Esther's Narrative

Soon after I had that conversation with my guardian, he put a sealed
paper in my hand one morning and said, "This is for next month, my
dear." I found in it two hundred pounds.

I now began very quietly to make such preparations as I thought were
necessary. Regulating my purchases by my guardian's taste, which I
knew very well of course, I arranged my wardrobe to please him and
hoped I should be highly successful. I did it all so quietly because
I was not quite free from my old apprehension that Ada would be
rather sorry and because my guardian was so quiet himself. I had no
doubt that under all the circumstances we should be married in the
most private and simple manner. Perhaps I should only have to say to
Ada, "Would you like to come and see me married to-morrow, my pet?"
Perhaps our wedding might even be as unpretending as her own, and I
might not find it necessary to say anything about it until it was
over. I thought that if I were to choose, I would like this best.

The only exception I made was Mrs. Woodcourt. I told her that I was
going to be married to my guardian and that we had been engaged some
time. She highly approved. She could never do enough for me and was
remarkably softened now in comparison with what she had been when we
first knew her. There was no trouble she would not have taken to have
been of use to me, but I need hardly say that I only allowed her to
take as little as gratified her kindness without tasking it.

Of course this was not a time to neglect my guardian, and of course
it was not a time for neglecting my darling. So I had plenty of
occupation, which I was glad of; and as to Charley, she was
absolutely not to be seen for needlework. To surround herself with
great heaps of it--baskets full and tables full--and do a little, and
spend a great deal of time in staring with her round eyes at what
there was to do, and persuade herself that she was going to do it,
were Charley's great dignities and delights.

Meanwhile, I must say, I could not agree with my guardian on the
subject of the will, and I had some sanguine hopes of Jarndyce and
Jarndyce. Which of us was right will soon appear, but I certainly did
encourage expectations. In Richard, the discovery gave occasion for a
burst of business and agitation that buoyed him up for a little time,
but he had lost the elasticity even of hope now and seemed to me to
retain only its feverish anxieties. From something my guardian said
one day when we were talking about this, I understood that my
marriage would not take place until after the term-time we had been
told to look forward to; and I thought the more, for that, how
rejoiced I should be if I could be married when Richard and Ada were
a little more prosperous.

The term was very near indeed when my guardian was called out of town
and went down into Yorkshire on Mr. Woodcourt's business. He had told
me beforehand that his presence there would be necessary. I had just
come in one night from my dear girl's and was sitting in the midst of
all my new clothes, looking at them all around me and thinking, when
a letter from my guardian was brought to me. It asked me to join him
in the country and mentioned by what stage-coach my place was taken
and at what time in the morning I should have to leave town. It added
in a postscript that I would not be many hours from Ada.

I expected few things less than a journey at that time, but I was
ready for it in half an hour and set off as appointed early next
morning. I travelled all day, wondering all day what I could be
wanted for at such a distance; now I thought it might be for this
purpose, and now I thought it might be for that purpose, but I was
never, never, never near the truth.

It was night when I came to my journey's end and found my guardian
waiting for me. This was a great relief, for towards evening I had
begun to fear (the more so as his letter was a very short one) that
he might be ill. However, there he was, as well as it was possible to
be; and when I saw his genial face again at its brightest and best, I
said to myself, he has been doing some other great kindness. Not that
it required much penetration to say that, because I knew that his
being there at all was an act of kindness.

Supper was ready at the hotel, and when we were alone at table he
said, "Full of curiosity, no doubt, little woman, to know why I have
brought you here?"

"Well, guardian," said I, "without thinking myself a Fatima or you a
Blue Beard, I am a little curious about it."

"Then to ensure your night's rest, my love," he returned gaily, "I
won't wait until to-morrow to tell you. I have very much wished to
express to Woodcourt, somehow, my sense of his humanity to poor
unfortunate Jo, his inestimable services to my young cousins, and his
value to us all. When it was decided that he should settle here, it
came into my head that I might ask his acceptance of some
unpretending and suitable little place to lay his own head in. I
therefore caused such a place to be looked out for, and such a place
was found on very easy terms, and I have been touching it up for him
and making it habitable. However, when I walked over it the day
before yesterday and it was reported ready, I found that I was not
housekeeper enough to know whether things were all as they ought to
be. So I sent off for the best little housekeeper that could possibly
be got to come and give me her advice and opinion. And here she is,"
said my guardian, "laughing and crying both together!"

Because he was so dear, so good, so admirable. I tried to tell him
what I thought of him, but I could not articulate a word.

"Tut, tut!" said my guardian. "You make too much of it, little woman.
Why, how you sob, Dame Durden, how you sob!"

"It is with exquisite pleasure, guardian--with a heart full of
thanks."

"Well, well," said he. "I am delighted that you approve. I thought
you would. I meant it as a pleasant surprise for the little mistress
of Bleak House."

I kissed him and dried my eyes. "I know now!" said I. "I have seen
this in your face a long while."

"No; have you really, my dear?" said he. "What a Dame Durden it is to
read a face!"

He was so quaintly cheerful that I could not long be otherwise, and
was almost ashamed of having been otherwise at all. When I went to
bed, I cried. I am bound to confess that I cried; but I hope it was
with pleasure, though I am not quite sure it was with pleasure. I
repeated every word of the letter twice over.

A most beautiful summer morning succeeded, and after breakfast we
went out arm in arm to see the house of which I was to give my mighty
housekeeping opinion. We entered a flower-garden by a gate in a side
wall, of which he had the key, and the first thing I saw was that the
beds and flowers were all laid out according to the manner of my beds
and flowers at home.

"You see, my dear," observed my guardian, standing still with a
delighted face to watch my looks, "knowing there could be no better
plan, I borrowed yours."

We went on by a pretty little orchard, where the cherries were
nestling among the green leaves and the shadows of the apple-trees
were sporting on the grass, to the house itself--a cottage, quite a
rustic cottage of doll's rooms; but such a lovely place, so tranquil
and so beautiful, with such a rich and smiling country spread around
it; with water sparkling away into the distance, here all overhung
with summer-growth, there turning a humming mill; at its nearest
point glancing through a meadow by the cheerful town, where
cricket-players were assembling in bright groups and a flag was
flying from a white tent that rippled in the sweet west wind. And
still, as we went through the pretty rooms, out at the little rustic
verandah doors, and underneath the tiny wooden colonnades garlanded
with woodbine, jasmine, and honey-suckle, I saw in the papering on
the walls, in the colours of the furniture, in the arrangement of all
the pretty objects, MY little tastes and fancies, MY little methods
and inventions which they used to laugh at while they praised them,
my odd ways everywhere.

I could not say enough in admiration of what was all so beautiful,
but one secret doubt arose in my mind when I saw this, I thought, oh,
would he be the happier for it! Would it not have been better for his
peace that I should not have been so brought before him? Because
although I was not what he thought me, still he loved me very dearly,
and it might remind him mournfully of what be believed he had lost. I
did not wish him to forget me--perhaps he might not have done so,
without these aids to his memory--but my way was easier than his, and
I could have reconciled myself even to that so that he had been the
happier for it.

"And now, little woman," said my guardian, whom I had never seen so
proud and joyful as in showing me these things and watching my
appreciation of them, "now, last of all, for the name of this house."

"What is it called, dear guardian?"

"My child," said he, "come and see,"

He took me to the porch, which he had hitherto avoided, and said,
pausing before we went out, "My dear child, don't you guess the
name?"

"No!" said I.

We went out of the porch and he showed me written over it, Bleak
House.

