The Solitary House (77 page)

“Are we not, sir?” said I.

“We have degenerated,” he returned, shaking his head, which he could do, to a very limited extent, in his cravat. “A levelling age is not favourable to Deportment. It develops vulgarity. Perhaps I speak with some little partiality. It may not be for me to say that I have been called, for some years now, Gentleman Turveydrop; or that his Royal Highness the Prince Regent did me the honour to inquire, on my removing my hat as he drove out of the Pavilion at Brighton (that fine building), ‘Who is he? Who the Devil is he? Why don’t I know him? Why hasn’t
he thirty thousand a-year?’ But these are little matters of anecdote—the general property, ma’am,—still repeated, occasionally, among the upper classes.”

“Indeed?” said I.

He replied with the high-shouldered bow. “Where what is left among us of Deportment,” he added, “still lingers. England—alas, my country!—has degenerated very much, and is degenerating every day. She has not many gentlemen left. We are few. I see nothing to succeed us, but a race of weavers.”

“One might hope that the race of gentlemen would be perpetuated here,” said I.

“You are very good,” he smiled, with the high-shouldered bow again. “You flatter me. But, no—no! I have never been able to imbue my poor boy with that part of his art. Heaven forbid that I should disparage my dear child, but he has—no Deportment.”

“He appears to be an excellent master,” I observed.

“Understand me, my dear madam, he
is
an excellent master. All that can be acquired, he has acquired. All that can be imparted, he can impart. But there
are
things—” he took another pinch of snuff and made the bow again, as if to add, “this kind of thing, for instance.”

I glanced towards the centre of the room, where Miss Jellyby’s lover, now engaged with single pupils, was undergoing greater drudgery than ever.

“My amiable child,” murmured Mr. Turveydrop, adjusting his cravat.

“Your son is indefatigable,” said I.

“It is my reward,” said Mr. Turveydrop, “to hear you say so. In some respects, he treads in the footsteps of his sainted mother. She was a devoted creature. But Wooman, lovely Wooman,” said Mr. Turveydrop, with very disagreeable gallantry, “what a sex you are!”

I rose and joined Miss Jellyby, who was by this time putting on her bonnet. The time allotted to a lesson having fully elapsed, there was a general putting on of bonnets. When Miss Jellyby and the unfortunate Prince found an opportunity to become betrothed I don’t know, but they certainly found none, on this occasion, to exchange a dozen words.

“My dear,” said Mr. Turveydrop benignly to his son, “do you know the hour?”

“No, father.” The son had no watch. The father had a handsome gold one, which he pulled out, with an air that was an example to mankind.

“My son,” said he, “it’s two o’clock. Recollect your school at Kensington at three.”

“That’s time enough for me, father,” said Prince. “I can take a morsel of dinner, standing, and be off.”

“My dear boy,” returned his father, “you must be very quick. You will find the cold mutton on the table.”

“Thank you, father. Are
you
off now, father?”

“Yes, my dear. I suppose,” said Mr. Turveydrop, shutting his eyes and lifting up his shoulders, with modest consciousness, “that I must show myself, as usual, about town.”

“You had better dine out comfortably, somewhere,” said his son.

“My dear child, I intend to. I shall take my little meal, I think, at the French house, in the Opera Colonnade.”

“That’s right. Good-bye, father!” said Prince, shaking hands.

“Good-bye, my son. Bless you!”

Mr. Turveydrop said this in quite a pious manner, and it seemed to do his son good; who, in parting from him, was so pleased with him, so dutiful to him, and so proud of him, that I almost felt as if it were an unkindness to the younger man not to be able to believe implicitly in the elder. The few moments that were occupied by Prince in taking leave of us (and particularly of one of us, as I saw, being in the secret), enhanced my favourable impression of his almost childish character. I felt a liking for him, and a compassion for him, as he put his little kit in his pocket—and with it his desire to stay a little while with Caddy—and went away good-humouredly to his cold mutton and his school in Kensington, that made me scarcely less irate with his father than the censorious old lady.

