The Solitary House (111 page)

ESTHER’S NARRATIVE

R
ichard had been gone away some time, when a visitor came to pass a few days with us. It was an elderly lady. It was Mrs. Woodcourt, who, having come from Wales to stay with Mrs. Bayham Badger and having written to my guardian, “by her son Allan’s desire,” to report that she had heard from him and that he was well, “and sent his kind remembrances to all of us,” had been invited by my guardian to make a visit to Bleak House. She stayed with us nearly three weeks. She took very kindly to me, and was extremely confidential: so much so that sometimes she almost made me uncomfortable. I had no right, I knew very well, to be uncomfortable because she confided in me, and I felt it was unreasonable; still, with all I could do, I could not quite help it.

She was such a sharp little lady, and used to sit with her hands folded in each other, looking so very watchful while she talked to me, that perhaps I found that rather irksome. Or perhaps it was her being so upright and trim; though I don’t think it was that, because I thought that quaintly pleasant. Nor can it have been the general expression of her face, which was very sparkling and pretty for an old lady. I don’t know what it was. Or at least if I do, now, I thought I did not then. Or at least—but it don’t matter.

Of a night when I was going upstairs to bed, she would invite me into her room, where she sat before the fire in a great chair; and, dear me, she would tell me about Morgan ap Kerrig until I was quite low-spirited! Sometimes she recited a few verses from Crumlinwallinwer and the Mewlinnwillinwodd (if
those are the right names, which I dare say they are not), and would become quite fiery with the sentiments they expressed. Though I never knew what they were (being in Welsh), further than that they were highly eulogistic of the lineage of Morgan ap Kerrig.

“So, Miss Summerson,” she would say to me with stately triumph, “this, you see, is the fortune inherited by my son. Wherever my son goes, he can claim kindred with Ap Kerrig. He may not have money, but he always has what is much better—family, my dear.”

I had my doubts of their caring so very much for Morgan ap Kerrig, in India and China; but of course I never expressed them. I used to say it was a great thing to be so highly connected.

“It
is
, my dear, a great thing,” Mrs. Woodcourt would reply. “It has its disadvantages; my son’s choice of a wife, for instance, is limited by it; but the matrimonial choice of the Royal family is limited, in much the same manner.”

Then she would pat me on the arm and smooth my dress, as much as to assure me that she had a good opinion of me, the distance between us notwithstanding.

“Poor Mr. Woodcourt, my dear,” she would say, and always with some emotion, for with her lofty pedigree she had a very affectionate heart, “was descended from a great Highland family, the MacCoorts of MacCoort. He served his king and country as an officer in the Royal Highlanders, and he died on the field. My son is one of the last representatives of two old families. With the blessing of Heaven he will set them up again, and unite them with another old family.”

It was in vain for me to try to change the subject, as I used to try—only for the sake of novelty—or perhaps because—but I need not be so particular. Mrs. Woodcourt never would let me change it.

“My dear,” she said one night, “you have so much sense, and you look at the world in a quiet manner so superior to your time of life, that it is a comfort to me to talk to you about these family matters of mine. You don’t know much of my son,
my dear; but you know enough of him, I dare say, to recollect him?”

“Yes, ma’am. I recollect him.”

“Yes, my dear. Now, my dear, I think you are a judge of character, and I should like to have your opinion of him?”

“O, Mrs. Woodcourt,” said I, “that is so difficult.”

“Why is it so difficult, my dear?” she returned. “I don’t see it myself.”

“To give an opinion—”

“On so slight an acquaintance, my dear.
That’s
true.”

I didn’t mean that; because Mr. Woodcourt had been at our house a good deal altogether, and had become quite intimate with my guardian. I said so, and added that he seemed to be very clever in his profession—we thought—and that his kindness and gentleness to Miss Flite were above all praise.

“You do him justice!” said Mrs. Woodcourt, pressing my hand. “You define him exactly. Allan is a dear fellow, and in his profession faultless. I say it, though I am his mother. Still, I must confess he is not without faults, love.”

“None of us are,” said I.

“Ah! But his really are faults that he might correct, and ought to correct,” returned the sharp old lady, sharply shaking her head. “I am so much attached to you, that I may confide in you, my dear, as a third party wholly disinterested, that he is fickleness itself.”