He led me to a seat among the leaves close by, and sitting down
beside me and taking my hand in his, spoke to me thus, "My darling
girl, in what there has been between us, I have, I hope, been really
solicitous for your happiness. When I wrote you the letter to which
you brought the answer," smiling as he referred to it, "I had my own
too much in view; but I had yours too. Whether, under different
circumstances, I might ever have renewed the old dream I sometimes
dreamed when you were very young, of making you my wife one day, I
need not ask myself. I did renew it, and I wrote my letter, and you
brought your answer. You are following what I say, my child?"

I was cold, and I trembled violently, but not a word he uttered was
lost. As I sat looking fixedly at him and the sun's rays descended,
softly shining through the leaves upon his bare head, I felt as if
the brightness on him must be like the brightness of the angels.

"Hear me, my love, but do not speak. It is for me to speak now. When
it was that I began to doubt whether what I had done would really
make you happy is no matter. Woodcourt came home, and I soon had no
doubt at all."

I clasped him round the neck and hung my head upon his breast and
wept. "Lie lightly, confidently here, my child," said he, pressing me
gently to him. "I am your guardian and your father now. Rest
confidently here."

Soothingly, like the gentle rustling of the leaves; and genially,
like the ripening weather; and radiantly and beneficently, like the
sunshine, he went on.

"Understand me, my dear girl. I had no doubt of your being contented
and happy with me, being so dutiful and so devoted; but I saw with
whom you would be happier. That I penetrated his secret when Dame
Durden was blind to it is no wonder, for I knew the good that could
never change in her better far than she did. Well! I have long been
in Allan Woodcourt's confidence, although he was not, until
yesterday, a few hours before you came here, in mine. But I would not
have my Esther's bright example lost; I would not have a jot of my
dear girl's virtues unobserved and unhonoured; I would not have her
admitted on sufferance into the line of Morgan ap-Kerrig, no, not for
the weight in gold of all the mountains in Wales!"

He stopped to kiss me on the forehead, and I sobbed and wept afresh.
For I felt as if I could not bear the painful delight of his praise.

"Hush, little woman! Don't cry; this is to be a day of joy. I have
looked forward to it," he said exultingly, "for months on months! A
few words more, Dame Trot, and I have said my say. Determined not to
throw away one atom of my Esther's worth, I took Mrs. Woodcourt into
a separate confidence. 'Now, madam,' said I, 'I clearly perceive--and
indeed I know, to boot--that your son loves my ward. I am further
very sure that my ward loves your son, but will sacrifice her love to
a sense of duty and affection, and will sacrifice it so completely,
so entirely, so religiously, that you should never suspect it though
you watched her night and day.' Then I told her all our
story--ours--yours and mine. 'Now, madam,' said I, 'come you, knowing
this, and live with us. Come you, and see my child from hour to hour;
set what you see against her pedigree, which is this, and this'--for
I scorned to mince it--'and tell me what is the true legitimacy when
you shall have quite made up your mind on that subject.' Why, honour
to her old Welsh blood, my dear," cried my guardian with enthusiasm,
"I believe the heart it animates beats no less warmly, no less
admiringly, no less lovingly, towards Dame Durden than my own!"

He tenderly raised my head, and as I clung to him, kissed me in his
old fatherly way again and again. What a light, now, on the
protecting manner I had thought about!

"One more last word. When Allan Woodcourt spoke to you, my dear, he
spoke with my knowledge and consent--but I gave him no encouragement,
not I, for these surprises were my great reward, and I was too
miserly to part with a scrap of it. He was to come and tell me all
that passed, and he did. I have no more to say. My dearest, Allan
Woodcourt stood beside your father when he lay dead--stood beside
your mother. This is Bleak House. This day I give this house its
little mistress; and before God, it is the brightest day in all my
life!"

He rose and raised me with him. We were no longer alone. My
husband--I have called him by that name full seven happy years
now--stood at my side.

"Allan," said my guardian, "take from me a willing gift, the best
wife that ever man had. What more can I say for you than that I know
you deserve her! Take with her the little home she brings you. You
know what she will make it, Allan; you know what she has made its
namesake. Let me share its felicity sometimes, and what do I
sacrifice? Nothing, nothing."

He kissed me once again, and now the tears were in his eyes as he
said more softly, "Esther, my dearest, after so many years, there is
a kind of parting in this too. I know that my mistake has caused you
some distress. Forgive your old guardian, in restoring him to his old
place in your affections; and blot it out of your memory. Allan, take
my dear."

He moved away from under the green roof of leaves, and stopping in
the sunlight outside and turning cheerfully towards us, said, "I
shall be found about here somewhere. It's a west wind, little woman,
due west! Let no one thank me any more, for I am going to revert to
my bachelor habits, and if anybody disregards this warning, I'll run
away and never come back!"

What happiness was ours that day, what joy, what rest, what hope,
what gratitude, what bliss! We were to be married before the month
was out, but when we were to come and take possession of our own
house was to depend on Richard and Ada.

We all three went home together next day. As soon as we arrived in
town, Allan went straight to see Richard and to carry our joyful news
to him and my darling. Late as it was, I meant to go to her for a few
minutes before lying down to sleep, but I went home with my guardian
first to make his tea for him and to occupy the old chair by his
side, for I did not like to think of its being empty so soon.

When we came home we found that a young man had called three times in
the course of that one day to see me and that having been told on the
occasion of his third call that I was not expected to return before
ten o'clock at night, he had left word that he would call about then.
He had left his card three times. Mr. Guppy.

As I naturally speculated on the object of these visits, and as I
always associated something ludicrous with the visitor, it fell out
that in laughing about Mr. Guppy I told my guardian of his old
proposal and his subsequent retraction. "After that," said my
guardian, "we will certainly receive this hero." So instructions were
given that Mr. Guppy should be shown in when he came again, and they
were scarcely given when he did come again.

He was embarrassed when he found my guardian with me, but recovered
himself and said, "How de do, sir?"

"How do you do, sir?" returned my guardian.

"Thank you, sir, I am tolerable," returned Mr. Guppy. "Will you allow
me to introduce my mother, Mrs. Guppy of the Old Street Road, and my
particular friend, Mr. Weevle. That is to say, my friend has gone by
the name of Weevle, but his name is really and truly Jobling."

My guardian begged them to be seated, and they all sat down.

"Tony," said Mr. Guppy to his friend after an awkward silence. "Will
you open the case?"

"Do it yourself," returned the friend rather tartly.

"Well, Mr. Jarndyce, sir," Mr. Guppy, after a moment's consideration,
began, to the great diversion of his mother, which she displayed by
nudging Mr. Jobling with her elbow and winking at me in a most
remarkable manner, "I had an idea that I should see Miss Summerson by
herself and was not quite prepared for your esteemed presence. But
Miss Summerson has mentioned to you, perhaps, that something has
passed between us on former occasions?"

"Miss Summerson," returned my guardian, smiling, "has made a
communication to that effect to me."

"That," said Mr. Guppy, "makes matters easier. Sir, I have come out
of my articles at Kenge and Carboy's, and I believe with satisfaction
to all parties. I am now admitted (after undergoing an examination
that's enough to badger a man blue, touching a pack of nonsense that
he don't want to know) on the roll of attorneys and have taken out my
certificate, if it would be any satisfaction to you to see it."

"Thank you, Mr. Guppy," returned my guardian. "I am quite willing--I
believe I use a legal phrase--to admit the certificate."

Mr. Guppy therefore desisted from taking something out of his pocket
and proceeded without it.

"I have no capital myself, but my mother has a little property which
takes the form of an annuity"--here Mr. Guppy's mother rolled her
head as if she never could sufficiently enjoy the observation, and
put her handkerchief to her mouth, and again winked at me--"and a few
pounds for expenses out of pocket in conducting business will never
be wanting, free of interest, which is an advantage, you know," said
Mr. Guppy feelingly.

