CHAPTER IX

Signs and Tokens

I don’t know how it is I seem to be always writing about myself. I

mean all the time to write about other people, and I try to think

about myself as little as possible, and I am sure, when I find myself

coming into the story again, I am really vexed and say, “Dear, dear,

you tiresome little creature, I wish you wouldn’t!” but it is all of

no use. I hope any one who may read what I write will understand that

if these pages contain a great deal about me, I can only suppose it

must be because I have really something to do with them and can’t be

kept out.

My darling and I read together, and worked, and practised, and found

so much employment for our time that the winter days flew by us like

bright-winged birds. Generally in the afternoons, and always in the

evenings, Richard gave us his company. Although he was one of the

most restless creatures in the world, he certainly was very fond of

our society.

He was very, very, very fond of Ada. I mean it, and I had better say

it at once. I had never seen any young people falling in love before,

but I found them out quite soon. I could not say so, of course, or

show that I knew anything about it. On the contrary, I was so demure

and used to seem so unconscious that sometimes I considered within

myself while I was sitting at work whether I was not growing quite

deceitful.

But there was no help for it. All I had to do was to be quiet, and I

was as quiet as a mouse. They were as quiet as mice too, so far as

any words were concerned, but the innocent manner in which they

relied more and more upon me as they took more and more to one

another was so charming that I had great difficulty in not showing

how it interested me.

“Our dear little old woman is such a capital old woman,” Richard

would say, coming up to meet me in the garden early, with his

pleasant laugh and perhaps the least tinge of a blush, “that I can’t

get on without her. Before I begin my harum-scarum day—grinding away

at those books and instruments and then galloping up hill and down

dale, all the country round, like a highwayman—it does me so much

good to come and have a steady walk with our comfortable friend, that

here I am again!”

“You know, Dame Durden, dear,” Ada would say at night, with her head

upon my shoulder and the firelight shining in her thoughtful eyes, “I

don’t want to talk when we come upstairs here. Only to sit a little

while thinking, with your dear face for company, and to hear the wind

and remember the poor sailors at sea—”

Ah! Perhaps Richard was going to be a sailor. We had talked it over

very often now, and there was some talk of gratifying the inclination

of his childhood for the sea. Mr. Jarndyce had written to a relation

of the family, a great Sir Leicester Dedlock, for his interest in

Richard’s favour, generally; and Sir Leicester had replied in a

gracious manner that he would be happy to advance the prospects of

the young gentleman if it should ever prove to be within his power,

which was not at all probable, and that my Lady sent her compliments

to the young gentleman (to whom she perfectly remembered that she was

allied by remote consanguinity) and trusted that he would ever do his

duty in any honourable profession to which he might devote himself.

“So I apprehend it’s pretty clear,” said Richard to me, “that I shall

have to work my own way. Never mind! Plenty of people have had to do

that before now, and have done it. I only wish I had the command of a

clipping privateer to begin with and could carry off the Chancellor

and keep him on short allowance until he gave judgment in our cause.

He’d find himself growing thin, if he didn’t look sharp!”

With a buoyancy and hopefulness and a gaiety that hardly ever

flagged, Richard had a carelessness in his character that quite

perplexed me, principally because he mistook it, in such a very odd

way, for prudence. It entered into all his calculations about money

in a singular manner which I don’t think I can better explain than by

reverting for a moment to our loan to Mr. Skimpole.

Mr. Jarndyce had ascertained the amount, either from Mr. Skimpole

himself or from Coavinses, and had placed the money in my hands with

instructions to me to retain my own part of it and hand the rest to

Richard. The number of little acts of thoughtless expenditure which

Richard justified by the recovery of his ten pounds, and the number

of times he talked to me as if he had saved or realized that amount,

would form a sum in simple addition.

“My prudent Mother Hubbard, why not?” he said to me when he wanted,

without the least consideration, to bestow five pounds on the

brickmaker. “I made ten pounds, clear, out of Coavinses’ business.”

“How was that?” said I.

“Why, I got rid of ten pounds which I was quite content to get rid of

and never expected to see any more. You don’t deny that?”

“No,” said I.

“Very well! Then I came into possession of ten pounds—”

“The same ten pounds,” I hinted.

