The Solitary House (123 page)

How well I remember the pleasant afternoon when I was raised in bed with pillows for the first time, to enjoy a great tea-drinking with Charley! The little creature—sent into the world, surely, to minister to the weak and sick—was so happy, and so busy, and stopped so often in her preparations to lay her head upon my bosom, and fondle me, and cry with joyful tears she was so glad, she was so glad! that I was obliged to say, “Charley, if you go on in this way, I must lie down again, my darling, for I am weaker than I thought I was!” So Charley became as quiet as a mouse and took her bright face here and there, across and across the two rooms, out of the shade into the divine sunshine, and out of the sunshine into the shade, while I watched her peacefully. When all her preparations were concluded and the
pretty tea-table with its little delicacies to tempt me, and its white cloth, and its flowers, and everything so lovingly and beautifully arranged for me by Ada downstairs, was ready at the bedside, I felt sure I was steady enough to say something to Charley that was not new to my thoughts.

First, I complimented Charley on the room; and indeed, it was so fresh and airy, so spotless and neat, that I could scarce believe I had been lying there so long. This delighted Charley, and her face was brighter than before.

“Yet, Charley,” said I, looking round, “I miss something, surely, that I am accustomed to?”

Poor little Charley looked round too, and pretended to shake her head, as if there were nothing absent.

“Are the pictures all as they used to be?” I asked her.

“Every one of them, miss,” said Charley.

“And the furniture, Charley?”

“Except where I have moved it about, to make more room, miss.”

“And yet,” said I, “I miss some familiar object. Ah, I know what it is, Charley! It’s the looking-glass.”

Charley got up from the table, making as if she had forgotten something, and went into the next room; and I heard her sob there.

I had thought of this very often. I was now certain of it. I could thank God that it was not a shock to me now. I called Charley back; and when she came—at first pretending to smile, but as she drew nearer to me, looking grieved—I took her in my arms, and said, “It matters very little, Charley. I hope I can do without my old face very well.”

I was presently so far advanced as to be able to sit up in a great chair, and even giddily to walk into the adjoining room, leaning on Charley. The mirror was gone from its usual place in that room too; but what I had to bear, was none the harder to bear for that.

My guardian had throughout been earnest to visit me, and there was now no good reason why I should deny myself that happiness. He came one morning; and when he first came in could only hold me in his embrace, and say, “My dear, dear
girl!” I had long known—who could know better?—what a deep fountain of affection and generosity his heart was; and was it not worth my trivial suffering and change to fill such a place in it? “O yes!” I thought. “He has seen me, and he loves me better than he did; he has seen me, and is even fonder of me than he was before; and what have I to mourn for!”

He sat down by me on the sofa, supporting me with his arm. For a little while he sat with his hand over his face, but when he removed it, fell into his usual manner. There never can have been, there never can be, a pleasanter manner.

“My little woman,” said he, “what a sad time this has been. Such an inflexible little woman, too, through all!”

“Only for the best, Guardian,” said I.

“For the best?” he repeated, tenderly. “Of course, for the best. But here have Ada and I been perfectly forlorn and miserable; here has your friend Caddy been coming and going late and early; here has every one about the house been utterly lost and dejected; here has even poor Rick been writing—to
me
too—in his anxiety for you!”

I had read of Caddy in Ada’s letters, but not of Richard. I told him so.

“Why, no, my dear,” he replied. “I have thought it better not to mention it to her.”

“And you speak of his writing to
you
,” said I, repeating his emphasis. “As if it were not natural for him to do so, Guardian; as if he could write to a better friend!”

“He thinks he could, my love,” returned my guardian, “and to many a better. The truth is, he wrote to me under a sort of protest, while unable to write to you with any hope of an answer—wrote coldly, haughtily, distantly, resentfully. Well, dearest little woman, we must look forbearingly on it. He is not to blame. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has warped him out of himself, and perverted me in his eyes. I have known it do as bad deeds, and worse, many a time. If two angels could be concerned in it, I believe it would change their nature.”

“It has not changed yours, Guardian.”