"Certainly an advantage," returned my guardian.

"I HAVE some connexion," pursued Mr. Guppy, "and it lays in the
direction of Walcot Square, Lambeth. I have therefore taken a 'ouse
in that locality, which, in the opinion of my friends, is a hollow
bargain (taxes ridiculous, and use of fixtures included in the rent),
and intend setting up professionally for myself there forthwith."

Here Mr. Guppy's mother fell into an extraordinary passion of rolling
her head and smiling waggishly at anybody who would look at her.

"It's a six-roomer, exclusive of kitchens," said Mr. Guppy, "and in
the opinion of my friends, a commodious tenement. When I mention my
friends, I refer principally to my friend Jobling, who I believe has
known me," Mr. Guppy looked at him with a sentimental air, "from
boyhood's hour."

Mr. Jobling confirmed this with a sliding movement of his legs.

"My friend Jobling will render me his assistance in the capacity of
clerk and will live in the 'ouse," said Mr. Guppy. "My mother will
likewise live in the 'ouse when her present quarter in the Old Street
Road shall have ceased and expired; and consequently there will be no
want of society. My friend Jobling is naturally aristocratic by
taste, and besides being acquainted with the movements of the upper
circles, fully backs me in the intentions I am now developing."

Mr. Jobling said "Certainly" and withdrew a little from the elbow of
Mr Guppy's mother.

"Now, I have no occasion to mention to you, sir, you being in the
confidence of Miss Summerson," said Mr. Guppy, "(mother, I wish you'd
be so good as to keep still), that Miss Summerson's image was
formerly imprinted on my 'eart and that I made her a proposal of
marriage."

"That I have heard," returned my guardian.

"Circumstances," pursued Mr. Guppy, "over which I had no control, but
quite the contrary, weakened the impression of that image for a time.
At which time Miss Summerson's conduct was highly genteel; I may even
add, magnanimous."

My guardian patted me on the shoulder and seemed much amused.

"Now, sir," said Mr. Guppy, "I have got into that state of mind
myself that I wish for a reciprocity of magnanimous behaviour. I wish
to prove to Miss Summerson that I can rise to a heighth of which
perhaps she hardly thought me capable. I find that the image which I
did suppose had been eradicated from my 'eart is NOT eradicated. Its
influence over me is still tremenjous, and yielding to it, I am
willing to overlook the circumstances over which none of us have had
any control and to renew those proposals to Miss Summerson which I
had the honour to make at a former period. I beg to lay the 'ouse in
Walcot Square, the business, and myself before Miss Summerson for her
acceptance."

"Very magnanimous indeed, sir," observed my guardian.

"Well, sir," replied Mr. Guppy with candour, "my wish is to BE
magnanimous. I do not consider that in making this offer to Miss
Summerson I am by any means throwing myself away; neither is that the
opinion of my friends. Still, there are circumstances which I submit
may be taken into account as a set off against any little drawbacks
of mine, and so a fair and equitable balance arrived at."

"I take upon myself, sir," said my guardian, laughing as he rang the
bell, "to reply to your proposals on behalf of Miss Summerson. She is
very sensible of your handsome intentions, and wishes you good
evening, and wishes you well."

"Oh!" said Mr. Guppy with a blank look. "Is that tantamount, sir, to
acceptance, or rejection, or consideration?"

"To decided rejection, if you please," returned my guardian.

Mr. Guppy looked incredulously at his friend, and at his mother, who
suddenly turned very angry, and at the floor, and at the ceiling.

"Indeed?" said he. "Then, Jobling, if you was the friend you
represent yourself, I should think you might hand my mother out of
the gangway instead of allowing her to remain where she ain't
wanted."

But Mrs. Guppy positively refused to come out of the gangway. She
wouldn't hear of it. "Why, get along with you," said she to my
guardian, "what do you mean? Ain't my son good enough for you? You
ought to be ashamed of yourself. Get out with you!"

"My good lady," returned my guardian, "it is hardly reasonable to ask
me to get out of my own room."

"I don't care for that," said Mrs. Guppy. "Get out with you. If we
ain't good enough for you, go and procure somebody that is good
enough. Go along and find 'em."

I was quite unprepared for the rapid manner in which Mrs. Guppy's
power of jocularity merged into a power of taking the profoundest
offence.

"Go along and find somebody that's good enough for you," repeated
Mrs. Guppy. "Get out!" Nothing seemed to astonish Mr. Guppy's mother
so much and to make her so very indignant as our not getting out.
"Why don't you get out?" said Mrs. Guppy. "What are you stopping here
for?"

"Mother," interposed her son, always getting before her and pushing
her back with one shoulder as she sidled at my guardian, "WILL you
hold your tongue?"

"No, William," she returned, "I won't! Not unless he gets out, I
won't!"

However, Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling together closed on Mr. Guppy's
mother (who began to be quite abusive) and took her, very much
against her will, downstairs, her voice rising a stair higher every
time her figure got a stair lower, and insisting that we should
immediately go and find somebody who was good enough for us, and
above all things that we should get out.

Beginning the World

The term had commenced, and my guardian found an intimation from Mr.
Kenge that the cause would come on in two days. As I had sufficient
hopes of the will to be in a flutter about it, Allan and I agreed to
go down to the court that morning. Richard was extremely agitated and
was so weak and low, though his illness was still of the mind, that
my dear girl indeed had sore occasion to be supported. But she looked
forward--a very little way now--to the help that was to come to her,
and never drooped.

It was at Westminster that the cause was to come on. It had come on
there, I dare say, a hundred times before, but I could not divest
myself of an idea that it MIGHT lead to some result now. We left home
directly after breakfast to be at Westminster Hall in good time and
walked down there through the lively streets--so happily and
strangely it seemed!--together.

As we were going along, planning what we should do for Richard and
Ada, I heard somebody calling "Esther! My dear Esther! Esther!" And
there was Caddy Jellyby, with her head out of the window of a little
carriage which she hired now to go about in to her pupils (she had so
many), as if she wanted to embrace me at a hundred yards' distance. I
had written her a note to tell her of all that my guardian had done,
but had not had a moment to go and see her. Of course we turned back,
and the affectionate girl was in that state of rapture, and was so
overjoyed to talk about the night when she brought me the flowers,
and was so determined to squeeze my face (bonnet and all) between her
hands, and go on in a wild manner altogether, calling me all kinds of
precious names, and telling Allan I had done I don't know what for
her, that I was just obliged to get into the little carriage and calm
her down by letting her say and do exactly what she liked. Allan,
standing at the window, was as pleased as Caddy; and I was as pleased
as either of them; and I wonder that I got away as I did, rather than
that I came off laughing, and red, and anything but tidy, and looking
after Caddy, who looked after us out of the coach-window as long as
she could see us.

This made us some quarter of an hour late, and when we came to
Westminster Hall we found that the day's business was begun. Worse
than that, we found such an unusual crowd in the Court of Chancery
that it was full to the door, and we could neither see nor hear what
was passing within. It appeared to be something droll, for
occasionally there was a laugh and a cry of "Silence!" It appeared to
be something interesting, for every one was pushing and striving to
get nearer. It appeared to be something that made the professional
gentlemen very merry, for there were several young counsellors in
wigs and whiskers on the outside of the crowd, and when one of them
told the others about it, they put their hands in their pockets, and
quite doubled themselves up with laughter, and went stamping about
the pavement of the Hall.

