Chesney Wold

Charley and I did not set off alone upon our expedition into
Lincolnshire. My guardian had made up his mind not to lose sight of
me until I was safe in Mr. Boythorn's house, so he accompanied us,
and we were two days upon the road. I found every breath of air, and
every scent, and every flower and leaf and blade of grass, and every
passing cloud, and everything in nature, more beautiful and wonderful
to me than I had ever found it yet. This was my first gain from my
illness. How little I had lost, when the wide world was so full of
delight for me.

My guardian intending to go back immediately, we appointed, on our
way down, a day when my dear girl should come. I wrote her a letter,
of which he took charge, and he left us within half an hour of our
arrival at our destination, on a delightful evening in the early
summer-time.

If a good fairy had built the house for me with a wave of her wand,
and I had been a princess and her favoured god-child, I could not
have been more considered in it. So many preparations were made for
me and such an endearing remembrance was shown of all my little
tastes and likings that I could have sat down, overcome, a dozen
times before I had revisited half the rooms. I did better than that,
however, by showing them all to Charley instead. Charley's delight
calmed mine; and after we had had a walk in the garden, and Charley
had exhausted her whole vocabulary of admiring expressions, I was as
tranquilly happy as I ought to have been. It was a great comfort to
be able to say to myself after tea, "Esther, my dear, I think you are
quite sensible enough to sit down now and write a note of thanks to
your host." He had left a note of welcome for me, as sunny as his own
face, and had confided his bird to my care, which I knew to be his
highest mark of confidence. Accordingly I wrote a little note to him
in London, telling him how all his favourite plants and trees were
looking, and how the most astonishing of birds had chirped the
honours of the house to me in the most hospitable manner, and how,
after singing on my shoulder, to the inconceivable rapture of my
little maid, he was then at roost in the usual corner of his cage,
but whether dreaming or no I could not report. My note finished and
sent off to the post, I made myself very busy in unpacking and
arranging; and I sent Charley to bed in good time and told her I
should want her no more that night.

For I had not yet looked in the glass and had never asked to have my
own restored to me. I knew this to be a weakness which must be
overcome, but I had always said to myself that I would begin afresh
when I got to where I now was. Therefore I had wanted to be alone,
and therefore I said, now alone, in my own room, "Esther, if you are
to be happy, if you are to have any right to pray to be true-hearted,
you must keep your word, my dear." I was quite resolved to keep it,
but I sat down for a little while first to reflect upon all my
blessings. And then I said my prayers and thought a little more.

My hair had not been cut off, though it had been in danger more than
once. It was long and thick. I let it down, and shook it out, and
went up to the glass upon the dressing-table. There was a little
muslin curtain drawn across it. I drew it back and stood for a moment
looking through such a veil of my own hair that I could see nothing
else. Then I put my hair aside and looked at the reflection in the
mirror, encouraged by seeing how placidly it looked at me. I was very
much changed--oh, very, very much. At first my face was so strange to
me that I think I should have put my hands before it and started back
but for the encouragement I have mentioned. Very soon it became more
familiar, and then I knew the extent of the alteration in it better
than I had done at first. It was not like what I had expected, but I
had expected nothing definite, and I dare say anything definite would
have surprised me.

I had never been a beauty and had never thought myself one, but I had
been very different from this. It was all gone now. Heaven was so
good to me that I could let it go with a few not bitter tears and
could stand there arranging my hair for the night quite thankfully.

One thing troubled me, and I considered it for a long time before I
went to sleep. I had kept Mr. Woodcourt's flowers. When they were
withered I had dried them and put them in a book that I was fond of.
Nobody knew this, not even Ada. I was doubtful whether I had a right
to preserve what he had sent to one so different--whether it was
generous towards him to do it. I wished to be generous to him, even
in the secret depths of my heart, which he would never know, because
I could have loved him--could have been devoted to him. At last I
came to the conclusion that I might keep them if I treasured them
only as a remembrance of what was irrevocably past and gone, never to
be looked back on any more, in any other light. I hope this may not
seem trivial. I was very much in earnest.

I took care to be up early in the morning and to be before the glass
when Charley came in on tiptoe.

"Dear, dear, miss!" cried Charley, starting. "Is that you?"

"Yes, Charley," said I, quietly putting up my hair. "And I am very
well indeed, and very happy."

I saw it was a weight off Charley's mind, but it was a greater weight
off mine. I knew the worst now and was composed to it. I shall not
conceal, as I go on, the weaknesses I could not quite conquer, but
they always passed from me soon and the happier frame of mind stayed
by me faithfully.

Wishing to be fully re-established in my strength and my good spirits
before Ada came, I now laid down a little series of plans with
Charley for being in the fresh air all day long. We were to be out
before breakfast, and were to dine early, and were to be out again
before and after dinner, and were to talk in the garden after tea,
and were to go to rest betimes, and were to climb every hill and
explore every road, lane, and field in the neighbourhood. As to
restoratives and strengthening delicacies, Mr. Boythorn's good
housekeeper was for ever trotting about with something to eat or
drink in her hand; I could not even be heard of as resting in the
park but she would come trotting after me with a basket, her cheerful
face shining with a lecture on the importance of frequent
nourishment. Then there was a pony expressly for my riding, a chubby
pony with a short neck and a mane all over his eyes who could
canter--when he would--so easily and quietly that he was a treasure.
In a very few days he would come to me in the paddock when I called
him, and eat out of my hand, and follow me about. We arrived at such
a capital understanding that when he was jogging with me lazily, and
rather obstinately, down some shady lane, if I patted his neck and
said, "Stubbs, I am surprised you don't canter when you know how much
I like it; and I think you might oblige me, for you are only getting
stupid and going to sleep," he would give his head a comical shake or
two and set off directly, while Charley would stand still and laugh
with such enjoyment that her laughter was like music. I don't know
who had given Stubbs his name, but it seemed to belong to him as
naturally as his rough coat. Once we put him in a little chaise and
drove him triumphantly through the green lanes for five miles; but
all at once, as we were extolling him to the skies, he seemed to take
it ill that he should have been accompanied so far by the circle of
tantalizing little gnats that had been hovering round and round his
ears the whole way without appearing to advance an inch, and stopped
to think about it. I suppose he came to the decision that it was not
to be borne, for he steadily refused to move until I gave the reins
to Charley and got out and walked, when he followed me with a sturdy
sort of good humour, putting his head under my arm and rubbing his
ear against my sleeve. It was in vain for me to say, "Now, Stubbs, I
feel quite sure from what I know of you that you will go on if I ride
a little while," for the moment I left him, he stood stock still
again. Consequently I was obliged to lead the way, as before; and in
this order we returned home, to the great delight of the village.

Charley and I had reason to call it the most friendly of villages, I
am sure, for in a week's time the people were so glad to see us go
by, though ever so frequently in the course of a day, that there were
faces of greeting in every cottage. I had known many of the grown
people before and almost all the children, but now the very steeple
began to wear a familiar and affectionate look. Among my new friends
was an old old woman who lived in such a little thatched and
whitewashed dwelling that when the outside shutter was turned up on
its hinges, it shut up the whole house-front. This old lady had a
grandson who was a sailor, and I wrote a letter to him for her and
drew at the top of it the chimney-corner in which she had brought him
up and where his old stool yet occupied its old place. This was
considered by the whole village the most wonderful achievement in the
world, but when an answer came back all the way from Plymouth, in
which he mentioned that he was going to take the picture all the way
to America, and from America would write again, I got all the credit
that ought to have been given to the post-office and was invested
with the merit of the whole system.

Thus, what with being so much in the air, playing with so many
children, gossiping with so many people, sitting on invitation in so
many cottages, going on with Charley's education, and writing long
letters to Ada every day, I had scarcely any time to think about that
little loss of mine and was almost always cheerful. If I did think of
it at odd moments now and then, I had only to be busy and forget it.
I felt it more than I had hoped I should once when a child said,
"Mother, why is the lady not a pretty lady now like she used to be?"
But when I found the child was not less fond of me, and drew its soft
hand over my face with a kind of pitying protection in its touch,
that soon set me up again. There were many little occurrences which
suggested to me, with great consolation, how natural it is to gentle
hearts to be considerate and delicate towards any inferiority. One of
these particularly touched me. I happened to stroll into the little
church when a marriage was just concluded, and the young couple had
to sign the register.

The bridegroom, to whom the pen was handed first, made a rude cross
for his mark; the bride, who came next, did the same. Now, I had
known the bride when I was last there, not only as the prettiest girl
in the place, but as having quite distinguished herself in the
school, and I could not help looking at her with some surprise. She
came aside and whispered to me, while tears of honest love and
admiration stood in her bright eyes, "He's a dear good fellow, miss;
but he can't write yet--he's going to learn of me--and I wouldn't
shame him for the world!" Why, what had I to fear, I thought, when
there was this nobility in the soul of a labouring man's daughter!