“Oh yes, it has, my dear,” he said, laughingly. “It has made the south wind easterly, I don’t know how often. Rick mistrusts
and suspects me—goes to lawyers, and is taught to mistrust and suspect me. Hears I have conflicting interests; claims clashing against his, and what not. Whereas, Heaven knows that if I could get out of the mountains of Wiglomeration on which my unfortunate name has been so long bestowed (which I can’t), or could level them by the extinction of my own original right (which I can’t either, and no human power ever can, anyhow, I believe, to such a pass have we got), I would do it this hour. I would rather restore to poor Rick his proper nature, than be endowed with all the money that dead suitors, broken, heart and soul, upon the wheel of Chancery, have left unclaimed with the Accountant-General—and that’s money enough, my dear, to be cast into a pyramid, in memory of Chancery’s transcendent wickedness.”

“Is it possible, Guardian,” I asked, amazed, “that Richard can be suspicious of you?”

“Ah, my love, my love,” he said, “it is in the subtle poison of such abuses to breed such diseases. His blood is infected, and objects lose their natural aspects in his sight. It is not
his
fault.”

“But it is a terrible misfortune, Guardian.”

“It is a terrible misfortune, little woman, to be ever drawn within the influence of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. I know none greater. By little and little he has been induced to trust in that rotten reed, and it communicates some portion of its rottenness to everything around him. But again, I say, with all my soul, we must be patient with poor Rick, and not blame him. What a troop of fine fresh hearts, like his, have I seen in my time turned by the same means!”

I could not help expressing something of my wonder and regret that his benevolent, disinterested intentions had prospered so little.

“We must not say so, Dame Durden,” he cheerfully replied; “Ada is the happier, I hope; and that is much. I did think that I and both these young creatures might be friends, instead of distrustful foes, and that we might so far counteract the suit, and prove too strong for it. But it was too much to expect. Jarndyce and Jarndyce was the curtain of Rick’s cradle.”

“But, Guardian, may we not hope that a little experience will teach him what a false and wretched thing it is?”

“We
will
hope so, my Esther,” said Mr. Jarndyce, “and that it may not teach him so too late. In any case we must not be hard on him. There are not many grown and matured men living while we speak, good men too, who, if they were thrown into this same court as suitors, would not be vitally changed and depreciated within three years—within two—within one. How can we stand amazed at poor Rick? A young man so unfortunate,” here he fell into a lower tone, as if he were thinking aloud, “cannot at first believe (who could?) that Chancery is what it is. He looks to it, flushed and fitfully, to do something with his interests, and bring them to some settlement. It procrastinates, disappoints, tries, tortures him; wears out his sanguine hopes and patience, thread by thread; but he still looks to it, and hankers after it, and finds his whole world treacherous and hollow. Well, well, well! Enough of this, my dear!”

He had supported me, as at first, all this time; and his tenderness was so precious to me, that I leaned my head upon his shoulder and loved him as if he had been my father. I resolved in my own mind in this little pause, by some means, to see Richard when I grew strong, and try to set him right.

“There are better subjects than these,” said my guardian, “for such a joyful time as the time of our dear girl’s recovery. And I had a commission to broach one of them, as soon as I should begin to talk. When shall Ada come to see you, my love?”

I had been thinking of that too. A little in connexion with the absent mirrors, but not much; for I knew my loving girl would be changed by no change in my looks.

“Dear Guardian,” said I, “as I have shut her out so long—though indeed, indeed, she is like the light to me—”

“I know it well, Dame Durden, well.”

He was so good, his touch expressed such endearing compassion and affection, and the tone of his voice carried such comfort into my heart, that I stopped for a little while, quite unable to go on. “Yes, yes, you are tired,” said he. “Rest a little.”

“As I have kept Ada out so long,” I began afresh, after a short while, “I think I should like to have my own way a little longer,
Guardian. It would be best to be away from here before I see her. If Charley and I were to go to some country lodging as soon as I can move, and if I had a week there, in which to grow stronger and to be revived by the sweet air, and to look forward to the happiness of having Ada with me again, I think it would be better for us.”

