'that's a great occasion and will give my fair cousin some necessary business to transact in assertion of her independence, and will make London a more convenient place for all of us. So to London we will go. That being settled, there is another thing-how have you left Caddy?'
'Very unwell, guardian. I fear it will be some time before she regains her health and strength.'
'What do you call some time, now?' asked my guardian thoughtfully.
'Some weeks, I am afraid.'
'Ah!' He began to walk about the room with his hands in his pockets, showing that he had been thinking as much. 'Now, what do you say about her doctor? Is he a good doctor, my love?'
I felt obliged to confess that I knew nothing to the contrary but that Prince and I had agreed only that evening that we would like his opinion to be confirmed by some one.
'Well, you know,' returned my guardian quickly, 'there's Woodcourt.'
I had not meant that, and was rather taken by surprise. For a moment all that I had had in my mind in connexion with Mr.
Woodcourt seemed to come back and confuse me.
'You don't object to him, little woman?'
'Object to him, guardian? Oh no!'
'And you don't think the patient would object to him?'
So far from that, I had no doubt of her being prepared to have a great reliance on him and to like him very much. I said that he was no stranger to her personally, for she had seen him often in his kind attendance on Miss Flite.
'Very good,' said my guardian. 'He has been here to-day, my dear, and I will see him about it to- morrow.'
I felt in this short conversation-though I did not know how, for she was quiet, and we interchanged no look-that my dear girl well remembered how merrily she had clasped me round the waist when no other hands than Caddy's had brought me the little parting token.
This caused me to feel that I ought to tell her, and Caddy too, that I was going to be the mistress of Bleak House and that if I avoided that disclosure any longer I might become less worthy in my own eyes of its master's love. Therefore, when we went upstairs and had waited listening until the clock struck twelve in order that only I might be the first to wish my darling all good wishes on her birthday and to take her to my heart, I set before her, just as I had set before myself, the goodness and honour of her cousin John and the happy life that was in store for for me. If ever my darling were fonder of me at one time than another in all our intercourse, she was surely fondest of me that night. And I was so rejoiced to know it and so comforted by the sense of having done right in casting this last idle reservation away that I was ten times happier than I had been before. I had scarcely thought it a reservation a few hours ago, but now that it was gone I felt as if I understood its nature better.
Next day we went to London. We found our old lodging vacant, and in half an hour were quietly established there, as if we had never gone away. Mr. Woodcourt dined with us to celebrate my darling's birthday, and we were as pleasant as we could be with the great blank among us that Richard's absence naturally made on such an occasion. After that day I was for some weeks-eight or nine as I remember-very much with Caddy, and thus it fell out that I saw less of Ada at this time than any other since we had first come together, except the time of my own illness. She often came to Caddy's, but our function there was to amuse and cheer her, and we did not talk in our usual confidential manner. Whenever I went home at night we were together, but Caddy's rest was broken by pain, and I often remained to nurse her.
With her husband and her poor little mite of a baby to love and their home to strive for, what a good creature Caddy was! So selfdenying, so uncomplaining, so anxious to get well on their account, so afraid of giving trouble, and so thoughtful of the unassisted labours of her husband and the comforts of old Mr. Turveydrop; I had never known the best of her until now. And it seemed so curious that her pale face and helpless figure should be lying there day after day where dancing was the business of life, where the kit and the apprentices began early every morning in the ballroom, and where the untidy little boy waltzed by himself in the kitchen all the afternoon.
At Caddy's request I took the supreme direction of her apartment, trimmed it up, and pushed her, couch and all, into a lighter and more airy and more cheerful corner than she had yet occupied; then, every day, when we were in our neatest array, I used to lay my small small namesake in her arms and sit down to chat or work or read to her. It was at one of the first of these quiet times that I told Caddy about Bleak House.
We had other visitors besides Ada. First of all we had Prince, who in his hurried intervals of teaching used to come softly in and sit softly down, with a face of loving anxiety for Caddy and the very little child. Whatever Caddy's condition really was, she never failed to declare to Prince that she was all but well-which I, heaven forgive me, never failed to confirm. This would put Prince in such good spirits that he would sometimes take the kit from his pocket and play a chord or two to astonish the baby, which I never knew it to do in the least degree, for my tiny namesake never noticed it at all.
Then there was Mrs. Jellyby. She would come occasionally, with her usual distraught manner, and sit calmly looking miles beyond her grandchild as if her attention were absorbed by a young Borrioboolan on its native shores. As bright-eyed as ever, as serene, and as untidy, she would say, 'Well, Caddy, child, and how do you do to-day?' And then would sit amiably smiling and taking no notice of the reply or would sweetly glide off into a calculation of the number of letters she had lately received and answered or of the coffee-bearing power of Borrioboola-Gha. This she would always do with a serene contempt for our limited sphere of action, not to be disguised.
Then there was old Mr. Turveydrop, who was from morning to night and from night to morning the subject of innumerable precautions.
If the baby cried, it was nearly stifled lest the noise should make him uncomfortable. If the fire wanted stirring in the night, it was surreptitiously done lest his rest should be broken. If Caddy required any little comfort that the house contained, she first carefully discussed whether he was likely to require it too. In return for this consideration he would come into the room once a day, all but blessing it-showing a condescension, and a patronage, and a grace of manner in dispensing the light of his highshouldered presence from which I might have supposed him (if I had not known better) to have been the benefactor of Caddy's life.
'My Caroline,' he would say, making the nearest approach that he could to bending over her. 'Tell me that you are better to-day.'
'Oh, much better, thank you, Mr. Turveydrop,' Caddy would reply.
'Delighted! Enchanted! And our dear Miss Summerson. She is not quite prostrated by fatigue?' Here he would crease up his eyelids and kiss his fingers to me, though I am happy to say he had ceased to be particular in his attentions since I had been so altered.
'Not at all,' I would assure him.
'Charming! We must take care of our dear Caroline, Miss Summerson.
We must spare nothing that will restore her. We must nourish her.
My dear Caroline'-he would turn to his daughter-in-law with infinite generosity and protection-'want for nothing, my love.
Frame a wish and gratify it, my daughter. Everything this house contains, everything my room contains, is at your service, my dear.
Do not,' he would sometimes add in a burst of deportment, 'even allow my simple requirements to be considered if they should at any time interfere with your own, my Caroline. Your necessities are greater than mine.'
He had established such a long prescriptive right to this deportment (his son's inheritance from his mother) that I several times knew both Caddy and her husband to be melted to tears by these affectionate self- sacrifices.
'Nay, my dears,' he would remonstrate; and when I saw Caddy's thin arm about his fat neck as he said it, I would be melted too, though not by the same process. 'Nay, nay! I have promised never to leave ye. Be dutiful and affectionate towards me, and I ask no other return. Now, bless ye! I am going to the Park.'
He would take the air there presently and get an appetite for his hotel dinner. I hope I do old Mr. Turveydrop no wrong, but I never saw any better traits in him than these I faithfully record, except that he certainly conceived a liking for Peepy and would take the child out walking with great pomp, always on those occasions
