Bleak House
Durden, and so many names of that sort that my own name soon became
quite lost among them.
“However,” said Mr. Jarndyce, “to return to our gossip. Here’s Rick,
a fine young fellow full of promise. What’s to be done with him?”
Oh, my goodness, the idea of asking my advice on such a point!
“Here he is, Esther,” said Mr. Jarndyce, comfortably putting his
hands into his pockets and stretching out his legs. “He must have a
profession; he must make some choice for himself. There will be a
world more wiglomeration about it, I suppose, but it must be done.”
“More what, guardian?” said I.
“More wiglomeration,” said he. “It’s the only name I know for the
thing. He is a ward in Chancery, my dear. Kenge and Carboy will have
something to say about it; Master Somebody—a sort of ridiculous
sexton, digging graves for the merits of causes in a back room at the
end of Quality Court, Chancery Lane—will have something to say about
it; counsel will have something to say about it; the Chancellor will
have something to say about it; the satellites will have something to
say about it; they will all have to be handsomely fee’d, all round,
about it; the whole thing will be vastly ceremonious, wordy,
unsatisfactory, and expensive, and I call it, in general,
wiglomeration. How mankind ever came to be afflicted with
Wiglomeration, or for whose sins these young people ever fell into a
pit of it, I don’t know; so it is.”
He began to rub his head again and to hint that he felt the wind. But
it was a delightful instance of his kindness towards me that whether
he rubbed his head, or walked about, or did both, his face was sure
to recover its benignant expression as it looked at mine; and he was
sure to turn comfortable again and put his hands in his pockets and
stretch out his legs.
“Perhaps it would be best, first of all,” said I, “to ask Mr. Richard
what he inclines to himself.”
“Exactly so,” he returned. “That’s what I mean! You know, just
accustom yourself to talk it over, with your tact and in your quiet
way, with him and Ada, and see what you all make of it. We are sure
to come at the heart of the matter by your means, little woman.”
I really was frightened at the thought of the importance I was
attaining and the number of things that were being confided to me. I
had not meant this at all; I had meant that he should speak to
Richard. But of course I said nothing in reply except that I would do
my best, though I feared (I really felt it necessary to repeat this)
that he thought me much more sagacious than I was. At which my
guardian only laughed the pleasantest laugh I ever heard.
“Come!” he said, rising and pushing back his chair. “I think we may
have done with the growlery for one day! Only a concluding word.
Esther, my dear, do you wish to ask me anything?”
He looked so attentively at me that I looked attentively at him and
felt sure I understood him.
“About myself, sir?” said I.
“Yes.”
“Guardian,” said I, venturing to put my hand, which was suddenly
colder than I could have wished, in his, “nothing! I am quite sure
that if there were anything I ought to know or had any need to know,
I should not have to ask you to tell it to me. If my whole reliance
and confidence were not placed in you, I must have a hard heart
indeed. I have nothing to ask you, nothing in the world.”
He drew my hand through his arm and we went away to look for Ada.
From that hour I felt quite easy with him, quite unreserved, quite
content to know no more, quite happy.
We lived, at first, rather a busy life at Bleak House, for we had to
become acquainted with many residents in and out of the neighbourhood
who knew Mr. Jarndyce. It seemed to Ada and me that everybody knew
him who wanted to do anything with anybody else’s money. It amazed us
when we began to sort his letters and to answer some of them for him
in the growlery of a morning to find how the great object of the
lives of nearly all his correspondents appeared to be to form
themselves into committees for getting in and laying out money. The
ladies were as desperate as the gentlemen; indeed, I think they were
even more so. They threw themselves into committees in the most
impassioned manner and collected subscriptions with a vehemence quite
extraordinary. It appeared to us that some of them must pass their
whole lives in dealing out subscription-cards to the whole
post-office directory—shilling cards, half-crown cards,
half-sovereign cards, penny cards. They wanted everything. They
wanted wearing apparel, they wanted linen rags, they wanted money,
they wanted coals, they wanted soup, they wanted interest, they
wanted autographs, they wanted flannel, they wanted whatever Mr.
Jarndyce had—or had not. Their objects were as various as their
demands. They were going to raise new buildings, they were going to
pay off debts on old buildings, they were going to establish in a
picturesque building (engraving of proposed west elevation attached)
the Sisterhood of Mediaeval Marys, they were going to give a
testimonial to Mrs. Jellyby, they were going to have their
secretary’s portrait painted and presented to his mother-in-law,
whose deep devotion to him was well known, they were going to get up
everything, I really believe, from five hundred thousand tracts to an
annuity and from a marble monument to a silver tea-pot. They took a
multitude of titles. They were the Women of England, the Daughters of
Britain, the Sisters of all the cardinal virtues separately, the
Females of America, the Ladies of a hundred denominations. They
appeared to be always excited about canvassing and electing. They
seemed to our poor wits, and according to their own accounts, to be
constantly polling people by tens of thousands, yet never bringing
their candidates in for anything. It made our heads ache to think, on
the whole, what feverish lives they must lead.
