BLEAK HOUSE

Inapoi la Sumar

CHAPTER XXXVIII  

A Struggle

When our time came for returning to Bleak House again, we were  punctual to the day and were received with an overpowering welcome.   I was perfectly restored to health and strength, and finding my  housekeeping keys laid ready for me in my room, rang myself in as  if I had been a new year, with a merry little peal. 

"Once more,  duty, duty, Esther," said I; "and if you are not overjoyed to do  it, more than cheerfully and contentedly, through anything and  everything, you ought to be.  That's all I have to say to you, my  dear!" 

The first few mornings were mornings of so much bustle and  business, devoted to such settlements of accounts, such repeated  journeys to and fro between the growlery and all other parts of the  house, so many rearrangements of drawers and presses, and such a  general new beginning altogether, that I had not a moment's  leisure.  But when these arrangements were completed and everything  was in order, I paid a visit of a few hours to London, which  something in the letter I had destroyed at Chesney Wold had induced  me to decide upon in my own mind.  I made Caddy Jellyby--her maiden name was so natural to me that I  always called her by it--the pretext for this visit and wrote her a  note previously asking the favour of her company on a little  business expedition.  Leaving home very early in the morning, I got  to London by stage-coach in such good time that I got to Newman  Street with the day before me. 

Caddy, who had not seen me since her wedding-day, was so glad and  so affectionate that I was half inclined to fear I should make her  husband jealous.  But he was, in his way, just as bad--I mean as  good; and in short it was the old story, and nobody would leave me  any possibility of doing anything meritorious.  The elder Mr. Turveydrop was in bed, I found, and Caddy was milling  his chocolate, which a melancholy little boy who was an apprentice --it seemed such a curious thing to be apprenticed to the trade of  dancing--was waiting to carry upstairs.  Her father-in-law was  extremely kind and considerate, Caddy told me, and they lived most  happily together.  (When she spoke of their living together, she  meant that the old gentleman had all the good things and all the  good lodging, while she and her husband had what they could get,  and were poked into two corner rooms over the Mews.) 

"And how is your mama, Caddy?" said I. 

"Why, I hear of her, Esther," replied Caddy, "through Pa, but I see  very little of her.  We are good friends, I am glad to say, but Ma  thinks there is something absurd in my having married a dancing- master, and she is rather afraid of its extending to her."  It struck me that if Mrs. Jellyby had discharged her own natural  duties and obligations before she swept the horizon with a  telescope in search of others, she would have taken the best  precautions against becoming absurd, but I need scarcely observe  that I kept this to myself. 

"And your papa, Caddy?"  "He comes here every evening," returned Caddy, "and is so fond of  sitting in the corner there that it's a treat to see him."  Looking at the corner, I plainly perceived the mark of Mr.  Jellyby's head against the wall.  It was consolatory to know that  he had found such a resting-place for it. 

"And you, Caddy," said I, "you are always busy, I'll be bound?" 

"Well, my dear," returned Caddy, "I am indeed, for to tell you a  grand secret, I am qualifying myself to give lessons.  Prince's  health is not strong, and I want to be able to assist him.  What  with schools, and classes here, and private pupils, AND the  apprentices, he really has too much to do, poor fellow!" 

The notion of the apprentices was still so odd to me that I asked  Caddy if there were many of them. 

"Four," said Caddy. 

"One in-door, and three out.  They are very  good children; only when they get together they WILL play-- children-like--instead of attending to their work.  So the little  boy you saw just now waltzes by himself in the empty kitchen, and  we distribute the others over the house as well as we can." 

"That is only for their steps, of course?" said I. 

"Only for their steps," said Caddy. 

"In that way they practise, so  many hours at a time, whatever steps they happen to be upon.  They  dance in the academy, and at this time of year we do figures at  five every morning." 

"Why, what a laborious life!" I exclaimed. 

"I assure you, my dear," returned Caddy, smiling, "when the out- door apprentices ring us up in the morning (the bell rings into our  room, not to disturb old Mr. Turveydrop), and when I put up the  window and see them standing on the door-step with their little  pumps under their arms, I am actually reminded of the Sweeps."  All this presented the art to me in a singular light, to be sure.  Caddy enjoyed the effect of her communication and cheerfully  recounted the particulars of her own studies. 

