It happened that when I came home from Deal I found a note from
Caddy Jellyby (as we always continued to call her), informing me that her
health, which had been for some time very delicate, was worse and that she would
be more glad than she could tell me if I would go to see her. It was a note of a
few lines, written from the couch on which she lay and enclosed to me in another
from her husband, in which he seconded her entreaty with much solicitude. Caddy
was now the mother, and I the godmother, of such a poor little baby--such a tiny
old-faced mite, with a countenance that seemed to be scarcely anything but
cap-border, and a little lean, long-fingered hand, always clenched under its
chin. It would lie in this attitude all day, with its bright specks of eyes
open, wondering (as I used to imagine) how it came to be so small and weak.
Whenever it was moved it cried, but at all other times it was so patient that
the sole desire of its life appeared to be to lie quiet and think. It had
curious little dark veins in its face and curious little dark marks under its
eyes like faint remembrances of poor Caddy's inky days, and altogether, to those
who were not used to it, it was quite a piteous little sight.
But it was enough for Caddy that SHE was used to it. The projects with which
she beguiled her illness, for little Esther's education, and little Esther's
marriage, and even for her own old age as the grandmother of little Esther's
little Esthers, was so prettily expressive of devotion to this pride of her life
that I should be tempted to recall some of them but for the timely remembrance
that I am getting on irregularly as it is.
To return to the letter. Caddy had a superstition about me which had been
strengthening in her mind ever since that night long ago when she had lain
asleep with her head in my lap. She almost--I think I must say quite--believed
that I did her good whenever I was near her. Now although this was such a fancy
of the affectionate girl's that I am almost ashamed to mention it, still it
might have all the force of a fact when she was really ill. Therefore I set off
to Caddy, with my guardian's consent, post-haste; and she and Prince made so
much of me that there never was anything like it.
Next day I went again to sit with her, and next day I went again. It was a
very easy journey, for I had only to rise a little earlier in the morning, and
keep my accounts, and attend to housekeeping matters before leaving home.
But when I had made these three visits, my guardian said to me, on my return
at night, "Now, little woman, little woman, this will never do. Constant
dropping will wear away a stone, and constant coaching will wear out a Dame
Durden. We will go to London for a while and take possession of our old
lodgings."
"Not for me, dear guardian," said I, "for I never feel tired," which was
strictly true. I was only too happy to be in such request.
"For me then," returned my guardian, "or for Ada, or for both of us. It is
somebody's birthday to-morrow, I think."
"Truly I think it is," said I, kissing my darling, who would be twenty-one
to-morrow.
"Well," observed my guardian, half pleasantly, half seriously, "that's a
great occasion and will give my fair cousin some necessary business to transact
in assertion of her independence, and will make London a more convenient place
for all of us. So to London we will go. That being settled, there is another
thing--how have you left Caddy?"
"Very unwell, guardian. I fear it will be some time before she regains her
health and strength."
"What do you call some time, now?" asked my guardian thoughtfully.
"Some weeks, I am afraid."
"Ah!" He began to walk about the room with his hands in his pockets, showing
that he had been thinking as much. "Now, what do you say about her doctor? Is he
a good doctor, my love?"
I felt obliged to confess that I knew nothing to the contrary but that Prince
and I had agreed only that evening that we would like his opinion to be
confirmed by some one.
"Well, you know," returned my guardian quickly, "there's Woodcourt."
I had not meant that, and was rather taken by surprise. For a moment all that
I had had in my mind in connexion with Mr. Woodcourt seemed to come back and
confuse me.
"You don't object to him, little woman?"
"Object to him, guardian? Oh no!"
"And you don't think the patient would object to him?"
So far from that, I had no doubt of her being prepared to have a great
reliance on him and to like him very much. I said that he was no stranger to her
personally, for she had seen him often in his kind attendance on Miss Flite.
"Very good," said my guardian. "He has been here to-day, my dear, and I will
see him about it to-morrow."
I felt in this short conversation--though I did not know how, for she was
quiet, and we interchanged no look--that my dear girl well remembered how
merrily she had clasped me round the waist when no other hands than Caddy's had
brought me the little parting token. This caused me to feel that I ought to tell
her, and Caddy too, that I was going to be the mistress of Bleak House and that
if I avoided that disclosure any longer I might become less worthy in my own
eyes of its master's love. Therefore, when we went upstairs and had waited
listening until the clock struck twelve in order that only I might be the first
to wish my darling all good wishes on her birthday and to take her to my heart,
I set before her, just as I had set before myself, the goodness and honour of
her cousin John and the happy life that was in store for for me. If ever my
darling were fonder of me at one time than another in all our intercourse, she
was surely fondest of me that night. And I was so rejoiced to know it and so
comforted by the sense of having done right in casting this last idle
reservation away that I was ten times happier than I had been before. I had
scarcely thought it a reservation a few hours ago, but now that it was gone I
felt as if I understood its nature better.