We asked a gentleman by us if he knew what cause was on. He told us
Jarndyce and Jarndyce. We asked him if he knew what was doing in it.
He said really, no he did not, nobody ever did, but as well as he
could make out, it was over. Over for the day? we asked him. No, he
said, over for good.

Over for good!

When we heard this unaccountable answer, we looked at one another
quite lost in amazement. Could it be possible that the will had set
things right at last and that Richard and Ada were going to be rich?
It seemed too good to be true. Alas it was!

Our suspense was short, for a break-up soon took place in the crowd,
and the people came streaming out looking flushed and hot and
bringing a quantity of bad air with them. Still they were all
exceedingly amused and were more like people coming out from a farce
or a juggler than from a court of justice. We stood aside, watching
for any countenance we knew, and presently great bundles of paper
began to be carried out--bundles in bags, bundles too large to be got
into any bags, immense masses of papers of all shapes and no shapes,
which the bearers staggered under, and threw down for the time being,
anyhow, on the Hall pavement, while they went back to bring out more.
Even these clerks were laughing. We glanced at the papers, and seeing
Jarndyce and Jarndyce everywhere, asked an official-looking person
who was standing in the midst of them whether the cause was over.
Yes, he said, it was all up with it at last, and burst out laughing
too.

At this juncture we perceived Mr. Kenge coming out of court with an
affable dignity upon him, listening to Mr. Vholes, who was
deferential and carried his own bag. Mr. Vholes was the first to see
us. "Here is Miss Summerson, sir," he said. "And Mr. Woodcourt."

"Oh, indeed! Yes. Truly!" said Mr. Kenge, raising his hat to me with
polished politeness. "How do you do? Glad to see you. Mr. Jarndyce is
not here?"

No. He never came there, I reminded him.

"Really," returned Mr. Kenge, "it is as well that he is NOT here
to-day, for his--shall I say, in my good friend's absence, his
indomitable singularity of opinion?--might have been strengthened,
perhaps; not reasonably, but might have been strengthened."

"Pray what has been done to-day?" asked Allan.

"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Kenge with excessive urbanity.

"What has been done to-day?"

"What has been done," repeated Mr. Kenge. "Quite so. Yes. Why, not
much has been done; not much. We have been checked--brought up
suddenly, I would say--upon the--shall I term it threshold?"

"Is this will considered a genuine document, sir?" said Allan. "Will
you tell us that?"

"Most certainly, if I could," said Mr. Kenge; "but we have not gone
into that, we have not gone into that."

"We have not gone into that," repeated Mr. Vholes as if his low
inward voice were an echo.

"You are to reflect, Mr. Woodcourt," observed Mr. Kenge, using his
silver trowel persuasively and smoothingly, "that this has been a
great cause, that this has been a protracted cause, that this has
been a complex cause. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has been termed, not
inaptly, a monument of Chancery practice."

"And patience has sat upon it a long time," said Allan.

"Very well indeed, sir," returned Mr. Kenge with a certain
condescending laugh he had. "Very well! You are further to reflect,
Mr. Woodcourt," becoming dignified almost to severity, "that on the
numerous difficulties, contingencies, masterly fictions, and forms of
procedure in this great cause, there has been expended study,
ability, eloquence, knowledge, intellect, Mr. Woodcourt, high
intellect. For many years, the--a--I would say the flower of the bar,
and the--a--I would presume to add, the matured autumnal fruits of
the woolsack--have been lavished upon Jarndyce and Jarndyce. If the
public have the benefit, and if the country have the adornment, of
this great grasp, it must be paid for in money or money's worth,
sir."

"Mr. Kenge," said Allan, appearing enlightened all in a moment.
"Excuse me, our time presses. Do I understand that the whole estate
is found to have been absorbed in costs?"

"Hem! I believe so," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes, what do YOU
say?"

"I believe so," said Mr. Vholes.

"And that thus the suit lapses and melts away?"

"Probably," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes?"

"Probably," said Mr. Vholes.

"My dearest life," whispered Allan, "this will break Richard's
heart!"

There was such a shock of apprehension in his face, and he knew
Richard so perfectly, and I too had seen so much of his gradual
decay, that what my dear girl had said to me in the fullness of her
foreboding love sounded like a knell in my ears.

"In case you should be wanting Mr. C., sir," said Mr. Vholes, coming
after us, "you'll find him in court. I left him there resting himself
a little. Good day, sir; good day, Miss Summerson." As he gave me
that slowly devouring look of his, while twisting up the strings of
his bag before he hastened with it after Mr. Kenge, the benignant
shadow of whose conversational presence he seemed afraid to leave, he
gave one gasp as if he had swallowed the last morsel of his client,
and his black buttoned-up unwholesome figure glided away to the low
door at the end of the Hall.

"My dear love," said Allan, "leave to me, for a little while, the
charge you gave me. Go home with this intelligence and come to Ada's
by and by!"

I would not let him take me to a coach, but entreated him to go to
Richard without a moment's delay and leave me to do as he wished.
Hurrying home, I found my guardian and told him gradually with what
news I had returned. "Little woman," said he, quite unmoved for
himself, "to have done with the suit on any terms is a greater
blessing than I had looked for. But my poor young cousins!"

We talked about them all the morning and discussed what it was
possible to do. In the afternoon my guardian walked with me to
Symond's Inn and left me at the door. I went upstairs. When my
darling heard my footsteps, she came out into the small passage and
threw her arms round my neck, but she composed herself directly and
said that Richard had asked for me several times. Allan had found him
sitting in the corner of the court, she told me, like a stone figure.
On being roused, he had broken away and made as if he would have
spoken in a fierce voice to the judge. He was stopped by his mouth
being full of blood, and Allan had brought him home.

He was lying on a sofa with his eyes closed when I went in. There
were restoratives on the table; the room was made as airy as
possible, and was darkened, and was very orderly and quiet. Allan
stood behind him watching him gravely. His face appeared to me to be
quite destitute of colour, and now that I saw him without his seeing
me, I fully saw, for the first time, how worn away he was. But he
looked handsomer than I had seen him look for many a day.

I sat down by his side in silence. Opening his eyes by and by, he
said in a weak voice, but with his old smile, "Dame Durden, kiss me,
my dear!"

It was a great comfort and surprise to me to find him in his low
state cheerful and looking forward. He was happier, he said, in our
intended marriage than he could find words to tell me. My husband had
been a guardian angel to him and Ada, and he blessed us both and
wished us all the joy that life could yield us. I almost felt as if
my own heart would have broken when I saw him take my husband's hand
and hold it to his breast.

We spoke of the future as much as possible, and he said several times
that he must be present at our marriage if he could stand upon his
feet. Ada would contrive to take him, somehow, he said. "Yes, surely,
dearest Richard!" But as my darling answered him thus hopefully, so
serene and beautiful, with the help that was to come to her so
near--I knew--I knew!

It was not good for him to talk too much, and when he was silent, we
were silent too. Sitting beside him, I made a pretence of working for
my dear, as he had always been used to joke about my being busy. Ada
leaned upon his pillow, holding his head upon her arm. He dozed
often, and whenever he awoke without seeing him, said first of all,
"Where is Woodcourt?"

Evening had come on when I lifted up my eyes and saw my guardian
standing in the little hall. "Who is that, Dame Durden?" Richard
asked me. The door was behind him, but he had observed in my face
that some one was there.

I looked to Allan for advice, and as he nodded "Yes," bent over
Richard and told him. My guardian saw what passed, came softly by me
in a moment, and laid his hand on Richard's. "Oh, sir," said Richard,
"you are a good man, you are a good man!" and burst into tears for
the first time.

My guardian, the picture of a good man, sat down in my place, keeping
his hand on Richard's.