The air blew as freshly and revivingly upon me as it had ever blown,
and the healthy colour came into my new face as it had come into my
old one. Charley was wonderful to see, she was so radiant and so
rosy; and we both enjoyed the whole day and slept soundly the whole
night.

There was a favourite spot of mine in the park-woods of Chesney Wold
where a seat had been erected commanding a lovely view. The wood had
been cleared and opened to improve this point of sight, and the
bright sunny landscape beyond was so beautiful that I rested there at
least once every day. A picturesque part of the Hall, called the
Ghost's Walk, was seen to advantage from this higher ground; and the
startling name, and the old legend in the Dedlock family which I had
heard from Mr. Boythorn accounting for it, mingled with the view and
gave it something of a mysterious interest in addition to its real
charms. There was a bank here, too, which was a famous one for
violets; and as it was a daily delight of Charley's to gather wild
flowers, she took as much to the spot as I did.

It would be idle to inquire now why I never went close to the house
or never went inside it. The family were not there, I had heard on my
arrival, and were not expected. I was far from being incurious or
uninterested about the building; on the contrary, I often sat in this
place wondering how the rooms ranged and whether any echo like a
footstep really did resound at times, as the story said, upon the
lonely Ghost's Walk. The indefinable feeling with which Lady Dedlock
had impressed me may have had some influence in keeping me from the
house even when she was absent. I am not sure. Her face and figure
were associated with it, naturally; but I cannot say that they
repelled me from it, though something did. For whatever reason or no
reason, I had never once gone near it, down to the day at which my
story now arrives.

I was resting at my favourite point after a long ramble, and Charley
was gathering violets at a little distance from me. I had been
looking at the Ghost's Walk lying in a deep shade of masonry afar off
and picturing to myself the female shape that was said to haunt it
when I became aware of a figure approaching through the wood. The
perspective was so long and so darkened by leaves, and the shadows of
the branches on the ground made it so much more intricate to the eye,
that at first I could not discern what figure it was. By little and
little it revealed itself to be a woman's--a lady's--Lady Dedlock's.
She was alone and coming to where I sat with a much quicker step, I
observed to my surprise, than was usual with her.

I was fluttered by her being unexpectedly so near (she was almost
within speaking distance before I knew her) and would have risen to
continue my walk. But I could not. I was rendered motionless. Not so
much by her hurried gesture of entreaty, not so much by her quick
advance and outstretched hands, not so much by the great change in
her manner and the absence of her haughty self-restraint, as by a
something in her face that I had pined for and dreamed of when I was
a little child, something I had never seen in any face, something I
had never seen in hers before.

A dread and faintness fell upon me, and I called to Charley. Lady
Dedlock stopped upon the instant and changed back almost to what I
had known her.

"Miss Summerson, I am afraid I have startled you," she said, now
advancing slowly. "You can scarcely be strong yet. You have been very
ill, I know. I have been much concerned to hear it."

I could no more have removed my eyes from her pale face than I could
have stirred from the bench on which I sat. She gave me her hand, and
its deadly coldness, so at variance with the enforced composure of
her features, deepened the fascination that overpowered me. I cannot
say what was in my whirling thoughts.

"You are recovering again?" she asked kindly.

"I was quite well but a moment ago, Lady Dedlock."

"Is this your young attendant?"

"Yes."

"Will you send her on before and walk towards your house with me?"

"Charley," said I, "take your flowers home, and I will follow you
directly."

Charley, with her best curtsy, blushingly tied on her bonnet and went
her way. When she was gone, Lady Dedlock sat down on the seat beside
me.

I cannot tell in any words what the state of my mind was when I saw
in her hand my handkerchief with which I had covered the dead baby.

I looked at her, but I could not see her, I could not hear her, I
could not draw my breath. The beating of my heart was so violent and
wild that I felt as if my life were breaking from me. But when she
caught me to her breast, kissed me, wept over me, compassionated me,
and called me back to myself; when she fell down on her knees and
cried to me, "Oh, my child, my child, I am your wicked and unhappy
mother! Oh, try to forgive me!"--when I saw her at my feet on the
bare earth in her great agony of mind, I felt, through all my tumult
of emotion, a burst of gratitude to the providence of God that I was
so changed as that I never could disgrace her by any trace of
likeness, as that nobody could ever now look at me and look at her
and remotely think of any near tie between us.

I raised my mother up, praying and beseeching her not to stoop before
me in such affliction and humiliation. I did so in broken, incoherent
words, for besides the trouble I was in, it frightened me to see her
at MY feet. I told her--or I tried to tell her--that if it were for
me, her child, under any circumstances to take upon me to forgive
her, I did it, and had done it, many, many years. I told her that my
heart overflowed with love for her, that it was natural love which
nothing in the past had changed or could change. That it was not for
me, then resting for the first time on my mother's bosom, to take her
to account for having given me life, but that my duty was to bless
her and receive her, though the whole world turned from her, and that
I only asked her leave to do it. I held my mother in my embrace, and
she held me in hers, and among the still woods in the silence of the
summer day there seemed to be nothing but our two troubled minds that
was not at peace.

"To bless and receive me," groaned my mother, "it is far too late. I
must travel my dark road alone, and it will lead me where it will.
From day to day, sometimes from hour to hour, I do not see the way
before my guilty feet. This is the earthly punishment I have brought
upon myself. I bear it, and I hide it."

Even in the thinking of her endurance, she drew her habitual air of
proud indifference about her like a veil, though she soon cast it off
again.

"I must keep this secret, if by any means it can be kept, not wholly
for myself. I have a husband, wretched and dishonouring creature that
I am!"

These words she uttered with a suppressed cry of despair, more
terrible in its sound than any shriek. Covering her face with her
hands, she shrank down in my embrace as if she were unwilling that I
should touch her; nor could I, by my utmost persuasions or by any
endearments I could use, prevail upon her to rise. She said, no, no,
no, she could only speak to me so; she must be proud and disdainful
everywhere else; she would be humbled and ashamed there, in the only
natural moments of her life.

My unhappy mother told me that in my illness she had been nearly
frantic. She had but then known that her child was living. She could
not have suspected me to be that child before. She had followed me
down here to speak to me but once in all her life. We never could
associate, never could communicate, never probably from that time
forth could interchange another word on earth. She put into my hands
a letter she had written for my reading only and said when I had read
it and destroyed it--but not so much for her sake, since she asked
nothing, as for her husband's and my own--I must evermore consider
her as dead. If I could believe that she loved me, in this agony in
which I saw her, with a mother's love, she asked me to do that, for
then I might think of her with a greater pity, imagining what she
suffered. She had put herself beyond all hope and beyond all help.
Whether she preserved her secret until death or it came to be
discovered and she brought dishonour and disgrace upon the name she
had taken, it was her solitary struggle always; and no affection
could come near her, and no human creature could render her any aid.

"But is the secret safe so far?" I asked. "Is it safe now, dearest
mother?"

"No," replied my mother. "It has been very near discovery. It was
saved by an accident. It may be lost by another accident--to-morrow,
any day."

"Do you dread a particular person?"

"Hush! Do not tremble and cry so much for me. I am not worthy of
these tears," said my mother, kissing my hands. "I dread one person
very much."

"An enemy?"

"Not a friend. One who is too passionless to be either. He is Sir
Leicester Dedlock's lawyer, mechanically faithful without attachment,
and very jealous of the profit, privilege, and reputation of being
master of the mysteries of great houses."

"Has he any suspicions?"

"Many."

"Not of you?" I said alarmed.

"Yes! He is always vigilant and always near me. I may keep him at a
standstill, but I can never shake him off."

"Has he so little pity or compunction?"

"He has none, and no anger. He is indifferent to everything but his
calling. His calling is the acquisition of secrets and the holding
possession of such power as they give him, with no sharer or opponent
in it."

"Could you trust in him?"

"I shall never try. The dark road I have trodden for so many years
will end where it will. I follow it alone to the end, whatever the
end be. It may be near, it may be distant; while the road lasts,
nothing turns me."

"Dear mother, are you so resolved?"

"I AM resolved. I have long outbidden folly with folly, pride with
pride, scorn with scorn, insolence with insolence, and have outlived
many vanities with many more. I will outlive this danger, and outdie
it, if I can. It has closed around me almost as awfully as if these
woods of Chesney Wold had closed around the house, but my course
through it is the same. I have but one; I can have but one."

"Mr. Jarndyce--" I was beginning when my mother hurriedly inquired,
"Does HE suspect?"

"No," said I. "No, indeed! Be assured that he does not!" And I told
her what he had related to me as his knowledge of my story. "But he
is so good and sensible," said I, "that perhaps if he knew--"

My mother, who until this time had made no change in her position,
raised her hand up to my lips and stopped me.