I hope it was not a poor thing in me to wish to be a little more used to my altered self, before I met the eyes of the dear girl I longed so ardently to see; but it is the truth. I did. He understood me, I was sure; but I was not afraid of that. If it were a poor thing, I knew he would pass it over.

“Our spoilt little woman,” said my guardian, “shall have her own way even in her inflexibility, though at the price, I know, of tears downstairs. And see here! Here is Boythorn, heart of chivalry, breathing such ferocious vows as never were breathed on paper before, that if you don’t go and occupy his whole house, he having already turned out of it expressly for that purpose, by Heaven and by earth he’ll pull it down, and not leave one brick standing on another!”

And my guardian put a letter in my hand; without any ordinary beginning such as “My dear Jarndyce,” but rushing at once into the words, “I swear if Miss Summerson do not come down and take possession of my house, which I vacate for her this day at one o’clock, p.m.,” and then with the utmost seriousness, and in the most emphatic terms, going on to make the extraordinary declaration he had quoted. We did not appreciate the writer the less for laughing heartily over it; and we settled that I should send him a letter of thanks on the morrow, and accept his offer. It was a most agreeable one to me; for all the places I could have thought of, I should have liked to go to none so well as Chesney Wold.

“Now, little housewife,” said my guardian, looking at his watch, “I was strictly timed before I came upstairs, for you must not be tired too soon; and my time has waned away to the last minute. I have one other petition. Little Miss Flite, hearing a rumour that you were ill, made nothing of walking down here—twenty miles, poor soul, in a pair of dancing-shoes—to inquire.
It was Heaven’s mercy we were at home, or she would have walked back again.”

The old conspiracy to make me happy! Everybody seemed to be in it!

“Now, pet,” said my guardian, “if it would not be irksome to you to admit the harmless little creature one afternoon, before you save Boythorn’s otherwise devoted house from demolition, I believe you would make her prouder and better pleased with herself than I—though my eminent name
is
Jarndyce—could do in a lifetime.”

I have no doubt he knew there would be something in the simple image of the poor afflicted creature, that would fall like a gentle lesson on my mind at that time. I felt it as he spoke to me. I could not tell him heartily enough how ready I was to receive her. I had always pitied her; never so much as now. I had always been glad of my little power to soothe her under her calamity; but never, never, half so glad before.

We arranged a time for Miss Flite to come out by the coach, and share my early dinner. When my guardian left me, I turned my face away upon my couch, and prayed to be forgiven if I, surrounded by such blessings, had magnified to myself the little trial that I had to undergo. The childish prayer of that old birthday, when I had aspired to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted, and to do good to some one, and win some love to myself if I could, came back into my mind with a reproachful sense of all the happiness I had since enjoyed, and all the affectionate hearts that had been turned towards me. If I were weak now, what had I profited by those mercies? I repeated the old childish prayer in its old childish words, and found that its old peace had not departed from it.

My guardian now came every day. In a week or so more, I could walk about our rooms, and hold long talks with Ada, from behind the window-curtain. Yet I never saw her; for I had not as yet the courage to look at the dear face, though I could have done so easily without her seeing me.

On the appointed day Miss Flite arrived. The poor little creature ran into my room quite forgetful of her usual dignity, and,
crying from her very heart of hearts, “My dear Fitz-Jarndyce!” fell upon my neck and kissed me twenty times.

“Dear me!” said she, putting her hand into her reticule, “I have nothing here but documents, my dear Fitz-Jarndyce; I must borrow a pocket handkerchief.”

Charley gave her one, and the good creature certainly made use of it, for she held it to her eyes with both hands, and sat so, shedding tears for the next ten minutes.

“With pleasure, my dear Fitz-Jarndyce,” she was careful to explain. “Not the least pain. Pleasure to see you well again. Pleasure at having the honour of being admitted to see you. I am so much fonder of you, my love, than of the Chancellor. Though I
do
attend Court regularly. By the by, my dear, mentioning pocket-handkerchiefs—”

Miss Flite here looked at Charley, who had been to meet her at the place where the coach stopped. Charley glanced at me, and looked unwilling to pursue the suggestion.