Bleak House
courtly chairs which stood, each attended by a little page of a stool
for greater state, on either side of the fire-place. Our sitting-room
was green and had framed and glazed upon the walls numbers of
surprising and surprised birds, staring out of pictures at a real
trout in a case, as brown and shining as if it had been served with
gravy; at the death of Captain Cook; and at the whole process of
preparing tea in China, as depicted by Chinese artists. In my room
there were oval engravings of the months—ladies haymaking in short
waists and large hats tied under the chin, for June; smooth-legged
noblemen pointing with cocked-hats to village steeples, for October.
Half-length portraits in crayons abounded all through the house, but
were so dispersed that I found the brother of a youthful officer of
mine in the china-closet and the grey old age of my pretty young
bride, with a flower in her bodice, in the breakfast-room. As
substitutes, I had four angels, of Queen Anne’s reign, taking a
complacent gentleman to heaven, in festoons, with some difficulty;
and a composition in needlework representing fruit, a kettle, and an
alphabet. All the movables, from the wardrobes to the chairs and
tables, hangings, glasses, even to the pincushions and scent-bottles
on the dressing-tables, displayed the same quaint variety. They
agreed in nothing but their perfect neatness, their display of the
whitest linen, and their storing-up, wheresoever the existence of a
drawer, small or large, rendered it possible, of quantities of
rose-leaves and sweet lavender. Such, with its illuminated windows,
softened here and there by shadows of curtains, shining out upon the
starlight night; with its light, and warmth, and comfort; with its
hospitable jingle, at a distance, of preparations for dinner; with
the face of its generous master brightening everything we saw; and
just wind enough without to sound a low accompaniment to everything
we heard, were our first impressions of Bleak House.
“I am glad you like it,” said Mr. Jarndyce when he had brought us
round again to Ada’s sitting-room. “It makes no pretensions, but it
is a comfortable little place, I hope, and will be more so with such
bright young looks in it. You have barely half an hour before dinner.
There’s no one here but the finest creature upon earth—a child.”
“More children, Esther!” said Ada.
“I don’t mean literally a child,” pursued Mr. Jarndyce; “not a child
in years. He is grown up—he is at least as old as I am—but in
simplicity, and freshness, and enthusiasm, and a fine guileless
inaptitude for all worldly affairs, he is a perfect child.”
We felt that he must be very interesting.
“He knows Mrs. Jellyby,” said Mr. Jarndyce. “He is a musical man, an
amateur, but might have been a professional. He is an artist too, an
amateur, but might have been a professional. He is a man of
attainments and of captivating manners. He has been unfortunate in
his affairs, and unfortunate in his pursuits, and unfortunate in his
family; but he don’t care—he’s a child!”
“Did you imply that he has children of his own, sir?” inquired
Richard.
“Yes, Rick! Half-a-dozen. More! Nearer a dozen, I should think. But
he has never looked after them. How could he? He wanted somebody to
look after HIM. He is a child, you know!” said Mr. Jarndyce.
“And have the children looked after themselves at all, sir?” inquired
Richard.
“Why, just as you may suppose,” said Mr. Jarndyce, his countenance
suddenly falling. “It is said that the children of the very poor are
not brought up, but dragged up. Harold Skimpole’s children have
tumbled up somehow or other. The wind’s getting round again, I am
afraid. I feel it rather!”
Richard observed that the situation was exposed on a sharp night.
“It IS exposed,” said Mr. Jarndyce. “No doubt that’s the cause. Bleak
House has an exposed sound. But you are coming my way. Come along!”
Our luggage having arrived and being all at hand, I was dressed in a
few minutes and engaged in putting my worldly goods away when a maid
(not the one in attendance upon Ada, but another, whom I had not
seen) brought a basket into my room with two bunches of keys in it,
all labelled.
“For you, miss, if you please,” said she.
“For me?” said I.
“The housekeeping keys, miss.”
I showed my surprise, for she added with some little surprise on her
own part, “I was told to bring them as soon as you was alone, miss.
Miss Summerson, if I don’t deceive myself?”
“Yes,” said I. “That is my name.”
“The large bunch is the housekeeping, and the little bunch is the
cellars, miss. Any time you was pleased to appoint to-morrow morning,
I was to show you the presses and things they belong to.”
I said I would be ready at half-past six, and after she was gone,
stood looking at the basket, quite lost in the magnitude of my trust.
Ada found me thus and had such a delightful confidence in me when I
showed her the keys and told her about them that it would have been
insensibility and ingratitude not to feel encouraged. I knew, to be
sure, that it was the dear girl’s kindness, but I liked to be so
pleasantly cheated.
When we went downstairs, we were presented to Mr. Skimpole, who was
standing before the fire telling Richard how fond he used to be, in
his school-time, of football. He was a little bright creature with a
rather large head, but a delicate face and a sweet voice, and there
was a perfect charm in him. All he said was so free from effort and
spontaneous and was said with such a captivating gaiety that it was
fascinating to hear him talk. Being of a more slender figure than Mr.