"Confide fully in him," she said after a little while. "You have my
free consent--a small gift from such a mother to her injured
child!--but do not tell me of it. Some pride is left in me even yet."

I explained, as nearly as I could then, or can recall now--for my
agitation and distress throughout were so great that I scarcely
understood myself, though every word that was uttered in the mother's
voice, so unfamiliar and so melancholy to me, which in my childhood I
had never learned to love and recognize, had never been sung to sleep
with, had never heard a blessing from, had never had a hope inspired
by, made an enduring impression on my memory--I say I explained, or
tried to do it, how I had only hoped that Mr. Jarndyce, who had been
the best of fathers to me, might be able to afford some counsel and
support to her. But my mother answered no, it was impossible; no one
could help her. Through the desert that lay before her, she must go
alone.

"My child, my child!" she said. "For the last time! These kisses for
the last time! These arms upon my neck for the last time! We shall
meet no more. To hope to do what I seek to do, I must be what I have
been so long. Such is my reward and doom. If you hear of Lady
Dedlock, brilliant, prosperous, and flattered, think of your wretched
mother, conscience-stricken, underneath that mask! Think that the
reality is in her suffering, in her useless remorse, in her murdering
within her breast the only love and truth of which it is capable! And
then forgive her if you can, and cry to heaven to forgive her, which
it never can!"

We held one another for a little space yet, but she was so firm that
she took my hands away, and put them back against my breast, and with
a last kiss as she held them there, released them, and went from me
into the wood. I was alone, and calm and quiet below me in the sun
and shade lay the old house, with its terraces and turrets, on which
there had seemed to me to be such complete repose when I first saw
it, but which now looked like the obdurate and unpitying watcher of
my mother's misery.

Stunned as I was, as weak and helpless at first as I had ever been in
my sick chamber, the necessity of guarding against the danger of
discovery, or even of the remotest suspicion, did me service. I took
such precautions as I could to hide from Charley that I had been
crying, and I constrained myself to think of every sacred obligation
that there was upon me to be careful and collected. It was not a
little while before I could succeed or could even restrain bursts of
grief, but after an hour or so I was better and felt that I might
return. I went home very slowly and told Charley, whom I found at the
gate looking for me, that I had been tempted to extend my walk after
Lady Dedlock had left me and that I was over-tired and would lie
down. Safe in my own room, I read the letter. I clearly derived from
it--and that was much then--that I had not been abandoned by my
mother. Her elder and only sister, the godmother of my childhood,
discovering signs of life in me when I had been laid aside as dead,
had in her stern sense of duty, with no desire or willingness that I
should live, reared me in rigid secrecy and had never again beheld my
mother's face from within a few hours of my birth. So strangely did I
hold my place in this world that until within a short time back I had
never, to my own mother's knowledge, breathed--had been buried--had
never been endowed with life--had never borne a name. When she had
first seen me in the church she had been startled and had thought of
what would have been like me if it had ever lived, and had lived on,
but that was all then.

What more the letter told me needs not to be repeated here. It has
its own times and places in my story.

My first care was to burn what my mother had written and to consume
even its ashes. I hope it may not appear very unnatural or bad in me
that I then became heavily sorrowful to think I had ever been reared.
That I felt as if I knew it would have been better and happier for
many people if indeed I had never breathed. That I had a terror of
myself as the danger and the possible disgrace of my own mother and
of a proud family name. That I was so confused and shaken as to be
possessed by a belief that it was right and had been intended that I
should die in my birth, and that it was wrong and not intended that I
should be then alive.

These are the real feelings that I had. I fell asleep worn out, and
when I awoke I cried afresh to think that I was back in the world
with my load of trouble for others. I was more than ever frightened
of myself, thinking anew of her against whom I was a witness, of the
owner of Chesney Wold, of the new and terrible meaning of the old
words now moaning in my ear like a surge upon the shore, "Your
mother, Esther, was your disgrace, and you are hers. The time will
come--and soon enough--when you will understand this better, and will
feel it too, as no one save a woman can." With them, those other
words returned, "Pray daily that the sins of others be not visited
upon your head." I could not disentangle all that was about me, and I
felt as if the blame and the shame were all in me, and the visitation
had come down.

The day waned into a gloomy evening, overcast and sad, and I still
contended with the same distress. I went out alone, and after walking
a little in the park, watching the dark shades falling on the trees
and the fitful flight of the bats, which sometimes almost touched me,
was attracted to the house for the first time. Perhaps I might not
have gone near it if I had been in a stronger frame of mind. As it
was, I took the path that led close by it.

I did not dare to linger or to look up, but I passed before the
terrace garden with its fragrant odours, and its broad walks, and its
well-kept beds and smooth turf; and I saw how beautiful and grave it
was, and how the old stone balustrades and parapets, and wide flights
of shallow steps, were seamed by time and weather; and how the
trained moss and ivy grew about them, and around the old stone
pedestal of the sun-dial; and I heard the fountain falling. Then the
way went by long lines of dark windows diversified by turreted towers
and porches of eccentric shapes, where old stone lions and grotesque
monsters bristled outside dens of shadow and snarled at the evening
gloom over the escutcheons they held in their grip. Thence the path
wound underneath a gateway, and through a court-yard where the
principal entrance was (I hurried quickly on), and by the stables
where none but deep voices seemed to be, whether in the murmuring of
the wind through the strong mass of ivy holding to a high red wall,
or in the low complaining of the weathercock, or in the barking of
the dogs, or in the slow striking of a clock. So, encountering
presently a sweet smell of limes, whose rustling I could hear, I
turned with the turning of the path to the south front, and there
above me were the balustrades of the Ghost's Walk and one lighted
window that might be my mother's.

The way was paved here, like the terrace overhead, and my footsteps
from being noiseless made an echoing sound upon the flags. Stopping
to look at nothing, but seeing all I did see as I went, I was passing
quickly on, and in a few moments should have passed the lighted
window, when my echoing footsteps brought it suddenly into my mind
that there was a dreadful truth in the legend of the Ghost's Walk,
that it was I who was to bring calamity upon the stately house and
that my warning feet were haunting it even then. Seized with an
augmented terror of myself which turned me cold, I ran from myself
and everything, retraced the way by which I had come, and never
paused until I had gained the lodge-gate, and the park lay sullen and
black behind me.

Not before I was alone in my own room for the night and had again
been dejected and unhappy there did I begin to know how wrong and
thankless this state was. But from my darling who was coming on the
morrow, I found a joyful letter, full of such loving anticipation
that I must have been of marble if it had not moved me; from my
guardian, too, I found another letter, asking me to tell Dame Durden,
if I should see that little woman anywhere, that they had moped most
pitiably without her, that the housekeeping was going to rack and
ruin, that nobody else could manage the keys, and that everybody in
and about the house declared it was not the same house and was
becoming rebellious for her return. Two such letters together made me
think how far beyond my deserts I was beloved and how happy I ought
to be. That made me think of all my past life; and that brought me,
as it ought to have done before, into a better condition.

For I saw very well that I could not have been intended to die, or I
should never have lived; not to say should never have been reserved
for such a happy life. I saw very well how many things had worked
together for my welfare, and that if the sins of the fathers were
sometimes visited upon the children, the phrase did not mean what I
had in the morning feared it meant. I knew I was as innocent of my
birth as a queen of hers and that before my Heavenly Father I should
not be punished for birth nor a queen rewarded for it. I had had
experience, in the shock of that very day, that I could, even thus
soon, find comforting reconcilements to the change that had fallen on
me. I renewed my resolutions and prayed to be strengthened in them,
pouring out my heart for myself and for my unhappy mother and feeling
that the darkness of the morning was passing away. It was not upon my
sleep; and when the next day's light awoke me, it was gone.

My dear girl was to arrive at five o'clock in the afternoon. How to
help myself through the intermediate time better than by taking a
long walk along the road by which she was to come, I did not know; so
Charley and I and Stubbs--Stubbs saddled, for we never drove him
after the one great occasion--made a long expedition along that road
and back. On our return, we held a great review of the house and
garden and saw that everything was in its prettiest condition, and
had the bird out ready as an important part of the establishment.

There were more than two full hours yet to elapse before she could
come, and in that interval, which seemed a long one, I must confess I
was nervously anxious about my altered looks. I loved my darling so
well that I was more concerned for their effect on her than on any
one. I was not in this slight distress because I at all repined--I am
quite certain I did not, that day--but, I thought, would she be
wholly prepared? When she first saw me, might she not be a little
shocked and disappointed? Might it not prove a little worse than she
expected? Might she not look for her old Esther and not find her?
Might she not have to grow used to me and to begin all over again?

I knew the various expressions of my sweet girl's face so well, and
it was such an honest face in its loveliness, that I was sure
beforehand she could not hide that first look from me. And I
considered whether, if it should signify any one of these meanings,
which was so very likely, could I quite answer for myself?

