Bleak House. Charles Dickens
up by a grand piano, a harp, and several other musical instruments in cases, all in progress of removal, and all looking rakish in the daylight. Miss Jellyby informed me that the Academy had been lent, last night, for a concert.
We went up-stairs – it had been quite a fine house once, when it was anybody's business to keep it clean and fresh, and nobody's business to smoke in it all day – and into Mr. Turvey-drop's great room, which was built out into a mews at the back, and was lighted by a skylight. It was a bare, resounding room, smelling of stables; with cane forms along the walls; and the walls ornamented at regular intervals with painted lyres, and little cut-glass branches for candles, which seemed to be shedding their old-fashioned drops as other branches might shed autumn leaves. Several young lady pupils, ranging from thirteen or fourteen years of age to two or three and twenty, were assembled; and I was looking among them for their instructor, when Caddy, pinching my arm, repeated the ceremony of introduction. 'Miss Summerson, Mr. Prince Turvey-drop!'
I curtseyed to a little blue-eyed fair man of youthful appearance, with flaxen hair parted in the middle, and curling at the ends all round his head. He had a little fiddle, which we used to call at school a kit, under his left arm, and its little bow in the same hand. His little dancing-shoes were particularly diminutive, and he had a little innocent, feminine manner, which not only appealed to me in an amiable way, but made this singular effect upon me: that I received the impression that he was like his mother, and that his mother had not been much considered or well used.
'I am very happy to see Miss Jellyby's friend,' he said, bowing low to me. 'I began to fear,' with timid tenderness, 'as it was past the usual time, that Miss Jellyby was not coming.'
'I beg you will have the goodness to attribute that to me, who have detained her, and to receive my excuses, sir,' said L
'O dear!' said he.
'And pray,' I entreated, 'do not allow me to be the cause of any more delay.'
With that apology I withdrew to a seat between Peepy (who, being well used to it, had already climbed into a corner place) and an old lady of a censorious countenance, whose two nieces were in the class, and who was very indignant with Peepy's boots. Prince Turveydrop then tinkled the strings of his kit with his fingers, and the young ladies stood up to dance. Just then, there appeared from a side door, old Mr. Turveydrop, in the full lustre of his Deportment.
He was a fat old gentleman with a false complexion, false teeth, false whiskers, and a wig. He had a fur collar, and he had a padded breast to his coat, which only wanted a star or a broad blue ribbon to be complete. He was pinched in, and swelled out, and got up, and strapped down, as much as he could possibly bear. He had such a neckcloth on (puffing his very eyes out of their natural shape), and his chin and even his ears so sunk into it, that it seemed as though he must inevitably double up, if it were cast loose. He had, under his arm, a hat of great size and weight, shelving downward from the crown to the brim; and in his hand a pair of white gloves, with which he flapped it, as he stood poised on one leg, in a high-shouldered, round-elbowed state of elegance not to be surpassed. He had a cane, he had an eye-glass, he had a snuff-box, he had rings, he had wristbands, he had everything but any touch of nature; he was not like youth, he was not like age, he was not like anything in the world but a model of Deportment.
'Father! A visitor. Miss Jellyby's friend, Miss Summerson.'
'Distinguished,' said Mr. Turveydrop, 'by Miss Summer-son's presence.' As he bowed to me in that tight state, I almost believe I saw creases come into the whites of his eyes.
'My father,' said the son, aside, to me, with quite an affecting belief in him, 'is a celebrated character. My father is greatly admired.'
'Go on, Prince! Go on!' said Mr. Turveydrop, standing with his back to the fire, and waving his gloves condescendingly. 'Go on, my son!'
At this command, or by this gracious permission, the lesson went on. Prince Turveydrop sometimes played the kit, dancing; sometimes played the piano, standing; sometimes hummed the tune with what little breath he could spare, while he set a pupil right; always conscientiously moved with the least proficient through every step and every part of the figure; and never rested for an instant. His distinguished father did nothing whatever, but stand before the fire, a model of Deportment.
'And he never does anything else,' said the old lady of the censorious countenance. 'Yet would you believe that it's his name on the door-plate?'
'His son's name is the same, you know,' said I.
'He wouldn't let his son have any name, if he could take it from him,' returned the old lady. 'Look at the son's dress!' It certainly was plain – threadbare – almost shabby. 'Yet the father must be garnished and tricked out,' said the old lady, 'because of his Deportment. I'd deport him! Transport him would be better!'
I felt curious to know more concerning this person. I asked, 'Does he give lessons in Deportment, now?'
'Now!' returned the old lady, shortly. 'Never did.'
After a moment's consideration, I suggested that perhaps fencing had been his accomplishment?
'I don't believe he can fence at all, ma'am,' said the old lady.
I looked surprised and inquisitive. The old lady, becoming more and more incensed against the Master of Deportment as she dwelt upon the subject, gave me some particulars of his career, with strong assurances that they were mildly stated.
He had married a meek little dancing-mistress, with a tolerable connexion (having never in his life before done anything but deport himself), and had worked her to death, or had, at the best, suffered her to work herself to death, to maintain him in those expenses which were indispensable to his position. At once to exhibit his Deportment to the best models, and to keep the best models constantly before himself, he had found it necessary to frequent all public places of fashionable and lounging resort; to be seen at Brighton and elsewhere at fashionable times; and to lead an idle life in the very best clothes. To enable him to do this, the affectionate little dancing-mistress had toiled and laboured, and would have toiled and laboured to that hour, if her strength had lasted so long. For the mainspring of the story was that, in spite of the man's absorbing selfishness, his wife (overpowered by his Deportment) had, to the last, believed in him, and had, on her death-bed, in the most moving terms, confided him to their son as one who had an inextinguishable claim upon him, and whom he could never regard with too much pride and deference. The son, inheriting his mother's belief, and having the Deportment always before him, had lived and grown in the same faith, and now, at thirty years of age, worked for his father twelve hours a-day, and looked up to him with veneration on the old imaginary pinnacle.
'The airs the fellow gives himself!' said my informant, shaking her head at old Mr. Turveydrop with speechless indignation as he drew on his tight gloves: of course unconscious of the homage she was rendering. 'He fully believes he is one of the aristocracy! And he is so condescending to the son he so egregiously deludes, that you might suppose him the most virtuous of parents. O!' said the old lady, apostrophising him with infinite vehemence, 'I could bite you!'
I could not help being amused, though I heard the old lady out with feelings of real concern. It was difficult to doubt her, with the father and son before me. What I might have thought of them without the old lady's account, or what I might have thought of the old lady's account without them, I cannot say. There was a fitness of things in the whole that carried conviction with it.
My eyes were yet wandering, from young Mr. Turveydrop working so hard, to old Mr. Turveydrop deporting himself so beautifully, when the latter came ambling up to me, and entered into conversation.
He asked me, first of all, whether I conferred a charm and a distinction on London by residing in it? I did not think it necessary to reply that I was perfectly aware I should not do that, in any case, but merely told him where I did reside.
'A lady so graceful and accomplished,' he said, kissing his right glove, and afterwards extending it towards the pupils, 'will look leniently on the deficiencies here. We do our best to polish – polish – polish!'
He sat down beside me; taking some pains to sit on the form, I thought, in imitation of the print of his illustrious model on the sofa. And really he did look very like it.
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