It was not so easy as it had appeared at first to arrange for
Richard's making a trial of Mr. Kenge's office. Richard himself was the chief
impediment. As soon as he had it in his power to leave Mr. Badger at any moment,
he began to doubt whether he wanted to leave him at all. He didn't know, he
said, really. It wasn't a bad profession; he couldn't assert that he disliked
it; perhaps he liked it as well as he liked any other--suppose he gave it one
more chance! Upon that, he shut himself up for a few weeks with some books and
some bones and seemed to acquire a considerable fund of information with great
rapidity. His fervour, after lasting about a month, began to cool, and when it
was quite cooled, began to grow warm again. His vacillations between law and
medicine lasted so long that midsummer arrived before he finally separated from
Mr. Badger and entered on an experimental course of Messrs. Kenge and Carboy.
For all his waywardness, he took great credit to himself as being determined to
be in earnest "this time." And he was so good-natured throughout, and in such
high spirits, and so fond of Ada, that it was very difficult indeed to be
otherwise than pleased with him.
"As to Mr. Jarndyce," who, I may mention, found the wind much given, during
this period, to stick in the east; "As to Mr. Jarndyce," Richard would say to
me, "he is the finest fellow in the world, Esther! I must be particularly
careful, if it were only for his satisfaction, to take myself well to task and
have a regular wind-up of this business now."
The idea of his taking himself well to task, with that laughing face and
heedless manner and with a fancy that everything could catch and nothing could
hold, was ludicrously anomalous. However, he told us between-whiles that he was
doing it to such an extent that he wondered his hair didn't turn grey. His
regular wind-up of the business was (as I have said) that he went to Mr. Kenge's
about midsummer to try how he liked it.
All this time he was, in money affairs, what I have described him in a former
illustration--generous, profuse, wildly careless, but fully persuaded that he
was rather calculating and prudent. I happened to say to Ada, in his presence,
half jestingly, half seriously, about the time of his going to Mr. Kenge's, that
he needed to have Fortunatus' purse, he made so light of money, which he
answered in this way, "My jewel of a dear cousin, you hear this old woman! Why
does she say that? Because I gave eight pounds odd (or whatever it was) for a
certain neat waistcoat and buttons a few days ago. Now, if I had stayed at
Badger's I should have been obliged to spend twelve pounds at a blow for some
heart-breaking lecture-fees. So I make four pounds--in a lump--by the
transaction!"
It was a question much discussed between him and my guardian what
arrangements should be made for his living in London while he experimented on
the law, for we had long since gone back to Bleak House, and it was too far off
to admit of his coming there oftener than once a week. My guardian told me that
if Richard were to settle down at Mr. Kenge's he would take some apartments or
chambers where we too could occasionally stay for a few days at a time; "but,
little woman," he added, rubbing his head very significantly, "he hasn't settled
down there yet!" The discussions ended in our hiring for him, by the month, a
neat little furnished lodging in a quiet old house near Queen Square. He
immediately began to spend all the money he had in buying the oddest little
ornaments and luxuries for this lodging; and so often as Ada and I dissuaded him
from making any purchase that he had in contemplation which was particularly
unnecessary and expensive, he took credit for what it would have cost and made
out that to spend anything less on something else was to save the difference.
While these affairs were in abeyance, our visit to Mr. Boythorn's was
postponed. At length, Richard having taken possession of his lodging, there was
nothing to prevent our departure. He could have gone with us at that time of the
year very well, but he was in the full novelty of his new position and was
making most energetic attempts to unravel the mysteries of the fatal suit.
Consequently we went without him, and my darling was delighted to praise him for
being so busy.
We made a pleasant journey down into Lincolnshire by the coach and had an
entertaining companion in Mr. Skimpole. His furniture had been all cleared off,
it appeared, by the person who took possession of it on his blue-eyed daughter's
birthday, but he seemed quite relieved to think that it was gone. Chairs and
table, he said, were wearisome objects; they were monotonous ideas, they had no
variety of expression, they looked you out of countenance, and you looked them
out of countenance. How pleasant, then, to be bound to no particular chairs and
tables, but to sport like a butterfly among all the furniture on hire, and to
flit from rosewood to mahogany, and from mahogany to walnut, and from this shape
to that, as the humour took one!
