Bleak House by Charles Dickens (ebook reader that looks like a book TXT) 📕

the room that was our town-substitute for the growlery, and told him

that I had it in trust to tell him something.

“Well, little woman,” said he, shutting up his book, “if you have

accepted the trust, there can be no harm in it.”

“I hope not, guardian,” said I. “I can guarantee that there is no

secrecy in it. For it only happened yesterday.”

“Aye? And what is it, Esther?”

“Guardian,” said I, “you remember the happy night when first we came

down to Bleak House? When Ada was singing in the dark room?”

I wished to call to his remembrance the look he had given me then.

Unless I am much mistaken, I saw that I did so.

“Because—” said I with a little hesitation.

“Yes, my dear!” said he. “Don’t hurry.”

“Because,” said I, “Ada and Richard have fallen in love. And have

told each other so.”

“Already!” cried my guardian, quite astonished.

“Yes!” said I. “And to tell you the truth, guardian, I rather

expected it.”

“The deuce you did!” said he.

He sat considering for a minute or two, with his smile, at once so

handsome and so kind, upon his changing face, and then requested me

to let them know that he wished to see them. When they came, he

encircled Ada with one arm in his fatherly way and addressed himself

to Richard with a cheerful gravity.

“Rick,” said Mr. Jarndyce, “I am glad to have won your confidence.

I hope to preserve it. When I contemplated these relations between

us four which have so brightened my life and so invested it with new

interests and pleasures, I certainly did contemplate, afar off, the

possibility of you and your pretty cousin here (don’t be shy, Ada,

don’t be shy, my dear!) being in a mind to go through life together.

I saw, and do see, many reasons to make it desirable. But that was

afar off, Rick, afar off!”

“We look afar off, sir,” returned Richard.

“Well!” said Mr. Jarndyce. “That’s rational. Now, hear me, my

dears! I might tell you that you don’t know your own minds yet,

that a thousand things may happen to divert you from one another,

that it is well this chain of flowers you have taken up is very

easily broken, or it might become a chain of lead. But I will not

do that. Such wisdom will come soon enough, I dare say, if it is to

come at all. I will assume that a few years hence you will be in

your hearts to one another what you are to-day. All I say before

speaking to you according to that assumption is, if you DO change—

if you DO come to find that you are more commonplace cousins to each

other as man and woman than you were as boy and girl (your manhood

will excuse me, Rick!)—don’t be ashamed still to confide in me, for

there will be nothing monstrous or uncommon in it. I am only your

friend and distant kinsman. I have no power over you whatever. But

I wish and hope to retain your confidence if I do nothing to forfeit

it.”

“I am very sure, sir,” returned Richard, “that I speak for Ada too

when I say that you have the strongest power over us both—rooted in

respect, gratitude, and affection—strengthening every day.”

“Dear cousin John,” said Ada, on his shoulder, “my father’s place

can never be empty again. All the love and duty I could ever have

rendered to him is transferred to you.”

“Come!” said Mr. Jarndyce. “Now for our assumption. Now we lift

our eyes up and look hopefully at the distance! Rick, the world is

before you; and it is most probable that as you enter it, so it will

receive you. Trust in nothing but in Providence and your own

efforts. Never separate the two, like the heathen waggoner.

Constancy in love is a good thing, but it means nothing, and is

nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort. If you had the

abilities of all the great men, past and present, you could do

nothing well without sincerely meaning it and setting about it. If

you entertain the supposition that any real success, in great things

or in small, ever was or could be, ever will or can be, wrested from

Fortune by fits and starts, leave that wrong idea here or leave your

cousin Ada here.”

“I will leave IT here, sir,” replied Richard smiling, “if I brought

it here just now (but I hope I did not), and will work my way on to

my cousin Ada in the hopeful distance.”

“Right!” said Mr. Jarndyce. “If you are not to make her happy, why

should you pursue her?”

“I wouldn’t make her unhappy—no, not even for her love,” retorted

Richard proudly.

“Well said!” cried Mr. Jarndyce. “That’s well said! She remains

here, in her home with me. Love her, Rick, in your active life, no

less than in her home when you revisit it, and all will go well.

Otherwise, all will go ill. That’s the end of my preaching. I

think you and Ada had better take a walk.”

Ada tenderly embraced him, and Richard heartily shook hands with

him, and then the cousins went out of the room, looking back again

directly, though, to say that they would wait for me.

The door stood open, and we both followed them with our eyes as

they passed down the adjoining room, on which the sun was shining,

and out at its farther end. Richard with his head bent, and her

hand drawn through his arm, was talking to her very earnestly; and

she looked up in his face, listening, and seemed to see nothing

else. So young, so beautiful, so full of hope and promise, they

went on lightly through the sunlight as their own happy thoughts

might then be traversing the years to come and making them all

years of brightness. So they passed away into the shadow and were

gone. It was only a burst of light that had been so radiant. The

room darkened as they went out, and the sun was clouded over.

“Am I right, Esther?” said my guardian when they were gone.

He was so good and wise to ask ME whether he was right!

“Rick may gain, out of this, the quality he wants. Wants, at the

core of so much that is good!” said Mr. Jarndyce, shaking his head.

“I have said nothing to Ada, Esther. She has her friend and

counsellor always near.” And he laid his hand lovingly upon my

head.

I could not help showing that I was a little moved, though I did

all I could to conceal it.

“Tut tut!” said he. “But we must take care, too, that our little

woman’s life is not all consumed in care for others.”

“Care? My dear guardian, I believe I am the happiest creature in

the world!”

“I believe so, too,” said he. “But some one may find out what

Esther never will—that the little woman is to be held in

remembrance above all other people!”

I have omitted to mention in its place that there was some one else

at the family dinner party. It was not a lady. It was a

gentleman. It was a gentleman of a dark complexion—a young

surgeon. He was rather reserved, but I thought him very sensible

and agreeable. At least, Ada asked me if I did not, and I said

yes.