I said, I should have thought it hardly possible that he could have been otherwise than constant to his profession, and zealous in the pursuit of it, judging from the reputation he had earned.

“You are right again, my dear”; the old lady retorted, “but I don’t refer to his profession, look you.”

“O!” said I.

“No,” said she. “I refer, my dear, to his social conduct. He is always paying trivial attention to young ladies, and always has been, ever since he was eighteen. Now, my dear, he has never really cared for any one of them, and has never meant in doing this to do any harm, or to express anything but politeness and good nature. Still, it’s not right you know; is it?”

“No,” said I, as she seemed to wait for me.

“And it might lead to mistaken notions, you see, my dear.”

I supposed it might.

“Therefore, I have told him many times, that he really should be more careful, both in justice to himself and in justice to others. And he has always said, ‘Mother, I will be; but you know me better than anybody else does, and you know I mean no harm—in short, mean nothing.’ All of which is very true, my dear, but is no justification. However, as he is now gone so far away, and for an indefinite time, and as he will have good opportunities and introductions, we may consider this past and gone. And you, my dear,” said the old lady, who was now all nods and smiles; “regarding your dear self, my love?”

“Me, Mrs. Woodcourt?”

“Not to be always selfish, talking of my son, who has gone to seek his fortune, and to find a wife—when do you mean to seek
your
fortune and to find a husband, Miss Summerson? Hey, look you! Now you blush!”

I don’t think I did blush—at all events, it was not important if I did—and I said my present fortune perfectly contented me, and I had no wish to change it.

“Shall I tell you what I always think of you, and the fortune yet to come for you, my love?” said Mrs. Woodcourt.

“If you believe you are a good prophet,” said I.

“Why, then, it is that you will marry some one, very rich and very worthy, much older—five and twenty years, perhaps—than yourself. And you will be an excellent wife, and much beloved, and very happy.”

“That is a good fortune,” said I. “But why is it to be mine?”

“My dear,” she returned, “there’s suitability in it—you are so busy, and so neat, and so peculiarly situated altogether that there’s suitability in it, and it will come to pass. And nobody, my love, will congratulate you more sincerely on such a marriage than I shall.”

It was curious that this should make me uncomfortable, but I think it did. I know it did. It made me for some part of that night uncomfortable. I was so ashamed of my folly, that I did not like to confess it even to Ada; and that made me more uncomfortable
still. I would have given anything not to have been so much in the bright old lady’s confidence, if I could have possibly declined it. It gave me the most inconsistent opinions of her. At one time I thought she was a story-teller, and at another time that she was the pink of truth. Now, I suspect that she was very cunning; next moment, I believed her honest Welsh heart to be perfectly innocent and simple. And, after all, what did it matter to me, and why did it matter to me? Why could not I, going up to bed with my basket of keys, stop to sit down by her fire, and accommodate myself for a little while to her, at least as well as to anybody else; and not trouble myself about the harmless things she said to me? Impelled towards her, as I certainly was, for I was very anxious that she should like me, and was very glad indeed that she did, why should I harp afterwards, with actual distress and pain, on every word she said, and weigh it over and over again in twenty scales? Why was it so worrying to me to have her in our house, and confidential to me every night, when I yet felt that it was better and safer, somehow, that she should be there than anywhere else? These were perplexities and contradictions that I could not account for. At least, if I could—but I shall come to all that by and by, and it is mere idleness to go on about it now.

So, when Mrs. Woodcourt went away, I was sorry to lose her, but was relieved too. And then Caddy Jellyby came down; and Caddy brought such a packet of domestic news, that it gave us abundant occupation.

First, Caddy declared (and would at first declare nothing else) that I was the best adviser that ever was known. This, my pet said, was no news at all; and this,
I
said, of course, was nonsense. Then Caddy told us that she was going to be married in a month; and that if Ada and I would be her bridesmaids, she was the happiest girl in the world. To be sure, this was news indeed; and I thought we never should have done talking about it, we had so much to say to Caddy, and Caddy had so much to say to us.

It seemed that Caddy’s unfortunate papa had got over his bankruptcy—“gone through the Gazette,” was the expression Caddy used, as if it were a tunnel,—with the general clemency
and commiseration of his creditors; and had got rid of his affairs in some blessed manner, without succeeding in understanding them; and had given up everything he possessed (which was not worth much, I should think, to judge from the state of the furniture), and had satisfied every one concerned that he could do no more, poor man. So, he had been honourably dismissed to “the office,” to begin the world again. What he did at the office, I never knew: Caddy said he was a “Custom-House and General Agent,” and the only thing I ever understood about that business was, that when he wanted money more than usual he went to the docks to look for it, and hardly ever found it.