"The oddity of the thing is," said Mr. Skimpole with a quickened sense of the
ludicrous, "that my chairs and tables were not paid for, and yet my landlord
walks off with them as composedly as possible. Now, that seems droll! There is
something grotesque in it. The chair and table merchant never engaged to pay my
landlord my rent. Why should my landlord quarrel with HIM? If I have a pimple on
my nose which is disagreeable to my landlord's peculiar ideas of beauty, my
landlord has no business to scratch my chair and table merchant's nose, which
has no pimple on it. His reasoning seems defective!"
"Well," said my guardian good-humouredly, "it's pretty clear that whoever
became security for those chairs and tables will have to pay for them."
"Exactly!" returned Mr. Skimpole. "That's the crowning point of unreason in
the business! I said to my landlord, 'My good man, you are not aware that my
excellent friend Jarndyce will have to pay for those things that you are
sweeping off in that indelicate manner. Have you no consideration for HIS
property?' He hadn't the least."
"And refused all proposals," said my guardian.
"Refused all proposals," returned Mr. Skimpole. "I made him business
proposals. I had him into my room. I said, 'You are a man of business, I
believe?' He replied, 'I am,' 'Very well,' said I, 'now let us be business-like.
Here is an inkstand, here are pens and paper, here are wafers. What do you want?
I have occupied your house for a considerable period, I believe to our mutual
satisfaction until this unpleasant misunderstanding arose; let us be at once
friendly and business-like. What do you want?' In reply to this, he made use of
the figurative expression--which has something Eastern about it--that he had
never seen the colour of my money. 'My amiable friend,' said I, 'I never have
any money. I never know anything about money.' 'Well, sir,' said he, 'what do
you offer if I give you time?' 'My good fellow,' said I, 'I have no idea of
time; but you say you are a man of business, and whatever you can suggest to be
done in a business-like way with pen, and ink, and paper--and wafers--I am ready
to do. Don't pay yourself at another man's expense (which is foolish), but be
business-like!' However, he wouldn't be, and there was an end of it."
If these were some of the inconveniences of Mr. Skimpole's childhood, it
assuredly possessed its advantages too. On the journey he had a very good
appetite for such refreshment as came in our way (including a basket of choice
hothouse peaches), but never thought of paying for anything. So when the
coachman came round for his fee, he pleasantly asked him what he considered a
very good fee indeed, now--a liberal one--and on his replying half a crown for a
single passenger, said it was little enough too, all things considered, and left
Mr. Jarndyce to give it him.
It was delightful weather. The green corn waved so beautifully, the larks
sang so joyfully, the hedges were so full of wild flowers, the trees were so
thickly out in leaf, the bean-fields, with a light wind blowing over them,
filled the air with such a delicious fragrance! Late in the afternoon we came to
the market- town where we were to alight from the coach--a dull little town with
a church-spire, and a marketplace, and a market-cross, and one intensely sunny
street, and a pond with an old horse cooling his legs in it, and a very few men
sleepily lying and standing about in narrow little bits of shade. After the
rustling of the leaves and the waving of the corn all along the road, it looked
as still, as hot, as motionless a little town as England could produce.
At the inn we found Mr. Boythorn on horseback, waiting with an open carriage
to take us to his house, which was a few miles off. He was over-joyed to see us
and dismounted with great alacrity.
"By heaven!" said he after giving us a courteous greeting. This a most
infamous coach. It is the most flagrant example of an abominable public vehicle
that ever encumbered the face of the earth. It is twenty-five minutes after its
time this afternoon. The coachman ought to be put to death!"
"IS he after his time?" said Mr. Skimpole, to whom he happened to address
himself. "You know my infirmity."
"Twenty-five minutes! Twenty-six minutes!" replied Mr. Boythorn, referring to
his watch. "With two ladies in the coach, this scoundrel has deliberately
delayed his arrival six and twenty minutes. Deliberately! It is impossible that
it can be accidental! But his father--and his uncle--were the most profligate
coachmen that ever sat upon a box."
While he said this in tones of the greatest indignation, he handed us into
the little phaeton with the utmost gentleness and was all smiles and pleasure.
