Bleak House - страница 26

My simple darling! She was quite unconscious that she only praised herself, and that it was in the goodness of her own heart that she made so much of me!

'May I ask you a question?' said I, when we had sat before the fire a little while.

'Five hundred,' said Ada.

'Your cousin, Mr. Jarndyce. I owe so much to him. Would you mind describing him to me?'

Shaking her golden hair, Ada turned her eyes upon me with such laughing wonder, that I was full of wonder too – partly at her beauty, partly at her surprise.

'Esther!' she cried.

'My dear!'

'You want a description of my cousin Jarndyce?'

'My dear, I never saw him.'

'And I never saw him!' returned Ada.

Well, to be sure!

No, she had never seen him. Young as she was when her mama died, she remembered how the tears would come into her eyes, when she spoke of him, and of the noble generosity of his character, which she had said was to be trusted above all earthly things; and Ada trusted it. Her cousin Jarndyce had written to her a few months ago, – 'a plain, honest letter,' Ada said – proposing the arrangement we were now to enter on, and telling her that, 'in time it might heal some of the wounds made by the miserable Chancery suit.' She had replied, gratefully accepting his proposal. Richard had received a similar letter, and had made a similar response. He had seen Mr. Jarndyce once, but only once, five years ago, at Winchester school. He had told Ada, when they were leaning on the screen before the fire where I found them, that he recollected him as 'a bluff, rosy fellow.' This was the utmost description Ada could give me.

It set me thinking so, that when Ada was asleep, I still remained before the fire, wondering and wondering about Bleak House, and wondering and wondering that yesterday morning should seem so long ago. I don't know where my thoughts had wandered, when they were recalled by a tap at the door.

I opened it softly, and found Miss Jellyby shivering there, with a broken candle in a broken candlestick in one hand, and an egg-cup in the other.

'Good night!' she said, very sulkily.

'Good night!' said I.

'May I come in?' she shortly and unexpectedly asked me in the same sulky way.

'Certainly,' said I. 'Don't wake Miss Clare.'

She would not sit down, but stood by the fire, dipping her inky middle finger in the egg-cup, which contained vinegar, and smearing it over the ink stains on her face; frowning the whole time, and looking very gloomy.

'I wish Africa was dead!' she said, on a sudden.

I was going to remonstrate.

'I do!' she said. 'Don't talk to me, Miss Summerson. I hate it and detest it. It's a beast!'

I told her she was tired, and I was sorry. I put my hand upon her head, and touched her forehead, and said it was hot now, but would be cool to-morrow. She still stood, pouting and frowning at me; but presently put down her egg-cup, and turned softly towards the bed where Ada lay.

'She is very pretty!' she said, with the same knitted brow, and in the same uncivil manner.

I assented with a smile.

'An orphan. Ain't she?'

'Yes.'

'But knows a quantity, I suppose? Can dance, and play music, and sing? She can talk French, I suppose, and do geography, and globes, and needlework, and everything?'

'No doubt,' said I.

'I can't,' she returned. 'I can't do anything hardly, except write. I 'm always writing for Ma. I wonder you two were not ashamed of yourselves to come in this afternoon, and see me able to do nothing else. It was like your ill-nature. Yet you think yourselves very fine, I dare say!'