Bleak House
Richard, answering what he saw in Ada’s compassionate eyes, took the
opportunity of laying some money, softly and unobserved, on the
chimney-piece. We all drew nearer to the cages, feigning to examine
the birds.
“I can’t allow them to sing much,” said the little old lady, “for
(you’ll think this curious) I find my mind confused by the idea that
they are singing while I am following the arguments in court. And my
mind requires to be so very clear, you know! Another time, I’ll tell
you their names. Not at present. On a day of such good omen, they
shall sing as much as they like. In honour of youth,” a smile and
curtsy, “hope,” a smile and curtsy, “and beauty,” a smile and curtsy.
“There! We’ll let in the full light.”
The birds began to stir and chirp.
“I cannot admit the air freely,” said the little old lady—the room
was close, and would have been the better for it—“because the cat
you saw downstairs, called Lady Jane, is greedy for their lives. She
crouches on the parapet outside for hours and hours. I have
discovered,” whispering mysteriously, “that her natural cruelty is
sharpened by a jealous fear of their regaining their liberty. In
consequence of the judgment I expect being shortly given. She is sly
and full of malice. I half believe, sometimes, that she is no cat,
but the wolf of the old saying. It is so very difficult to keep her
from the door.”
Some neighbouring bells, reminding the poor soul that it was
half-past nine, did more for us in the way of bringing our visit to
an end than we could easily have done for ourselves. She hurriedly
took up her little bag of documents, which she had laid upon the
table on coming in, and asked if we were also going into court. On
our answering no, and that we would on no account detain her, she
opened the door to attend us downstairs.
“With such an omen, it is even more necessary than usual that I
should be there before the Chancellor comes in,” said she, “for he
might mention my case the first thing. I have a presentiment that he
WILL mention it the first thing this morning.”
She stopped to tell us in a whisper as we were going down that the
whole house was filled with strange lumber which her landlord had
bought piecemeal and had no wish to sell, in consequence of being a
little M. This was on the first floor. But she had made a previous
stoppage on the second floor and had silently pointed at a dark door
there.
“The only other lodger,” she now whispered in explanation, “a
law-writer. The children in the lanes here say he has sold himself to
the devil. I don’t know what he can have done with the money. Hush!”
She appeared to mistrust that the lodger might hear her even there,
and repeating “Hush!” went before us on tiptoe as though even the
sound of her footsteps might reveal to him what she had said.
Passing through the shop on our way out, as we had passed through it
on our way in, we found the old man storing a quantity of packets of
waste-paper in a kind of well in the floor. He seemed to be working
hard, with the perspiration standing on his forehead, and had a piece
of chalk by him, with which, as he put each separate package or
bundle down, he made a crooked mark on the panelling of the wall.
Richard and Ada, and Miss Jellyby, and the little old lady had gone
by him, and I was going when he touched me on the arm to stay me, and
chalked the letter J upon the wall—in a very curious manner,
beginning with the end of the letter and shaping it backward. It was
a capital letter, not a printed one, but just such a letter as any
clerk in Messrs. Kenge and Carboy’s office would have made.
“Can you read it?” he asked me with a keen glance.
“Surely,” said I. “It’s very plain.”
“What is it?”
“J.”
With another glance at me, and a glance at the door, he rubbed it out
and turned an “a” in its place (not a capital letter this time), and
said, “What’s that?”
I told him. He then rubbed that out and turned the letter “r,” and
asked me the same question. He went on quickly until he had formed in
the same curious manner, beginning at the ends and bottoms of the
letters, the word Jarndyce, without once leaving two letters on the
wall together.
“What does that spell?” he asked me.
When I told him, he laughed. In the same odd way, yet with the same
rapidity, he then produced singly, and rubbed out singly, the letters
forming the words Bleak House. These, in some astonishment, I also
read; and he laughed again.
“Hi!” said the old man, laying aside the chalk. “I have a turn for
copying from memory, you see, miss, though I can neither read nor
write.”
He looked so disagreeable and his cat looked so wickedly at me, as if
I were a blood-relation of the birds upstairs, that I was quite
relieved by Richard’s appearing at the door and saying, “Miss
Summerson, I hope you are not bargaining for the sale of your hair.
Don’t be tempted. Three sacks below are quite enough for Mr. Krook!”
I lost no time in wishing Mr. Krook good morning and joining my
friends outside, where we parted with the little old lady, who gave
us her blessing with great ceremony and renewed her assurance of
yesterday in reference to her intention of settling estates on Ada
and me. Before we finally turned out of those lanes, we looked back
and saw Mr. Krook standing at his shop-door, in his spectacles,
looking after us, with his cat upon his shoulder, and her tail
sticking up on one side of his hairy cap like a tall feather.
“Quite an adventure for a morning in London!” said Richard with a
sigh. “Ah, cousin, cousin, it’s a weary word this Chancery!”
“It is to me, and has been ever since I can remember,” returned Ada.
“I am grieved that I should be the enemy—as I suppose I am—of a
great number of relations and others, and that they should be my
enemies—as I suppose they are—and that we should all be ruining one
another without knowing how or why and be in constant doubt and
discord all our lives. It seems very strange, as there must be right
somewhere, that an honest judge in real earnest has not been able to
find out through all these years where it is.”