"I am sorry, ladies," he said, standing bare-headed at the carriage-door when
all was ready, "that I am obliged to conduct you nearly two miles out of the
way. But our direct road lies through Sir Leicester Dedlock's park, and in that
fellow's property I have sworn never to set foot of mine, or horse's foot of
mine, pending the present relations between us, while I breathe the breath of
life!" And here, catching my guardian's eye, he broke into one of his tremendous
laughs, which seemed to shake even the motionless little market-town.
"Are the Dedlocks down here, Lawrence?" said my guardian as we drove along
and Mr. Boythorn trotted on the green turf by the roadside.
"Sir Arrogant Numskull is here," replied Mr. Boythorn. "Ha ha ha! Sir
Arrogant is here, and I am glad to say, has been laid by the heels here. My
Lady," in naming whom he always made a courtly gesture as if particularly to
exclude her from any part in the quarrel, "is expected, I believe, daily. I am
not in the least surprised that she postpones her appearance as long as
possible. Whatever can have induced that transcendent woman to marry that effigy
and figure-head of a baronet is one of the most impenetrable mysteries that ever
baffled human inquiry. Ha ha ha ha!"
"I suppose, said my guardian, laughing, "WE may set foot in the park while we
are here? The prohibition does not extend to us, does it?"
"I can lay no prohibition on my guests," he said, bending his head to Ada and
me with the smiling politeness which sat so gracefully upon him, "except in the
matter of their departure. I am only sorry that I cannot have the happiness of
being their escort about Chesney Wold, which is a very fine place! But by the
light of this summer day, Jarndyce, if you call upon the owner while you stay
with me, you are likely to have but a cool reception. He carries himself like an
eight-day clock at all times, like one of a race of eight-day clocks in gorgeous
cases that never go and never went--Ha ha ha!--but he will have some extra
stiffness, I can promise you, for the friends of his friend and neighbour
Boythorn!"
"I shall not put him to the proof," said my guardian. "He is as indifferent
to the honour of knowing me, I dare say, as I am to the honour of knowing him.
The air of the grounds and perhaps such a view of the house as any other
sightseer might get are quite enough for me."
"Well!" said Mr. Boythorn. "I am glad of it on the whole. It's in better
keeping. I am looked upon about here as a second Ajax defying the lightning. Ha
ha ha ha! When I go into our little church on a Sunday, a considerable part of
the inconsiderable congregation expect to see me drop, scorched and withered, on
the pavement under the Dedlock displeasure. Ha ha ha ha! I have no doubt he is
surprised that I don't. For he is, by heaven, the most self-satisfied, and the
shallowest, and the most coxcombical and utterly brainless ass!"
Our coming to the ridge of a hill we had been ascending enabled our friend to
point out Chesney Wold itself to us and diverted his attention from its master.
It was a picturesque old house in a fine park richly wooded. Among the trees
and not far from the residence he pointed out the spire of the little church of
which he had spoken. Oh, the solemn woods over which the light and shadow
travelled swiftly, as if heavenly wings were sweeping on benignant errands
through the summer air; the smooth green slopes, the glittering water, the
garden where the flowers were so symmetrically arranged in clusters of the
richest colours, how beautiful they looked! The house, with gable and chimney,
and tower, and turret, and dark doorway, and broad terrace-walk, twining among
the balustrades of which, and lying heaped upon the vases, there was one great
flush of roses, seemed scarcely real in its light solidity and in the serene and
peaceful hush that rested on all around it. To Ada and to me, that above all
appeared the pervading influence. On everything, house, garden, terrace, green
slopes, water, old oaks, fern, moss, woods again, and far away across the
openings in the prospect to the distance lying wide before us with a purple
bloom upon it, there seemed to be such undisturbed repose.
When we came into the little village and passed a small inn with the sign of
the Dedlock Arms swinging over the road in front, Mr. Boythorn interchanged
greetings with a young gentleman sitting on a bench outside the inn-door who had
some fishing-tackle lying beside him.
"That's the housekeeper's grandson, Mr. Rouncewell by name," said, he, "and
he is in love with a pretty girl up at the house. Lady Dedlock has taken a fancy
to the pretty girl and is going to keep her about her own fair person--an honour
which my young friend himself does not at all appreciate. However, he can't
marry just yet, even if his Rosebud were willing; so he is fain to make the best
of it. In the meanwhile, he comes here pretty often for a day or two at a time
to--fish. Ha ha ha ha!"