Well, I thought I could. After last night, I thought I could. But to
wait and wait, and expect and expect, and think and think, was such
bad preparation that I resolved to go along the road again and meet
her.

So I said to Charley, "Charley, I will go by myself and walk along
the road until she comes." Charley highly approving of anything that
pleased me, I went and left her at home.

But before I got to the second milestone, I had been in so many
palpitations from seeing dust in the distance (though I knew it was
not, and could not, be the coach yet) that I resolved to turn back
and go home again. And when I had turned, I was in such fear of the
coach coming up behind me (though I still knew that it neither would,
nor could, do any such thing) that I ran the greater part of the way
to avoid being overtaken.

Then, I considered, when I had got safe back again, this was a nice
thing to have done! Now I was hot and had made the worst of it
instead of the best.

At last, when I believed there was at least a quarter of an hour more
yet, Charley all at once cried out to me as I was trembling in the
garden, "Here she comes, miss! Here she is!"

I did not mean to do it, but I ran upstairs into my room and hid
myself behind the door. There I stood trembling, even when I heard my
darling calling as she came upstairs, "Esther, my dear, my love,
where are you? Little woman, dear Dame Durden!"

She ran in, and was running out again when she saw me. Ah, my angel
girl! The old dear look, all love, all fondness, all affection.
Nothing else in it--no, nothing, nothing!

Oh, how happy I was, down upon the floor, with my sweet beautiful
girl down upon the floor too, holding my scarred face to her lovely
cheek, bathing it with tears and kisses, rocking me to and fro like a
child, calling me by every tender name that she could think of, and
pressing me to her faithful heart.

Esther and Charley go off to Boythorn's place near Chesney Wold. It's fantabulous, and everything has been prepared to make Esther as comfy as possible. Finally she sits down and looks at herself in the mirror. It's a shock. From everything we've been told, Esther used to be quite beautiful. Now she's...not, to the point that she doesn't recognize herself in her reflection. But she's a trooper and tries to pep herself back up. It's good to be in the countryside, and Esther uses Boythorn's place to rehab. Lots of walking and riding, lots of food - whatever it takes to get her strength back. The village of Chesney Wold is full of people who are very happy to see her, and everyone is super friendly wherever they go. One day they go walking into the park at Chesney Wold, near the Ghost's Walk . Out of nowhere comes... Lady Dedlock! She very calmly asks to speak to Esther alone, then as soon as Charley leaves, she throws herself around Esther and tells her about being her mom and everything. They cry and talk a lot. Lady Dedlock keeps asking for forgiveness, and Esther realizes that she's forgiven her mom a long time ago and now feels nothing but love. Also, Esther realizes that she no longer looks anything like Lady Dedlock and is happy that one of the clues linking them is gone. It's a pretty hard-to-take scene. Shmoop may have shed a tear or two. Then Lady Dedlock says that this is the one and only time they can ever see each other, and that Tulkinghorn suspects the truth and is close to busting the secret wide open. Brain snack: having sex out of wedlock back then was a major, huge, horrendous no-no, especially for a woman. And having a baby out of wedlock? That was almost criminal. Certainly no woman who had done that would have gone on to marry as well as Lady Dedlock had - she'd be tainted forever. So that's why it's a really big deal to keep the whole thing secret. Esther asks permission to tell Jarndyce, and Lady Dedlock consents. Lady Dedlock is wracked by guilt at not having raised her daughter, shame at having a baby out of wedlock, and fear that she will dishonor Sir Dedlock with her doings. Tulkinghorn is like the Terminator. He has no feelings and can't be reasoned with. He just keeps going and going, digging and digging, without mercy or pause. Lady Dedlock takes off. Esther sits for a while, recovers, and goes home to Boythorn's wishing she'd never been born. Back at home she finds letters from Ada and Jarndyce, who are on their way down. She is reminded of their love, which cheers her up a little. Honestly, though, this would be a totally psycho shock to the nervous system. Esther is pretty amazing for handling it as well as she does. She starts getting very nervous about Ada seeing her for the first time. But when Ada comes her face shows nothing but love and happiness. Yay!

One day while Esther and Charley Neckett are in the park at Chesney Wold, Lady Dedlock appears, carrying the handkerchief she recently took from Jenny's cottage. She reveals herself as Esther's mother and asks the young woman to forgive her and keep her secret. She gives Esther a letter which is to be read and then destroyed; she also alerts Esther to the fact that Tulkinghorn is suspicious. Esther reads the letter, burns it, and then goes for a walk. Along the Ghost's Walk, she listens to the echoes of her own footsteps and realizes that her fate seems to be to bring "calamity upon the stately house" of Dedlock. The next afternoon, Ada arrives and both girls are overjoyed to be reunited.

Joyful-tearful reunions are prevalent in Dickens' novels, and in this chapter there are two such. Today many readers find such scenes "overdone," "sentimental," or "unrealistic." But they pleased many readers in Victorian England, and Dickens sincerely believed that the expression of such sentiment, whether in fiction or in real life, served the useful purpose of promoting moral idealism and regard for others. The plot advances somewhat as Esther realizes who she is and becomes aware of her mother's -- and her own -- difficult situation.

"Chesney Wold" Esther, Charley, and Mr. Jarndyce go to Lincolnshire to stay at Mr. Boythorn's house. Esther cares for Mr. Boythorn's bird while she's there. When she's alone, she looks in a mirror for the first time and sees her scarred face, barely recognizing herself. She believes her beauty has entirely disappeared. Esther confesses that she has secretly kept Mr. Woodcourt's flowers. She decides to keep them still, to remind herself of her former beauty. Esther and Charley stay outdoors all day, to help restore Esther's health. They ride horses through town and stop to rest at Esther's favorite place in the woods. Though Chesney Wold is very close, Esther says she never ventured close to it, for no good reason. One day, Esther spots Lady Dedlock approaching in the woods. Lady Dedlock approaches her and inquires about her health. Esther is shocked to see Lady Dedlock holding her handkerchief, the one she'd given to Jenny. Instantly understanding, Esther sends Charley away, and Lady Dedlock cries and says she is Esther's mother. Lady Dedlock begs for Esther's forgiveness and says that she must continue to keep this secret for Sir Leicester's sake. Lady Dedlock is overcome with grief and guilt but says they can never communicate again. Esther asks if the secret is safe, and Lady Dedlock says that Tulkinghorn may reveal it soon. She tells Esther to confide in Mr. Jarndyce if she wishes. Esther tells us that Lady Dedlock gives her a letter but says that she'll tell us the contents of the letter another time. Ada arrives at Lincolnshire and has no negative reaction to Esther's changed appearance

When Esther looks at herself in the mirror and sees her scarred face for the first time, she reveals her vulnerability more than at any other point in the novel. Never one to indulge in self-pity, she plainly observes that even though she had never been beautiful, what little beauty she had is now gone completely. The simplicity of her statement--"It was all gone now"--is characteristic of Esther's clear, direct narrative style, but it also reveals how deeply she feels the loss. No matter how fond others are of her, no amount of affection, love, or respect can alter the fact that her face has been ruined. Although she goes on once again to count her blessings and get over her sadness determinedly, this plain statement suggests that there is great pain beneath Esther's relentless cheerfulness. Her decision to keep Mr. Woodcourt's flowers also suggests the depth of her sadness. Although she claims to be fully content with her lot in life, she keeps the flowers to remind her of how she used to look. She may go on with her life uncomplainingly, but she does not go on without a secret reserve of regret. The revelatory confrontation between Lady Dedlock and Esther brings a secret to the surface, but their brief encounter focuses on the necessity of protecting that secret still further. Esther divines Lady Dedlock's secret as soon as she sees the handkerchief and, like Lady Dedlock, is overcome with violent emotion. Their happiness at finding each other is brief, and the overarching tone of this encounter is fearful. Esther is unsettled to see Lady Dedlock at her feet, asking her forgiveness. Lady Dedlock is newly consumed by her own guilt, referring to the "dark road" she must follow and declaring herself to be "wretched and dishonoring." Lady Dedlock's fear of being discovered overshadows any happiness or relief she may feel at finally revealing her secret. She has just connected with the daughter she thought was dead, and yet she asserts that they can never meet or talk again. She is almost looking over her shoulder as they speak, and she and Esther conspire about who suspects their relationship. Both vow to keep the secret at all costs, and while they can't pursue a public relationship, this secret binds them together. The narrator's scathing portrayal of Mr. Vholes in chapter 38 indicts the legal system as a self-perpetuating waste and lawyers as cannibals. The narrator draws an analogy that directly connects Vholes and his family to "cannibal chiefs" and says, "Make man-eating un-lawful, and you starve the Vholeses!" The endless Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit is a dream job for Vholes, since the case will never end and Vholes can extract money from Richard indefinitely. The narrator is not subtle in his descriptions, leaving no question that Vholes is immoral, untrustworthy, and dangerous. These views are underscored by the narrator's repetition of the statement, "Mr. Vholes is a very respectable man." The more we know about Vholes, the more sarcastic this statement becomes. Because of men like Vholes, the legal system has ceased to serve the people and instead serves only the scheming lawyers who want to make themselves rich.