Jarndyce and having a richer complexion, with browner hair, he looked
younger. Indeed, he had more the appearance in all respects of a
damaged young man than a well-preserved elderly one. There was an
easy negligence in his manner and even in his dress (his hair
carelessly disposed, and his neck-kerchief loose and flowing, as I
have seen artists paint their own portraits) which I could not
separate from the idea of a romantic youth who had undergone some
unique process of depreciation. It struck me as being not at all like
the manner or appearance of a man who had advanced in life by the
usual road of years, cares, and experiences.
I gathered from the conversation that Mr. Skimpole had been educated
for the medical profession and had once lived, in his professional
capacity, in the household of a German prince. He told us, however,
that as he had always been a mere child in point of weights and
measures and had never known anything about them (except that they
disgusted him), he had never been able to prescribe with the
requisite accuracy of detail. In fact, he said, he had no head for
detail. And he told us, with great humour, that when he was wanted to
bleed the prince or physic any of his people, he was generally found
lying on his back in bed, reading the newspapers or making
fancy-sketches in pencil, and couldn’t come. The prince, at last,
objecting to this, “in which,” said Mr. Skimpole, in the frankest
manner, “he was perfectly right,” the engagement terminated, and Mr.
Skimpole having (as he added with delightful gaiety) “nothing to live
upon but love, fell in love, and married, and surrounded himself with
rosy cheeks.” His good friend Jarndyce and some other of his good
friends then helped him, in quicker or slower succession, to several
openings in life, but to no purpose, for he must confess to two of
the oldest infirmities in the world: one was that he had no idea of
time, the other that he had no idea of money. In consequence of which
he never kept an appointment, never could transact any business, and
never knew the value of anything! Well! So he had got on in life, and
here he was! He was very fond of reading the papers, very fond of
making fancy-sketches with a pencil, very fond of nature, very fond
of art. All he asked of society was to let him live. THAT wasn’t
much. His wants were few. Give him the papers, conversation, music,
mutton, coffee, landscape, fruit in the season, a few sheets of
Bristol-board, and a little claret, and he asked no more. He was a
mere child in the world, but he didn’t cry for the moon. He said to
the world, “Go your several ways in peace! Wear red coats, blue
coats, lawn sleeves; put pens behind your ears, wear aprons; go after
glory, holiness, commerce, trade, any object you prefer; only—let
Harold Skimpole live!”
All this and a great deal more he told us, not only with the
utmost brilliancy and enjoyment, but with a certain vivacious
candour—speaking of himself as if he were not at all his own affair,
as if Skimpole were a third person, as if he knew that Skimpole had
his singularities but still had his claims too, which were the
general business of the community and must not be slighted. He was
quite enchanting. If I felt at all confused at that early time in
endeavouring to reconcile anything he said with anything I had
thought about the duties and accountabilities of life (which I am far
from sure of), I was confused by not exactly understanding why he was
free of them. That he WAS free of them, I scarcely doubted; he was so
very clear about it himself.
“I covet nothing,” said Mr. Skimpole in the same light way.
“Possession is nothing to me. Here is my friend Jarndyce’s excellent
house. I feel obliged to him for possessing it. I can sketch it and
alter it. I can set it to music. When I am here, I have sufficient
possession of it and have neither trouble, cost, nor responsibility.
My steward’s name, in short, is Jarndyce, and he can’t cheat me. We
have been mentioning Mrs. Jellyby. There is a bright-eyed woman, of a
strong will and immense power of business detail, who throws herself
into objects with surprising ardour! I don’t regret that I have not a
strong will and an immense power of business detail to throw myself
into objects with surprising ardour. I can admire her without envy. I
can sympathize with the objects. I can dream of them. I can lie down
on the grass—in fine weather—and float along an African river,
embracing all the natives I meet, as sensible of the deep silence and
sketching the dense overhanging tropical growth as accurately as if I
were there. I don’t know that it’s of any direct use my doing so, but
it’s all I can do, and I do it thoroughly. Then, for heaven’s sake,
having Harold Skimpole, a confiding child, petitioning you, the
world, an agglomeration of practical people of business habits, to
let him live and admire the human family, do it somehow or other,
like good souls, and suffer him to ride his rocking-horse!”
It was plain enough that Mr. Jarndyce had not been neglectful of the
adjuration. Mr. Skimpole’s general position there would have rendered
it so without the addition of what he presently said.
“It’s only you, the generous creatures, whom I envy,” said Mr.
Skimpole, addressing us, his new friends, in an impersonal manner. “I
envy you your power of doing what you do. It is what I should revel
in myself. I don’t feel any vulgar gratitude to you. I almost feel as
if YOU ought to be grateful to ME for giving you the opportunity of
enjoying the luxury of generosity. I know you like it. For anything I
can tell, I may have come into the world expressly for the purpose of
increasing your stock of happiness. I may have been born to be a
benefactor to you by sometimes giving you an opportunity of assisting
me in my little perplexities. Why should I regret my incapacity for
details and worldly affairs when it leads to such pleasant
consequences? I don’t regret it therefore.”
Of all his playful speeches (playful, yet always fully meaning what
they expressed) none seemed to be more to the taste of Mr. Jarndyce
than this. I had often new temptations, afterwards, to wonder whether