"Are he and the pretty girl engaged, Mr. Boythorn?" asked Ada.
"Why, my dear Miss Clare," he returned, "I think they may perhaps understand
each other; but you will see them soon, I dare say, and I must learn from you on
such a point--not you from me."
Ada blushed, and Mr. Boythorn, trotting forward on his comely grey horse,
dismounted at his own door and stood ready with extended arm and uncovered head
to welcome us when we arrived.
He lived in a pretty house, formerly the parsonage house, with a lawn in
front, a bright flower-garden at the side, and a well- stocked orchard and
kitchen-garden in the rear, enclosed with a venerable wall that had of itself a
ripened ruddy look. But, indeed, everything about the place wore an aspect of
maturity and abundance. The old lime-tree walk was like green cloisters, the
very shadows of the cherry-trees and apple-trees were heavy with fruit, the
gooseberry-bushes were so laden that their branches arched and rested on the
earth, the strawberries and raspberries grew in like profusion, and the peaches
basked by the hundred on the wall. Tumbled about among the spread nets and the
glass frames sparkling and winking in the sun there were such heaps of drooping
pods, and marrows, and cucumbers, that every foot of ground appeared a vegetable
treasury, while the smell of sweet herbs and all kinds of wholesome growth (to
say nothing of the neighbouring meadows where the hay was carrying) made the
whole air a great nosegay. Such stillness and composure reigned within the
orderly precincts of the old red wall that even the feathers hung in garlands to
scare the birds hardly stirred; and the wall had such a ripening influence that
where, here and there high up, a disused nail and scrap of list still clung to
it, it was easy to fancy that they had mellowed with the changing seasons and
that they had rusted and decayed according to the common fate.
The house, though a little disorderly in comparison with the garden, was a
real old house with settles in the chimney of the brick-floored kitchen and
great beams across the ceilings. On one side of it was the terrible piece of
ground in dispute, where Mr. Boythorn maintained a sentry in a smock-frock day
and night, whose duty was supposed to be, in cases of aggression, immediately to
ring a large bell hung up there for the purpose, to unchain a great bull-dog
established in a kennel as his ally, and generally to deal destruction on the
enemy. Not content with these precautions, Mr. Boythorn had himself composed and
posted there, on painted boards to which his name was attached in large letters,
the following solemn warnings: "Beware of the bull-dog. He is most ferocious.
Lawrence Boythorn." "The blunderbus is loaded with slugs. Lawrence Boythorn."
"Man-traps and spring-guns are set here at all times of the day and night.
Lawrence Boythorn." "Take notice. That any person or persons audaciously
presuming to trespass on this property will be punished with the utmost severity
of private chastisement and prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law.
Lawrence Boythorn." These he showed us from the drawing-room window, while his
bird was hopping about his head, and he laughed, "Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!" to
that extent as he pointed them out that I really thought he would have hurt
himself.
"But this is taking a good deal of trouble," said Mr. Skimpole in his light
way, "when you are not in earnest after all."
"Not in earnest!" returned Mr. Boythorn with unspeakable warmth. "Not in
earnest! If I could have hoped to train him, I would have bought a lion instead
of that dog and would have turned him loose upon the first intolerable robber
who should dare to make an encroachment on my rights. Let Sir Leicester Dedlock
consent to come out and decide this question by single combat, and I will meet
him with any weapon known to mankind in any age or country. I am that much in
earnest. Not more!"
We arrived at his house on a Saturday. On the Sunday morning we all set forth
to walk to the little church in the park. Entering the park, almost immediately
by the disputed ground, we pursued a pleasant footpath winding among the verdant
turf and the beautiful trees until it brought us to the church-porch.
The congregation was extremely small and quite a rustic one with the
exception of a large muster of servants from the house, some of whom were
already in their seats, while others were yet dropping in. There were some
stately footmen, and there was a perfect picture of an old coachman, who looked
as if he were the official representative of all the pomps and vanities that had
ever been put into his coach. There was a very pretty show of young women, and
above them, the handsome old face and fine responsible portly figure of the
housekeeper towered pre-eminent. The pretty girl of whom Mr. Boythorn had told
us was close by her. She was so very pretty that I might have known her by her
beauty even if I had not seen how blushingly conscious she was of the eyes of
the young fisherman, whom I discovered not far off. One face, and not an
agreeable one, though it was handsome, seemed maliciously watchful of this
pretty girl, and indeed of every one and everything there. It was a
Frenchwoman's.
