Bleak House
“Oh, Richard,” I remonstrated, “is it possible that you can ever have
seen him and heard him, that you can ever have lived under his roof
and known him, and can yet breathe, even to me in this solitary place
where there is no one to hear us, such unworthy suspicions?”
He reddened deeply, as if his natural generosity felt a pang of
reproach. He was silent for a little while before he replied in a
subdued voice, “Esther, I am sure you know that I am not a mean
fellow and that I have some sense of suspicion and distrust being
poor qualities in one of my years.”
“I know it very well,” said I. “I am not more sure of anything.”
“That’s a dear girl,” retorted Richard, “and like you, because it
gives me comfort. I had need to get some scrap of comfort out of all
this business, for it’s a bad one at the best, as I have no occasion
to tell you.”
“I know perfectly,” said I. “I know as well, Richard—what shall I
say? as well as you do—that such misconstructions are foreign to
your nature. And I know, as well as you know, what so changes it.”
“Come, sister, come,” said Richard a little more gaily, “you will be
fair with me at all events. If I have the misfortune to be under that
influence, so has he. If it has a little twisted me, it may have a
little twisted him too. I don’t say that he is not an honourable man,
out of all this complication and uncertainty; I am sure he is. But it
taints everybody. You know it taints everybody. You have heard him
say so fifty times. Then why should HE escape?”
“Because,” said I, “his is an uncommon character, and he has
resolutely kept himself outside the circle, Richard.”
“Oh, because and because!” replied Richard in his vivacious way. “I
am not sure, my dear girl, but that it may be wise and specious to
preserve that outward indifference. It may cause other parties
interested to become lax about their interests; and people may die
off, and points may drag themselves out of memory, and many things
may smoothly happen that are convenient enough.”
I was so touched with pity for Richard that I could not reproach him
any more, even by a look. I remembered my guardian’s gentleness
towards his errors and with what perfect freedom from resentment he
had spoken of them.
“Esther,” Richard resumed, “you are not to suppose that I have come
here to make underhanded charges against John Jarndyce. I have only
come to justify myself. What I say is, it was all very well and we
got on very well while I was a boy, utterly regardless of this same
suit; but as soon as I began to take an interest in it and to look
into it, then it was quite another thing. Then John Jarndyce
discovers that Ada and I must break off and that if I don’t amend
that very objectionable course, I am not fit for her. Now, Esther, I
don’t mean to amend that very objectionable course: I will not hold
John Jarndyce’s favour on those unfair terms of compromise, which he
has no right to dictate. Whether it pleases him or displeases him, I
must maintain my rights and Ada’s. I have been thinking about it a
good deal, and this is the conclusion I have come to.”
Poor dear Richard! He had indeed been thinking about it a good deal.
His face, his voice, his manner, all showed that too plainly.
“So I tell him honourably (you are to know I have written to him
about all this) that we are at issue and that we had better be at
issue openly than covertly. I thank him for his goodwill and his
protection, and he goes his road, and I go mine. The fact is, our
roads are not the same. Under one of the wills in dispute, I should
take much more than he. I don’t mean to say that it is the one to be
established, but there it is, and it has its chance.”
“I have not to learn from you, my dear Richard,” said I, “of your
letter. I had heard of it already without an offended or angry word.”
“Indeed?” replied Richard, softening. “I am glad I said he was an
honourable man, out of all this wretched affair. But I always say
that and have never doubted it. Now, my dear Esther, I know these
views of mine appear extremely harsh to you, and will to Ada when you
tell her what has passed between us. But if you had gone into the
case as I have, if you had only applied yourself to the papers as I
did when I was at Kenge’s, if you only knew what an accumulation of
charges and counter-charges, and suspicions and cross-suspicions,
they involve, you would think me moderate in comparison.”
“Perhaps so,” said I. “But do you think that, among those many
papers, there is much truth and justice, Richard?”
“There is truth and justice somewhere in the case, Esther—”
“Or was once, long ago,” said I.
“Is—is—must be somewhere,” pursued Richard impetuously, “and must
be brought out. To allow Ada to be made a bribe and hush-money of is
not the way to bring it out. You say the suit is changing me; John
Jarndyce says it changes, has changed, and will change everybody who
has any share in it. Then the greater right I have on my side when I
resolve to do all I can to bring it to an end.”
“All you can, Richard! Do you think that in these many years no
others have done all they could? Has the difficulty grown easier
because of so many failures?”
“It can’t last for ever,” returned Richard with a fierceness kindling
in him which again presented to me that last sad reminder. “I am
young and earnest, and energy and determination have done wonders
many a time. Others have only half thrown themselves into it. I
devote myself to it. I make it the object of my life.”
“Oh, Richard, my dear, so much the worse, so much the worse!”
“No, no, no, don’t you be afraid for me,” he returned affectionately.
“You’re a dear, good, wise, quiet, blessed girl; but you have your
prepossessions. So I come round to John Jarndyce. I tell you, my good
Esther, when he and I were on those terms which he found so
convenient, we were not on natural terms.”