“That has nothing to do with it!” returned Richard. “I have got ten

pounds more than I expected to have, and consequently I can afford to

spend it without being particular.”

In exactly the same way, when he was persuaded out of the sacrifice

of these five pounds by being convinced that it would do no good, he

carried that sum to his credit and drew upon it.

“Let me see!” he would say. “I saved five pounds out of the

brickmaker’s affair, so if I have a good rattle to London and back in

a post-chaise and put that down at four pounds, I shall have saved

one. And it’s a very good thing to save one, let me tell you: a penny

saved is a penny got!”

I believe Richard’s was as frank and generous a nature as there

possibly can be. He was ardent and brave, and in the midst of all his

wild restlessness, was so gentle that I knew him like a brother in a

few weeks. His gentleness was natural to him and would have shown

itself abundantly even without Ada’s influence; but with it, he

became one of the most winning of companions, always so ready to be

interested and always so happy, sanguine, and light-hearted. I am

sure that I, sitting with them, and walking with them, and talking

with them, and noticing from day to day how they went on, falling

deeper and deeper in love, and saying nothing about it, and each

shyly thinking that this love was the greatest of secrets, perhaps

not yet suspected even by the other—I am sure that I was scarcely

less enchanted than they were and scarcely less pleased with the

pretty dream.

We were going on in this way, when one morning at breakfast Mr.

Jarndyce received a letter, and looking at the superscription, said,

“From Boythorn? Aye, aye!” and opened and read it with evident

pleasure, announcing to us in a parenthesis when he was about

half-way through, that Boythorn was “coming down” on a visit. Now who

was Boythorn, we all thought. And I dare say we all thought too—I am

sure I did, for one—would Boythorn at all interfere with what was

going forward?

“I went to school with this fellow, Lawrence Boythorn,” said Mr.

Jarndyce, tapping the letter as he laid it on the table, “more than

five and forty years ago. He was then the most impetuous boy in the

world, and he is now the most impetuous man. He was then the loudest

boy in the world, and he is now the loudest man. He was then the

heartiest and sturdiest boy in the world, and he is now the heartiest

and sturdiest man. He is a tremendous fellow.”

“In stature, sir?” asked Richard.

“Pretty well, Rick, in that respect,” said Mr. Jarndyce; “being some

ten years older than I and a couple of inches taller, with his head

thrown back like an old soldier, his stalwart chest squared, his

hands like a clean blacksmith’s, and his lungs! There’s no simile for

his lungs. Talking, laughing, or snoring, they make the beams of the

house shake.”

As Mr. Jarndyce sat enjoying the image of his friend Boythorn, we

observed the favourable omen that there was not the least indication

of any change in the wind.

“But it’s the inside of the man, the warm heart of the man, the

passion of the man, the fresh blood of the man, Rick—and Ada, and

little Cobweb too, for you are all interested in a visitor—that I

speak of,” he pursued. “His language is as sounding as his voice. He

is always in extremes, perpetually in the superlative degree. In his

condemnation he is all ferocity. You might suppose him to be an ogre

from what he says, and I believe he has the reputation of one with

some people. There! I tell you no more of him beforehand. You must

not be surprised to see him take me under his protection, for he has

never forgotten that I was a low boy at school and that our

friendship began in his knocking two of my head tyrant’s teeth out

(he says six) before breakfast. Boythorn and his man,” to me, “will

be here this afternoon, my dear.”

I took care that the necessary preparations were made for Mr.

Boythorn’s reception, and we looked forward to his arrival with some

curiosity. The afternoon wore away, however, and he did not appear.

The dinner-hour arrived, and still he did not appear. The dinner was

put back an hour, and we were sitting round the fire with no light

but the blaze when the hall-door suddenly burst open and the hall

resounded with these words, uttered with the greatest vehemence and

in a stentorian tone: “We have been misdirected, Jarndyce, by a most

abandoned ruffian, who told us to take the turning to the right

instead of to the left. He is the most intolerable scoundrel on the

face of the earth. His father must have been a most consummate

villain, ever to have such a son. I would have had that fellow shot

without the least remorse!”

“Did he do it on purpose?” Mr. Jarndyce inquired.

