The Solitary House (141 page)

“May I come in, Guardian?”

“Surely, little woman. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing is the matter. I thought I would like to take this quiet time of saying a word to you about myself.”

He put a chair for me, shut his book, and put it by, and turned his kind attentive face towards me. I could not help observing that it wore that curious expression I had observed in it once before—on that night when he had said that he was in no trouble which I could readily understand.

“What concerns you, my dear Esther,” said he, “concerns us all. You cannot be more ready to speak than I am to hear.”

“I know that, Guardian. But I have such need of your advice and support. O! You don’t know how much need I have tonight.”

He looked unprepared for my being so earnest, and even a little alarmed.

“Or how anxious I have been to speak to you,” said I, “ever since the visitor was here today.”

“The visitor, my dear! Sir Leicester Dedlock?”

“Yes.”

He folded his arms, and sat looking at me with an air of the
profoundest astonishment, awaiting what I should say next. I did not know how to prepare him.

“Why, Esther,” said he, breaking into a smile, “our visitor and you are the two last persons on earth I should have thought of connecting together!”

“O yes, Guardian, I know it. And I too, but a little while ago.”

The smile passed from his face, and he became graver than before. He crossed to the door to see that it was shut (but I had seen to that), and resumed his seat before me.

“Guardian,” said I, “do you remember, when we were overtaken by the thunder-storm, Lady Dedlock’s speaking to you of her sister?”

“Of course. Of course I do.”

“And reminding you that she and her sister had differed; had ‘gone their several ways’?”

“Of course.”

“Why did they separate, Guardian?”

His face quite altered as he looked at me. “My child, what questions are these! I never knew. No one but themselves ever did know, I believe. Who could tell what the secrets of those two handsome and proud women were! You have seen Lady Dedlock. If you had ever seen her sister, you would know her to have been as resolute and haughty as she.”

“O Guardian, I have seen her many and many a time!”

“Seen her?”

He paused a little, biting his lip. “Then, Esther, when you spoke to me long ago of Boythorn, and when I told you that he was all but married once, and that the lady did not die, but died to him, and that that time had had its influence on his later life—did you know it all, and know who the lady was?”

“No, Guardian,” I returned, fearful of the light that dimly broke upon me. “Nor do I know yet.”

“Lady Dedlock’s sister.”

“And why,” I could scarcely ask him, “why, Guardian, pray tell me why were
they
parted?”

“It was her act, and she kept its motives in her inflexible heart. He afterwards did conjecture (but it was mere conjecture),
that some injury which her haughty spirit had received in her cause of quarrel with her sister, had wounded her beyond all reason; but she wrote him that from the date of that letter she died to him—as in literal truth she did—and that the resolution was exacted from her by her knowledge of his proud temper and his strained sense of honour, which were both her nature too. In consideration for those master points in him, and even in consideration for them in herself, she made the sacrifice, she said, and would live in it and die in it. She did both, I fear: certainly he never saw her, never heard of her from that hour. Nor did any one.”

“O Guardian, what have I done!” I cried, giving way to my grief; “what sorrow have I innocently caused!”

“You caused, Esther?”

“Yes, Guardian. Innocently, but most surely. That secluded sister is my first remembrance.”

“No, no!” he cried, starting.

“Yes, Guardian, yes! And
her
sister is my mother!”

I would have told him all my mother’s letter, but he would not hear it then. He spoke so tenderly and wisely to me, and he put so plainly before me all I had myself imperfectly thought and hoped in my better state of mind, that, penetrated as I had been with fervent gratitude towards him through so many years, I believed I had never loved him so dearly, never thanked him in my heart so fully, as I did that night. And when he had taken me to my room and kissed me at the door, and when at last I lay down to sleep, my thought was how could I ever be busy enough, how could I ever be good enough, how in my little way could I ever hope to be forgetful enough of myself, devoted enough to him, and useful enough to others, to show him how I blessed and honoured him.