"You see, my dear, to save expense I ought to know something of the  piano, and I ought to know something of the kit too, and  consequently I have to practise those two instruments as well as  the details of our profession.  If Ma had been like anybody else, I  might have had some little musical knowledge to begin upon.   However, I hadn't any; and that part of the work is, at first, a  little discouraging, I must allow.  But I have a very good ear, and  I am used to drudgery--I have to thank Ma for that, at all events-- and where there's a will there's a way, you know, Esther, the world  over." 

Saying these words, Caddy laughingly sat down at a little  jingling square piano and really rattled off a quadrille with great  spirit.  Then she good-humouredly and blushingly got up again, and  while she still laughed herself, said, "Don't laugh at me, please;  that's a dear girl!"  I would sooner have cried, but I did neither.  I encouraged her and  praised her with all my heart.  For I conscientiously believed,  dancing-master's wife though she was, and dancing-mistress though  in her limited ambition she aspired to be, she had struck out a  natural, wholesome, loving course of industry and perseverance that  was quite as good as a mission. 

"My dear," said Caddy, delighted, "you can't think how you cheer  me.  I shall owe you, you don't know how much.  What changes,  Esther, even in my small world!  You recollect that first night,  when I was so unpolite and inky?  Who would have thought, then, of  my ever teaching people to dance, of all other possibilities and  impossibilities!"  Her husband, who had left us while we had this chat, now coming  back, preparatory to exercising the apprentices in the ball-room,  Caddy informed me she was quite at my disposal. 

But it was not my  time yet, I was glad to tell her, for I should have been vexed to  take her away then.  Therefore we three adjourned to the  apprentices together, and I made one in the dance.  The apprentices were the queerest little people.  Besides the  melancholy boy, who, I hoped, had not been made so by waltzing  alone in the empty kitchen, there were two other boys and one dirty  little limp girl in a gauzy dress.  Such a precocious little girl,  with such a dowdy bonnet on (that, too, of a gauzy texture), who  brought her sandalled shoes in an old threadbare velvet reticule.   Such mean little boys, when they were not dancing, with string, and  marbles, and cramp-bones in their pockets, and the most untidy legs  and feet--and heels particularly.  I asked Caddy what had made their parents choose this profession  for them. 

Caddy said she didn't know; perhaps they were designed  for teachers, perhaps for the stage.  They were all people in  humble circumstances, and the melancholy boy's mother kept a  ginger-beer shop.  We danced for an hour with great gravity, the melancholy child  doing wonders with his lower extremities, in which there appeared  to be some sense of enjoyment though it never rose above his waist.   

Caddy, while she was observant of her husband and was evidently  founded upon him, had acquired a grace and self-possession of her  own, which, united to her pretty face and figure, was uncommonly  agreeable.  She already relieved him of much of the instruction of  these young people, and he seldom interfered except to walk his  part in the figure if he had anything to do in it.  He always  played the tune.  The affectation of the gauzy child, and her  condescension to the boys, was a sight.  And thus we danced an hour  by the clock.  When the practice was concluded, Caddy's husband made himself ready  to go out of town to a school, and Caddy ran away to get ready to  go out with me.  I sat in the ball-room in the interval,  contemplating the apprentices. 

The two out-door boys went upon the  staircase to put on their half-boots and pull the in-door boy's  hair, as I judged from the nature of his objections.  Returning  with their jackets buttoned and their pumps stuck in them, they  then produced packets of cold bread and meat and bivouacked under a  painted lyre on the wall.  The little gauzy child, having whisked  her sandals into the reticule and put on a trodden-down pair of  shoes, shook her head into the dowdy bonnet at one shake, and  answering my inquiry whether she liked dancing by replying, "Not  with boys," tied it across her chin, and went home contemptuous. 

"Old Mr. Turveydrop is so sorry," said Caddy, "that he has not  finished dressing yet and cannot have the pleasure of seeing you  before you go.  You are such a favourite of his, Esther."  I expressed myself much obliged to him, but did not think it  necessary to add that I readily dispensed with this attention. 

