I saw a good deal
of Mr. Woodcourt during this time, though not so much as might be
supposed, for knowing Caddy to be safe in his hands, I often slipped
home at about the hours when he was expected. We frequently met,
notwithstanding. I was quite reconciled to myself now, but I still
felt glad to think that he was sorry for me, and he still WAS sorry
for me I believed. He helped Mr. Badger in his professional
engagements, which were numerous, and had as yet no settled projects
for the future.
It was when Caddy began to recover that I began to notice a change in
my dear girl. I cannot say how it first presented itself to me,
because I observed it in many slight particulars which were nothing
in themselves and only became something when they were pieced
together. But I made it out, by putting them together, that Ada was
not so frankly cheerful with me as she used to be. Her tenderness for
me was as loving and true as ever; I did not for a moment doubt that;
but there was a quiet sorrow about her which she did not confide to
me, and in which I traced some hidden regret.
Now, I could not understand this, and I was so anxious for the
happiness of my own pet that it caused me some uneasiness and set me
thinking often. At length, feeling sure that Ada suppressed this
something from me lest it should make me unhappy too, it came into my
head that she was a little grieved—for me—by what I had told her
about Bleak House.
How I persuaded myself that this was likely, I don’t know. I had no
idea that there was any selfish reference in my doing so. I was not
grieved for myself: I was quite contented and quite happy. Still,
that Ada might be thinking—for me, though I had abandoned all such
thoughts—of what once was, but was now all changed, seemed so easy
to believe that I believed it.
What could I do to reassure my darling (I considered then) and show
her that I had no such feelings? Well! I could only be as brisk and
busy as possible, and that I had tried to be all along. However, as
Caddy’s illness had certainly interfered, more or less, with my home
duties—though I had always been there in the morning to make my
guardian’s breakfast, and he had a hundred times laughed and said
there must be two little women, for his little woman was never
missing—I resolved to be doubly diligent and gay. So I went about
the house humming all the tunes I knew, and I sat working and working
in a desperate manner, and I talked and talked, morning, noon, and
night.
And still there was the same shade between me and my darling.
“So, Dame Trot,” observed my guardian, shutting up his book one night
when we were all three together, “so Woodcourt has restored Caddy
Jellyby to the full enjoyment of life again?”
“Yes,” I said; “and to be repaid by such gratitude as hers is to be
made rich, guardian.”
“I wish it was,” he returned, “with all my heart.”
So did I too, for that matter. I said so.
“Aye! We would make him as rich as a Jew if we knew how. Would we
not, little woman?”
I laughed as I worked and replied that I was not sure about that, for
it might spoil him, and he might not be so useful, and there might be
many who could ill spare him. As Miss Flite, and Caddy herself, and
many others.
“True,” said my guardian. “I had forgotten that. But we would agree
to make him rich enough to live, I suppose? Rich enough to work with
tolerable peace of mind? Rich enough to have his own happy home and
his own household gods—and household goddess, too, perhaps?”
That was quite another thing, I said. We must all agree in that.
“To be sure,” said my guardian. “All of us. I have a great regard for
Woodcourt, a high esteem for him; and I have been sounding him
delicately about his plans. It is difficult to offer aid to an
independent man with that just kind of pride which he possesses. And
yet I would be glad to do it if I might or if I knew how. He seems
half inclined for another voyage. But that appears like casting such
a man away.”
“It might open a new world to him,” said I.
“So it might, little woman,” my guardian assented. “I doubt if he
expects much of the old world. Do you know I have fancied that he
sometimes feels some particular disappointment or misfortune
encountered in it. You never heard of anything of that sort?”
I shook my head.
“Humph,” said my guardian. “I am mistaken, I dare say.” As there was
a little pause here, which I thought, for my dear girl’s
satisfaction, had better be filled up, I hummed an air as I worked
which was a favourite with my guardian.
“And do you think Mr. Woodcourt will make another voyage?” I asked
him when I had hummed it quietly all through.
“I don’t quite know what to think, my dear, but I should say it was
likely at present that he will give a long trip to another country.”
“I am sure he will take the best wishes of all our hearts with him
wherever he goes,” said I; “and though they are not riches, he will
never be the poorer for them, guardian, at least.”
“Never, little woman,” he replied.
I was sitting in my usual place, which was now beside my guardian’s
chair. That had not been my usual place before the letter, but it was
now. I looked up to Ada, who was sitting opposite, and I saw, as she
looked at me, that her eyes were filled with tears and that tears
were falling down her face. I felt that I had only to be placid and
merry once for all to undeceive my dear and set her loving heart at
rest. I really was so, and I had nothing to do but to be myself.
So I made my sweet girl lean upon my shoulder—how little thinking
what was heavy on her mind!—and I said she was not quite well, and
put my arm about her, and took her upstairs. When we were in our own
room, and when she might perhaps have told me what I was so
unprepared to hear, I gave her no encouragement to confide in me; I
never thought she stood in need of it.
“Oh, my dear good Esther,” said Ada, “if I could only make up my mind
to speak to you and my cousin John when you are together!”
“Why, my love!” I remonstrated. “Ada, why should you not speak to
us!”
Ada only dropped her head and pressed me closer to her heart.
“You surely don’t forget, my beauty,” said I, smiling, “what quiet,
old-fashioned people we are and how I have settled down to be the
discreetest of dames? You don’t forget how happily and peacefully my
life is all marked out for me, and by whom? I am certain that you
don’t forget by what a noble character, Ada. That can never be.”
“No, never, Esther.”
“Why then, my dear,” said I, “there can be nothing amiss—and why
should you not speak to us?”
“Nothing amiss, Esther?” returned Ada. “Oh, when I think of all these
years, and of his fatherly care and kindness, and of the old
relations among us, and of you, what shall I do, what shall I do!”
I looked at my child in some wonder, but I thought it better not to
answer otherwise than by cheering her, and so I turned off into many
little recollections of our life together and prevented her from
saying more. When she lay down to sleep, and not before, I returned
to my guardian to say good night, and then I came back to Ada and sat
near her for a little while.
She was asleep, and I thought as I looked at her that she was a
little changed. I had thought so more than once lately. I could not
decide, even looking at her while she was unconscious, how she was
changed, but something in the familiar beauty of her face looked
different to me. My guardian’s old hopes of her and Richard arose
sorrowfully in my mind, and I said to myself, “She has been anxious
about him,” and I wondered how that love would end.
When I had come home from Caddy’s while she was ill, I had often
found Ada at work, and she had always put her work away, and I had
never known what it was. Some of it now lay in a drawer near her,
which was not quite closed. I did not open the drawer, but I still
rather wondered what the work could be, for it was evidently nothing
for herself.
And I noticed as I kissed my dear that she lay with one hand under
her pillow so that it was hidden.
How much less amiable I must have been than they thought me, how much
less amiable than I thought myself, to be so preoccupied with my own
cheerfulness and contentment as to think that it only rested with me
to put my dear girl right and set her mind at peace!
But I lay down, self-deceived, in that belief. And I awoke in it next
day to find that there was still the same shade between me and my
darling.
CHAPTER LI
Enlightened
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