As soon as her papa had tranquillized his mind by becoming this shorn lamb, and they had removed to a furnished lodging in Hatton Garden (where I found the children, when I afterwards went there, cutting the horsehair out of the seats of the chairs, and choking themselves with it), Caddy had brought about a meeting between him and Old Mr. Turveydrop; and poor Mr. Jellyby, being very humble and meek, had deferred to Mr. Turveydrop’s Deportment so submissively, that they had become excellent friends. By degrees, old Mr. Turveydrop, thus familiarized with the idea of his son’s marriage, had worked up his parental feelings to the height of contemplating that event as being near at hand; and had given his gracious consent to the young couple commencing housekeeping at the Academy in Newman Street, when they would.

“And your papa, Caddy. What did he say?”

“O! Poor Pa,” said Caddy, “only cried, and said he hoped we might get on better than he and Ma had got on. He didn’t say so before Prince, he only said so to me. And he said, ‘My poor girl, you have not been very well taught how to make a home for your husband; but unless you mean with all your heart to strive to do it, you had better murder him than marry him—if you really love him.’ ”

“And how did you reassure him, Caddy?”

“Why, it was very distressing, you know, to see poor Pa so low, and hear him say such terrible things, and I couldn’t help crying myself. But I told him that I
did
mean it with all my
heart; and that I hoped our house would be a place for him to come and find some comfort in, of an evening; and that I hoped and thought I could be a better daughter to him there, than at home. Then I mentioned Peepy’s coming to stay with me; and then Pa began to cry again, and said the children were Indians.”

“Indians, Caddy?”

“Yes,” said Caddy, “Wild Indians. And Pa said,” (here she began to sob, poor girl, not at all like the happiest girl in the world) “that he was sensible the best thing that could happen to them was, their being all Tomahawked together.”

Ada suggested that it was comfortable to know that Mr. Jellyby did not mean these destructive sentiments.

“No, of course I know Pa wouldn’t like his family to be weltering in their blood,” said Caddy, “but he means that they are very unfortunate in being Ma’s children, and that he is very unfortunate in being Ma’s husband; and I am sure that’s true, though it seems unnatural to say so.”

I asked Caddy if Mrs. Jellyby knew that her wedding-day was fixed.

“O! You know what Ma is, Esther,” she returned. “It’s impossible to say whether she knows it or not. She has been told it, often enough; and when she
is
told it, she only gives me a placid look, as if I was I don’t know what—a steeple in the distance,” said Caddy, with a sudden idea: “and then she shakes her head, and says ‘O Caddy, Caddy, what a tease you are!’ and goes on with the Borrioboola letters.”

“And about your wardrobe, Caddy?” said I. For she was under no restraint with us.

“Well, my dear Esther,” she returned, drying her eyes, “I must do the best I can, and trust to my dear Prince never to have an unkind remembrance of my coming so shabbily to him. If the question concerned an outfit for Borrioboola, Ma would know all about it, and would be quite excited. Being what it is, she neither knows nor cares.”

Caddy was not at all deficient in natural affection for her mother, but mentioned this with tears, as an undeniable fact: which I am afraid it was. We were sorry for the poor dear girl and found so much to admire in the good disposition which had
survived under such discouragement, that we both at once (I mean Ada and I) proposed a little scheme, that made her perfectly joyful. This was, her staying with us for three weeks; my staying with her for one; and our all three contriving and cutting out, and repairing, and sewing, and saving, and doing the very best we could think of, to make the most of her stock. My guardian being as pleased with the idea as Caddy was, we took her home next day to arrange the matter; and brought her out again in triumph, with her boxes and all the purchases that could be squeezed out of a ten-pound note, which Mr. Jellyby had found in the Docks I suppose, but which he at all events gave her. What my guardian would not have given her, if we had encouraged him, it would be difficult to say; but we thought it right to compound for no more than her weddingdress and bonnet. He agreed to this compromise; and if Caddy had ever been happy in her life, she was happy when we sat down to work.