As the bell was yet ringing and the great people were not yet come, I had
leisure to glance over the church, which smelt as earthy as a grave, and to
think what a shady, ancient, solemn little church it was. The windows, heavily
shaded by trees, admitted a subdued light that made the faces around me pale,
and darkened the old brasses in the pavement and the time and damp-worn
monuments, and rendered the sunshine in the little porch, where a monotonous
ringer was working at the bell, inestimably bright. But a stir in that
direction, a gathering of reverential awe in the rustic faces, and a blandly
ferocious assumption on the part of Mr. Boythorn of being resolutely unconscious
of somebody's existence forewarned me that the great people were come and that
the service was going to begin.
"'Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy sight--'"
Shall I ever forget the rapid beating at my heart, occasioned by the look I
met as I stood up! Shall I ever forget the manner in which those handsome proud
eyes seemed to spring out of their languor and to hold mine! It was only a
moment before I cast mine down--released again, if I may say so--on my book; but
I knew the beautiful face quite well in that short space of time.
And, very strangely, there was something quickened within me, associated with
the lonely days at my godmother's; yes, away even to the days when I had stood
on tiptoe to dress myself at my little glass after dressing my doll. And this,
although I had never seen this lady's face before in all my life--I was quite
sure of it-- absolutely certain.
It was easy to know that the ceremonious, gouty, grey-haired gentleman, the
only other occupant of the great pew, was Sir Leicester Dedlock, and that the
lady was Lady Dedlock. But why her face should be, in a confused way, like a
broken glass to me, in which I saw scraps of old remembrances, and why I should
be so fluttered and troubled (for I was still) by having casually met her eyes,
I could not think.
I felt it to be an unmeaning weakness in me and tried to overcome it by
attending to the words I heard. Then, very strangely, I seemed to hear them, not
in the reader's voice, but in the well- remembered voice of my godmother. This
made me think, did Lady Dedlock's face accidentally resemble my godmother's? It
might be that it did, a little; but the expression was so different, and the
stern decision which had worn into my godmother's face, like weather into rocks,
was so completely wanting in the face before me that it could not be that
resemblance which had struck me. Neither did I know the loftiness and
haughtiness of Lady Dedlock's face, at all, in any one. And yet I--I, little
Esther Summerson, the child who lived a life apart and on whose birthday there
was no rejoicing--seemed to arise before my own eyes, evoked out of the past by
some power in this fashionable lady, whom I not only entertained no fancy that I
had ever seen, but whom I perfectly well knew I had never seen until that hour.
It made me tremble so to be thrown into this unaccountable agitation that I
was conscious of being distressed even by the observation of the French maid,
though I knew she had been looking watchfully here, and there, and everywhere,
from the moment of her coming into the church. By degrees, though very slowly, I
at last overcame my strange emotion. After a long time, I looked towards Lady
Dedlock again. It was while they were preparing to sing, before the sermon. She
took no heed of me, and the beating at my heart was gone. Neither did it revive
for more than a few moments when she once or twice afterwards glanced at Ada or
at me through her glass.
The service being concluded, Sir Leicester gave his arm with much taste and
gallantry to Lady Dedlock--though he was obliged to walk by the help of a thick
stick--and escorted her out of church to the pony carriage in which they had
come. The servants then dispersed, and so did the congregation, whom Sir
Leicester had contemplated all along (Mr. Skimpole said to Mr. Boythorn's
infinite delight) as if he were a considerable landed proprietor in heaven.
"He believes he is!" said Mr. Boythorn. "He firmly believes it. So did his
father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather!"
"Do you know," pursued Mr. Skimpole very unexpectedly to Mr. Boythorn, "it's
agreeable to me to see a man of that sort."
"IS it!" said Mr. Boytborn.
"Say that he wants to patronize me," pursued Mr. Skimpole. "Very well! I
don't object."
"I do," said Mr. Boythorn with great vigour.
