CHAPTER 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 stage-coach 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 in-door, 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 out-door

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 door-step 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 particulars of her own studies.

“You see, my dear, to save expense I ought to know something of the

piano, and I ought to know something of the kit too, and consequently

I have to practise those two instruments as well as the details of

our profession. If Ma had been like anybody else, I might have had

some little musical knowledge to begin upon. However, I hadn’t any;

and that part of the work is, at first, a little discouraging, I must

allow. But I have a very good ear, and I am used to drudgery—I have

to thank Ma for that, at all events—and where there’s a will there’s

a way, you know, Esther, the world over.” Saying these words, Caddy

laughingly sat down at a little jingling square piano and really

rattled off a quadrille with great spirit. Then she good-humouredly

and blushingly got up again, and while she still laughed herself,

said, “Don’t laugh at me, please; that’s a dear girl!”

I would sooner have cried, but I did neither. I encouraged her and

praised her with all my heart. For I conscientiously believed,

dancing-master’s wife though she was, and dancing-mistress though in

her limited ambition she aspired to be, she had struck out a natural,

wholesome, loving course of industry and perseverance that was quite

as good as a mission.

“My dear,” said Caddy, delighted, “you can’t think how you cheer me.

I shall owe you, you don’t know how much. What changes, Esther, even

in my small world! You recollect that first night, when I was so

unpolite and inky? Who would have thought, then, of my ever teaching

people to dance, of all other possibilities and impossibilities!”

Her husband, who had left us while we had this chat, now coming back,

preparatory to exercising the apprentices in the ball-room, Caddy

informed me she was quite at my disposal. But it was not my time yet,

I was glad to tell her, for I should have been vexed to take her away

then. Therefore we three adjourned to the apprentices together, and I

made one in the dance.

The apprentices were the queerest little people. Besides the

melancholy boy, who, I hoped, had not been made so by waltzing alone

in the empty kitchen, there were two other boys and one dirty little

limp girl in a gauzy dress. Such a precocious little girl, with such

a dowdy bonnet on (that, too, of a gauzy texture), who brought her

sandalled shoes in an old threadbare velvet reticule. Such mean

little boys, when they were not dancing, with string, and marbles,

and cramp-bones in their pockets, and the most untidy legs and

feet—and heels particularly.

I asked Caddy what had made their parents choose this profession for

them. Caddy said she didn’t know; perhaps they were designed for

teachers, perhaps for the stage. They were all people in humble

circumstances, and the melancholy boy’s mother kept a ginger-beer

shop.

We danced for an hour with great gravity, the melancholy child doing

wonders with his lower extremities, in which there appeared to be

some sense of enjoyment though it never rose above his waist. Caddy,

while she was observant of her husband and was evidently founded upon

him, had acquired a grace and self-possession of her own, which,

united to her pretty face and figure, was uncommonly agreeable. She

already relieved him of much of the instruction of these young

people, and he seldom interfered except to walk his part in the

figure if he had anything to do in it. He always played the tune. The

affectation of the gauzy child, and her condescension to the boys,

was a sight. And thus we danced an hour by the clock.

When the practice was concluded, Caddy’s husband made himself ready

to go out of town to a school, and Caddy ran away to get ready to go

out with me. I sat in the ball-room in the interval, contemplating

the apprentices. The two out-door boys went upon the staircase to put

on their half-boots and pull the in-door boy’s hair, as I judged from

the nature of his objections. Returning with their jackets buttoned

and their pumps stuck in them, they then produced packets of cold

bread and meat and bivouacked under a painted lyre on the wall. The

little gauzy child, having whisked her sandals into the reticule and

put on a trodden-down pair of shoes, shook her head into the dowdy

bonnet at one shake, and answering my inquiry whether she liked

dancing by replying, “Not with boys,” tied it across her chin, and

went home contemptuous.

“Old Mr. Turveydrop is so sorry,” said Caddy, “that he has not

finished dressing yet and cannot have the pleasure of seeing you

before you go. You are such a favourite of his, Esther.”

I expressed myself much obliged to him, but did not think it

necessary to add that I readily dispensed with this attention.