“I have not the slightest doubt that the scoundrel has passed his

whole existence in misdirecting travellers!” returned the other. “By

my soul, I thought him the worst-looking dog I had ever beheld when

he was telling me to take the turning to the right. And yet I stood

before that fellow face to face and didn’t knock his brains out!”

“Teeth, you mean?” said Mr. Jarndyce.

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, really making the whole

house vibrate. “What, you have not forgotten it yet! Ha, ha, ha! And

that was another most consummate vagabond! By my soul, the

countenance of that fellow when he was a boy was the blackest image

of perfidy, cowardice, and cruelty ever set up as a scarecrow in a

field of scoundrels. If I were to meet that most unparalleled despot

in the streets to-morrow, I would fell him like a rotten tree!”

“I have no doubt of it,” said Mr. Jarndyce. “Now, will you come

upstairs?”

“By my soul, Jarndyce,” returned his guest, who seemed to refer to

his watch, “if you had been married, I would have turned back at the

garden-gate and gone away to the remotest summits of the Himalaya

Mountains sooner than I would have presented myself at this

unseasonable hour.”

“Not quite so far, I hope?” said Mr. Jarndyce.

“By my life and honour, yes!” cried the visitor. “I wouldn’t be

guilty of the audacious insolence of keeping a lady of the house

waiting all this time for any earthly consideration. I would

infinitely rather destroy myself—infinitely rather!”

Talking thus, they went upstairs, and presently we heard him in his

bedroom thundering “Ha, ha, ha!” and again “Ha, ha, ha!” until the

flattest echo in the neighbourhood seemed to catch the contagion and

to laugh as enjoyingly as he did or as we did when we heard him

laugh.

We all conceived a prepossession in his favour, for there was a

sterling quality in this laugh, and in his vigorous, healthy voice,

and in the roundness and fullness with which he uttered every word he

spoke, and in the very fury of his superlatives, which seemed to go

off like blank cannons and hurt nothing. But we were hardly prepared

to have it so confirmed by his appearance when Mr. Jarndyce presented

him. He was not only a very handsome old gentleman—upright and

stalwart as he had been described to us—with a massive grey head, a

fine composure of face when silent, a figure that might have become

corpulent but for his being so continually in earnest that he gave it

no rest, and a chin that might have subsided into a double chin but

for the vehement emphasis in which it was constantly required to

assist; but he was such a true gentleman in his manner, so

chivalrously polite, his face was lighted by a smile of so much

sweetness and tenderness, and it seemed so plain that he had nothing

to hide, but showed himself exactly as he was—incapable, as Richard

said, of anything on a limited scale, and firing away with those

blank great guns because he carried no small arms whatever—that

really I could not help looking at him with equal pleasure as he sat

at dinner, whether he smilingly conversed with Ada and me, or was led

by Mr. Jarndyce into some great volley of superlatives, or threw up

his head like a bloodhound and gave out that tremendous “Ha, ha, ha!”

“You have brought your bird with you, I suppose?” said Mr. Jarndyce.

“By heaven, he is the most astonishing bird in Europe!” replied the

other. “He IS the most wonderful creature! I wouldn’t take ten

thousand guineas for that bird. I have left an annuity for his sole

support in case he should outlive me. He is, in sense and attachment,

a phenomenon. And his father before him was one of the most

astonishing birds that ever lived!”

The subject of this laudation was a very little canary, who was so

tame that he was brought down by Mr. Boythorn’s man, on his

forefinger, and after taking a gentle flight round the room, alighted

on his master’s head. To hear Mr. Boythorn presently expressing the

most implacable and passionate sentiments, with this fragile mite of

a creature quietly perched on his forehead, was to have a good

illustration of his character, I thought.

“By my soul, Jarndyce,” he said, very gently holding up a bit of

bread to the canary to peck at, “if I were in your place I would

seize every master in Chancery by the throat to-morrow morning and

shake him until his money rolled out of his pockets and his bones

rattled in his skin. I would have a settlement out of somebody, by

fair means or by foul. If you would empower me to do it, I would do

it for you with the greatest satisfaction!” (All this time the very

small canary was eating out of his hand.)

“I thank you, Lawrence, but the suit is hardly at such a point at

present,” returned Mr. Jarndyce, laughing, “that it would be greatly

advanced even by the legal process of shaking the bench and the whole

bar.”

