Bleak House. Charles Dickens
– polish – polish!' he repeated, taking a pinch of snuff and gently fluttering his fingers. 'But we are not – if I may say so, to one formed to be graceful both by Nature and Art;' with the high-shouldered bow, which it seemed impossible for him to make without lifting up his eyebrows and shutting his eyes—'we are not what we used to be in point of Deportment.'
'Are we not, sir?' said I.
'We have degenerated,' he returned, shaking his head, which he could do, to a very limited extent, in his cravat. 'A levelling age is not favourable to Deportment. It develops vulgarity. Perhaps I speak with some little partiality. It may not be for me to say that I have been called, for some years now, Gentleman Turveydrop; or that His Royal Highness the Prince Regent did me the honour to inquire, on my removing my hat as he drove out of the Pavilion at Brighton (that fine building), "Who is he? Who the Devil is he? Why don't I know him? Why hasn't he thirty thousand a year?" But these are little matters of anecdote – the general property, ma'am, – still repeated, occasionally, among the upper classes.'
'Indeed?' said I.
He replied with the high-shouldered bow. 'Where what is left among us of Deportment,' he added, 'still lingers. England – alas, my country! – has degenerated very much, and is degenerating every day. She has not many gentlemen left. We are few. I see nothing to succeed us, but a race of weavers.'
'One might hope that the race of gentlemen would be perpetuated here,' said I.
'You are very good,' he smiled, with the high-shouldered bow again. 'You flatter me. But, no – no! I have never been able to imbue my poor boy with that part of his art. Heaven forbid that I should disparage my dear child, but he has – no Deportment.'
'He appears to be an excellent master,' I observed.
'Understand me, my dear madam, he is an excellent master. All that can be acquired, he has acquired. All that can be imparted, he can impart. But there are things'—he took another pinch of snuff and made the bow again, as if to add, 'this kind of thing, for instance.'
I glanced towards the centre of the room, where Miss Jellyby's lover, now engaged with single pupils, was undergoing greater drudgery than ever.
'My amiable child,' murmured Mr. Turveydrop, adjusting his cravat.
'Your son is indefatigable,' said I.
'It is my reward,' said Mr. Turveydrop, 'to hear you say so. In some respects, he treads in the footsteps of his sainted mother. She was a devoted creature. But Wooman, lovely Wooman,' said Mr. Turveydrop, with very disagreeable gallantry, 'what a sex you are!'
I rose and joined Miss Jellyby, who was, by this time, putting on her bonnet. The time allotted to a lesson having fully elapsed, there was a general putting on of bonnets. When Miss Jellyby and the unfortunate Prince found an opportunity to become betrothed I don't know, but they certainly found none, on this occasion, to exchange a dozen words.
'My dear,' said Mr. Turveydrop benignly to his son, 'do you know the hour?'
'No, father.' The son had no watch. The father had a handsome gold one, which he pulled out, with an air that was an example to mankind.
'My son,' said he, 'it's two o'clock. Recollect your school at Kensington at three.'
'That's time enough for me, father,' said Prince. 'I can take a morsel of dinner, standing, and be off.'
'My dear boy,' returned his father, 'you must be very quick. You will find the cold mutton on the table.'
'Thank you, father. Are you off now, father?'
'Yes, my dear. I suppose,' said Mr. Turveydrop, shutting his eyes and lifting up his shoulders, with modest consciousness, 'that I must show myself, as usual, about town.'
'You had better dine out comfortably, somewhere,' said his son.
'My dear child, I intend to. I shall take my little meal, I think, at the French house, in the Opera Colonnade.'
'That's right. Good-bye, father!' said Prince, shaking hands.
'Good-bye, my son. Bless you!'
Mr. Turveydrop said this in quite a pious manner, and it seemed to do his son good; who, in parting from him, was so pleased with him, so dutiful to him, and so proud of him, that I almost felt as if it were an unkindness to the younger man not to be able to believe implicitly in the elder. The few moments that were occupied by Prince in taking leave of us (and particularly of one of us, as I saw, being in the secret), enhanced my favourable impression of his almost childish character. I felt a liking for him, and a compassion for him, as he put his little kit in his pocket – and with it his desire to stay a little while with Caddy – and went away good-humouredly to his cold mutton and his school at Kensington, that made me scarcely less irate with his father than the censorious old lady.
The father opened the room-door for us, and bowed us out, in a manner, I must acknowledge, worthy of his shining original. In the same style he presently passed us on the other side of the street, on his way to the aristocratic part of the town, where he was going to show himself among the few other gentlemen left. For some moments, I was so lost in reconsidering what I had heard and seen in Newman Street, that I was quite unable to talk to Caddy, or even to fix my attention on what she said to me: especially when I began to inquire in my mind whether there were, or ever had been, any other gentlemen, not in the dancing profession, who lived and founded a reputation entirely on their Deportment. This became so bewildering, and suggested the possibility of so many Mr. Turveydrops that I said, 'Esther, you must make up your mind to abandon this subject altogether, and attend to Caddy.' I accordingly did so, and we chatted all the rest of the way to Lincoln's Inn.
Caddy told me that her lover's education had been so neglected, that it was not always easy to read his notes. She said, if he were not so anxious about his spelling, and took less pains to make it clear, he would do better; but he put so many unnecessary letters into short words, that they sometimes quite lost their English appearance. 'He does it with the best intention,' observed Caddy, 'but it hasn't the effect he means, poor fellow!' Caddy then went on to reason, how could he be expected to be a scholar, when he had passed his whole life in the dancing-school, and had done nothing but teach and fag, fag and teach, morning, noon, and night! And what did it matter? She could write letters enough for both, as she knew to her cost, and it was far better for him to be amiable than learned. 'Besides, it's not as if I was an accomplished girl, who had any right to give herself airs,' said Caddy. 'I know little enough, I am sure, thanks to Ma!'
'There's another thing I want to tell you, now we are alone,' continued Caddy, 'which I should not have liked to mention unless you had seen Prince, Miss Summerson. You know what a house ours is. It's of no use my trying to learn anything that it would be useful for Prince's wife to know, in our house. We live in such a state of muddle that it's impossible, and I have only been more disheartened whenever I have tried. So I get a little practice with – who do you think? Poor Miss Flite! Early in the morning, I help her to tidy her room, and clean her birds; and I make her cup of coffee for her (of course she taught me), and I have learnt to make it so well that Prince says it's the very best coffee he ever tasted, and would quite delight old Mr. Turveydrop, who is very particular indeed about his coffee. I can make little puddings too; and I know how to buy neck of mutton, and tea, and sugar, and butter, and a good many housekeeping things. I am not clever at my needle, yet,' said Caddy, glancing at the repairs on Peepy's frock, 'but perhaps I shall improve, and since I have been engaged to Prince, and have been doing all this, I have felt better-tempered, I hope, and more forgiving to Ma. It rather put me out, at first this morning, to see you and Miss Clare looking so neat and pretty, and to feel ashamed of Peepy and myself too; but, on the whole, I hope I am better-tempered than I was, and more forgiving to Ma.'
The poor girl, trying so hard, said it from her heart, and touched mine. 'Caddy, my love,' I replied, 'I begin to have a great affection for you, and I hope we shall become friends.' 'Oh, do you?' cried Caddy; 'how happy that would make me!' 'My dear Caddy,' said I, 'let us be friends from this time, and let us often have a chat about these matters, and try to find the right way through them.' Caddy was overjoyed. I said everything I could, in my old-fashioned way, to comfort and encourage her; and I would not have objected to old Mr. Turveydrop, that day,