CHAPTER 44

THE LETTER AND THE ANSWER

M
y guardian called me into his room next morning, and then I told him what had been left untold on the previous night. There was nothing to be done, he said, but to keep the secret, and to avoid another such encounter as that of yesterday. He understood my feeling, and entirely shared it. He charged himself even with restraining Mr. Skimpole from improving his opportunity. One person whom he need not name to me, it was not now possible for him to advise or help. He wished it were; but no such thing could be. If her mistrust of the lawyer whom she had mentioned were well-founded, which he scarcely doubted, he dreaded discovery. He knew something of him, both by sight and by reputation, and it was certain that he was a dangerous man. Whatever happened, he repeatedly impressed upon me with anxious affection and kindness, I was as innocent of, as himself; and as unable to influence.

“Nor do I understand,” said he, “that any doubts tend towards you, my dear. Much suspicion may exist without that connexion.”

“With the lawyer,” I returned. “But two other persons have come into my mind since I have been anxious.” Then I told him all about Mr. Guppy, who I feared might have had his vague surmises when I little understood his meaning, but in whose silence after our last interview I expressed perfect confidence.

“Well,” said my guardian. “Then we may dismiss him for the present. Who is the other?”

I called to his recollection the French maid, and the eager offer of herself she had made to me.

“Ha!” he returned thoughtfully, “that is a more alarming person than the clerk. But after all, my dear, it was but seeking for a new service. She had seen you and Ada a little while before, and it was natural that you should come into her head. She merely proposed herself for your maid, you know. She did nothing more.”

“Her manner was strange,” said I.

“Yes, and her manner was strange when she took her shoes off, and showed that cool relish for a walk that might have ended in her death-bed,” said my guardian. “It would be useless self-distress and torment to reckon up such chances and possibilities. There are very few harmless circumstances that would not seem full of perilous meaning, so considered. Be hopeful, little woman. You can be nothing better than yourself; be that, through this knowledge, as you were before you had it. It is the best you can do for everybody’s sake. I sharing the secret with you—”

“And lightening it, Guardian, so much,” said I.

“—Will be attentive to what passes in that family, so far as I can observe it from my distance. And if the time should come when I can stretch out a hand to render the least service to one whom it is better not to name even here, I will not fail to do it for her dear daughter’s sake.”

I thanked him with my whole heart. What could I ever do but thank him! I was going out at the door, when he asked me to stay a moment. Quickly turning round, I saw that same expression on his face again; and all at once, I don’t know how, it flashed upon me as a new and far-off possibility that I understood it.

“My dear Esther,” said my guardian, “I have long had something in my thoughts that I have wished to say to you.”

“Indeed?”

“I have had some difficulty in approaching it, and I still have. I should wish it to be so deliberately said, and so deliberately considered. Would you object to my writing it?”

“Dear Guardian, how could I object to your writing anything for
me
to read?”

“Then see, my love,” said he, with his cheery smile; “am I at
this moment quite as plain and easy—do I seem as open, as honest and old-fashioned—as I am at any time?”

I answered in all earnestness, “Quite.” With the strictest truth, for his momentary hesitation was gone (it had not lasted a minute), and his fine, sensible, cordial, sterling manner was restored.

“Do I look as if I suppressed anything, meant anything but what I said, had any reservation at all, no matter what?” said he, with his bright clear eyes on mine.

I answered, most assuredly he did not.

“Can you fully trust me, and thoroughly rely on what I profess, Esther?”

“Most thoroughly,” said I, with my whole heart.

“My dear girl,” returned my guardian, “give me your hand.”

He took it in his, holding me lightly with his arm, and, looking down into my face with the same genuine freshness and faithfulness of manner—the old protecting manner which had made that house my home in a moment—said, “You have wrought changes in me, little woman, since the winter day in the stage-coach. First and last you have done me a world of good, since that time.”

“Ah, Guardian, what have you done for me since that time!”

“But,” said he, “that is not to be remembered now.”

“It never can be forgotten.”