Next day we went to London. We found our old lodging vacant, and in half an
hour were quietly established there, as if we had never gone away. Mr. Woodcourt
dined with us to celebrate my darling's birthday, and we were as pleasant as we
could be with the great blank among us that Richard's absence naturally made on
such an occasion. After that day I was for some weeks--eight or nine as I
remember--very much with Caddy, and thus it fell out that I saw less of Ada at
this time than any other since we had first come together, except the time of my
own illness. She often came to Caddy's, but our function there was to amuse and
cheer her, and we did not talk in our usual confidential manner. Whenever I went
home at night we were together, but Caddy's rest was broken by pain, and I often
remained to nurse her.
With her husband and her poor little mite of a baby to love and their home to
strive for, what a good creature Caddy was! So self- denying, so uncomplaining,
so anxious to get well on their account, so afraid of giving trouble, and so
thoughtful of the unassisted labours of her husband and the comforts of old Mr.
Turveydrop; I had never known the best of her until now. And it seemed so
curious that her pale face and helpless figure should be lying there day after
day where dancing was the business of life, where the kit and the apprentices
began early every morning in the ball- room, and where the untidy little boy
waltzed by himself in the kitchen all the afternoon.
At Caddy's request I took the supreme direction of her apartment, trimmed it
up, and pushed her, couch and all, into a lighter and more airy and more
cheerful corner than she had yet occupied; then, every day, when we were in our
neatest array, I used to lay my small small namesake in her arms and sit down to
chat or work or read to her. It was at one of the first of these quiet times
that I told Caddy about Bleak House.
We had other visitors besides Ada. First of all we had Prince, who in his
hurried intervals of teaching used to come softly in and sit softly down, with a
face of loving anxiety for Caddy and the very little child. Whatever Caddy's
condition really was, she never failed to declare to Prince that she was all but
well--which I, heaven forgive me, never failed to confirm. This would put Prince
in such good spirits that he would sometimes take the kit from his pocket and
play a chord or two to astonish the baby, which I never knew it to do in the
least degree, for my tiny namesake never noticed it at all.
Then there was Mrs. Jellyby. She would come occasionally, with her usual
distraught manner, and sit calmly looking miles beyond her grandchild as if her
attention were absorbed by a young Borrioboolan on its native shores. As
bright-eyed as ever, as serene, and as untidy, she would say, "Well, Caddy,
child, and how do you do to-day?" And then would sit amiably smiling and taking
no notice of the reply or would sweetly glide off into a calculation of the
number of letters she had lately received and answered or of the coffee-bearing
power of Borrioboola-Gha. This she would always do with a serene contempt for
our limited sphere of action, not to be disguised.
Then there was old Mr. Turveydrop, who was from morning to night and from
night to morning the subject of innumerable precautions. If the baby cried, it
was nearly stifled lest the noise should make him uncomfortable. If the fire
wanted stirring in the night, it was surreptitiously done lest his rest should
be broken. If Caddy required any little comfort that the house contained, she
first carefully discussed whether he was likely to require it too. In return for
this consideration he would come into the room once a day, all but blessing
it--showing a condescension, and a patronage, and a grace of manner in
dispensing the light of his high- shouldered presence from which I might have
supposed him (if I had not known better) to have been the benefactor of Caddy's
life.
"My Caroline," he would say, making the nearest approach that he could to
bending over her. "Tell me that you are better to-day."
"Oh, much better, thank you, Mr. Turveydrop," Caddy would reply.
"Delighted! Enchanted! And our dear Miss Summerson. She is not qulte
prostrated by fatigue?" Here he would crease up his eyelids and kiss his fingers
to me, though I am happy to say he had ceased to be particular in his attentions
since I had been so altered.
"Not at all," I would assure him.
"Charming! We must take care of our dear Caroline, Miss Summerson. We must
spare nothing that will restore her. We must nourish her. My dear Caroline"--he
would turn to his daughter-in-law with infinite generosity and protection--"want
for nothing, my love. Frame a wish and gratify it, my daughter. Everything this
house contains, everything my room contains, is at your service, my dear. Do
not," he would sometimes add in a burst of deportment, "even allow my simple
requirements to be considered if they should at any time interfere with your
own, my Caroline. Your necessities are greater than mine."
He had established such a long prescriptive right to this deportment (his
son's inheritance from his mother) that I several times knew both Caddy and her
husband to be melted to tears by these affectionate self-sacrifices.
"Nay, my dears," he would remonstrate; and when I saw Caddy's thin arm about
his fat neck as he said it, I would be melted too, though not by the same
process. "Nay, nay! I have promised never to leave ye. Be dutiful and
affectionate towards me, and I ask no other return. Now, bless ye! I am going to
the Park."
He would take the air there presently and get an appetite for his hotel
dinner. I hope I do old Mr. Turveydrop no wrong, but I never saw any better
traits in him than these I faithfully record, except that he certainly conceived
a liking for Peepy and would take the child out walking with great pomp, always
on those occasions sending him home before he went to dinner himself, and
occasionally with a halfpenny in his pocket. But even this disinterestedness was
attended 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 he, 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.
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