"It takes him a long time to dress," said Caddy, "because he is  very much looked up to in such things, you know, and has a  reputation to support.  You can't think how kind he is to Pa.  He  talks to Pa of an evening about the Prince Regent, and I never saw  Pa so interested." 

There was something in the picture of Mr. Turveydrop bestowing his  deportment on Mr. Jellyby that quite took my fancy.  I asked Caddy  if he brought her papa out much. 

"No," said Caddy, "I don't know that he does that, but he talks to  Pa, and Pa greatly admires him, and listens, and likes it.  Of  course I am aware that Pa has hardly any claims to deportment, but  they get on together delightfully.  You can't think what good  companions they make.  I never saw Pa take snuff before in my life,  but he takes one pinch out of Mr. Turveydrop's box regularly and  keeps putting it to his nose and taking it away again all the  evening." 

That old Mr. Turveydrop should ever, in the chances and changes of  life, have come to the rescue of Mr. Jellyby from Borrioboola-Gha  appeared to me to be one of the pleasantest of oddities. 

"As to Peepy," said Caddy with a little hesitation, "whom I was  most afraid of--next to having any family of my own, Esther--as an  inconvenience to Mr. Turveydrop, the kindness of the old gentleman  to that child is beyond everything.  He asks to see him, my dear!   He lets him take the newspaper up to him in bed; he gives him the  crusts of his toast to eat; he sends him on little errands about  the house; he tells him to come to me for sixpences.  In short,"  said Caddy cheerily, "and not to prose, I am a very fortunate girl  and ought to be very grateful.  Where are we going, Esther?" 

"To the Old Street Road," said I, "where I have a few words to say  to the solicitor's clerk who was sent to meet me at the coach- office on the very day when I came to London and first saw you, my  dear.  Now I think of it, the gentleman who brought us to your  house." 

"Then, indeed, I seem to be naturally the person to go with you,"  returned Caddy.  To the Old Street Road we went and there inquired at Mrs. Guppy's  residence for Mrs. Guppy.  Mrs. Guppy, occupying the parlours and  having indeed been visibly in danger of cracking herself like a nut  in the front-parlour door by peeping out before she was asked for,  immediately presented herself and requested us to walk in.  She was  an old lady in a large cap, with rather a red nose and rather an  unsteady eye, but smiling all over.  Her close little sitting-room  was prepared for a visit, and there was a portrait of her son in it  which, I had almost written here, was more like than life: it  insisted upon him with such obstinacy, and was so determined not to  let him off.  Not only was the portrait there, but we found the original there  too.  He was dressed in a great many colours and was discovered at  a table reading law-papers with his forefinger to his forehead. 

"Miss Summerson," said Mr. Guppy, rising, "this is indeed an oasis.   Mother, will you be so good as to put a chair for the other lady  and get out of the gangway." 

Mrs. Guppy, whose incessant smiling gave her quite a waggish  appearance, did as her son requested and then sat down in a corner,  holding her pocket handkerchief to her chest, like a fomentation,  with both hands.  I presented Caddy, and Mr. Guppy said that any friend of mine was  more than welcome.  I then proceeded to the object of my visit.  "I took the liberty of sending you a note, sir," said I.  Mr. Guppy acknowledged the receipt by taking it out of his breast- pocket, putting it to his lips, and returning it to his pocket with  a bow.  Mr. Guppy's mother was so diverted that she rolled her head  as she smiled and made a silent appeal to Caddy with her elbow. 

"Could I speak to you alone for a moment?" said I.  Anything like the jocoseness of Mr. Guppy's mother just now, I  think I never saw.  She made no sound of laughter, but she rolled  her head, and shook it, and put her handkerchief to her mouth, and  appealed to Caddy with her elbow, and her hand, and her shoulder,  and was so unspeakably entertained altogether that it was with some  difficulty she could marshal Caddy through the little folding-door  into her bedroom adjoining. 

"Miss Summerson," said Mr. Guppy, "you will excuse the waywardness  of a parent ever mindful of a son's appiness.  My mother, though  highly exasperating to the feelings, is actuated by maternal  dictates."  I could hardly have believed that anybody could in a moment have  turned so red or changed so much as Mr. Guppy did when I now put up  my veil. 