The father opened the room door for us, and bowed us out, in a manner, I must acknowledge, worthy of his shining original. In the same style he presently passed us on the other side of the street, on his way to the aristocratic part of the town, where he
was going to show himself among the few other gentlemen left. For some moments, I was so lost in reconsidering what I had heard and seen in Newman Street, that I was quite unable to talk to Caddy, or even to fix my attention on what she said to me: especially when I began to inquire in my mind whether there were, or ever had been, any other gentlemen, not in the dancing profession, who lived and founded a reputation entirely on their Deportment. This became so bewildering, and suggested the possibility of so many Mr. Turveydrops, that I said, “Esther, you must make up your mind to abandon this subject altogether, and attend to Caddy.” I accordingly did so, and we chatted all the rest of the way to Lincoln’s Inn.

Caddy told me that her lover’s education had been so neglected, that it was not always easy to read his notes. She said, if he were not so anxious about his spelling, and took less pains to make it clear, he would do better; but he put so many unnecessary letters into short words, that they sometimes quite lost their English appearance. “He does it with the best intention,” observed Caddy, “but it hasn’t the effect he means, poor fellow!” Caddy then went on to reason, how could he be expected to be a scholar, when he had passed his whole life in the dancing-school, and had done nothing but teach and fag, fag and teach, morning, noon, and night! And what did it matter? She could write letters enough for both, as she knew to her cost, and it was far better for him to be amiable than learned. “Besides, it’s not as if I was an accomplished girl, who had any right to give herself airs,” said Caddy. “I know little enough, I am sure, thanks to Ma!

“There’s another thing I want to tell you, now we are alone,” continued Caddy, “which I should not have liked to mention unless you had seen Prince, Miss Summerson. You know what a house ours is. It’s of no use my trying to learn anything that it would be useful for Prince’s wife to know, in
our
house. We live in such a state of muddle that it’s impossible, and I have only been more disheartened whenever I have tried. So, I get a little practice with—who do you think? Poor Miss Flite! Early in the morning, I help her to tidy her room, and clean her birds; and I make her cup of coffee for her (of course she taught me), and I
have learnt to make it so well that Prince says it’s the very best coffee he ever tasted, and would quite delight old Mr. Turveydrop, who is very particular indeed about his coffee. I can make little puddings too; and I know how to buy neck of mutton, and tea, and sugar, and butter, and a good many housekeeping things. I am not clever at my needle, yet,” said Caddy, glancing at the repairs on Peepy’s frock, “but perhaps I shall improve, and since I have been engaged to Prince, and have been doing all this, I have felt better-tempered, I hope, and more forgiving to Ma. It rather put me out, at first this morning, to see you and Miss Clare looking so neat and pretty, and to feel ashamed of Peepy and myself too; but, on the whole, I hope I am better-tempered than I was, and more forgiving to Ma.”

The poor girl, trying so hard, said it from her heart, and touched mine. “Caddy, my love,” I replied, “I begin to have a great affection for you, and I hope we shall become friends.” “Oh, do you?” cried Caddy; “how happy that would make me!” “My dear Caddy,” said I, “let us be friends from this time, and let us often have a chat about these matters, and try to find the right way through them.” Caddy was overjoyed. I said everything I could, in my old-fashioned way, to comfort and encourage her; and I would not have objected to old Mr. Turveydrop, that day, for any smaller consideration than a settlement on his daughter-in-law.

By this time, we were come to Mr. Krook’s, whose private door stood open. There was a bill, pasted on the door-post, announcing a room to let on the second floor. It reminded Caddy to tell me as we proceeded upstairs, that there had been a sudden death there, and an Inquest; and that our little friend had been ill of the fright. The door and window of the vacant room being open, we looked in. It was the room with the dark door, to which Miss Flite had secretly directed my attention when I was last in the house. A sad and desolate place it was; a gloomy, sorrowful place, that gave me a strange sensation of mournfulness and even dread. “You look pale,” said Caddy, when we came out, “and cold!” I felt as if the room had chilled me.

We had walked slowly, while we were talking; and my guardian and Ada were here before us. We found them in Miss
Flite’s garret. They were looking at the birds, while a medical gentleman who was so good as to attend Miss Flite with much solicitude and compassion, spoke with her cheerfully by the fire.

“I have finished my professional visit,” he said, coming forward. “Miss Flite is much better, and may appear in Court (as her mind is set upon it) tomorrow. She has been greatly missed there, I understand.”

Miss Flite received the compliment with complacency, and dropped a general curtsy to us.

“Honoured, indeed,” said she, “by another visit from the wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy to receive Jarndyce of Bleak House beneath my humble roof!” With a special curtsy. “Fitz-Jarndyce, my dear”; she had bestowed that name on Caddy, it appeared, and always called her by it; “a double welcome!”