"My dear Rick," said he, "the clouds have cleared away, and it is
bright now. We can see now. We were all bewildered, Rick, more or
less. What matters! And how are you, my dear boy?"

"I am very weak, sir, but I hope I shall be stronger. I have to begin
the world."

"Aye, truly; well said!" cried my guardian.

"I will not begin it in the old way now," said Richard with a sad
smile. "I have learned a lesson now, sir. It was a hard one, but you
shall be assured, indeed, that I have learned it."

"Well, well," said my guardian, comforting him; "well, well, well,
dear boy!"

"I was thinking, sir," resumed Richard, "that there is nothing on
earth I should so much like to see as their house--Dame Durden's and
Woodcourt's house. If I could be removed there when I begin to
recover my strength, I feel as if I should get well there sooner than
anywhere."

"Why, so have I been thinking too, Rick," said my guardian, "and our
little woman likewise; she and I have been talking of it this very
day. I dare say her husband won't object. What do you think?"

Richard smiled and lifted up his arm to touch him as he stood behind
the head of the couch.

"I say nothing of Ada," said Richard, "but I think of her, and have
thought of her very much. Look at her! See her here, sir, bending
over this pillow when she has so much need to rest upon it herself,
my dear love, my poor girl!"

He clasped her in his arms, and none of us spoke. He gradually
released her, and she looked upon us, and looked up to heaven, and
moved her lips.

"When I get down to Bleak House," said Richard, "I shall have much to
tell you, sir, and you will have much to show me. You will go, won't
you?"

"Undoubtedly, dear Rick."

"Thank you; like you, like you," said Richard. "But it's all like
you. They have been telling me how you planned it and how you
remembered all Esther's familiar tastes and ways. It will be like
coming to the old Bleak House again."

"And you will come there too, I hope, Rick. I am a solitary man now,
you know, and it will be a charity to come to me. A charity to come
to me, my love!" he repeated to Ada as he gently passed his hand over
her golden hair and put a lock of it to his lips. (I think he vowed
within himself to cherish her if she were left alone.)

"It was a troubled dream?" said Richard, clasping both my guardian's
hands eagerly.

"Nothing more, Rick; nothing more."

"And you, being a good man, can pass it as such, and forgive and pity
the dreamer, and be lenient and encouraging when he wakes?"

"Indeed I can. What am I but another dreamer, Rick?"

"I will begin the world!" said Richard with a light in his eyes.

My husband drew a little nearer towards Ada, and I saw him solemnly
lift up his hand to warn my guardian.

"When shall I go from this place to that pleasant country where the
old times are, where I shall have strength to tell what Ada has been
to me, where I shall be able to recall my many faults and
blindnesses, where I shall prepare myself to be a guide to my unborn
child?" said Richard. "When shall I go?"

"Dear Rick, when you are strong enough," returned my guardian.

"Ada, my darling!"

He sought to raise himself a little. Allan raised him so that she
could hold him on her bosom, which was what he wanted.

"I have done you many wrongs, my own. I have fallen like a poor stray
shadow on your way, I have married you to poverty and trouble, I have
scattered your means to the winds. You will forgive me all this, my
Ada, before I begin the world?"

A smile irradiated his face as she bent to kiss him. He slowly laid
his face down upon her bosom, drew his arms closer round her neck,
and with one parting sob began the world. Not this world, oh, not
this! The world that sets this right.

When all was still, at a late hour, poor crazed Miss Flite came
weeping to me and told me she had given her birds their liberty.

Down in Lincolnshire

There is a hush upon Chesney Wold in these altered days, as there is
upon a portion of the family history. The story goes that Sir
Leicester paid some who could have spoken out to hold their peace;
but it is a lame story, feebly whispering and creeping about, and any
brighter spark of life it shows soon dies away. It is known for
certain that the handsome Lady Dedlock lies in the mausoleum in the
park, where the trees arch darkly overhead, and the owl is heard at
night making the woods ring; but whence she was brought home to be
laid among the echoes of that solitary place, or how she died, is all
mystery. Some of her old friends, principally to be found among the
peachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats, did once
occasionally say, as they toyed in a ghastly manner with large
fans--like charmers reduced to flirting with grim death, after losing
all their other beaux--did once occasionally say, when the world
assembled together, that they wondered the ashes of the Dedlocks,
entombed in the mausoleum, never rose against the profanation of her
company. But the dead-and-gone Dedlocks take it very calmly and have
never been known to object.

Up from among the fern in the hollow, and winding by the bridle-road
among the trees, comes sometimes to this lonely spot the sound of
horses' hoofs. Then may be seen Sir Leicester--invalided, bent, and
almost blind, but of worthy presence yet--riding with a stalwart man
beside him, constant to his bridle-rein. When they come to a certain
spot before the mausoleum-door, Sir Leicester's accustomed horse
stops of his own accord, and Sir Leicester, pulling off his hat, is
still for a few moments before they ride away.

War rages yet with the audacious Boythorn, though at uncertain
intervals, and now hotly, and now coolly, flickering like an unsteady
fire. The truth is said to be that when Sir Leicester came down to
Lincolnshire for good, Mr. Boythorn showed a manifest desire to
abandon his right of way and do whatever Sir Leicester would, which
Sir Leicester, conceiving to be a condescension to his illness or
misfortune, took in such high dudgeon, and was so magnificently
aggrieved by, that Mr. Boythorn found himself under the necessity of
committing a flagrant trespass to restore his neighbour to himself.
Similarly, Mr. Boythorn continues to post tremendous placards on the
disputed thoroughfare and (with his bird upon his head) to hold forth
vehemently against Sir Leicester in the sanctuary of his own home;
similarly, also, he defies him as of old in the little church by
testifying a bland unconsciousness of his existence. But it is
whispered that when he is most ferocious towards his old foe, he is
really most considerate, and that Sir Leicester, in the dignity of
being implacable, little supposes how much he is humoured. As little
does he think how near together he and his antagonist have suffered
in the fortunes of two sisters, and his antagonist, who knows it now,
is not the man to tell him. So the quarrel goes on to the
satisfaction of both.

In one of the lodges of the park--that lodge within sight of the
house where, once upon a time, when the waters were out down in
Lincolnshire, my Lady used to see the keeper's child--the stalwart
man, the trooper formerly, is housed. Some relics of his old calling
hang upon the walls, and these it is the chosen recreation of a
little lame man about the stable-yard to keep gleaming bright. A busy
little man he always is, in the polishing at harness-house doors, of
stirrup-irons, bits, curb-chains, harness bosses, anything in the way
of a stable-yard that will take a polish, leading a life of friction.
A shaggy little damaged man, withal, not unlike an old dog of some
mongrel breed, who has been considerably knocked about. He answers to
the name of Phil.

A goodly sight it is to see the grand old housekeeper (harder of
hearing now) going to church on the arm of her son and to
observe--which few do, for the house is scant of company in these
times--the relations of both towards Sir Leicester, and his towards
them. They have visitors in the high summer weather, when a grey
cloak and umbrella, unknown to Chesney Wold at other periods, are
seen among the leaves; when two young ladies are occasionally found
gambolling in sequestered saw-pits and such nooks of the park; and
when the smoke of two pipes wreathes away into the fragrant evening
air from the trooper's door. Then is a fife heard trolling within the
lodge on the inspiring topic of the "British Grenadiers"; and as the
evening closes in, a gruff inflexible voice is heard to say, while
two men pace together up and down, "But I never own to it before the
old girl. Discipline must be maintained."