“It takes him a long time to dress,” said Caddy, “because he is very

much looked up to in such things, you know, and has a reputation to

support. You can’t think how kind he is to Pa. He talks to Pa of an

evening about the Prince Regent, and I never saw Pa so interested.”

There was something in the picture of Mr. Turveydrop bestowing his

deportment on Mr. Jellyby that quite took my fancy. I asked Caddy if

he brought her papa out much.

“No,” said Caddy, “I don’t know that he does that, but he talks to

Pa, and Pa greatly admires him, and listens, and likes it. Of course

I am aware that Pa has hardly any claims to deportment, but they get

on together delightfully. You can’t think what good companions they

make. I never saw Pa take snuff before in my life, but he takes one

pinch out of Mr. Turveydrop’s box regularly and keeps putting it to

his nose and taking it away again all the evening.”

That old Mr. Turveydrop should ever, in the chances and changes of

life, have come to the rescue of Mr. Jellyby from Borrioboola-Gha

appeared to me to be one of the pleasantest of oddities.

“As to Peepy,” said Caddy with a little hesitation, “whom I was most

afraid of—next to having any family of my own, Esther—as an

inconvenience to Mr. Turveydrop, the kindness of the old gentleman to

that child is beyond everything. He asks to see him, my dear! He lets

him take the newspaper up to him in bed; he gives him the crusts of

his toast to eat; he sends him on little errands about the house; he

tells him to come to me for sixpences. In short,” said Caddy

cheerily, “and not to prose, I am a very fortunate girl and ought to

be very grateful. Where are we going, Esther?”

“To the Old Street Road,” said I, “where I have a few words to say to

the solicitor’s clerk who was sent to meet me at the coach-office on

the very day when I came to London and first saw you, my dear. Now I

think of it, the gentleman who brought us to your house.”

“Then, indeed, I seem to be naturally the person to go with you,”

returned Caddy.

To the Old Street Road we went and there inquired at Mrs. Guppy’s

residence for Mrs. Guppy. Mrs. Guppy, occupying the parlours and

having indeed been visibly in danger of cracking herself like a nut

in the front-parlour door by peeping out before she was asked for,

immediately presented herself and requested us to walk in. She was an

old lady in a large cap, with rather a red nose and rather an

unsteady eye, but smiling all over. Her close little sitting-room was

prepared for a visit, and there was a portrait of her son in it

which, I had almost written here, was more like than life: it

insisted upon him with such obstinacy, and was so determined not to

let him off.

Not only was the portrait there, but we found the original there too.

He was dressed in a great many colours and was discovered at a table

reading law-papers with his forefinger to his forehead.

“Miss Summerson,” said Mr. Guppy, rising, “this is indeed an oasis.

Mother, will you be so good as to put a chair for the other lady and

get out of the gangway.”

Mrs. Guppy, whose incessant smiling gave her quite a waggish

appearance, did as her son requested and then sat down in a corner,

holding her pocket handkerchief to her chest, like a fomentation,

with both hands.

I presented Caddy, and Mr. Guppy said that any friend of mine was

more than welcome. I then proceeded to the object of my visit.

“I took the liberty of sending you a note, sir,” said I.

Mr. Guppy acknowledged the receipt by taking it out of his

breast-pocket, putting it to his lips, and returning it to his pocket

with a bow. Mr. Guppy’s mother was so diverted that she rolled her

head as she smiled and made a silent appeal to Caddy with her elbow.

“Could I speak to you alone for a moment?” said I.

Anything like the jocoseness of Mr. Guppy’s mother just now, I think

I never saw. She made no sound of laughter, but she rolled her head,

and shook it, and put her handkerchief to her mouth, and appealed to

Caddy with her elbow, and her hand, and her shoulder, and was so

unspeakably entertained altogether that it was with some difficulty

she could marshal Caddy through the little folding-door into her

bedroom adjoining.

“Miss Summerson,” said Mr. Guppy, “you will excuse the waywardness of

a parent ever mindful of a son’s appiness. My mother, though highly

exasperating to the feelings, is actuated by maternal dictates.”

I could hardly have believed that anybody could in a moment have

turned so red or changed so much as Mr. Guppy did when I now put up

my veil.

