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

obliges me to employ a boy.”

“I am sure, Ma—” began Caddy.

“Now you know, Caddy,” her mother mildly interposed, “that I DO

employ a boy, who is now at his dinner. What is the use of your

contradicting?”

“I was not going to contradict, Ma,” returned Caddy. “I was only

going to say that surely you wouldn’t have me be a mere drudge all

my life.”

“I believe, my dear,” said Mrs. Jellyby, still opening her letters,

casting her bright eyes smilingly over them, and sorting them as

she spoke, “that you have a business example before you in your

mother. Besides. A mere drudge? If you had any sympathy with the

destinies of the human race, it would raise you high above any such

idea. But you have none. I have often told you, Caddy, you have

no such sympathy.”

“Not if it’s Africa, Ma, I have not.”

“Of course you have not. Now, if I were not happily so much

engaged, Miss Summerson,” said Mrs. Jellyby, sweetly casting her

eyes for a moment on me and considering where to put the particular

letter she had just opened, “this would distress and disappoint me.

But I have so much to think of, in connexion with Borrioboola-Gha

and it is so necessary I should concentrate myself that there is my

remedy, you see.”

As Caddy gave me a glance of entreaty, and as Mrs. Jellyby was

looking far away into Africa straight through my bonnet and head, I

thought it a good opportunity to come to the subject of my visit

and to attract Mrs. Jellyby’s attention.

“Perhaps,” I began, “you will wonder what has brought me here to

interrupt you.”

“I am always delighted to see Miss Summerson,” said Mrs. Jellyby,

pursuing her employment with a placid smile. “Though I wish,” and

she shook her head, “she was more interested in the Borrioboolan

project.”

“I have come with Caddy,” said I, “because Caddy justly thinks she

ought not to have a secret from her mother and fancies I shall

encourage and aid her (though I am sure I don’t know how) in

imparting one.”

“Caddy,” said Mrs. Jellyby, pausing for a moment in her occupation

and then serenely pursuing it after shaking her head, “you are

going to tell me some nonsense.”

Caddy untied the strings of her bonnet, took her bonnet off, and

letting it dangle on the floor by the strings, and crying heartily,

said, “Ma, I am engaged.”

“Oh, you ridiculous child!” observed Mrs. Jellyby with an

abstracted air as she looked over the dispatch last opened; “what a

goose you are!”

“I am engaged, Ma,” sobbed Caddy, “to young Mr. Turveydrop, at the

academy; and old Mr. Turveydrop (who is a very gentlemanly man

indeed) has given his consent, and I beg and pray you’ll give us

yours, Ma, because I never could be happy without it. I never,

never could!” sobbed Caddy, quite forgetful of her general

complainings and of everything but her natural affection.

“You see again, Miss Summerson,” observed Mrs. Jellyby serenely,

“what a happiness it is to be so much occupied as I am and to

have this necessity for self-concentration that I have. Here is

Caddy engaged to a dancing-master’s son—mixed up with people who

have no more sympathy with the destinies of the human race than

she has herself! This, too, when Mr. Quale, one of the first

philanthropists of our time, has mentioned to me that he was

really disposed to be interested in her!”

“Ma, I always hated and detested Mr. Quale!” sobbed Caddy.

“Caddy, Caddy!” returned Mrs. Jellyby, opening another letter with

the greatest complacency. “I have no doubt you did. How could you

do otherwise, being totally destitute of the sympathies with which

he overflows! Now, if my public duties were not a favourite child

to me, if I were not occupied with large measures on a vast scale,

these petty details might grieve me very much, Miss Summerson. But

can I permit the film of a silly proceeding on the part of Caddy

(from whom I expect nothing else) to interpose between me and the

great African continent? No. No,” repeated Mrs. Jellyby in a calm

clear voice, and with an agreeable smile, as she opened more

letters and sorted them. “No, indeed.”

I was so unprepared for the perfect coolness of this reception,

though I might have expected it, that I did not know what to say.

Caddy seemed equally at a loss. Mrs. Jellyby continued to open and

sort letters and to repeat occasionally in quite a charming tone of

voice and with a smile of perfect composure, “No, indeed.”

“I hope, Ma,” sobbed poor Caddy at last, “you are not angry?”

“Oh, Caddy, you really are an absurd girl,” returned Mrs. Jellyby,

“to ask such questions after what I have said of the preoccupation

of my mind.”

“And I hope, Ma, you give us your consent and wish us well?” said

Caddy.

“You are a nonsensical child to have done anything of this kind,”

said Mrs. Jellyby; “and a degenerate child, when you might have

devoted yourself to the great public measure. But the step is

taken, and I have engaged a boy, and there is no more to be said.

Now, pray, Caddy,” said Mrs. Jellyby, for Caddy was kissing her,

“don’t delay me in my work, but let me clear off this heavy batch

of papers before the afternoon post comes in!”