The greater part of the house is shut up, and it is a show-house no
longer; yet Sir Leicester holds his shrunken state in the long
drawing-room for all that, and reposes in his old place before my
Lady's picture. Closed in by night with broad screens, and illumined
only in that part, the light of the drawing-room seems gradually
contracting and dwindling until it shall be no more. A little more,
in truth, and it will be all extinguished for Sir Leicester; and the
damp door in the mausoleum which shuts so tight, and looks so
obdurate, will have opened and received him.

Volumnia, growing with the flight of time pinker as to the red in her
face, and yellower as to the white, reads to Sir Leicester in the
long evenings and is driven to various artifices to conceal her
yawns, of which the chief and most efficacious is the insertion of
the pearl necklace between her rosy lips. Long-winded treatises on
the Buffy and Boodle question, showing how Buffy is immaculate and
Boodle villainous, and how the country is lost by being all Boodle
and no Buffy, or saved by being all Buffy and no Boodle (it must be
one of the two, and cannot be anything else), are the staple of her
reading. Sir Leicester is not particular what it is and does not
appear to follow it very closely, further than that he always comes
broad awake the moment Volumnia ventures to leave off, and sonorously
repeating her last words, begs with some displeasure to know if she
finds herself fatigued. However, Volumnia, in the course of her
bird-like hopping about and pecking at papers, has alighted on a
memorandum concerning herself in the event of "anything happening" to
her kinsman, which is handsome compensation for an extensive course
of reading and holds even the dragon Boredom at bay.

The cousins generally are rather shy of Chesney Wold in its dullness,
but take to it a little in the shooting season, when guns are heard
in the plantations, and a few scattered beaters and keepers wait at
the old places of appointment for low-spirited twos and threes of
cousins. The debilitated cousin, more debilitated by the dreariness
of the place, gets into a fearful state of depression, groaning under
penitential sofa-pillows in his gunless hours and protesting that
such fernal old jail's--nough t'sew fler up--frever.

The only great occasions for Volumnia in this changed aspect of the
place in Lincolnshire are those occasions, rare and widely separated,
when something is to be done for the county or the country in the way
of gracing a public ball. Then, indeed, does the tuckered sylph come
out in fairy form and proceed with joy under cousinly escort to the
exhausted old assembly-room, fourteen heavy miles off, which, during
three hundred and sixty-four days and nights of every ordinary year,
is a kind of antipodean lumber-room full of old chairs and tables
upside down. Then, indeed, does she captivate all hearts by her
condescension, by her girlish vivacity, and by her skipping about as
in the days when the hideous old general with the mouth too full of
teeth had not cut one of them at two guineas each. Then does she
twirl and twine, a pastoral nymph of good family, through the mazes
of the dance. Then do the swains appear with tea, with lemonade, with
sandwiches, with homage. Then is she kind and cruel, stately and
unassuming, various, beautifully wilful. Then is there a singular
kind of parallel between her and the little glass chandeliers of
another age embellishing that assembly-room, which, with their meagre
stems, their spare little drops, their disappointing knobs where no
drops are, their bare little stalks from which knobs and drops have
both departed, and their little feeble prismatic twinkling, all seem
Volumnias.

For the rest, Lincolnshire life to Volumnia is a vast blank of
overgrown house looking out upon trees, sighing, wringing their
hands, bowing their heads, and casting their tears upon the
window-panes in monotonous depressions. A labyrinth of grandeur, less
the property of an old family of human beings and their ghostly
likenesses than of an old family of echoings and thunderings which
start out of their hundred graves at every sound and go resounding
through the building. A waste of unused passages and staircases in
which to drop a comb upon a bedroom floor at night is to send a
stealthy footfall on an errand through the house. A place where few
people care to go about alone, where a maid screams if an ash drops
from the fire, takes to crying at all times and seasons, becomes the
victim of a low disorder of the spirits, and gives warning and
departs.

Thus Chesney Wold. With so much of itself abandoned to darkness and
vacancy; with so little change under the summer shining or the wintry
lowering; so sombre and motionless always--no flag flying now by day,
no rows of lights sparkling by night; with no family to come and go,
no visitors to be the souls of pale cold shapes of rooms, no stir of
life about it--passion and pride, even to the stranger's eye, have
died away from the place in Lincolnshire and yielded it to dull
repose.

The Close of Esther's Narrative

Full seven happy years I have been the mistress of Bleak House. The
few words that I have to add to what I have written are soon penned;
then I and the unknown friend to whom I write will part for ever. Not
without much dear remembrance on my side. Not without some, I hope,
on his or hers.

They gave my darling into my arms, and through many weeks I never
left her. The little child who was to have done so much was born
before the turf was planted on its father's grave. It was a boy; and
I, my husband, and my guardian gave him his father's name.

The help that my dear counted on did come to her, though it came, in
the eternal wisdom, for another purpose. Though to bless and restore
his mother, not his father, was the errand of this baby, its power
was mighty to do it. When I saw the strength of the weak little hand
and how its touch could heal my darling's heart and raised hope
within her, I felt a new sense of the goodness and the tenderness of
God.

They throve, and by degrees I saw my dear girl pass into my country
garden and walk there with her infant in her arms. I was married
then. I was the happiest of the happy.

It was at this time that my guardian joined us and asked Ada when she
would come home.

"Both houses are your home, my dear," said he, "but the older Bleak
House claims priority. When you and my boy are strong enough to do
it, come and take possession of your home."

Ada called him "her dearest cousin, John." But he said, no, it must
be guardian now. He was her guardian henceforth, and the boy's; and
he had an old association with the name. So she called him guardian,
and has called him guardian ever since. The children know him by no
other name. I say the children; I have two little daughters.

It is difficult to believe that Charley (round-eyed still, and not at
all grammatical) is married to a miller in our neighbourhood; yet so
it is; and even now, looking up from my desk as I write early in the
morning at my summer window, I see the very mill beginning to go
round. I hope the miller will not spoil Charley; but he is very fond
of her, and Charley is rather vain of such a match, for he is well to
do and was in great request. So far as my small maid is concerned, I
might suppose time to have stood for seven years as still as the mill
did half an hour ago, since little Emma, Charley's sister, is exactly
what Charley used to be. As to Tom, Charley's brother, I am really
afraid to say what he did at school in ciphering, but I think it was
decimals. He is apprenticed to the miller, whatever it was, and is a
good bashful fellow, always falling in love with somebody and being
ashamed of it.

Caddy Jellyby passed her very last holidays with us and was a dearer
creature than ever, perpetually dancing in and out of the house with
the children as if she had never given a dancing-lesson in her life.
Caddy keeps her own little carriage now instead of hiring one, and
lives full two miles further westward than Newman Street. She works
very hard, her husband (an excellent one) being lame and able to do
very little. Still, she is more than contented and does all she has
to do with all her heart. Mr. Jellyby spends his evenings at her new
house with his head against the wall as he used to do in her old one.
I have heard that Mrs. Jellyby was understood to suffer great
mortification from her daughter's ignoble marriage and pursuits, but
I hope she got over it in time. She has been disappointed in
Borrioboola-Gha, which turned out a failure in consequence of the
king of Borrioboola wanting to sell everybody--who survived the
climate--for rum, but she has taken up with the rights of women to
sit in Parliament, and Caddy tells me it is a mission involving more
correspondence than the old one. I had almost forgotten Caddy's poor
little girl. She is not such a mite now, but she is deaf and dumb. I
believe there never was a better mother than Caddy, who learns, in
her scanty intervals of leisure, innumerable deaf and dumb arts to
soften the affliction of her child.