“There never was such an infernal cauldron as that Chancery on the

face of the earth!” said Mr. Boythorn. “Nothing but a mine below it

on a busy day in term time, with all its records, rules, and

precedents collected in it and every functionary belonging to it

also, high and low, upward and downward, from its son the

Accountant-General to its father the Devil, and the whole blown to

atoms with ten thousand hundredweight of gunpowder, would reform it

in the least!”

It was impossible not to laugh at the energetic gravity with which he

recommended this strong measure of reform. When we laughed, he threw

up his head and shook his broad chest, and again the whole country

seemed to echo to his “Ha, ha, ha!” It had not the least effect in

disturbing the bird, whose sense of security was complete and who

hopped about the table with its quick head now on this side and now

on that, turning its bright sudden eye on its master as if he were no

more than another bird.

“But how do you and your neighbour get on about the disputed right of

way?” said Mr. Jarndyce. “You are not free from the toils of the law

yourself!”

“The fellow has brought actions against ME for trespass, and I have

brought actions against HIM for trespass,” returned Mr. Boythorn. “By

heaven, he is the proudest fellow breathing. It is morally impossible

that his name can be Sir Leicester. It must be Sir Lucifer.”

“Complimentary to our distant relation!” said my guardian laughingly

to Ada and Richard.

“I would beg Miss Clare’s pardon and Mr. Carstone’s pardon,” resumed

our visitor, “if I were not reassured by seeing in the fair face of

the lady and the smile of the gentleman that it is quite unnecessary

and that they keep their distant relation at a comfortable distance.”

“Or he keeps us,” suggested Richard.

“By my soul,” exclaimed Mr. Boythorn, suddenly firing another volley,

“that fellow is, and his father was, and his grandfather was, the

most stiff-necked, arrogant imbecile, pig-headed numskull, ever, by

some inexplicable mistake of Nature, born in any station of life but

a walking-stick’s! The whole of that family are the most solemnly

conceited and consummate blockheads! But it’s no matter; he should

not shut up my path if he were fifty baronets melted into one and

living in a hundred Chesney Wolds, one within another, like the ivory

balls in a Chinese carving. The fellow, by his agent, or secretary,

or somebody, writes to me ‘Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, presents

his compliments to Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, and has to call his

attention to the fact that the green pathway by the old

parsonage-house, now the property of Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, is Sir

Leicester’s right of way, being in fact a portion of the park of

Chesney Wold, and that Sir Leicester finds it convenient to close up

the same.’ I write to the fellow, ‘Mr. Lawrence Boythorn presents his

compliments to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and has to call HIS

attention to the fact that he totally denies the whole of Sir

Leicester Dedlock’s positions on every possible subject and has to

add, in reference to closing up the pathway, that he will be glad to

see the man who may undertake to do it.’ The fellow sends a most

abandoned villain with one eye to construct a gateway. I play upon

that execrable scoundrel with a fire-engine until the breath is

nearly driven out of his body. The fellow erects a gate in the night.

I chop it down and burn it in the morning. He sends his myrmidons to

come over the fence and pass and repass. I catch them in humane man

traps, fire split peas at their legs, play upon them with the

engine—resolve to free mankind from the insupportable burden of the

existence of those lurking ruffians. He brings actions for trespass;

I bring actions for trespass. He brings actions for assault and

battery; I defend them and continue to assault and batter. Ha, ha,

ha!”

To hear him say all this with unimaginable energy, one might have

thought him the angriest of mankind. To see him at the very same

time, looking at the bird now perched upon his thumb and softly

smoothing its feathers with his forefinger, one might have thought

him the gentlest. To hear him laugh and see the broad good nature of

his face then, one might have supposed that he had not a care in the

world, or a dispute, or a dislike, but that his whole existence was a

summer joke.

“No, no,” he said, “no closing up of my paths by any Dedlock! Though

I willingly confess,” here he softened in a moment, “that Lady

Dedlock is the most accomplished lady in the world, to whom I would

do any homage that a plain gentleman, and no baronet with a head

seven hundred years thick, may. A man who joined his regiment at

twenty and within a week challenged the most imperious and

presumptuous coxcomb of a commanding officer that ever drew the

breath of life through a tight waist—and got broke for it—is not

the man to be walked over by all the Sir Lucifers, dead or alive,

locked or unlocked. Ha, ha, ha!”