“Ah, cousin!” said Richard. “Strange, indeed! All this wasteful,
wanton chess-playing IS very strange. To see that composed court
yesterday jogging on so serenely and to think of the wretchedness of
the pieces on the board gave me the headache and the heartache both
together. My head ached with wondering how it happened, if men were
neither fools nor rascals; and my heart ached to think they could
possibly be either. But at all events, Ada—I may call you Ada?”
“Of course you may, cousin Richard.”
“At all events, Chancery will work none of its bad influences on US.
We have happily been brought together, thanks to our good kinsman,
and it can’t divide us now!”
“Never, I hope, cousin Richard!” said Ada gently.
Miss Jellyby gave my arm a squeeze and me a very significant look. I
smiled in return, and we made the rest of the way back very
pleasantly.
In half an hour after our arrival, Mrs. Jellyby appeared; and in the
course of an hour the various things necessary for breakfast
straggled one by one into the dining-room. I do not doubt that Mrs.
Jellyby had gone to bed and got up in the usual manner, but she
presented no appearance of having changed her dress. She was greatly
occupied during breakfast, for the morning’s post brought a heavy
correspondence relative to Borrioboola-Gha, which would occasion her
(she said) to pass a busy day. The children tumbled about, and
notched memoranda of their accidents in their legs, which were
perfect little calendars of distress; and Peepy was lost for an hour
and a half, and brought home from Newgate market by a policeman. The
equable manner in which Mrs. Jellyby sustained both his absence and
his restoration to the family circle surprised us all.
She was by that time perseveringly dictating to Caddy, and Caddy was
fast relapsing into the inky condition in which we had found her. At
one o’clock an open carriage arrived for us, and a cart for our
luggage. Mrs. Jellyby charged us with many remembrances to her good
friend Mr. Jarndyce; Caddy left her desk to see us depart, kissed me
in the passage, and stood biting her pen and sobbing on the steps;
Peepy, I am happy to say, was asleep and spared the pain of
separation (I was not without misgivings that he had gone to Newgate
market in search of me); and all the other children got up behind the
barouche and fell off, and we saw them, with great concern, scattered
over the surface of Thavies Inn as we rolled out of its precincts.
CHAPTER VI
Quite at Home
The day had brightened very much, and still brightened as we went
westward. We went our way through the sunshine and the fresh air,
wondering more and more at the extent of the streets, the brilliancy
of the shops, the great traffic, and the crowds of people whom the
pleasanter weather seemed to have brought out like many-coloured
flowers. By and by we began to leave the wonderful city and to
proceed through suburbs which, of themselves, would have made a
pretty large town in my eyes; and at last we got into a real country
road again, with windmills, rick-yards, milestones, farmers’ waggons,
scents of old hay, swinging signs, and horse troughs: trees, fields,
and hedge-rows. It was delightful to see the green landscape before
us and the immense metropolis behind; and when a waggon with a train
of beautiful horses, furnished with red trappings and clear-sounding
bells, came by us with its music, I believe we could all three have
sung to the bells, so cheerful were the influences around.
“The whole road has been reminding me of my namesake Whittington,”
said Richard, “and that waggon is the finishing touch. Halloa! What’s
the matter?”
We had stopped, and the waggon had stopped too. Its music changed as
the horses came to a stand, and subsided to a gentle tinkling, except
when a horse tossed his head or shook himself and sprinkled off a
little shower of bell-ringing.
“Our postilion is looking after the waggoner,” said Richard, “and the
waggoner is coming back after us. Good day, friend!” The waggoner was
at our coach-door. “Why, here’s an extraordinary thing!” added
Richard, looking closely at the man. “He has got your name, Ada, in
his hat!”
He had all our names in his hat. Tucked within the band were three
small notes—one addressed to Ada, one to Richard, one to me. These
the waggoner delivered to each of us respectively, reading the name
aloud first. In answer to Richard’s inquiry from whom they came, he
briefly answered, “Master, sir, if you please”; and putting on his
hat again (which was like a soft bowl), cracked his whip, re-awakened
his music, and went melodiously away.
“Is that Mr. Jarndyce’s waggon?” said Richard, calling to our
post-boy.
“Yes, sir,” he replied. “Going to London.”
We opened the notes. Each was a counterpart of the other and
contained these words in a solid, plain hand.
I look forward, my dear, to our meeting easily and
without constraint on either side. I therefore have to
propose that we meet as old friends and take the past for
granted. It will be a relief to you possibly, and to me
certainly, and so my love to you.
John Jarndyce
I had perhaps less reason to be surprised than either of my
companions, having never yet enjoyed an opportunity of thanking one
who had been my benefactor and sole earthly dependence through so
many years. I had not considered how I could thank him, my gratitude
lying too deep in my heart for that; but I now began to consider how
I could meet him without thanking him, and felt it would be very
difficult indeed.
The notes revived in Richard and Ada a general impression that they
both had, without quite knowing how they came by it, that their