Chesney Wold Esther and Charley go to Mr. Boythorn's house, which is ready to receive her, while Boythorn is in town. Esther wants to recover her strength in the country before Ada sees her. She has not yet looked in any mirror, and when Charley is asleep, she prays and then looks at her scarred face. She accepts it with a few tears, and it is a weight off her mind. She keeps Woodcourt's bouquet, but as a memory, for "I wished to be generous to him . . . because I could have loved him--could have been devoted to him" . In the village, Esther makes friends easily with the people, who remark on her changed appearance, but accept and love her. Once, when resting in a spot in Chesney Wold that looks on Ghost's Walk, Esther meets Lady Dedlock, who comes expressly to see her. Charley is sent away, and the two have a private interview in which Lady Dedlock admits she is Esther's mother. She weeps and kisses her daughter, giving her a letter explaining her birth and how she did not know of her existence. She says that Esther must keep the secret, and that she herself cannot be helped; she must bear the burden alone, for she is hunted by Tulkinghorn. Esther gives her love to her mother and forgives her. Lady Dedlock gives her leave to confide in her guardian but no one else. Esther feels guilt for having been born and brought misery to her mother. She is frightened of herself and when she walks near the Ghost's Walk and hears her own footsteps, she feels she is the curse on the Dedlocks. Esther soon recovers by getting letters from Ada and her guardian. She has brought love into their lives, and she concludes, "I knew I was as innocent of my birth as a queen of hers" . Ada comes, sees Esther's scars, but loves her just the same.

Commentary on Chapter XXXVI This is a pivotal scene where mother and daughter are reunited and the two strands of plot finally mesh. Many bloodhounds have been on the trail of this connection, and so far only Guppy knows but cannot prove anything. The danger is that Tulkinghorn is close, knowing that Guppy has some piece of the puzzle, and he is about to match the handwriting of Hawdon to the document. Lady Dedlock says, "I must travel my dark road alone . . . This is the earthly punishment I have brought upon myself" . It is not only the crime of having a child out of wedlock, but of hypocrisy, of "murdering within her breast the only love and truth of which it is capable" . She has made her life into a lie and a mask, and now she must die in it. Esther is full of love and pity for her mother, and their reunion fulfills a deep desire in her heart. She decides against guilt, for she has been a blessing to other lives and has love, the one thing her mother could not obtain with all her title and money. Lady Dedlock is the tragic heroine, and Esther is the comic heroine. Together they point out Dickens's moral of what is important in life. The simple genuine life of doing good to others is weighed against those who sell their lives for power and status.


Jarndyce and Jarndyce

If the secret I had to keep had been mine, I must have confided it to
Ada before we had been long together. But it was not mine, and I did
not feel that I had a right to tell it, even to my guardian, unless
some great emergency arose. It was a weight to bear alone; still my
present duty appeared to be plain, and blest in the attachment of my
dear, I did not want an impulse and encouragement to do it. Though
often when she was asleep and all was quiet, the remembrance of my
mother kept me waking and made the night sorrowful, I did not yield
to it at another time; and Ada found me what I used to be--except, of
course, in that particular of which I have said enough and which I
have no intention of mentioning any more just now, if I can help it.

The difficulty that I felt in being quite composed that first evening
when Ada asked me, over our work, if the family were at the house,
and when I was obliged to answer yes, I believed so, for Lady Dedlock
had spoken to me in the woods the day before yesterday, was great.
Greater still when Ada asked me what she had said, and when I replied
that she had been kind and interested, and when Ada, while admitting
her beauty and elegance, remarked upon her proud manner and her
imperious chilling air. But Charley helped me through, unconsciously,
by telling us that Lady Dedlock had only stayed at the house two
nights on her way from London to visit at some other great house in
the next county and that she had left early on the morning after we
had seen her at our view, as we called it. Charley verified the adage
about little pitchers, I am sure, for she heard of more sayings and
doings in a day than would have come to my ears in a month.

We were to stay a month at Mr. Boythorn's. My pet had scarcely been
there a bright week, as I recollect the time, when one evening after
we had finished helping the gardener in watering his flowers, and
just as the candles were lighted, Charley, appearing with a very
important air behind Ada's chair, beckoned me mysteriously out of the
room.

"Oh! If you please, miss," said Charley in a whisper, with her eyes
at their roundest and largest. "You're wanted at the Dedlock Arms."

"Why, Charley," said I, "who can possibly want me at the
public-house?"

"I don't know, miss," returned Charley, putting her head forward and
folding her hands tight upon the band of her little apron, which she
always did in the enjoyment of anything mysterious or confidential,
"but it's a gentleman, miss, and his compliments, and will you please
to come without saying anything about it."

"Whose compliments, Charley?"

"His'n, miss," returned Charley, whose grammatical education was
advancing, but not very rapidly.

"And how do you come to be the messenger, Charley?"

"I am not the messenger, if you please, miss," returned my little
maid. "It was W. Grubble, miss."

"And who is W. Grubble, Charley?"

"Mister Grubble, miss," returned Charley. "Don't you know, miss? The
Dedlock Arms, by W. Grubble," which Charley delivered as if she were
slowly spelling out the sign.

"Aye? The landlord, Charley?"

"Yes, miss. If you please, miss, his wife is a beautiful woman, but
she broke her ankle, and it never joined. And her brother's the
sawyer that was put in the cage, miss, and they expect he'll drink
himself to death entirely on beer," said Charley.

Not knowing what might be the matter, and being easily apprehensive
now, I thought it best to go to this place by myself. I bade Charley
be quick with my bonnet and veil and my shawl, and having put them
on, went away down the little hilly street, where I was as much at
home as in Mr. Boythorn's garden.

Mr. Grubble was standing in his shirt-sleeves at the door of his very
clean little tavern waiting for me. He lifted off his hat with both
hands when he saw me coming, and carrying it so, as if it were an
iron vessel (it looked as heavy), preceded me along the sanded
passage to his best parlour, a neat carpeted room with more plants in
it than were quite convenient, a coloured print of Queen Caroline,
several shells, a good many tea-trays, two stuffed and dried fish in
glass cases, and either a curious egg or a curious pumpkin (but I
don't know which, and I doubt if many people did) hanging from his
ceiling. I knew Mr. Grubble very well by sight, from his often
standing at his door. A pleasant-looking, stoutish, middle-aged man
who never seemed to consider himself cozily dressed for his own
fire-side without his hat and top-boots, but who never wore a coat
except at church.

He snuffed the candle, and backing away a little to see how it
looked, backed out of the room--unexpectedly to me, for I was going
to ask him by whom he had been sent. The door of the opposite parlour
being then opened, I heard some voices, familiar in my ears I
thought, which stopped. A quick light step approached the room in
which I was, and who should stand before me but Richard!

"My dear Esther!" he said. "My best friend!" And he really was so
warm-hearted and earnest that in the first surprise and pleasure of
his brotherly greeting I could scarcely find breath to tell him that
Ada was well.

"Answering my very thoughts--always the same dear girl!" said
Richard, leading me to a chair and seating himself beside me.

I put my veil up, but not quite.

"Always the same dear girl!" said Richard just as heartily as before.

I put up my veil altogether, and laying my hand on Richard's sleeve
and looking in his face, told him how much I thanked him for his kind
welcome and how greatly I rejoiced to see him, the more so because of
the determination I had made in my illness, which I now conveyed to
him.

"My love," said Richard, "there is no one with whom I have a greater
wish to talk than you, for I want you to understand me."

"And I want you, Richard," said I, shaking my head, "to understand
some one else."

"Since you refer so immediately to John Jarndyce," said Richard, "--I
suppose you mean him?"

"Of course I do."

"Then I may say at once that I am glad of it, because it is on that
subject that I am anxious to be understood. By you, mind--you, my
dear! I am not accountable to Mr. Jarndyce or Mr. Anybody."

I was pained to find him taking this tone, and he observed it.

"Well, well, my dear," said Richard, "we won't go into that now. I
want to appear quietly in your country-house here, with you under my
arm, and give my charming cousin a surprise. I suppose your loyalty
to John Jarndyce will allow that?"

"My dear Richard," I returned, "you know you would be heartily
welcome at his house--your home, if you will but consider it so; and
you are as heartily welcome here!"

"Spoken like the best of little women!" cried Richard gaily.

I asked him how he liked his profession.

"Oh, I like it well enough!" said Richard. "It's all right. It does
as well as anything else, for a time. I don't know that I shall care
about it when I come to be settled, but I can sell out then
and--however, never mind all that botheration at present."