"I asked the favour of seeing you for a few moments here," said I,  "in preference to calling at Mr. Kenge's because, remembering what  you said on an occasion when you spoke to me in confidence, I  feared I might otherwise cause you some embarrassment, Mr. Guppy." 

I caused him embarrassment enough as it was, I am sure.  I never  saw such faltering, such confusion, such amazement and  apprehension. 

"Miss Summerson," stammered Mr. Guppy, "I--I--beg your pardon, but  in our profession--we--we--find it necessary to be explicit.  You  have referred to an occasion, miss, when I--when I did myself the  honour of making a declaration which--"  Something seemed to rise in his throat that he could not possibly  swallow.  He put his hand there, coughed, made faces, tried again  to swallow it, coughed again, made faces again, looked all round  the room, and fluttered his papers. 

"A kind of giddy sensation has come upon me, miss," he explained,  "which rather knocks me over.  I--er--a little subject to this sort  of thing--er--by George!"  I gave him a little time to recover.  He consumed it in putting his  hand to his forehead and taking it away again, and in backing his  chair into the corner behind him. 

"My intention was to remark, miss," said Mr. Guppy, "dear me-- something bronchial, I think--hem!--to remark that you was so good  on that occasion as to repel and repudiate that declaration.  You-- you wouldn't perhaps object to admit that?  Though no witnesses are  present, it might be a satisfaction to--to your mind--if you was to  put in that admission." 

"There can be no doubt," said I, "that I declined your proposal  without any reservation or qualification whatever, Mr. Guppy." 

"Thank you, miss," he returned, measuring the table with his  troubled hands.  "So far that's satisfactory, and it does you  credit.  Er--this is certainly bronchial!--must be in the tubes-- er--you wouldn't perhaps be offended if I was to mention--not that  it's necessary, for your own good sense or any person's sense must  show 'em that--if I was to mention that such declaration on my part  was final, and there terminated?" 

"I quite understand that," said I. 

"Perhaps--er--it may not be worth the form, but it might be a  satisfaction to your mind--perhaps you wouldn't object to admit  that, miss?" said Mr. Guppy. 

"I admit it most fully and freely," said I. 

"Thank you," returned Mr. Guppy. 

"Very honourable, I am sure.  I  regret that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances  over which I have no control, will put it out of my power ever to  fall back upon that offer or to renew it in any shape or form  whatever, but it will ever be a retrospect entwined--er--with  friendship's bowers." 

Mr. Guppy's bronchitis came to his relief  and stopped his measurement of the table. 

"I may now perhaps mention what I wished to say to you?" I began. 

"I shall be honoured, I am sure," said Mr. Guppy. 

"I am so  persuaded that your own good sense and right feeling, miss, will-- will keep you as square as possible--that I can have nothing but  pleasure, I am sure, in hearing any observations you may wish to  offer." 

"You were so good as to imply, on that occasion--" 

"Excuse me, miss," said Mr. Guppy, "but we had better not travel  out of the record into implication.  I cannot admit that I implied  anything." 

"You said on that occasion," I recommenced, "that you might  possibly have the means of advancing my interests and promoting my  fortunes by making discoveries of which I should be the subject.  I  presume that you founded that belief upon your general knowledge of  my being an orphan girl, indebted for everything to the benevolence  of Mr. Jarndyce.  Now, the beginning and the end of what I have  come to beg of you is, Mr. Guppy, that you will have the kindness  to relinquish all idea of so serving me.  I have thought of this  sometimes, and I have thought of it most lately--since I have been  ill.  At length I have decided, in case you should at any time  recall that purpose and act upon it in any way, to come to you and  assure you that you are altogether mistaken.  You could make no  discovery in reference to me that would do me the least service or  give me the least pleasure.  I am acquainted with my personal  history, and I have it in my power to assure you that you never can  advance my welfare by such means.  You may, perhaps, have abandoned  this project a long time.  If so, excuse my giving you unnecessary  trouble.  If not, I entreat you, on the assurance I have given you,  henceforth to lay it aside.  I beg you to do this, for my peace." 