"Do you really?" returned Mr. Skimpole in his easy light vein. "But that's
taking trouble, surely. And why should you take trouble? Here am I, content to
receive things childishly as they fall out, and I never take trouble! I come
down here, for instance, and I find a mighty potentate exacting homage. Very
well! I say 'Mighty potentate, here IS my homage! It's easier to give it than to
withhold it. Here it is. If you have anything of an agreeable nature to show me,
I shall be happy to see it; if you have anything of an agreeable nature to give
me, I shall be happy to accept it.' Mighty potentate replies in effect, 'This is
a sensible fellow. I find him accord with my digestion and my bilious system. He
doesn't impose upon me the necessity of rolling myself up like a hedgehog with
my points outward. I expand, I open, I turn my silver lining outward like
Milton's cloud, and it's more agreeable to both of us.' That's my view of such
things, speaking as a child!"
"But suppose you went down somewhere else to-morrow," said Mr. Boythorn,
"where there was the opposite of that fellow--or of this fellow. How then?"
"How then?" said Mr. Skimpole with an appearance of the utmost simplicity and
candour. "Just the same then! I should say, 'My esteemed Boythorn'--to make you
the personification of our imaginary friend--'my esteemed Boythorn, you object
to the mighty potentate? Very good. So do I. I take it that my business in the
social system is to be agreeable; I take it that everybody's business in the
social system is to be agreeable. It's a system of harmony, in short. Therefore
if you object, I object. Now, excellent Boythorn, let us go to dinner!'"
"But excellent Boythorn might say," returned our host, swelling and growing
very red, "I'll be--"
"I understand," said Mr. Skimpole. "Very likely he would."
"--if I WILL go to dinner!" cried Mr. Boythorn in a violent burst and
stopping to strike his stick upon the ground. "And he would probably add, 'Is
there such a thing as principle, Mr. Harold Skimpole?'"
"To which Harold Skimpole would reply, you know," he returned in his gayest
manner and with his most ingenuous smile, "'Upon my life I have not the least
idea! I don't know what it is you call by that name, or where it is, or who
possesses it. If you possess it and find it comfortable, I am quite delighted
and congratulate you heartily. But I know nothing about it, I assure you; for I
am a mere child, and I lay no claim to it, and I don't want it!' So, you see,
excellent Boythorn and I would go to dinner after all!"
This was one of many little dialogues between them which I always expected to
end, and which I dare say would have ended under other circumstances, in some
violent explosion on the part of our host. But he had so high a sense of his
hospitable and responsible position as our entertainer, and my guardian laughed
so sincerely at and with Mr. Skimpole, as a child who blew bubbles and broke
them all day long, that matters never went beyond this point. Mr. Skimpole, who
always seemed quite unconscious of having been on delicate ground, then betook
himself to beginning some sketch in the park which be never finished, or to
playing fragments of airs on the piano, or to singing scraps of songs, or to
lying down on his back under a tree and looking at the sky--which he couldn't
help thinking, he said, was what he was meant for; it suited him so exactly.
"Enterprise and effort," he would say to us (on his back), are delightful to
me. I believe I am truly cosmopolitan. I have the deepest sympathy with them. I
lie in a shady place like this and think of adventurous spirits going to the
North Pole or penetrating to the heart of the Torrid Zone with admiration.
Mercenary creatures ask, 'What is the use of a man's going to the North Pole?
What good does it do?' I can't say; but, for anything I CAN say, he may go for
the purpose--though he don't know it--of employing my thoughts as I lie here.
Take an extreme case. Take the case of the slaves on American plantations. I
dare say they are worked hard, I dare say they don't altogether like it. I dare
say theirs is an unpleasant experience on the whole; but they people the
landscape for me, they give it a poetry for me, and perhaps that is one of the
pleasanter objects of their existence. I am very sensible of it, if it be, and I
shouldn't wonder if it were!"
I always wondered on these occasions whether he ever thought of Mrs. Skimpole
and the children, and in what point of view they presented themselves to his
cosmopolitan mind. So far as I could understand, they rarely presented
themselves at all.