“Has she been very ill?” asked Mr. Jarndyce of the gentleman whom we had found in attendance on her. She answered for herself directly, though he had put the question in a whisper.

“O decidedly unwell! O very unwell indeed,” she said, confidentially. “Not pain, you know—trouble. Not bodily so much as nervous, nervous! The truth is,” in a subdued voice and trembling, “we have had death here. There was poison in the house. I am very susceptible to such horrid things. It frightened me. Only Mr. Woodcourt knows how much. My physician, Mr. Woodcourt!” with great stateliness. “The wards in Jarndyce—Jarndyce of Bleak House—Fitz-Jarndyce!”

“Miss Flite,” said Mr. Woodcourt, in a grave kind voice as if he were appealing to her while speaking to us; and laying his hand gently on her arm; “Miss Flite describes her illness with her usual accuracy. She was alarmed by an occurrence in the house which might have alarmed a stronger person, and was made ill by the distress and agitation. She brought me here, in the first hurry of the discovery, though too late for me to be of any use to the unfortunate man. I have compensated myself for that disappointment by coming here since, and being of some small use to her.”

“The kindest physician in the college,” whispered Miss Flite to me. “I expect a Judgment. On the day of Judgment. And shall then confer estates.”

“She will be as well, in a day or two,” said Mr. Woodcourt, looking at her with an observant smile, “as she ever will be. In other words, quite well of course. Have you heard of her good fortune?”

“Most extraordinary!” said Miss Flite, smiling brightly. “You never heard of such a thing, my dear! Every Saturday, Conversation Kenge, or Guppy (clerk to Conversation K.), places in my hand a paper of shillings. Shillings. I assure you! Always the same number in the paper. Always one for every day in the week. Now you know, really! So well timed, is it not? Ye-es! From whence do these papers come, you say? That is the great question. Naturally. Shall I tell you what
I
think?
I
think,” said Miss Flite, drawing herself back with a very shrewd look, and shaking her right forefinger in a most significant manner, “that the Lord Chancellor, aware of the length of time during which the Great Seal has been open (for it has been open a long time!), forwards them. Until the Judgment I expect, is given. Now that’s very creditable, you know. To confess in that way that he
is
a little slow for human life. So delicate! Attending Court the other day—I attend it regularly—with my documents—I taxed him with it, and he almost confessed. That is, I smiled at him from my bench, and
he
smiled at me from his bench. But it’s great good fortune, is it not? And Fitz-Jarndyce lays the money out for me to great advantage. O, I assure you to the greatest advantage!”

I congratulated her (as she addressed herself to me) upon this fortunate addition to her income, and wished her a long continuance of it. I did not speculate upon the source from which it came, or wonder whose humanity was so considerate. My guardian stood before me, contemplating the birds, and I had no need to look beyond him.

“And what do you call these little fellows, ma’am?” said he in his pleasant voice. “Have they any names?”

“I can answer for Miss Flite that they have,” said I, “for she promised to tell us what they were. Ada remembers?”

Ada remembered very well.

“Did I?” said Miss Flite—“Who’s that at my door? What are you listening at my door for, Krook?”

The old man of the house, pushing it open before him, appeared there with his fur cap in his hand, and his cat at his heels.

“I wasn’t listening, Miss Flite,” he said. “I was going to give a rap with my knuckles, only you’re so quick!”

“Make your cat go down. Drive her away!” the old lady angrily exclaimed.

“Bah, Bah!—There ain’t no danger, gentlefolks,” said Mr. Krook, looking slowly and sharply from one to another until he had looked at all of us; “she’d never offer at the birds when I was here, unless I told her to it.”

“You will excuse my landlord,” said the old lady with a dignified air. “M, quite M! What do you want, Krook, when I have company?”

“Hi!” said the old man. “You know I am the Chancellor.”

“Well?” returned Miss Flite. “What of that?”

“For the Chancellor,” said the old man, with a chuckle, “not to be acquainted with a Jarndyce is queer, ain’t it, Miss Flite? Mightn’t I take the liberty?—Your servant, sir. I know Jarndyce and Jarndyce a’most as well as you do, sir. I knowed old Squire Tom, sir. I never to my knowledge see you afore though, not even in Court. Yet, I go there a mortal sight of times in the course of the year, taking one day with another.”