Bleak House - страница 119

'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.