“Yes, Esther,” said he, with a gentle seriousness, “it is to be forgotten now; to be forgotten for a while. You are only to remember now, that nothing can change me as you know me. Can you feel quite assured of that, my dear?”

“I can, and I do,” I said.

“That’s much,” he answered. “That’s everything. But I must not take that, at a word. I will not write this something in my thoughts, until you have quite resolved within yourself that nothing can change me as you know me. If you doubt that in the least degree I will never write it. If you are sure of that, on good consideration, send Charley to me this night week—‘for the letter.’ But if you are not quite certain, never send. Mind, I trust to your truth, in this thing as in everything. If you are not quite certain on that one point, never send!”

“Guardian,” said I, “I am already certain. I can no more be changed in that conviction, than you can be changed towards me. I shall send Charley for the letter.”

He shook my hand and said no more. Nor was any more said in reference to this conversation, either by him or me, through the whole week. When the appointed night came, I said to Charley as soon as I was alone, “Go and knock at Mr. Jarndyce’s door, Charley, and say you have come from me—‘for the letter.’ ” Charley went up the stairs and down the stairs, and along the passages—the zig-zag way about the old-fashioned house seemed very long in my listening ears that night—and so came back, along the passages, and down the stairs, and up the stairs, and brought the letter. “Lay it on the table, Charley,” said I. So Charley laid it on the table and went to bed, and I sat looking at it without taking it up, thinking of many things.

I began with my overshadowed childhood, and passed through those timid days to the heavy time when my aunt lay dead, with her resolute face so cold and set; and when I was more solitary with Mrs. Rachael, than if I had had no one in the world to speak to or to look at. I passed to the altered days when I was so blest as to find friends in all around me, and to be beloved. I came to the time when I first saw my dear girl, and was received into that sisterly affection which was the grace and beauty of my life. I recalled the first bright gleam of welcome which had shone out of those very windows upon our expectant faces on that cold bright night, and which had never paled. I lived my happy life there over again, I went through my illness and recovery, I thought of myself so altered and of those around me so unchanged; and all this happiness shone like a light from one central figure, represented before me by the letter on the table.

I opened it and read it. It was so impressive in its love for me, and in the unselfish caution it gave me, and the consideration it showed for me in every word, that my eyes were too often blinded to read much at a time. But I read it through three times before I laid it down. I had thought beforehand that I knew its
purport, and I did. It asked me, would I be the mistress of Bleak House.

It was not a love letter though it expressed so much love, but was written just as he would at any time have spoken to me. I saw his face, and heard his voice, and felt the influence of his kind protecting manner, in every line. It addressed me as if our places were reversed; as if all the good deeds had been mine, and all the feelings they had awakened, his. It dwelt on my being young, and he past the prime of life; on his having attained a ripe age, while I was a child; on his writing to me with a silvered head, and knowing all this so well as to set it in full before me for mature deliberation. It told me that I would gain nothing by such a marriage, and lose nothing by rejecting it; for no new relation could enhance the tenderness in which he held me, and whatever my decision was, he was certain it would be right. But he had considered this step anew, since our late confidence, and had decided on taking it; if it only served to show me, through one poor instance, that the whole world would readily unite to falsify the stern prediction of my childhood. I was the last to know what happiness I could bestow upon him, but of that he said no more; for I was always to remember that I owed him nothing, and that he was my debtor, and for very much. He had often thought of our future; and, foreseeing that the time must come, and fearing that it might come soon, when Ada (now very nearly of age) would leave us, and when our present mode of life must be broken up, had become accustomed to reflect on this proposal. Thus he made it. If I felt that I could ever give him the best right he could have to be my protector, and if I felt that I could happily and justly become the dear companion of his remaining life, superior to all lighter chances and changes than Death, even then he could not have me bind myself irrevocably, while this letter was yet so new to me; but, even then, I must have ample time for reconsideration. In that case, or in the opposite case, let him be unchanged in his old relation, in his old manner, in the old name by which I called him. And as to his bright Dame Durden and little housekeeper, she would ever be the same, he knew.