“Are division and animosity your natural terms, Richard?”
“No, I don’t say that. I mean that all this business puts us on
unnatural terms, with which natural relations are incompatible. See
another reason for urging it on! I may find out when it’s over that I
have been mistaken in John Jarndyce. My head may be clearer when I am
free of it, and I may then agree with what you say to-day. Very well.
Then I shall acknowledge it and make him reparation.”
Everything postponed to that imaginary time! Everything held in
confusion and indecision until then!
“Now, my best of confidantes,” said Richard, “I want my cousin Ada to
understand that I am not captious, fickle, and wilful about John
Jarndyce, but that I have this purpose and reason at my back. I wish
to represent myself to her through you, because she has a great
esteem and respect for her cousin John; and I know you will soften
the course I take, even though you disapprove of it; and—and in
short,” said Richard, who had been hesitating through these words,
“I—I don’t like to represent myself in this litigious, contentious,
doubting character to a confiding girl like Ada.”
I told him that he was more like himself in those latter words than
in anything he had said yet.
“Why,” acknowledged Richard, “that may be true enough, my love. I
rather feel it to be so. But I shall be able to give myself fair-play
by and by. I shall come all right again, then, don’t you be afraid.”
I asked him if this were all he wished me to tell Ada.
“Not quite,” said Richard. “I am bound not to withhold from her that
John Jarndyce answered my letter in his usual manner, addressing me
as ‘My dear Rick,’ trying to argue me out of my opinions, and telling
me that they should make no difference in him. (All very well of
course, but not altering the case.) I also want Ada to know that if I
see her seldom just now, I am looking after her interests as well as
my own—we two being in the same boat exactly—and that I hope she
will not suppose from any flying rumours she may hear that I am at
all light-headed or imprudent; on the contrary, I am always looking
forward to the termination of the suit, and always planning in that
direction. Being of age now and having taken the step I have taken, I
consider myself free from any accountability to John Jarndyce; but
Ada being still a ward of the court, I don’t yet ask her to renew our
engagement. When she is free to act for herself, I shall be myself
once more and we shall both be in very different worldly
circumstances, I believe. If you tell her all this with the advantage
of your considerate way, you will do me a very great and a very kind
service, my dear Esther; and I shall knock Jarndyce and Jarndyce on
the head with greater vigour. Of course I ask for no secrecy at Bleak
House.”
“Richard,” said I, “you place great confidence in me, but I fear you
will not take advice from me?”
“It’s impossible that I can on this subject, my dear girl. On any
other, readily.”
As if there were any other in his life! As if his whole career and
character were not being dyed one colour!
“But I may ask you a question, Richard?”
“I think so,” said he, laughing. “I don’t know who may not, if you
may not.”
“You say, yourself, you are not leading a very settled life.”
“How can I, my dear Esther, with nothing settled!”
“Are you in debt again?”
“Why, of course I am,” said Richard, astonished at my simplicity.
“Is it of course?”
“My dear child, certainly. I can’t throw myself into an object so
completely without expense. You forget, or perhaps you don’t know,
that under either of the wills Ada and I take something. It’s only a
question between the larger sum and the smaller. I shall be within
the mark any way. Bless your heart, my excellent girl,” said Richard,
quite amused with me, “I shall be all right! I shall pull through, my
dear!”
I felt so deeply sensible of the danger in which he stood that I
tried, in Ada’s name, in my guardian’s, in my own, by every fervent
means that I could think of, to warn him of it and to show him some
of his mistakes. He received everything I said with patience and
gentleness, but it all rebounded from him without taking the least
effect. I could not wonder at this after the reception his
preoccupied mind had given to my guardian’s letter, but I determined
to try Ada’s influence yet.
So when our walk brought us round to the village again, and I went
home to breakfast, I prepared Ada for the account I was going to give
her and told her exactly what reason we had to dread that Richard was
losing himself and scattering his whole life to the winds. It made
her very unhappy, of course, though she had a far, far greater
reliance on his correcting his errors than I could have—which was so
natural and loving in my dear!—and she presently wrote him this
little letter:
My dearest cousin,
Esther has told me all you said to her this morning. I
write this to repeat most earnestly for myself all that
she said to you and to let you know how sure I am that
you will sooner or later find our cousin John a pattern
of truth, sincerity, and goodness, when you will deeply,
deeply grieve to have done him (without intending it) so
much wrong.
I do not quite know how to write what I wish to say next,
but I trust you will understand it as I mean it. I have
some fears, my dearest cousin, that it may be partly for
my sake you are now laying up so much unhappiness for
yourself—and if for yourself, for me. In case this should
be so, or in case you should entertain much thought of me
in what you are doing, I most earnestly entreat and beg
you to desist. You can do nothing for my sake that will
make me half so happy as for ever turning your back upon
the shadow in which we both were born. Do not be angry
with me for saying this. Pray, pray, dear Richard, for my