Bleak House
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.”
CHAPTER LXI
A Discovery
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