“If you’ll bring her acquainted with Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson, she will find them of her way of thinking, and they will give her the best advice and assistance.”
“And, George,” says the old lady, “we must send with all haste for your brother. He is a sensible sound man as they tell me—out in the world beyond Chesney Wold, my dear, though I don’t know much of it myself—and will be of great service.”
“Mother,” returns the trooper, “is it too soon to ask a favour?”
“Surely not, my dear.”
“Then grant me this one great favour. Don’t let my brother know.”
“Not know what, my dear?”
“Not know of me. In fact, mother, I can’t bear it; I can’t make up my mind to it. He has proved himself so different from me and has done so much to raise himself while I’ve been soldiering that I haven’t brass enough in my composition to see him in this place and under this charge. How could a man like him be expected to have any pleasure in such a discovery? It’s impossible. No, keep my secret from him, mother; do me a greater kindness than I deserve and keep my secret from my brother, of all men.”
“But not always, dear George?”
“Why, mother, perhaps not for good and all—though I may come to ask that too—but keep it now, I do entreat you. If it’s ever broke to him that his rip of a brother has turned up, I could wish,” says the trooper, shaking his head very doubtfully, “to break it myself and be governed as to advancing or retreating by the way in which he seems to take it.”
As he evidently has a rooted feeling on this point, and as the depth of it is recognized in Mrs. Bagnet’s face, his mother yields her implicit assent to what he asks. For this he thanks her kindly.