“Oh, Charley dear, never forget who did all
this!”
“No, miss, I never will. Nor Tom won’t.
Nor yet Emma. It was all you, miss.”
“I have known nothing of it. It was Mr.
Jarndyce, Charley.”
“Yes, miss, but it was all done for the love
of you and that you might be my mistress. If
you please, miss, I am a little present with his love,
and it was all done for the love of you. Me and
Tom was to be sure to remember it.”
Charley dried her eyes and entered on her functions,
going in her matronly little way about and about the
room and folding up everything she could lay her hands
upon. Presently Charley came creeping back to
my side and said, “Oh, don’t cry, if you
please, miss.”
And I said again, “I can’t help it, Charley.”
And Charley said again, “No, miss, nor I can’t
help it.” And so, after all, I did cry
for joy indeed, and so did she.
An Appeal Case
As soon as Richard and I had held the conversation
of which I have given an account, Richard communicated
the state of his mind to Mr. Jarndyce. I doubt
if my guardian were altogether taken by surprise when
he received the representation, though it caused him
much uneasiness and disappointment. He and Richard
were often closeted together, late at night and early
in the morning, and passed whole days in London, and
had innumerable appointments with Mr. Kenge, and laboured
through a quantity of disagreeable business.
While they were thus employed, my guardian, though
he underwent considerable inconvenience from the state
of the wind and rubbed his head so constantly that
not a single hair upon it ever rested in its right
place, was as genial with Ada and me as at any other
time, but maintained a steady reserve on these matters.
And as our utmost endeavours could only elicit from
Richard himself sweeping assurances that everything
was going on capitally and that it really was all
right at last, our anxiety was not much relieved by
him.
We learnt, however, as the time went on, that a new
application was made to the Lord Chancellor on Richard’s
behalf as an infant and a ward, and I don’t
know what, and that there was a quantity of talking,
and that the Lord Chancellor described him in open
court as a vexatious and capricious infant, and that
the matter was adjourned and readjourned, and referred,
and reported on, and petitioned about until Richard
began to doubt (as he told us) whether, if he entered
the army at all, it would not be as a veteran of seventy
or eighty years of age. At last an appointment
was made for him to see the Lord Chancellor again in
his private room, and there the Lord Chancellor very
seriously reproved him for trifling with time and
not knowing his mind—“a pretty good
joke, I think,” said Richard, “from that
quarter!”—and at last it was settled
that his application should be granted. His name
was entered at the Horse Guards as an applicant for
an ensign’s commission; the purchase-money was
deposited at an agent’s; and Richard, in his
usual characteristic way, plunged into a violent course
of military study and got up at five o’clock
every morning to practise the broadsword exercise.