As if I were never to have done with Caddy, I am reminded here of
Peepy and old Mr. Turveydrop. Peepy is in the Custom House, and doing
extremely well. Old Mr. Turveydrop, very apoplectic, still exhibits
his deportment about town, still enjoys himself in the old manner, is
still believed in in the old way. He is constant in his patronage of
Peepy and is understood to have bequeathed him a favourite French
clock in his dressing-room--which is not his property.

With the first money we saved at home, we added to our pretty house
by throwing out a little growlery expressly for my guardian, which we
inaugurated with great splendour the next time he came down to see
us. I try to write all this lightly, because my heart is full in
drawing to an end, but when I write of him, my tears will have their
way.

I never look at him but I hear our poor dear Richard calling him a
good man. To Ada and her pretty boy, he is the fondest father; to me
he is what he has ever been, and what name can I give to that? He is
my husband's best and dearest friend, he is our children's darling,
he is the object of our deepest love and veneration. Yet while I feel
towards him as if he were a superior being, I am so familiar with him
and so easy with him that I almost wonder at myself. I have never
lost my old names, nor has he lost his; nor do I ever, when he is
with us, sit in any other place than in my old chair at his side,
Dame Trot, Dame Durden, Little Woman--all just the same as ever; and
I answer, "Yes, dear guardian!" just the same.

I have never known the wind to be in the east for a single moment
since the day when he took me to the porch to read the name. I
remarked to him once that the wind seemed never in the east now, and
he said, no, truly; it had finally departed from that quarter on that
very day.

I think my darling girl is more beautiful than ever. The sorrow that
has been in her face--for it is not there now--seems to have purified
even its innocent expression and to have given it a diviner quality.
Sometimes when I raise my eyes and see her in the black dress that
she still wears, teaching my Richard, I feel--it is difficult to
express--as if it were so good to know that she remembers her dear
Esther in her prayers.

I call him my Richard! But he says that he has two mamas, and I am
one.

We are not rich in the bank, but we have always prospered, and we
have quite enough. I never walk out with my husband but I hear the
people bless him. I never go into a house of any degree but I hear
his praises or see them in grateful eyes. I never lie down at night
but I know that in the course of that day he has alleviated pain and
soothed some fellow-creature in the time of need. I know that from
the beds of those who were past recovery, thanks have often, often
gone up, in the last hour, for his patient ministration. Is not this
to be rich?

The people even praise me as the doctor's wife. The people even like
me as I go about, and make so much of me that I am quite abashed. I
owe it all to him, my love, my pride! They like me for his sake, as I
do everything I do in life for his sake.

A night or two ago, after bustling about preparing for my darling and
my guardian and little Richard, who are coming to-morrow, I was
sitting out in the porch of all places, that dearly memorable porch,
when Allan came home. So he said, "My precious little woman, what are
you doing here?" And I said, "The moon is shining so brightly, Allan,
and the night is so delicious, that I have been sitting here
thinking."

"What have you been thinking about, my dear?" said Allan then.

"How curious you are!" said I. "I am almost ashamed to tell you, but
I will. I have been thinking about my old looks--such as they were."

"And what have you been thinking about THEM, my busy bee?" said
Allan.

"I have been thinking that I thought it was impossible that you COULD
have loved me any better, even if I had retained them."

"'Such as they were'?" said Allan, laughing.

"Such as they were, of course."

"My dear Dame Durden," said Allan, drawing my arm through his, "do
you ever look in the glass?"

"You know I do; you see me do it."

"And don't you know that you are prettier than you ever were?"

"I did not know that; I am not certain that I know it now. But I know
that my dearest little pets are very pretty, and that my darling is
very beautiful, and that my husband is very handsome, and that my
guardian has the brightest and most benevolent face that ever was
seen, and that they can very well do without much beauty in me--even
supposing--."

Mr. Jarndyce goes to Yorkshire to see Allan Woodcourt. Soon he invites Esther to join them. He has settled Allan in a new "Bleak House." Upon seeing Esther's face when she reads the name of the new house, Jarndyce decides not to be selfish and releases Esther from her promise to marry him. He knows that she will be happier as Allan's wife than she would be as his. Esther is dumbfounded. Allan accepts Jarndyce's offer of Esther's hand, and Esther agrees. Esther passes from being the mistress of one Bleak House, to being mistress of the new one. Mr. Guppy, back at the St Alban's Bleak House, still pursues Esther. He has set up a business with Jobling, and has brought his mother to propose marriage to Esther again. Jarndyce doesn't even have to consult Esther to know that she will refuse him, and he refuses for her. In a funny scene, Mrs. Guppy is so put out by her refusal that she orders Mr. Jarndyce out of his own room in his own house. Esther's scars are slowly fading, and her good looks are coming back. In Chapter 65 the Jarndyce case is finallly ready to be argued before the court, but in Westminster Hall. On the way, the young people see Caddy Turveydrop, who congratulates Esther on her engagement to Woodcourt, and embraces her. They arrive late in court, and they learn that, although the estate would have been conferred entirely on Ada and Richard, it has been completely consumed in costs. The irony is so great that even though Richard, who is very ill, resolves to "begin the world," he dies that day. Miss Flite arrives, weeping. She has finally freed her birds. In Chapter 66, we learn that Lady Dedlock, her body retrieved by her husband, has been buried in the family mausoleum at Chesney Wold. The world does not know how she died, and Sir Leicester keeps it a mystery. He rides around the estate with George, honoring her memory. The dispute with Boythorn continues, but with less real vehemence on both sides. The world of Chesney Wold becomes quieter, as Sir Leicester is an aging widower uninterested in society. He confers the estate on Volumnia. The final chapter jumps forward seven years to the happy Esther Woodcourt living in Lincolnshire. She and Allan are blessed with two little girls, and Ada's little boy, named Richard, was born not long after his father's death. Ada divides her time between both Bleak Houses. Esther's maid, Charley, is happily married to a miller. Esther now has little Emma, the youngest Neckett, as a maid. We have one more look at Mrs. Jellyby, how has decided that Africa is a lost cause and now campaigns for women in Parliament. Caddy is a happy wife and mother, though her child is deaf and dumb, and Prince has grown lame from too much dancing. Even Peepy Jellyby is reprised, all grown up and preparing to go into the Custom House like his father. Jarndyce, Ada, Woodcourt, and Allan all live happily ever after.

Dicken's bright and happy ending is only marred by the death of Richard .  The fact that none of the surviving main characters are interested with documents or suits or "signs and tokens" ensures their happiness.  The feelings is that most of the people who have lived through this novel have gotten their just desserts.  Only Jenny the brickmaker's wife is left out of the winding up. The surprising happy ending of Sir Leicester is perhaps the least expected of the bunch.  Also, Esther's wish that Jarndyce not marry anyone else is fulfiled, and Jarndyce remains the foster father/Guardian of Ada and Esther. This novel has so many parallels between characters that sometimes multiple ones can be drawn.  The Skimpole/Turveydrop characters of superficiality, the Jenny/Lady Dedlock polar opposites, the high and low extremes of Sir Leicester and Jo the Crossing Sweeper are only a few.  Dickens delighted in repeating his ideas in different characters, as well as injecting wholly unique ones, like Inspector Bucket, into the mix. To some critics, the ending of Esther with Woodcourt seems a bit saccharine.  That a destitute young woman who depended soley on her Guardian for her support would hesitate to marry him has been criticized as anti-intuitive, especially regarding Esther's commitment to duty.  Also, Ada's misguided love of Richard, and her ineffectuality at saving him, has been put forward as proof that Dickens didn't have much respect for women's powers of persuasion. But the domestic bliss that intermittently pops up, and, ultimately triumphs in the end of Bleak House has the marks of authenticity to it.  Dickens really did believe that it was the most important state, and considered it far more important than any institution of his day.  This novel clearly illustrates his belief, and does a very good job of convincing the reader of it, too.