"I am bound to confess," said Mr. Guppy, "that you express  yourself, miss, with that good sense and right feeling for which I  gave you credit.  Nothing can be more satisfactory than such right  feeling, and if I mistook any intentions on your part just now, I  am prepared to tender a full apology.  I should wish to be  understood, miss, as hereby offering that apology--limiting it, as  your own good sense and right feeling will point out the necessity  of, to the present proceedings." 

I must say for Mr. Guppy that the snuffling manner he had had upon  him improved very much.  He seemed truly glad to be able to do  something I asked, and he looked ashamed. 

"If you will allow me to finish what I have to say at once so that  I may have no occasion to resume," I went on, seeing him about to  speak, "you will do me a kindness, sir.  I come to you as privately  as possible because you announced this impression of yours to me in  a confidence which I have really wished to respect--and which I  always have respected, as you remember.  I have mentioned my  illness.  There really is no reason why I should hesitate to say  that I know very well that any little delicacy I might have had in  making a request to you is quite removed.  Therefore I make the  entreaty I have now preferred, and I hope you will have sufficient  consideration for me to accede to it."  I must do Mr. Guppy the further justice of saying that he had  looked more and more ashamed and that he looked most ashamed and  very earnest when he now replied with a burning face, "Upon my word  and honour, upon my life, upon my soul, Miss Summerson, as I am a  living man, I'll act according to your wish!  I'll never go another  step in opposition to it.  I'll take my oath to it if it will be  any satisfaction to you.  In what I promise at this present time  touching the matters now in question," continued Mr. Guppy rapidly,  as if he were repeating a familiar form of words, "I speak the  truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so--" 

"I am quite satisfied," said I, rising at this point, "and I thank  you very much.  Caddy, my dear, I am ready!" 

Mr. Guppy's mother returned with Caddy (now making me the recipient  of her silent laughter and her nudges), and we took our leave.  Mr.  Guppy saw us to the door with the air of one who was either  imperfectly awake or walking in his sleep; and we left him there,  staring.  But in a minute he came after us down the street without any hat,  and with his long hair all blown about, and stopped us, saying  fervently, "Miss Summerson, upon my honour and soul, you may depend  upon me!" 

"I do," said I, "quite confidently." 

"I beg your pardon, miss," said Mr. Guppy, going with one leg and  staying with the other, "but this lady being present--your own  witness--it might be a satisfaction to your mind (which I should  wish to set at rest) if you was to repeat those admissions." 

"Well, Caddy," said I, turning to her, "perhaps you will not be  surprised when I tell you, my dear, that there never has been any  engagement--" 

"No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever," suggested Mr.  Guppy. 

"No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever," said I, "between  this gentleman--" 

"William Guppy, of Penton Place, Pentonville, in the county of  Middlesex," he murmured. 

"Between this gentleman, Mr. William Guppy, of Penton Place,  Pentonville, in the county of Middlesex, and myself." 

"Thank you, miss," said Mr. Guppy.  "Very full--er--excuse me-- lady's name, Christian and surname both?"  I gave them. 

"Married woman, I believe?" said Mr. Guppy.  "Married woman.  Thank  you.  Formerly Caroline Jellyby, spinster, then of Thavies Inn,  within the city of London, but extra-parochial; now of Newman  Street, Oxford Street.  Much obliged." 

He ran home and came running back again. 

"Touching that matter, you know, I really and truly am very sorry  that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over  which I have no control, should prevent a renewal of what was  wholly terminated some time back," said Mr. Guppy to me forlornly  and despondently, "but it couldn't be.  Now COULD it, you know!  I  only put it to you."  I replied it certainly could not. 

The subject did not admit of a  doubt.  He thanked me and ran to his mother's again--and back  again.  "It's very honourable of you, miss, I am sure," said Mr. Guppy.   

"If an altar could be erected in the bowers of friendship--but,  upon my soul, you may rely upon me in every respect save and except  the tender passion only!"  The struggle in Mr. Guppy's breast and the numerous oscillations it  occasioned him between his mother's door and us were sufficiently  conspicuous in the windy street (particularly as his hair wanted  cutting) to make us hurry away.  I did so with a lightened heart;  but when we last looked back, Mr. Guppy was still oscillating in  the same troubled state of mind.

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