Bleak House
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.
CHAPTER XXXI
Nurse and Patient
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.”