“I asked the favour of seeing you for a few moments here,” said I,

“in preference to calling at Mr. Kenge’s because, remembering what

you said on an occasion when you spoke to me in confidence, I feared

I might otherwise cause you some embarrassment, Mr. Guppy.”

I caused him embarrassment enough as it was, I am sure. I never saw

such faltering, such confusion, such amazement and apprehension.

“Miss Summerson,” stammered Mr. Guppy, “I—I—beg your pardon, but in

our profession—we—we—find it necessary to be explicit. You have

referred to an occasion, miss, when I—when I did myself the honour

of making a declaration which—”

Something seemed to rise in his throat that he could not possibly

swallow. He put his hand there, coughed, made faces, tried again to

swallow it, coughed again, made faces again, looked all round the

room, and fluttered his papers.

“A kind of giddy sensation has come upon me, miss,” he explained,

“which rather knocks me over. I—er—a little subject to this sort of

thing—er—by George!”

I gave him a little time to recover. He consumed it in putting his

hand to his forehead and taking it away again, and in backing his

chair into the corner behind him.

“My intention was to remark, miss,” said Mr. Guppy, “dear

me—something bronchial, I think—hem!—to remark that you was so

good on that occasion as to repel and repudiate that declaration.

You—you wouldn’t perhaps object to admit that? Though no witnesses

are present, it might be a satisfaction to—to your mind—if you was

to put in that admission.”

“There can be no doubt,” said I, “that I declined your proposal

without any reservation or qualification whatever, Mr. Guppy.”

“Thank you, miss,” he returned, measuring the table with his troubled

hands. “So far that’s satisfactory, and it does you credit. Er—this

is certainly bronchial!—must be in the tubes—er—you wouldn’t

perhaps be offended if I was to mention—not that it’s necessary, for

your own good sense or any person’s sense must show ’em that—if I

was to mention that such declaration on my part was final, and there

terminated?”

“I quite understand that,” said I.

“Perhaps—er—it may not be worth the form, but it might be a

satisfaction to your mind—perhaps you wouldn’t object to admit that,

miss?” said Mr. Guppy.

“I admit it most fully and freely,” said I.

“Thank you,” returned Mr. Guppy. “Very honourable, I am sure. I

regret that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over

which I have no control, will put it out of my power ever to fall

back upon that offer or to renew it in any shape or form whatever,

but it will ever be a retrospect entwined—er—with friendship’s

bowers.” Mr. Guppy’s bronchitis came to his relief and stopped his

measurement of the table.

“I may now perhaps mention what I wished to say to you?” I began.

“I shall be honoured, I am sure,” said Mr. Guppy. “I am so persuaded

that your own good sense and right feeling, miss, will—will keep you

as square as possible—that I can have nothing but pleasure, I am

sure, in hearing any observations you may wish to offer.”

“You were so good as to imply, on that occasion—”

“Excuse me, miss,” said Mr. Guppy, “but we had better not travel out

of the record into implication. I cannot admit that I implied

anything.”

“You said on that occasion,” I recommenced, “that you might possibly

have the means of advancing my interests and promoting my fortunes by

making discoveries of which I should be the subject. I presume that

you founded that belief upon your general knowledge of my being an

orphan girl, indebted for everything to the benevolence of Mr.

Jarndyce. Now, the beginning and the end of what I have come to beg

of you is, Mr. Guppy, that you will have the kindness to relinquish

all idea of so serving me. I have thought of this sometimes, and I

have thought of it most lately—since I have been ill. At length I

have decided, in case you should at any time recall that purpose and

act upon it in any way, to come to you and assure you that you are

altogether mistaken. You could make no discovery in reference to me

that would do me the least service or give me the least pleasure. I

am acquainted with my personal history, and I have it in my power to

assure you that you never can advance my welfare by such means. You

may, perhaps, have abandoned this project a long time. If so, excuse

my giving you unnecessary trouble. If not, I entreat you, on the

assurance I have given you, henceforth to lay it aside. I beg you to

do this, for my peace.”