The week had gone round to the Saturday following that beating of my heart in
the church; and every day had been so bright and blue that to ramble in the
woods, and to see the light striking down among the transparent leaves and
sparkling in the beautiful interlacings of the shadows of the trees, while the
birds poured out their songs and the air was drowsy with the hum of insects, had
been most delightful. We had one favourite spot, deep in moss and last year's
leaves, where there were some felled trees from which the bark was all stripped
off. Seated among these, we looked through a green vista supported by thousands
of natural columns, the whitened stems of trees, upon a distant prospect made so
radiant by its contrast with the shade in which we sat and made so precious by
the arched perspective through which we saw it that it was like a glimpse of the
better land. Upon the Saturday we sat here, Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and I, until we
heard thunder muttering in the distance and felt the large raindrops rattle
through the leaves.
The weather had been all the week extremely sultry, but the storm broke so
suddenly--upon us, at least, in that sheltered spot--that before we reached the
outskirts of the wood the thunder and lightning were frequent and the rain came
plunging through the leaves as if every drop were a great leaden bead. As it was
not a time for standing among trees, we ran out of the wood, and up and down the
moss-grown steps which crossed the plantation-fence like two broad-staved
ladders placed back to back, and made for a keeper's lodge which was close at
hand. We had often noticed the dark beauty of this lodge standing in a deep
twilight of trees, and how the ivy clustered over it, and how there was a steep
hollow near, where we had once seen the keeper's dog dive down into the fern as
if it were water.
The lodge was so dark within, now the sky was overcast, that we only clearly
saw the man who came to the door when we took shelter there and put two chairs
for Ada and me. The lattice-windows were all thrown open, and we sat just within
the doorway watching the storm. It was grand to see how the wind awoke, and bent
the trees, and drove the rain before it like a cloud of smoke; and to hear the
solemn thunder and to see the lightning; and while thinking with awe of the
tremendous powers by which our little lives are encompassed, to consider how
beneficent they are and how upon the smallest flower and leaf there was already
a freshness poured from all this seeming rage which seemed to make creation new
again.
"Is it not dangerous to sit in so exposed a place?"
"Oh, no, Esther dear!" said Ada quietly.
Ada said it to me, but I had not spoken.
The beating of my heart came back again. I had never heard the voice, as I
had never seen the face, but it affected me in the same strange way. Again, in a
moment, there arose before my mind innumerable pictures of myself.
Lady Dedlock had taken shelter in the lodge before our arrival there and had
come out of the gloom within. She stood behind my chair with her hand upon it. I
saw her with her hand close to my shoulder when I turned my head.
"I have frightened you?" she said.
No. It was not fright. Why should I be frightened!
"I believe," said Lady Dedlock to my guardian, "I have the pleasure of
speaking to Mr. Jarndyce."
"Your remembrance does me more honour than I had supposed it would, Lady
Dedlock," he returned.
"I recognized you in church on Sunday. I am sorry that any local disputes of
Sir Leicester's--they are not of his seeking, however, I believe--should render
it a matter of some absurd difficulty to show you any attention here."
"I am aware of the circumstances," returned my guardian with a smile, "and am
sufficiently obliged."
She had given him her hand in an indifferent way that seemed habitual to her
and spoke in a correspondingly indifferent manner, though in a very pleasant
voice. She was as graceful as she was beautiful, perfectly self-possessed, and
had the air, I thought, of being able to attract and interest any one if she had
thought it worth her while. The keeper had brought her a chair on which she sat
in the middle of the porch between us.
"Is the young gentleman disposed of whom you wrote to Sir Leicester about and
whose wishes Sir Leicester was sorry not to have it in his power to advance in
any way?" she said over her shoulder to my guardian.
"I hope so," said he.
She seemed to respect him and even to wish to conciliate him. There was
something very winning in her haughty manner, and it became more familiar--I was
going to say more easy, but that could hardly be--as she spoke to him over her
shoulder.
"I presume this is your other ward, Miss Clare?"
He presented Ada, in form.
"You will lose the disinterested part of your Don Quixote character," said
Lady Dedlock to Mr. Jarndyce over her shoulder again, "if you only redress the
wrongs of beauty like this. But present me," and she turned full upon me, "to
this young lady too!"
"Miss Summerson really is my ward," said Mr. Jarndyce. "I am responsible to
no Lord Chancellor in her case."
"Has Miss Summerson lost both her parents?" said my Lady.
"Yes."
"She is very fortunate in her guardian."