“Nor the man to allow his junior to be walked over either?” said my

guardian.

“Most assuredly not!” said Mr. Boythorn, clapping him on the shoulder

with an air of protection that had something serious in it, though he

laughed. “He will stand by the low boy, always. Jarndyce, you may

rely upon him! But speaking of this trespass—with apologies to Miss

Clare and Miss Summerson for the length at which I have pursued so

dry a subject—is there nothing for me from your men Kenge and

Carboy?”

“I think not, Esther?” said Mr. Jarndyce.

“Nothing, guardian.”

“Much obliged!” said Mr. Boythorn. “Had no need to ask, after even my

slight experience of Miss Summerson’s forethought for every one about

her.” (They all encouraged me; they were determined to do it.) “I

inquired because, coming from Lincolnshire, I of course have not yet

been in town, and I thought some letters might have been sent down

here. I dare say they will report progress to-morrow morning.”

I saw him so often in the course of the evening, which passed very

pleasantly, contemplate Richard and Ada with an interest and a

satisfaction that made his fine face remarkably agreeable as he sat

at a little distance from the piano listening to the music—and he

had small occasion to tell us that he was passionately fond of music,

for his face showed it—that I asked my guardian as we sat at the

backgammon board whether Mr. Boythorn had ever been married.

“No,” said he. “No.”

“But he meant to be!” said I.

“How did you find out that?” he returned with a smile. “Why,

guardian,” I explained, not without reddening a little at hazarding

what was in my thoughts, “there is something so tender in his manner,

after all, and he is so very courtly and gentle to us, and—”

Mr. Jarndyce directed his eyes to where he was sitting as I have just

described him.

I said no more.

“You are right, little woman,” he answered. “He was all but married

once. Long ago. And once.”

“Did the lady die?”

“No—but she died to him. That time has had its influence on all his

later life. Would you suppose him to have a head and a heart full of

romance yet?”

“I think, guardian, I might have supposed so. But it is easy to say

that when you have told me so.”

“He has never since been what he might have been,” said Mr. Jarndyce,

“and now you see him in his age with no one near him but his servant

and his little yellow friend. It’s your throw, my dear!”

I felt, from my guardian’s manner, that beyond this point I could not

pursue the subject without changing the wind. I therefore forbore to

ask any further questions. I was interested, but not curious. I

thought a little while about this old love story in the night, when I

was awakened by Mr. Boythorn’s lusty snoring; and I tried to do that

very difficult thing, imagine old people young again and invested

with the graces of youth. But I fell asleep before I had succeeded,

and dreamed of the days when I lived in my godmother’s house. I am

not sufficiently acquainted with such subjects to know whether it is

at all remarkable that I almost always dreamed of that period of my

life.

With the morning there came a letter from Messrs. Kenge and Carboy to

Mr. Boythorn informing him that one of their clerks would wait upon

him at noon. As it was the day of the week on which I paid the bills,

and added up my books, and made all the household affairs as compact

as possible, I remained at home while Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and Richard

took advantage of a very fine day to make a little excursion, Mr.

Boythorn was to wait for Kenge and Carboy’s clerk and then was to go

on foot to meet them on their return.

Well! I was full of business, examining tradesmen’s books, adding up

columns, paying money, filing receipts, and I dare say making a great

bustle about it when Mr. Guppy was announced and shown in. I had had

some idea that the clerk who was to be sent down might be the young

gentleman who had met me at the coach-office, and I was glad to see

him, because he was associated with my present happiness.

I scarcely knew him again, he was so uncommonly smart. He had an

entirely new suit of glossy clothes on, a shining hat, lilac-kid

gloves, a neckerchief of a variety of colours, a large hot-house

flower in his button-hole, and a thick gold ring on his little

finger. Besides which, he quite scented the dining-room with

bear’s-grease and other perfumery. He looked at me with an attention

that quite confused me when I begged him to take a seat until the

servant should return; and as he sat there crossing and uncrossing

his legs in a corner, and I asked him if he had had a pleasant ride,

and hoped that Mr. Kenge was well, I never looked at him, but I found

him looking at me in the same scrutinizing and curious way.

When the request was brought to him that he would go upstairs to Mr.