So young and handsome, and in all respects so perfectly the opposite
of Miss Flite! And yet, in the clouded, eager, seeking look that
passed over him, so dreadfully like her!

"I am in town on leave just now," said Richard.

"Indeed?"

"Yes. I have run over to look after my--my Chancery interests before
the long vacation," said Richard, forcing a careless laugh. "We are
beginning to spin along with that old suit at last, I promise you."

No wonder that I shook my head!

"As you say, it's not a pleasant subject." Richard spoke with the
same shade crossing his face as before. "Let it go to the four winds
for to-night. Puff! Gone! Who do you suppose is with me?"

"Was it Mr. Skimpole's voice I heard?"

"That's the man! He does me more good than anybody. What a
fascinating child it is!"

I asked Richard if any one knew of their coming down together. He
answered, no, nobody. He had been to call upon the dear old
infant--so he called Mr. Skimpole--and the dear old infant had told
him where we were, and he had told the dear old infant he was bent on
coming to see us, and the dear old infant had directly wanted to come
too; and so he had brought him. "And he is worth--not to say his
sordid expenses--but thrice his weight in gold," said Richard. "He is
such a cheery fellow. No worldliness about him. Fresh and
green-hearted!"

I certainly did not see the proof of Mr. Skimpole's worldliness in
his having his expenses paid by Richard, but I made no remark about
that. Indeed, he came in and turned our conversation. He was charmed
to see me, said he had been shedding delicious tears of joy and
sympathy at intervals for six weeks on my account, had never been so
happy as in hearing of my progress, began to understand the mixture
of good and evil in the world now, felt that he appreciated health
the more when somebody else was ill, didn't know but what it might be
in the scheme of things that A should squint to make B happier in
looking straight or that C should carry a wooden leg to make D better
satisfied with his flesh and blood in a silk stocking.

"My dear Miss Summerson, here is our friend Richard," said Mr.
Skimpole, "full of the brightest visions of the future, which he
evokes out of the darkness of Chancery. Now that's delightful, that's
inspiriting, that's full of poetry! In old times the woods and
solitudes were made joyous to the shepherd by the imaginary piping
and dancing of Pan and the nymphs. This present shepherd, our
pastoral Richard, brightens the dull Inns of Court by making Fortune
and her train sport through them to the melodious notes of a judgment
from the bench. That's very pleasant, you know! Some ill-conditioned
growling fellow may say to me, 'What's the use of these legal and
equitable abuses? How do you defend them?' I reply, 'My growling
friend, I DON'T defend them, but they are very agreeable to me. There
is a shepherd--youth, a friend of mine, who transmutes them into
something highly fascinating to my simplicity. I don't say it is for
this that they exist--for I am a child among you worldly grumblers,
and not called upon to account to you or myself for anything--but it
may be so.'"

I began seriously to think that Richard could scarcely have found a
worse friend than this. It made me uneasy that at such a time when he
most required some right principle and purpose he should have this
captivating looseness and putting-off of everything, this airy
dispensing with all principle and purpose, at his elbow. I thought I
could understand how such a nature as my guardian's, experienced in
the world and forced to contemplate the miserable evasions and
contentions of the family misfortune, found an immense relief in Mr.
Skimpole's avowal of his weaknesses and display of guileless candour;
but I could not satisfy myself that it was as artless as it seemed or
that it did not serve Mr. Skimpole's idle turn quite as well as any
other part, and with less trouble.

They both walked back with me, and Mr. Skimpole leaving us at the
gate, I walked softly in with Richard and said, "Ada, my love, I have
brought a gentleman to visit you." It was not difficult to read the
blushing, startled face. She loved him dearly, and he knew it, and I
knew it. It was a very transparent business, that meeting as cousins
only.

I almost mistrusted myself as growing quite wicked in my suspicions,
but I was not so sure that Richard loved her dearly. He admired her
very much--any one must have done that--and I dare say would have
renewed their youthful engagement with great pride and ardour but
that he knew how she would respect her promise to my guardian. Still
I had a tormenting idea that the influence upon him extended even
here, that he was postponing his best truth and earnestness in this
as in all things until Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be off his mind.
Ah me! What Richard would have been without that blight, I never
shall know now!

He told Ada, in his most ingenuous way, that he had not come to make
any secret inroad on the terms she had accepted (rather too
implicitly and confidingly, he thought) from Mr. Jarndyce, that he
had come openly to see her and to see me and to justify himself for
the present terms on which he stood with Mr. Jarndyce. As the dear
old infant would be with us directly, he begged that I would make an
appointment for the morning, when he might set himself right through
the means of an unreserved conversation with me. I proposed to walk
with him in the park at seven o'clock, and this was arranged. Mr.
Skimpole soon afterwards appeared and made us merry for an hour. He
particularly requested to see little Coavinses (meaning Charley) and
told her, with a patriarchal air, that he had given her late father
all the business in his power and that if one of her little brothers
would make haste to get set up in the same profession, he hoped he
should still be able to put a good deal of employment in his way.

"For I am constantly being taken in these nets," said Mr. Skimpole,
looking beamingly at us over a glass of wine-and-water, "and am
constantly being bailed out--like a boat. Or paid off--like a ship's
company. Somebody always does it for me. I can't do it, you know, for
I never have any money. But somebody does it. I get out by somebody's
means; I am not like the starling; I get out. If you were to ask me
who somebody is, upon my word I couldn't tell you. Let us drink to
somebody. God bless him!"

Richard was a little late in the morning, but I had not to wait for
him long, and we turned into the park. The air was bright and dewy
and the sky without a cloud. The birds sang delightfully; the
sparkles in the fern, the grass, and trees, were exquisite to see;
the richness of the woods seemed to have increased twenty-fold since
yesterday, as if, in the still night when they had looked so
massively hushed in sleep, Nature, through all the minute details of
every wonderful leaf, had been more wakeful than usual for the glory
of that day.

"This is a lovely place," said Richard, looking round. "None of the
jar and discord of law-suits here!"

But there was other trouble.

"I tell you what, my dear girl," said Richard, "when I get affairs in
general settled, I shall come down here, I think, and rest."

"Would it not be better to rest now?" I asked.

"Oh, as to resting NOW," said Richard, "or as to doing anything very
definite NOW, that's not easy. In short, it can't be done; I can't do
it at least."

"Why not?" said I.

"You know why not, Esther. If you were living in an unfinished house,
liable to have the roof put on or taken off--to be from top to bottom
pulled down or built up--to-morrow, next day, next week, next month,
next year--you would find it hard to rest or settle. So do I. Now?
There's no now for us suitors."

I could almost have believed in the attraction on which my poor
little wandering friend had expatiated when I saw again the darkened
look of last night. Terrible to think it had in it also a shade of
that unfortunate man who had died.

"My dear Richard," said I, "this is a bad beginning of our
conversation."

"I knew you would tell me so, Dame Durden."

"And not I alone, dear Richard. It was not I who cautioned you once
never to found a hope or expectation on the family curse."

"There you come back to John Jarndyce!" said Richard impatiently.
"Well! We must approach him sooner or later, for he is the staple of
what I have to say, and it's as well at once. My dear Esther, how can
you be so blind? Don't you see that he is an interested party and
that it may be very well for him to wish me to know nothing of the
suit, and care nothing about it, but that it may not be quite so well
for me?"

"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
   sake, and for your own, and in a natural repugnance for
   that source of trouble which had its share in making us
   both orphans when we were very young, pray, pray, let it
   go for ever. We have reason to know by this time that
   there is no good in it and no hope, that there is nothing
   to be got from it but sorrow.

   My dearest cousin, it is needless for me to say that you
   are quite free and that it is very likely you may find
   some one whom you will love much better than your first
   fancy. I am quite sure, if you will let me say so, that
   the object of your choice would greatly prefer to follow
   your fortunes far and wide, however moderate or poor, and
   see you happy, doing your duty and pursuing your chosen
   way, than to have the hope of being, or even to be, very
   rich with you (if such a thing were possible) at the cost
   of dragging years of procrastination and anxiety and of
   your indifference to other aims. You may wonder at my
   saying this so confidently with so little knowledge or
   experience, but I know it for a certainty from my own
   heart.

   Ever, my dearest cousin, your most affectionate

   Ada

This note brought Richard to us very soon, but it made little change
in him if any. We would fairly try, he said, who was right and who
was wrong--he would show us--we should see! He was animated and
glowing, as if Ada's tenderness had gratified him; but I could only
hope, with a sigh, that the letter might have some stronger effect
upon his mind on re-perusal than it assuredly had then.

As they were to remain with us that day and had taken their places to
return by the coach next morning, I sought an opportunity of speaking
to Mr. Skimpole. Our out-of-door life easily threw one in my way, and
I delicately said that there was a responsibility in encouraging
Richard.