Lady Dedlock looked at me, and I looked at her and said I was indeed. All at
once she turned from me with a hasty air, almost expressive of displeasure or
dislike, and spoke to him over her shoulder again.
"Ages have passed since we were in the habit of meeting, Mr. Jarndyce."
"A long time. At least I thought it was a long time, until I saw you last
Sunday," he returned.
"What! Even you are a courtier, or think it necessary to become one to me!"
she said with some disdain. "I have achieved that reputation, I suppose."
"You have achieved so much, Lady Dedlock," said my guardian, "that you pay
some little penalty, I dare say. But none to me."
"So much!" she repeated, slightly laughing. "Yes!"
With her air of superiority, and power, and fascination, and I know not what,
she seemed to regard Ada and me as little more than children. So, as she
slightly laughed and afterwards sat looking at the rain, she was as
self-possessed and as free to occupy herself with her own thoughts as if she had
been alone.
"I think you knew my sister when we were abroad together better than you know
me?" she said, looking at him again.
"Yes, we happened to meet oftener," he returned.
"We went our several ways," said Lady Dedlock, "and had little in common even
before we agreed to differ. It is to be regretted, I suppose, but it could not
be helped."
Lady Dedlock again sat looking at the rain. The storm soon began to pass upon
its way. The shower greatly abated, the lightning ceased, the thunder rolled
among the distant hills, and the sun began to glisten on the wet leaves and the
falling rain. As we sat there, silently, we saw a little pony phaeton coming
towards us at a merry pace.
"The messenger is coming back, my Lady," said the keeper, "with the
carriage."
As it drove up, we saw that there were two people inside. There alighted from
it, with some cloaks and wrappers, first the Frenchwoman whom I had seen in
church, and secondly the pretty girl, the Frenchwoman with a defiant confidence,
the pretty girl confused and hesitating.
"What now?" said Lady Dedlock. "Two!"
"I am your maid, my Lady, at the present," said the Frenchwoman. "The message
was for the attendant."
"I was afraid you might mean me, my Lady," said the pretty girl.
"I did mean you, child," replied her mistress calmly. "Put that shawl on me."
She slightly stooped her shoulders to receive it, and the pretty girl lightly
dropped it in its place. The Frenchwoman stood unnoticed, looking on with her
lips very tightly set.
"I am sorry," said Lady Dedlock to Mr. Jarndyce, "that we are not likely to
renew our former acquaintance. You will allow me to send the carriage back for
your two wards. It shall be here directly."
But as he would on no account accept this offer, she took a graceful leave of
Ada--none of me--and put her hand upon his proffered arm, and got into the
carriage, which was a little, low, park carriage with a hood.
"Come in, child," she said to the pretty girl; "I shall want you. Go on!"
The carriage rolled away, and the Frenchwoman, with the wrappers she had
brought hanging over her arm, remained standing where she had alighted.
I suppose there is nothing pride can so little bear with as pride itself, and
that she was punished for her imperious manner. Her retaliation was the most
singular I could have imagined. She remained perfectly still until the carriage
had turned into the drive, and then, without the least discomposure of
countenance, slipped off her shoes, left them on the ground, and walked
deliberately in the same direction through the wettest of the wet grass.
"Is that young woman mad?" said my guardian.
"Oh, no, sir!" said the keeper, who, with his wife, was looking after her.
"Hortense is not one of that sort. She has as good a head-piece as the best. But
she's mortal high and passionate-- powerful high and passionate; and what with
having notice to leave, and having others put above her, she don't take kindly
to it."
"But why should she walk shoeless through all that water?" said my guardian.
"Why, indeed, sir, unless it is to cool her down!" said the man.
"Or unless she fancies it's blood," said the woman. "She'd as soon walk
through that as anything else, I think, when her own's up!"
We passed not far from the house a few minutes afterwards. Peaceful as it had
looked when we first saw it, it looked even more so now, with a diamond spray
glittering all about it, a light wind blowing, the birds no longer hushed but
singing strongly, everything refreshed by the late rain, and the little carriage
shining at the doorway like a fairy carriage made of silver. Still, very
steadfastly and quietly walking towards it, a peaceful figure too in the
landscape, went Mademoiselle Hortense, shoeless, through the wet grass.
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