Boythorn’s room, I mentioned that he would find lunch prepared for

him when he came down, of which Mr. Jarndyce hoped he would partake.

He said with some embarrassment, holding the handle of the door,

“Shall I have the honour of finding you here, miss?” I replied yes, I

should be there; and he went out with a bow and another look.

I thought him only awkward and shy, for he was evidently much

embarrassed; and I fancied that the best thing I could do would be to

wait until I saw that he had everything he wanted and then to leave

him to himself. The lunch was soon brought, but it remained for some

time on the table. The interview with Mr. Boythorn was a long one,

and a stormy one too, I should think, for although his room was at

some distance I heard his loud voice rising every now and then like a

high wind, and evidently blowing perfect broadsides of denunciation.

At last Mr. Guppy came back, looking something the worse for the

conference. “My eye, miss,” he said in a low voice, “he’s a Tartar!”

“Pray take some refreshment, sir,” said I.

Mr. Guppy sat down at the table and began nervously sharpening the

carving-knife on the carving-fork, still looking at me (as I felt

quite sure without looking at him) in the same unusual manner. The

sharpening lasted so long that at last I felt a kind of obligation on

me to raise my eyes in order that I might break the spell under which

he seemed to labour, of not being able to leave off.

He immediately looked at the dish and began to carve.

“What will you take yourself, miss? You’ll take a morsel of

something?”

“No, thank you,” said I.

“Shan’t I give you a piece of anything at all, miss?” said Mr. Guppy,

hurriedly drinking off a glass of wine.

“Nothing, thank you,” said I. “I have only waited to see that you

have everything you want. Is there anything I can order for you?”

“No, I am much obliged to you, miss, I’m sure. I’ve everything that I

can require to make me comfortable—at least I—not comfortable—I’m

never that.” He drank off two more glasses of wine, one after

another.

I thought I had better go.

“I beg your pardon, miss!” said Mr. Guppy, rising when he saw me

rise. “But would you allow me the favour of a minute’s private

conversation?”

Not knowing what to say, I sat down again.

“What follows is without prejudice, miss?” said Mr. Guppy, anxiously

bringing a chair towards my table.

“I don’t understand what you mean,” said I, wondering.

“It’s one of our law terms, miss. You won’t make any use of it to my

detriment at Kenge and Carboy’s or elsewhere. If our conversation

shouldn’t lead to anything, I am to be as I was and am not to be

prejudiced in my situation or worldly prospects. In short, it’s in

total confidence.”

“I am at a loss, sir,” said I, “to imagine what you can have to

communicate in total confidence to me, whom you have never seen but

once; but I should be very sorry to do you any injury.”

“Thank you, miss. I’m sure of it—that’s quite sufficient.” All this

time Mr. Guppy was either planing his forehead with his handkerchief

or tightly rubbing the palm of his left hand with the palm of his

right. “If you would excuse my taking another glass of wine, miss, I

think it might assist me in getting on without a continual choke that

cannot fail to be mutually unpleasant.”

He did so, and came back again. I took the opportunity of moving well

behind my table.

“You wouldn’t allow me to offer you one, would you miss?” said Mr.

Guppy, apparently refreshed.

“Not any,” said I.

“Not half a glass?” said Mr. Guppy. “Quarter? No! Then, to proceed.

My present salary, Miss Summerson, at Kenge and Carboy’s, is two

pound a week. When I first had the happiness of looking upon you, it

was one fifteen, and had stood at that figure for a lengthened

period. A rise of five has since taken place, and a further rise of

five is guaranteed at the expiration of a term not exceeding twelve

months from the present date. My mother has a little property, which

takes the form of a small life annuity, upon which she lives in an

independent though unassuming manner in the Old Street Road. She is

eminently calculated for a mother-in-law. She never interferes, is

all for peace, and her disposition easy. She has her failings—as who

has not?—but I never knew her do it when company was present, at

which time you may freely trust her with wines, spirits, or malt

liquors. My own abode is lodgings at Penton Place, Pentonville. It is

lowly, but airy, open at the back, and considered one of the

’ealthiest outlets. Miss Summerson! In the mildest language, I adore

you. Would you be so kind as to allow me (as I may say) to file a

declaration—to make an offer!”