"Responsibility, my dear Miss Summerson?" he repeated, catching at
the word with the pleasantest smile. "I am the last man in the world
for such a thing. I never was responsible in my life--I can't be."

"I am afraid everybody is obliged to be," said I timidly enough, he
being so much older and more clever than I.

"No, really?" said Mr. Skimpole, receiving this new light with a most
agreeable jocularity of surprise. "But every man's not obliged to be
solvent? I am not. I never was. See, my dear Miss Summerson," he took
a handful of loose silver and halfpence from his pocket, "there's so
much money. I have not an idea how much. I have not the power of
counting. Call it four and ninepence--call it four pound nine. They
tell me I owe more than that. I dare say I do. I dare say I owe as
much as good-natured people will let me owe. If they don't stop, why
should I? There you have Harold Skimpole in little. If that's
responsibility, I am responsible."

The perfect ease of manner with which he put the money up again and
looked at me with a smile on his refined face, as if he had been
mentioning a curious little fact about somebody else, almost made me
feel as if he really had nothing to do with it.

"Now, when you mention responsibility," he resumed, "I am disposed to
say that I never had the happiness of knowing any one whom I should
consider so refreshingly responsible as yourself. You appear to me
to be the very touchstone of responsibility. When I see you, my
dear Miss Summerson, intent upon the perfect working of the whole
little orderly system of which you are the centre, I feel inclined
to say to myself--in fact I do say to myself very often--THAT'S
responsibility!"

It was difficult, after this, to explain what I meant; but I
persisted so far as to say that we all hoped he would check and not
confirm Richard in the sanguine views he entertained just then.

"Most willingly," he retorted, "if I could. But, my dear Miss
Summerson, I have no art, no disguise. If he takes me by the hand and
leads me through Westminster Hall in an airy procession after
fortune, I must go. If he says, 'Skimpole, join the dance!' I must
join it. Common sense wouldn't, I know, but I have NO common sense."

It was very unfortunate for Richard, I said.

"Do you think so!" returned Mr. Skimpole. "Don't say that, don't say
that. Let us suppose him keeping company with Common Sense--an
excellent man--a good deal wrinkled--dreadfully practical--change for
a ten-pound note in every pocket--ruled account-book in his
hand--say, upon the whole, resembling a tax-gatherer. Our dear
Richard, sanguine, ardent, overleaping obstacles, bursting with
poetry like a young bud, says to this highly respectable companion,
'I see a golden prospect before me; it's very bright, it's very
beautiful, it's very joyous; here I go, bounding over the landscape
to come at it!' The respectable companion instantly knocks him down
with the ruled account-book; tells him in a literal, prosaic way that
he sees no such thing; shows him it's nothing but fees, fraud,
horsehair wigs, and black gowns. Now you know that's a painful
change--sensible in the last degree, I have no doubt, but
disagreeable. I can't do it. I haven't got the ruled account-book, I
have none of the tax-gathering elements in my composition, I am not
at all respectable, and I don't want to be. Odd perhaps, but so it
is!"

It was idle to say more, so I proposed that we should join Ada and
Richard, who were a little in advance, and I gave up Mr. Skimpole in
despair. He had been over the Hall in the course of the morning and
whimsically described the family pictures as we walked. There were
such portentous shepherdesses among the Ladies Dedlock dead and gone,
he told us, that peaceful crooks became weapons of assault in their
hands. They tended their flocks severely in buckram and powder and
put their sticking-plaster patches on to terrify commoners as the
chiefs of some other tribes put on their war-paint. There was a Sir
Somebody Dedlock, with a battle, a sprung-mine, volumes of smoke,
flashes of lightning, a town on fire, and a stormed fort, all in full
action between his horse's two hind legs, showing, he supposed, how
little a Dedlock made of such trifles. The whole race he represented
as having evidently been, in life, what he called "stuffed people"--a
large collection, glassy eyed, set up in the most approved manner on
their various twigs and perches, very correct, perfectly free from
animation, and always in glass cases.

I was not so easy now during any reference to the name but that I
felt it a relief when Richard, with an exclamation of surprise,
hurried away to meet a stranger whom he first descried coming slowly
towards us.

"Dear me!" said Mr. Skimpole. "Vholes!"

We asked if that were a friend of Richard's.

"Friend and legal adviser," said Mr. Skimpole. "Now, my dear Miss
Summerson, if you want common sense, responsibility, and
respectability, all united--if you want an exemplary man--Vholes is
THE man."

We had not known, we said, that Richard was assisted by any gentleman
of that name.

"When he emerged from legal infancy," returned Mr. Skimpole, "he
parted from our conversational friend Kenge and took up, I believe,
with Vholes. Indeed, I know he did, because I introduced him to
Vholes."

"Had you known him long?" asked Ada.

"Vholes? My dear Miss Clare, I had had that kind of acquaintance with
him which I have had with several gentlemen of his profession. He had
done something or other in a very agreeable, civil manner--taken
proceedings, I think, is the expression--which ended in the
proceeding of his taking ME. Somebody was so good as to step in and
pay the money--something and fourpence was the amount; I forget the
pounds and shillings, but I know it ended with fourpence, because it
struck me at the time as being so odd that I could owe anybody
fourpence--and after that I brought them together. Vholes asked me
for the introduction, and I gave it. Now I come to think of it," he
looked inquiringly at us with his frankest smile as he made the
discovery, "Vholes bribed me, perhaps? He gave me something and
called it commission. Was it a five-pound note? Do you know, I think
it MUST have been a five-pound note!"

His further consideration of the point was prevented by Richard's
coming back to us in an excited state and hastily representing Mr.
Vholes--a sallow man with pinched lips that looked as if they were
cold, a red eruption here and there upon his face, tall and thin,
about fifty years of age, high-shouldered, and stooping. Dressed in
black, black-gloved, and buttoned to the chin, there was nothing so
remarkable in him as a lifeless manner and a slow, fixed way he had
of looking at Richard.

"I hope I don't disturb you, ladies," said Mr. Vholes, and now I
observed that he was further remarkable for an inward manner of
speaking. "I arranged with Mr. Carstone that he should always know
when his cause was in the Chancellor's paper, and being informed by
one of my clerks last night after post time that it stood, rather
unexpectedly, in the paper for to-morrow, I put myself into the coach
early this morning and came down to confer with him."

"Yes," said Richard, flushed, and looking triumphantly at Ada and me,
"we don't do these things in the old slow way now. We spin along now!
Mr. Vholes, we must hire something to get over to the post town in,
and catch the mail to-night, and go up by it!"

"Anything you please, sir," returned Mr. Vholes. "I am quite at your
service."

"Let me see," said Richard, looking at his watch. "If I run down to
the Dedlock, and get my portmanteau fastened up, and order a gig, or
a chaise, or whatever's to be got, we shall have an hour then before
starting. I'll come back to tea. Cousin Ada, will you and Esther take
care of Mr. Vholes when I am gone?"

He was away directly, in his heat and hurry, and was soon lost in the
dusk of evening. We who were left walked on towards the house.

"Is Mr. Carstone's presence necessary to-morrow, Sir?" said I. "Can
it do any good?"

"No, miss," Mr. Vholes replied. "I am not aware that it can."

Both Ada and I expressed our regret that he should go, then, only to
be disappointed.

"Mr. Carstone has laid down the principle of watching his own
interests," said Mr. Vholes, "and when a client lays down his own
principle, and it is not immoral, it devolves upon me to carry it
out. I wish in business to be exact and open. I am a widower with
three daughters--Emma, Jane, and Caroline--and my desire is so to
discharge the duties of life as to leave them a good name. This
appears to be a pleasant spot, miss."

The remark being made to me in consequence of my being next him as we
walked, I assented and enumerated its chief attractions.

"Indeed?" said Mr. Vholes. "I have the privilege of supporting an
aged father in the Vale of Taunton--his native place--and I admire
that country very much. I had no idea there was anything so
attractive here."

To keep up the conversation, I asked Mr. Vholes if he would like to
live altogether in the country.

"There, miss," said he, "you touch me on a tender string. My health
is not good (my digestion being much impaired), and if I had only
myself to consider, I should take refuge in rural habits, especially
as the cares of business have prevented me from ever coming much into
contact with general society, and particularly with ladies' society,
which I have most wished to mix in. But with my three daughters,
Emma, Jane, and Caroline--and my aged father--I cannot afford to be
selfish. It is true I have no longer to maintain a dear grandmother
who died in her hundred and second year, but enough remains to render
it indispensable that the mill should be always going."

It required some attention to hear him on account of his inward
speaking and his lifeless manner.

"You will excuse my having mentioned my daughters," he said. "They
are my weak point. I wish to leave the poor girls some little
independence, as well as a good name."

