Bleak House, Charles Dickens [the beginning after the end novel read .txt] 📗

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 counteract 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,