Bleak House. Charles Dickens
should like to walk a little,' says my Lady, still looking out of her window.
'Walk!' repeats Sir Leicester, in a tone of surprise.
'I should like to walk a little,' says my Lady, with unmistakable distinctness. 'Please to stop the carriage.'
The carriage is stopped, the affectionate man alights from the rumble, opens the door, and lets down the steps, obedient to an impatient motion of my Lady's hand. My Lady alights so quickly, and walks away so quickly, that Sir Leicester for all his scrupulous politeness, is unable to assist her, and is left behind. A space of a minute or two has elapsed before he comes up with her. She smiles, looks very handsome, takes his arm, lounges with him for a quarter of a mile, is very much bored, and resumes her seat in the carriage.
The rattle and clatter continue through the greater part of three days, with more or less of bell-jingling and whip-cracking, and more or less plunging of Centaurs and bare-backed horses. Their courtly politeness to each other, at the Hotels where they tarry, is the theme of general admiration. Though my Lord is a little aged for my Lady, says Madame, the hostess of the Golden Ape, and though he might be her amiable father, one can see at a glance that they love each other. One observes my Lord with his white hair, standing, hat in hand, to help my Lady to and from the carriage. One observes my Lady, how recognisant of my Lord's politeness, with an inclination of her gracious head, and the concession of her so-genteel fingers! It is ravishing!
The sea has no appreciation of great men, but knocks them about like the small fry. It is habitually hard upon Sir Leicester, whose countenance it greenly mottles in the manner of sage-cheese, and in whose aristocratic system it effects a dismal revolution. It is the Radical of Nature to him. Nevertheless, his dignity gets over it, after stopping to refit: and he goes on with my Lady for Chesney Wold, lying only one night in London on the way to Lincolnshire.
Through the same cold sunlight – colder as the day declines, – and through the same sharp wind – sharper as the separate shadows of bare trees gloom together in the woods, and as the Ghost's Walk, touched at the western corner by a pile of fire in the sky, resigns itself to coming night, – they drive into the park. The Rooks, swinging in their lofty houses in the elm-tree avenue, seem to discuss the question of the occupancy of the carriage as it passes underneath; some agreeing that Sir Leicester and my Lady are come down; some arguing with malcontents who won't admit it; now, all consenting to consider the question disposed of; now, all breaking out again in violent debate, incited by one obstinate and drowsy bird, who will persist in putting in a last contradictory croak. Leaving them to swing and caw, the travelling chariot rolls on to the house; where fires gleam warmly through some of the windows, though not through so many as to give an inhabited expression to the darkening mass of front. But the brilliant and distinguished circle will soon do that.
Mrs. Rouncewell is in attendance, and receives Sir Leicester's customary shake of the hand with a profound curtsey.
'How do you do, Mrs. Rouncewell? I am glad to see you.'
'I hope I have the honour of welcoming you in good health, Sir Leicester?'
'In excellent health, Mrs. Rouncewell.'
'My Lady is looking charmingly well,' says Mrs. Rouncewell, with another curtsey.
My Lady signifies, without profuse expenditure of words, that she is as wearily well as she can hope to be.
But Rosa is in the distance, behind the housekeeper; and my Lady, who has not subdued the quickness of her observation, whatever else she may have conquered, asks:
'Who is that girl?'
'A young scholar of mine, my Lady. Rosa.'
'Come here, Rosa!' Lady Dedlock beckons her, with even an appearance of interest. 'Why, do you know how pretty you are, child?' she says, touching her shoulder with her two forefingers.
Rosa, very much abashed, says, 'No, if you please, my Lady!' and glances up, and glances down, and don't know where to look, but looks all the prettier.
'How old are you?'
'Nineteen, my Lady.'
'Nineteen,' repeats my Lady thoughtfully. 'Take care they don't spoil you by flattery.'
'Yes, my Lady.'
My Lady taps her dimpled cheek with the same delicate gloved fingers, and goes on to the foot of the oak staircase, where Sir Leicester pauses for her as her knightly escort. A staring old Dedlock in a panel, as large as life and as dull, looks as if he didn't know what to make of it – which was probably his general state of mind in the days of Queen Elizabeth.
That evening, in the housekeeper's room, Rosa can do nothing but murmur Lady Dedlock's praises. She is so affable, so graceful, so beautiful, so elegant; has such a sweet voice and such a thrilling touch, that Rosa can feel it yet! Mrs. Rounce-well confirms all this, not without personal pride, reserving only the one point of affability. Mrs. Rouncewell is not quite sure as to that. Heaven forbid that she should say a syllable in dispraise of any member of that excellent family; above all, of my Lady, whom the whole world admires; but if my Lady would only be 'a little more free,' not quite so cold and distant, Mrs. Rouncewell thinks she would be more affable.
"Tis almost a pity,' Mrs Rouncewell adds – only 'almost,' because it borders on impiety to suppose that anything could be better than it is, in such an express dispensation as the Dedlock affairs; 'that my Lady has no family. If she had had a daughter now, a grown young lady, to interest her, I think she would have had the only kind of excellence she wants.'
'Might not that have made her still more proud, grandmother?' says Watt; who has been home and come back again, he is such a good grandson.
'More and most, my dear,' returns the housekeeper with dignity, 'are words it's not my place to use – nor so much as to hear – applied to any drawback on my Lady.'
'I beg your pardon, grandmother. But she is proud, is she not?'
'If she is, she has reason to be. The Dedlock family have always reason to be.'
'Well!' says Watt, 'it's to be hoped they line out of their Prayer-Books a certain passage for the common people about pride and vainglory. Forgive me, grandmother! Only a joke!'
'Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, my dear, are not fit subjects for joking.'
'Sir Leicester is no joke by any means,' says Watt; 'and I humbly ask his pardon. I suppose, grandmother, that even with the family and their guests down here, there is no objection to my prolonging my stay at the Dedlock Arms for a day or two, as any other traveller might?'
'Surely, none in the world, child.'
'I am glad of that,' says Watt, 'because I have an inexpressible desire to extend my knowledge of this beautiful neighbourhood.'
He happens to glance at Rosa, who looks down, and is very shy, indeed. But, according to the old superstition, it should be Rosa's ears that burn, and not her fresh bright cheeks; for my Lady's maid is holding forth about her at this moment, with surpassing energy.
My Lady's maid is a Frenchwoman of two-and-thirty, from somewhere in the southern country about Avignon and Marseilles – a large-eyed brown woman with black hair; who would be handsome, but for a certain feline mouth, and general uncomfortable tightness of face, rendering the jaws too eager, and the skull too prominent. There is something indefinably keen and wan about her anatomy; and she has a watchful way of looking out of the corners of her eyes without turning her head, which could be pleasantly dispensed with– especially when she is in an ill-humour and near knives. Through all the good taste of her dress and little adornments, these objections so express themselves, that she seems to go about like a very neat She-Wolf imperfectly tamed. Besides being accomplished in all the knowledge appertaining to her post, she is almost an Englishwoman in her acquaintance with the language – consequently, she is in no want of words to shower upon Rosa for having attracted my Lady's attention; and she pours them out with such grim ridicule as she sits at dinner, that her companion, the affectionate man, is rather relieved when she arrives at the spoon stage of that performance.
Ha, ha, ha! She, Hortense, been in my Lady's service since five years, and always kept at the distance, and this