Among the ladies who were most distinguished for this rapacious
benevolence (if I may use the expression) was a Mrs. Pardiggle, who
seemed, as I judged from the number of her letters to Mr. Jarndyce,
to be almost as powerful a correspondent as Mrs. Jellyby herself. We
observed that the wind always changed when Mrs. Pardiggle became the
subject of conversation and that it invariably interrupted Mr.
Jarndyce and prevented his going any farther, when he had remarked
that there were two classes of charitable people; one, the people who
did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people
who did a great deal and made no noise at all. We were therefore
curious to see Mrs. Pardiggle, suspecting her to be a type of the
former class, and were glad when she called one day with her five
young sons.
She was a formidable style of lady with spectacles, a prominent nose,
and a loud voice, who had the effect of wanting a great deal of room.
And she really did, for she knocked down little chairs with her
skirts that were quite a great way off. As only Ada and I were at
home, we received her timidly, for she seemed to come in like cold
weather and to make the little Pardiggles blue as they followed.
“These, young ladies,” said Mrs. Pardiggle with great volubility
after the first salutations, “are my five boys. You may have seen
their names in a printed subscription list (perhaps more than one) in
the possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce. Egbert, my eldest
(twelve), is the boy who sent out his pocket-money, to the amount of
five and threepence, to the Tockahoopo Indians. Oswald, my second
(ten and a half), is the child who contributed two and nine-pence to
the Great National Smithers Testimonial. Francis, my third (nine),
one and sixpence halfpenny; Felix, my fourth (seven), eightpence to
the Superannuated Widows; Alfred, my youngest (five), has voluntarily
enrolled himself in the Infant Bonds of Joy, and is pledged never,
through life, to use tobacco in any form.”
We had never seen such dissatisfied children. It was not merely that
they were weazened and shrivelled—though they were certainly that
too—but they looked absolutely ferocious with discontent. At the
mention of the Tockahoopo Indians, I could really have supposed
Egbert to be one of the most baleful members of that tribe, he gave
me such a savage frown. The face of each child, as the amount of his
contribution was mentioned, darkened in a peculiarly vindictive
manner, but his was by far the worst. I must except, however, the
little recruit into the Infant Bonds of Joy, who was stolidly and
evenly miserable.
“You have been visiting, I understand,” said Mrs. Pardiggle, “at Mrs.
Jellyby’s?”
We said yes, we had passed one night there.
“Mrs. Jellyby,” pursued the lady, always speaking in the same
demonstrative, loud, hard tone, so that her voice impressed my fancy
as if it had a sort of spectacles on too—and I may take the
opportunity of remarking that her spectacles were made the less
engaging by her eyes being what Ada called “choking eyes,” meaning
very prominent—“Mrs. Jellyby is a benefactor to society and deserves
a helping hand. My boys have contributed to the African
project—Egbert, one and six, being the entire allowance of nine
weeks; Oswald, one and a penny halfpenny, being the same; the rest,
according to their little means. Nevertheless, I do not go with Mrs.
Jellyby in all things. I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in her treatment
of her young family. It has been noticed. It has been observed that
her young family are excluded from participation in the objects to
which she is devoted. She may be right, she may be wrong; but, right
or wrong, this is not my course with MY young family. I take them
everywhere.”
I was afterwards convinced (and so was Ada) that from the
ill-conditioned eldest child, these words extorted a sharp yell. He
turned it off into a yawn, but it began as a yell.
“They attend matins with me (very prettily done) at half-past six
o’clock in the morning all the year round, including of course the
depth of winter,” said Mrs. Pardiggle rapidly, “and they are with me
during the revolving duties of the day. I am a School lady, I am a
Visiting lady, I am a Reading lady, I am a Distributing lady; I am on
the local Linen Box Committee and many general committees; and my
canvassing alone is very extensive—perhaps no one’s more so. But
they are my companions everywhere; and by these means they acquire
that knowledge of the poor, and that capacity of doing charitable
business in general—in short, that taste for the sort of
thing—which will render them in after life a service to their
neighbours and a satisfaction to themselves. My young family are not
frivolous; they expend the entire amount of their allowance in
subscriptions, under my direction; and they have attended as many
public meetings and listened to as many lectures, orations, and
discussions as generally fall to the lot of few grown people. Alfred
(five), who, as I mentioned, has of his own election joined the
Infant Bonds of Joy, was one of the very few children who manifested
consciousness on that occasion after a fervid address of two hours
from the chairman of the evening.”
Alfred glowered at us as if he never could, or would, forgive the
injury of that night.
“You may have observed, Miss Summerson,” said Mrs. Pardiggle, “in
some of the lists to which I have referred, in the possession of our
esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce, that the names of my young family are
concluded with the name of O. A. Pardiggle, F.R.S., one pound. That
is their father. We usually observe the same routine. I put down my
mite first; then my young family enrol their contributions, according
to their ages and their little means; and then Mr. Pardiggle brings
up the rear. Mr. Pardiggle is happy to throw in his limited donation,
under my direction; and thus things are made not only pleasant to