“I am bound to confess,” said Mr. Guppy, “that you express yourself,

miss, with that good sense and right feeling for which I gave you

credit. Nothing can be more satisfactory than such right feeling, and

if I mistook any intentions on your part just now, I am prepared to

tender a full apology. I should wish to be understood, miss, as

hereby offering that apology—limiting it, as your own good sense and

right feeling will point out the necessity of, to the present

proceedings.”

I must say for Mr. Guppy that the snuffling manner he had had upon

him improved very much. He seemed truly glad to be able to do

something I asked, and he looked ashamed.

“If you will allow me to finish what I have to say at once so that I

may have no occasion to resume,” I went on, seeing him about to

speak, “you will do me a kindness, sir. I come to you as privately as

possible because you announced this impression of yours to me in a

confidence which I have really wished to respect—and which I always

have respected, as you remember. I have mentioned my illness. There

really is no reason why I should hesitate to say that I know very

well that any little delicacy I might have had in making a request to

you is quite removed. Therefore I make the entreaty I have now

preferred, and I hope you will have sufficient consideration for me

to accede to it.”

I must do Mr. Guppy the further justice of saying that he had looked

more and more ashamed and that he looked most ashamed and very

earnest when he now replied with a burning face, “Upon my word and

honour, upon my life, upon my soul, Miss Summerson, as I am a living

man, I’ll act according to your wish! I’ll never go another step in

opposition to it. I’ll take my oath to it if it will be any

satisfaction to you. In what I promise at this present time touching

the matters now in question,” continued Mr. Guppy rapidly, as if he

were repeating a familiar form of words, “I speak the truth, the

whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so—”

“I am quite satisfied,” said I, rising at this point, “and I thank

you very much. Caddy, my dear, I am ready!”

Mr. Guppy’s mother returned with Caddy (now making me the recipient

of her silent laughter and her nudges), and we took our leave. Mr.

Guppy saw us to the door with the air of one who was either

imperfectly awake or walking in his sleep; and we left him there,

staring.

But in a minute he came after us down the street without any hat, and

with his long hair all blown about, and stopped us, saying fervently,

“Miss Summerson, upon my honour and soul, you may depend upon me!”

“I do,” said I, “quite confidently.”

“I beg your pardon, miss,” said Mr. Guppy, going with one leg and

staying with the other, “but this lady being present—your own

witness—it might be a satisfaction to your mind (which I should wish

to set at rest) if you was to repeat those admissions.”

“Well, Caddy,” said I, turning to her, “perhaps you will not be

surprised when I tell you, my dear, that there never has been any

engagement—”

“No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever,” suggested Mr. Guppy.

“No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever,” said I, “between

this gentleman—”

“William Guppy, of Penton Place, Pentonville, in the county of

Middlesex,” he murmured.

“Between this gentleman, Mr. William Guppy, of Penton Place,

Pentonville, in the county of Middlesex, and myself.”

“Thank you, miss,” said Mr. Guppy. “Very full—er—excuse me—lady’s

name, Christian and surname both?”

I gave them.

“Married woman, I believe?” said Mr. Guppy. “Married woman. Thank

you. Formerly Caroline Jellyby, spinster, then of Thavies Inn, within

the city of London, but extra-parochial; now of Newman Street, Oxford

Street. Much obliged.”

He ran home and came running back again.

“Touching that matter, you know, I really and truly am very sorry

that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over which

I have no control, should prevent a renewal of what was wholly

terminated some time back,” said Mr. Guppy to me forlornly and

despondently, “but it couldn’t be. Now COULD it, you know! I only put

it to you.”

I replied it certainly could not. The subject did not admit of a

doubt. He thanked me and ran to his mother’s again—and back again.

“It’s very honourable of you, miss, I am sure,” said Mr. Guppy. “If

an altar could be erected in the bowers of friendship—but, upon my

soul, you may rely upon me in every respect save and except the

tender passion only!”

The struggle in Mr. Guppy’s breast and the numerous oscillations it

occasioned him between his mother’s door and us were sufficiently

conspicuous in the windy street (particularly as his hair wanted

cutting) to make us hurry away. I did so with a lightened heart; but

when we last looked back, Mr. Guppy was still oscillating in the same

troubled state of mind.