We now arrived at Mr. Boythorn's house, where the tea-table, all
prepared, was awaiting us. Richard came in restless and hurried
shortly afterwards, and leaning over Mr. Vholes's chair, whispered
something in his ear. Mr. Vholes replied aloud--or as nearly aloud I
suppose as he had ever replied to anything--"You will drive me, will
you, sir? It is all the same to me, sir. Anything you please. I am
quite at your service."

We understood from what followed that Mr. Skimpole was to be left
until the morning to occupy the two places which had been already
paid for. As Ada and I were both in low spirits concerning Richard
and very sorry so to part with him, we made it as plain as we
politely could that we should leave Mr. Skimpole to the Dedlock Arms
and retire when the night-travellers were gone.

Richard's high spirits carrying everything before them, we all went
out together to the top of the hill above the village, where he had
ordered a gig to wait and where we found a man with a lantern
standing at the head of the gaunt pale horse that had been harnessed
to it.

I never shall forget those two seated side by side in the lantern's
light, Richard all flush and fire and laughter, with the reins in his
hand; Mr. Vholes quite still, black-gloved, and buttoned up, looking
at him as if he were looking at his prey and charming it. I have
before me the whole picture of the warm dark night, the summer
lightning, the dusty track of road closed in by hedgerows and high
trees, the gaunt pale horse with his ears pricked up, and the driving
away at speed to Jarndyce and Jarndyce.

My dear girl told me that night how Richard's being thereafter
prosperous or ruined, befriended or deserted, could only make this
difference to her, that the more he needed love from one unchanging
heart, the more love that unchanging heart would have to give him;
how he thought of her through his present errors, and she would think
of him at all times--never of herself if she could devote herself to
him, never of her own delights if she could minister to his.

And she kept her word?

I look along the road before me, where the distance already shortens
and the journey's end is growing visible; and true and good above the
dead sea of the Chancery suit and all the ashy fruit it cast ashore,
I think I see my darling.

Esther doesn't tell anyone about the whole Lady-Dedlock-is-my-mom situation, but every time the name comes up her heart skips a beat. A few weeks later she has a visitor at the village inn. This is kind of weird, because why wouldn't the person just come to the house? Esther goes to check it out and finds... Richard! OK, you already knew that because you read the list of characters in this chapter. He's happy to see her, doesn't react to her face in any way, but immediately launches into his conspiracy theory about Jarndyce. He thinks Jarndyce is trying to keep him away from the lawsuit to get some kind of advantage over him. Esther is sad to see Miss Flite's prediction about Richard becoming obsessed with Chancery coming true. Richard has also brought Skimpole with him, who is apparently now leeching off Richard. Skimpole is not such a great influence in the best-case scenario, and this is very far from the best case. Skimpole does his usual song-and-dance about being totally irresponsible and not knowing anything about anything, but Esther pretty clearly tells us that she is onto him and understands that he is not as innocent and naive as he pretends to be. Well, duh. Richard asks Esther to tell Ada that he is working really hard for both of them. Too bad it's not at some actual job, but instead he's just getting deeper and deeper into debt trying to follow the court case. He also passes along a message that as soon as Ada is no longer a minor he's going to re-propose to her. In response, Ada writes Richard a letter telling to him to lay off the case already and not to worry about her. Meanwhile Esther tries to talk to Skimpole and get him to leave Richard alone. Both the letter and the conversation totally fail. Both of these guys are way past a stern talking-to. The next day Richard comes to visit Ada, and all is very nice, until the arrival of Richard's new lawyer, Mr. Vholes. Skimpole says he has known Vholes for a long time, since he is always running afoul of the law. Then he casually drops the bomb that Vholes actually bribed him for an introduction to Richard. That's some predatory behavior, there. This guy looks like death warmed over. He's coming to tell Richard that his case is actually on the docket for the next day - because apparently Richard wants to be physically in court every time the case comes up. Richard speeds off to book some carriage tickets for the trip. Meanwhile, Mr. Vholes tells Esther and Ada about his three daughters and his aging father, all of whom he supports. Meaning? Richard is a cash cow and he's never going to get his claws off of him. Finally Richard and Vholes drive off with a horse and rider that look to Esther like one of the Biblical horsemen of the apocalypse. Um, we guess that qualifies as a spoiler alert.

One evening during the month-long visit at Boythorn's estate, Charley whispers to Esther, "You're wanted at the Dedlock Arms." At the inn, Esther finds Richard Carstone and Mr. Skimpole, whom Richard has come to admire: Skimpole, Richard says, is "worth . . . thrice his weight in gold." Esther realizes that "Richard could scarcely have found a worse friend." Richard, on leave from the army, is trying to bring his "Chancery interests" to a fruitful conclusion. Esther takes him to the house, where he and Ada meet again. Ada still loves Richard but Esther thinks he is too hostile to Mr. Jarndyce and too preoccupied with the Chancery suit to be genuinely in love with Ada. He asks Esther to tell Ada that he is still unable to see eye to eye with Mr. Jarndyce and is hopeful of good results at last from the suit in Chancery. By letter, Ada replies that the best thing he can do is to desist from building his future on the hope of an inheritance through the court. Skimpole has introduced Richard to Mr. Vholes, who now serves as Richard's adviser. Vholes is a venal and uninteresting person.

The motif of Richard's course toward self-destruction continues. Dickens reinforces the reader's critical attitude toward Richard by having the young man befriend another foolish and totally irresponsible human being, Harold Skimpole.

"Jarndyce and Jarndyce" Esther tells no one about Lady Dedlock. One day, Mr. Grubble, the landlord of the public house Dedlock Arms, summons Esther. When she arrives, she finds Richard there. He is on leave and has come to check up on his interests in the Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit. Mr. Skimpole is with him and is glad Richard's involved with the suit. Esther brings Richard to Ada, but she suspects Richard doesn't love her as he says he does. The next day, Richard tells Esther more about his pursuit of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. He says he and Mr. Jarndyce have parted ways and that the suit is his one goal now. Ada writes Richard a letter trying to dissuade him, but to no avail. Esther tries to convince Mr. Skimpole not to support Richard's goal, since it's irresponsible, but Mr. Skimpole says he can't possibly be responsible. Later, when Richard goes off to meet someone, Mr. Skimpole says he is going to meet Mr. Vholes, his legal advisor. Skimpole admits that Vholes paid him to be introduced to Richard. Richard returns with Vholes and introduces him to everyone. Vholes says he does everything for the sake of his three daughters and his aging father. He and Richard depart so that Richard can attend to the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case the next day. Ada tells Esther that she'll love Richard even if the lawsuit ruins him

Jarndyce and Jarndyce Esther feels the weight of her mother's secret and does not tell anyone. Richard and Mr. Skimpole come down to see Ada and Esther. Richard wants to explain his side of the argument with Mr. Jarndyce. Richard is on leave, looking over some Chancery business. Esther thinks the irresponsible Skimpole is the worst friend he could have now. Ada and Richard are reunited. She still loves him, but Esther sees that Richard is being eaten up by the court case. He explains it is like living in an unfinished house, so there is no now for a suitor, always waiting for the business to finish. Richard argues that Mr. Jarndyce is an interested party, his enemy in the suit, and that is why he divided the lovers. Richard continues to hope for himself and Ada because under either will, they will get money. It is just a matter of getting a judgment. Esther argues with him in vain, pointing out the virtue of Mr. Jarndyce, and the futility of waiting for something that may never come. He says it can't last forever, especially if he makes it the object of his life. Esther concludes, "Richard was losing himself, and scattering his whole life to the winds" . Ada writes Richard a letter defending Mr. Jarndyce and asking him not to continue the suit. She tells Esther that no matter what happens to Richard, she will be the one person true to him. Richard's legal advisor, Vholes, comes down to fetch him for the court date. Vholes admits to Esther Richard is not needed in court, but he does what his clients want.

Commentary on Chapter XXXVII Esther hints that the suit has twisted Richard's judgment, and he comments, "it taints everyone" . Esther sees only her guardian and Ada to be "true and good above the dead sea of the Chancery suit" . She asks if there is any justice in the case, and Richard sounds like Miss Flite when he says, "There is truth and justice somewhere in the case" . Skimpole is his flighty and comic self in discussing Richard's situation, which he sees clearly and can satirize, but won't help, even when Esther asks him to. Dickens continues to use Skimpole throughout the story for his satiric and light touches, even in dark moments. Skimpole has visited the Dedlock mansion and sees only "stuffed people" there, as in a museum, another comment on the uselessness of clinging to the past. Skimpole likes to ridicule things without taking action about anything. The lawyer Vholes is another creepy lawyer, named for the vole, or rodent, whose only agenda is to ruthlessly get money out of his clients, not really to advise their best interest. He mentions how many family members he has to support, and so "the mill" must always be going . Esther sees him looking at Richard as if "looking at his prey and charming it" .