Bleak House by Charles Dickens (best ebook reader for laptop .txt) 📕

horse with his ears pricked up, and the driving away at speed to Jarndyce and Jarndyce.

My dear girl told me that night how Richard’s being thereafter prosperous or ruined, befriended or deserted, could only make this difference to her, that the more he needed love from one unchanging heart, the more love that unchanging heart would have to give him; how he thought of her through his present errors, and she would think of him at all times⁠—never of herself if she could devote herself to him, never of her own delights if she could minister to his.

And she kept her word?

I look along the road before me, where the distance already shortens and the journey’s end is growing visible; and true and good above the dead sea of the Chancery suit and all the ashy fruit it cast ashore, I think I see my darling.

XXXVIII A Struggle

When our time came for returning to Bleak House again, we were punctual to the day and were received with an overpowering welcome. I was perfectly restored to health and strength, and finding my housekeeping keys laid ready for me in my room, rang myself in as if I had been a new year, with a merry little peal. “Once more, duty, duty, Esther,” said I; “and if you are not overjoyed to do it, more than cheerfully and contentedly, through anything and everything, you ought to be. That’s all I have to say to you, my dear!”

The first few mornings were mornings of so much bustle and business, devoted to such settlements of accounts, such repeated journeys to and fro between the growlery and all other parts of the house, so many rearrangements of drawers and presses, and such a general new beginning altogether, that I had not a moment’s leisure. But when these arrangements were completed and everything was in order, I paid a visit of a few hours to London, which something in the letter I had destroyed at Chesney Wold had induced me to decide upon in my own mind.

I made Caddy Jellyby⁠—her maiden name was so natural to me that I always called her by it⁠—the pretext for this visit and wrote her a note previously asking the favour of her company on a little business expedition. Leaving home very early in the morning, I got to London by stagecoach in such good time that I got to Newman Street with the day before me.

Caddy, who had not seen me since her wedding-day, was so glad and so affectionate that I was half inclined to fear I should make her husband jealous. But he was, in his way, just as bad⁠—I mean as good; and in short it was the old story, and nobody would leave me any possibility of doing anything meritorious.

The elder Mr. Turveydrop was in bed, I found, and Caddy was milling his chocolate, which a melancholy little boy who was an apprentice⁠—it seemed such a curious thing to be apprenticed to the trade of dancing⁠—was waiting to carry upstairs. Her father-in-law was extremely kind and considerate, Caddy told me, and they lived most happily together. (When she spoke of their living together, she meant that the old gentleman had all the good things and all the good lodging, while she and her husband had what they could get, and were poked into two corner rooms over the Mews.)

“And how is your mama, Caddy?” said I.

“Why, I hear of her, Esther,” replied Caddy, “through Pa, but I see very little of her. We are good friends, I am glad to say, but Ma thinks there is something absurd in my having married a dancing-master, and she is rather afraid of its extending to her.”

It struck me that if Mrs. Jellyby had discharged her own natural duties and obligations before she swept the horizon with a telescope in search of others, she would have taken the best precautions against becoming absurd, but I need scarcely observe that I kept this to myself.

“And your papa, Caddy?”

“He comes here every evening,” returned Caddy, “and is so fond of sitting in the corner there that it’s a treat to see him.”

Looking at the corner, I plainly perceived the mark of Mr. Jellyby’s head against the wall. It was consolatory to know that he had found such a resting-place for it.

“And you, Caddy,” said I, “you are always busy, I’ll be bound?”

“Well, my dear,” returned Caddy, “I am indeed, for to tell you a grand secret, I am qualifying myself to give lessons. Prince’s health is not strong, and I want to be able to assist him. What with schools, and classes here, and private pupils, and the apprentices, he really has too much to do, poor fellow!”

The notion of the apprentices was still so odd to me that I asked Caddy if there were many of them.

“Four,” said Caddy. “One indoor, and three out. They are very good children; only when they get together they will play⁠—children-like⁠—instead of attending to their work. So the little boy you saw just now waltzes by himself in the empty kitchen, and we distribute the others over the house as well as we can.”

“That is only for their steps, of course?” said I.

“Only for their steps,” said Caddy. “In that way they practise, so many hours at a time, whatever steps they happen to be upon. They dance in the academy, and at this time of year we do figures at five every morning.”

“Why, what a laborious life!” I exclaimed.

“I assure you, my dear,” returned Caddy, smiling, “when the outdoor apprentices ring us up in the morning (the bell rings into our room, not to disturb old Mr. Turveydrop), and when I put up the window and see them standing on the doorstep with their little pumps under their arms, I am actually reminded of the Sweeps.”

All this presented the art to me in a singular light, to be sure. Caddy enjoyed the effect of her communication and cheerfully recounted the