Mr. Guppy went down on his knees. I was well behind my table and not

much frightened. I said, “Get up from that ridiculous position

immediately, sir, or you will oblige me to break my implied promise

and ring the bell!”

“Hear me out, miss!” said Mr. Guppy, folding his hands.

“I cannot consent to hear another word, sir,” I returned, “Unless you

get up from the carpet directly and go and sit down at the table as

you ought to do if you have any sense at all.”

He looked piteously, but slowly rose and did so.

“Yet what a mockery it is, miss,” he said with his hand upon his

heart and shaking his head at me in a melancholy manner over the

tray, “to be stationed behind food at such a moment. The soul recoils

from food at such a moment, miss.”

“I beg you to conclude,” said I; “you have asked me to hear you out,

and I beg you to conclude.”

“I will, miss,” said Mr. Guppy. “As I love and honour, so likewise I

obey. Would that I could make thee the subject of that vow before the

shrine!”

“That is quite impossible,” said I, “and entirely out of the

question.”

“I am aware,” said Mr. Guppy, leaning forward over the tray and

regarding me, as I again strangely felt, though my eyes were not

directed to him, with his late intent look, “I am aware that in a

worldly point of view, according to all appearances, my offer is a

poor one. But, Miss Summerson! Angel! No, don’t ring—I have been

brought up in a sharp school and am accustomed to a variety of

general practice. Though a young man, I have ferreted out evidence,

got up cases, and seen lots of life. Blest with your hand, what means

might I not find of advancing your interests and pushing your

fortunes! What might I not get to know, nearly concerning you? I know

nothing now, certainly; but what MIGHT I not if I had your

confidence, and you set me on?”

I told him that he addressed my interest or what he supposed to be my

interest quite as unsuccessfully as he addressed my inclination, and

he would now understand that I requested him, if he pleased, to go

away immediately.

“Cruel miss,” said Mr. Guppy, “hear but another word! I think you

must have seen that I was struck with those charms on the day when I

waited at the Whytorseller. I think you must have remarked that I

could not forbear a tribute to those charms when I put up the steps

of the ’ackney-coach. It was a feeble tribute to thee, but it was

well meant. Thy image has ever since been fixed in my breast. I have

walked up and down of an evening opposite Jellyby’s house only to

look upon the bricks that once contained thee. This out of to-day,

quite an unnecessary out so far as the attendance, which was its

pretended object, went, was planned by me alone for thee alone. If I

speak of interest, it is only to recommend myself and my respectful

wretchedness. Love was before it, and is before it.”

“I should be pained, Mr. Guppy,” said I, rising and putting my hand

upon the bell-rope, “to do you or any one who was sincere the

injustice of slighting any honest feeling, however disagreeably

expressed. If you have really meant to give me a proof of your good

opinion, though ill-timed and misplaced, I feel that I ought to thank

you. I have very little reason to be proud, and I am not proud. I

hope,” I think I added, without very well knowing what I said, “that

you will now go away as if you had never been so exceedingly foolish

and attend to Messrs. Kenge and Carboy’s business.”

“Half a minute, miss!” cried Mr. Guppy, checking me as I was about to

ring. “This has been without prejudice?”

“I will never mention it,” said I, “unless you should give me future

occasion to do so.”

“A quarter of a minute, miss! In case you should think better at any

time, however distant—THAT’S no consequence, for my feelings can

never alter—of anything I have said, particularly what might I not

do, Mr. William Guppy, eighty-seven, Penton Place, or if removed, or

dead (of blighted hopes or anything of that sort), care of Mrs.

Guppy, three hundred and two, Old Street Road, will be sufficient.”

I rang the bell, the servant came, and Mr. Guppy, laying his written

card upon the table and making a dejected bow, departed. Raising my

eyes as he went out, I once more saw him looking at me after he had

passed the door.

I sat there for another hour or more, finishing my books and payments

and getting through plenty of business. Then I arranged my desk, and

put everything away, and was so composed and cheerful that I thought

I had quite dismissed this unexpected incident. But, when I went

upstairs to my own room, I surprised myself by beginning to laugh

about it and then surprised myself still more by beginning to cry

about it. In short, I was in a flutter for a little while and felt as

if an old chord had been more coarsely touched than it ever had been

since the days of the dear old doll, long buried in the garden.