I thought I could not do better than take my leave; I was detained

for a moment by Caddy’s saying, “You won’t object to my bringing

him to see you, Ma?”

“Oh, dear me, Caddy,” cried Mrs. Jellyby, who had relapsed into

that distant contemplation, “have you begun again? Bring whom?”

“Him, Ma.”

“Caddy, Caddy!” said Mrs. Jellyby, quite weary of such little

matters. “Then you must bring him some evening which is not a

Parent Society night, or a Branch night, or a Ramification night.

You must accommodate the visit to the demands upon my time. My

dear Miss Summerson, it was very kind of you to come here to help

out this silly chit. Good-bye! When I tell you that I have fifty-eight new letters from manufacturing families anxious to understand

the details of the native and coffee-cultivation question this

morning, I need not apologize for having very little leisure.”

I was not surprised by Caddy’s being in low spirits when we went

downstairs, or by her sobbing afresh on my neck, or by her saying

she would far rather have been scolded than treated with such

indifference, or by her confiding to me that she was so poor in

clothes that how she was ever to be married creditably she didn’t

know. I gradually cheered her up by dwelling on the many things

she would do for her unfortunate father and for Peepy when she had

a home of her own; and finally we went downstairs into the damp

dark kitchen, where Peepy and his little brothers and sisters were

grovelling on the stone floor and where we had such a game of play

with them that to prevent myself from being quite torn to pieces I

was obliged to fall back on my fairy-tales. From time to time I

heard loud voices in the parlour overhead, and occasionally a

violent tumbling about of the furniture. The last effect I am

afraid was caused by poor Mr. Jellyby’s breaking away from the

dining-table and making rushes at the window with the intention of

throwing himself into the area whenever he made any new attempt to

understand his affairs.

As I rode quietly home at night after the day’s bustle, I thought a

good deal of Caddy’s engagement and felt confirmed in my hopes (in

spite of the elder Mr. Turveydrop) that she would be the happier

and better for it. And if there seemed to be but a slender chance

of her and her husband ever finding out what the model of

deportment really was, why that was all for the best too, and who

would wish them to be wiser? I did not wish them to be any wiser

and indeed was half ashamed of not entirely believing in him

myself. And I looked up at the stars, and thought about travellers

in distant countries and the stars THEY saw, and hoped I might

always be so blest and happy as to be useful to some one in my

small way.

They were so glad to see me when I got home, as they always were,

that I could have sat down and cried for joy if that had not been a

method of making myself disagreeable. Everybody in the house, from

the lowest to the highest, showed me such a bright face of welcome,

and spoke so cheerily, and was so happy to do anything for me, that

I suppose there never was such a fortunate little creature in the

world.

We got into such a chatty state that night, through Ada and my

guardian drawing me out to tell them all about Caddy, that I went

on prose, prose, prosing for a length of time. At last I got up to

my own room, quite red to think how I had been holding forth, and

then I heard a soft tap at my door. So I said, “Come in!” and

there came in a pretty little girl, neatly dressed in mourning, who

dropped a curtsy.

“If you please, miss,” said the little girl in a soft voice, “I am

Charley.”

“Why, so you are,” said I, stooping down in astonishment and giving

her a kiss. “How glad am I to see you, Charley!”

“If you please, miss,” pursued Charley in the same soft voice, “I’m

your maid.”

“Charley?”

“If you please, miss, I’m a present to you, with Mr. Jarndyce’s

love.”

I sat down with my hand on Charley’s neck and looked at Charley.

“And oh, miss,” says Charley, clapping her hands, with the tears

starting down her dimpled cheeks, “Tom’s at school, if you please,

and learning so good! And little Emma, she’s with Mrs. Blinder,

miss, a-being took such care of! And Tom, he would have been at

school—and Emma, she would have been left with Mrs. Blinder—and

me, I should have been here—all a deal sooner, miss; only Mr.

Jarndyce thought that Tom and Emma and me had better get a little

used to parting first, we was so small. Don’t cry, if you please,

miss!”

“I can’t help it, Charley.”

“No, miss, nor I can’t help it,” says Charley. “And if you please,

miss, Mr. Jarndyce’s love, and he thinks you’ll like to teach me

now and then. And if you please, Tom and Emma and me is to see

each other once a month. And I’m so happy and so thankful, miss,”

cried Charley with a heaving heart, “and I’ll try to be such a good

maid!”

“Oh, Charley dear, never forget who did all this!”

“No, miss, I never will. Nor Tom won’t. Nor yet Emma. It was all

you, miss.”

“I have known nothing of it. It was Mr. Jarndyce, Charley.”

“Yes, miss, but it was all done for the love of you and that you

might be my mistress. If you please, miss, I am a little present

with his love, and it was all done for the love of you. Me and Tom

was to be sure to remember it.”

Charley dried her eyes and entered on her functions, going in her

matronly little way about and about the room and folding up

everything she could lay her hands upon. Presently Charley came