London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting
in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in
the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of
the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus,
forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn
Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black
drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown
snowflakes--gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of
the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better;
splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one
another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing
their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other
foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke
(if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust
of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and
accumulating at compound interest.

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and
meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers
of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city.
Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping
into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and
hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales
of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient
Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog
in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper,
down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of
his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the
bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog
all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the
misty clouds.

Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as
the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman
and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their
time--as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling
look.

The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the
muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction,
appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old
corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn
Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in
his High Court of Chancery.

Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire
too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which
this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds
this day in the sight of heaven and earth.

On such an afternoon, if ever, the Lord High Chancellor ought to be
sitting here--as here he is--with a foggy glory round his head,
softly fenced in with crimson cloth and curtains, addressed by a
large advocate with great whiskers, a little voice, and an
interminable brief, and outwardly directing his contemplation to the
lantern in the roof, where he can see nothing but fog. On such an
afternoon some score of members of the High Court of Chancery bar
ought to be--as here they are--mistily engaged in one of the ten
thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on
slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running
their goat-hair and horsehair warded heads against walls of words and
making a pretence of equity with serious faces, as players might. On
such an afternoon the various solicitors in the cause, some two or
three of whom have inherited it from their fathers, who made a
fortune by it, ought to be--as are they not?--ranged in a line, in a
long matted well (but you might look in vain for truth at the bottom
of it) between the registrar's red table and the silk gowns, with
bills, cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, injunctions, affidavits,
issues, references to masters, masters' reports, mountains of costly
nonsense, piled before them. Well may the court be dim, with wasting
candles here and there; well may the fog hang heavy in it, as if it
would never get out; well may the stained-glass windows lose their
colour and admit no light of day into the place; well may the
uninitiated from the streets, who peep in through the glass panes in
the door, be deterred from entrance by its owlish aspect and by the
drawl, languidly echoing to the roof from the padded dais where the
Lord High Chancellor looks into the lantern that has no light in it
and where the attendant wigs are all stuck in a fog-bank! This is the
Court of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted
lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every
madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined
suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and
begging through the round of every man's acquaintance, which gives to
monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so
exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain
and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its
practitioners who would not give--who does not often give--the
warning, "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come
here!"

Who happen to be in the Lord Chancellor's court this murky afternoon
besides the Lord Chancellor, the counsel in the cause, two or three
counsel who are never in any cause, and the well of solicitors before
mentioned? There is the registrar below the judge, in wig and gown;
and there are two or three maces, or petty-bags, or privy purses, or
whatever they may be, in legal court suits. These are all yawning,
for no crumb of amusement ever falls from Jarndyce and Jarndyce (the
cause in hand), which was squeezed dry years upon years ago. The
short-hand writers, the reporters of the court, and the reporters of
the newspapers invariably decamp with the rest of the regulars when
Jarndyce and Jarndyce comes on. Their places are a blank. Standing on
a seat at the side of the hall, the better to peer into the curtained
sanctuary, is a little mad old woman in a squeezed bonnet who is
always in court, from its sitting to its rising, and always expecting
some incomprehensible judgment to be given in her favour. Some say
she really is, or was, a party to a suit, but no one knows for
certain because no one cares. She carries some small litter in a
reticule which she calls her documents, principally consisting of
paper matches and dry lavender. A sallow prisoner has come up, in
custody, for the half-dozenth time to make a personal application "to
purge himself of his contempt," which, being a solitary surviving
executor who has fallen into a state of conglomeration about accounts
of which it is not pretended that he had ever any knowledge, he is
not at all likely ever to do. In the meantime his prospects in life
are ended. Another ruined suitor, who periodically appears from
Shropshire and breaks out into efforts to address the Chancellor at
the close of the day's business and who can by no means be made to
understand that the Chancellor is legally ignorant of his existence
after making it desolate for a quarter of a century, plants himself
in a good place and keeps an eye on the judge, ready to call out "My
Lord!" in a voice of sonorous complaint on the instant of his rising.
A few lawyers' clerks and others who know this suitor by sight linger
on the chance of his furnishing some fun and enlivening the dismal
weather a little.

Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, in
course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it
means. The parties to it understand it least, but it has been
observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five
minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the
premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause;
innumerable young people have married into it; innumerable old people
have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found
themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing how
or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the
suit. The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a new
rocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled has grown
up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the
other world. Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and
grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone
out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere
bills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth
perhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a
coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags
its dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless.

Jarndyce and Jarndyce has passed into a joke. That is the only good
that has ever come of it. It has been death to many, but it is a joke
in the profession. Every master in Chancery has had a reference out
of it. Every Chancellor was "in it," for somebody or other, when he
was counsel at the bar. Good things have been said about it by
blue-nosed, bulbous-shoed old benchers in select port-wine committee
after dinner in hall. Articled clerks have been in the habit of
fleshing their legal wit upon it. The last Lord Chancellor handled it
neatly, when, correcting Mr. Blowers, the eminent silk gown who said
that such a thing might happen when the sky rained potatoes, he
observed, "or when we get through Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mr.
Blowers"--a pleasantry that particularly tickled the maces, bags, and
purses.

How many people out of the suit Jarndyce and Jarndyce has stretched
forth its unwholesome hand to spoil and corrupt would be a very wide
question. From the master upon whose impaling files reams of dusty
warrants in Jarndyce and Jarndyce have grimly writhed into many
shapes, down to the copying-clerk in the Six Clerks' Office who has
copied his tens of thousands of Chancery folio-pages under that
eternal heading, no man's nature has been made better by it. In
trickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under
false pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never
come to good. The very solicitors' boys who have kept the wretched
suitors at bay, by protesting time out of mind that Mr. Chizzle,
Mizzle, or otherwise was particularly engaged and had appointments
until dinner, may have got an extra moral twist and shuffle into
themselves out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The receiver in the cause
has acquired a goodly sum of money by it but has acquired too a
distrust of his own mother and a contempt for his own kind. Chizzle,
Mizzle, and otherwise have lapsed into a habit of vaguely promising
themselves that they will look into that outstanding little matter
and see what can be done for Drizzle--who was not well used--when
Jarndyce and Jarndyce shall be got out of the office. Shirking and
sharking in all their many varieties have been sown broadcast by the
ill-fated cause; and even those who have contemplated its history
from the outermost circle of such evil have been insensibly tempted
into a loose way of letting bad things alone to take their own bad
course, and a loose belief that if the world go wrong it was in some
off-hand manner never meant to go right.

Thus, in the midst of the mud and at the heart of the fog, sits the
Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.

"Mr. Tangle," says the Lord High Chancellor, latterly something
restless under the eloquence of that learned gentleman.

"Mlud," says Mr. Tangle. Mr. Tangle knows more of Jarndyce and
Jarndyce than anybody. He is famous for it--supposed never to have
read anything else since he left school.

"Have you nearly concluded your argument?"

"Mlud, no--variety of points--feel it my duty tsubmit--ludship," is
the reply that slides out of Mr. Tangle.

"Several members of the bar are still to be heard, I believe?" says
the Chancellor with a slight smile.

Eighteen of Mr. Tangle's learned friends, each armed with a little
summary of eighteen hundred sheets, bob up like eighteen hammers in a
pianoforte, make eighteen bows, and drop into their eighteen places
of obscurity.

"We will proceed with the hearing on Wednesday fortnight," says the
Chancellor. For the question at issue is only a question of costs, a
mere bud on the forest tree of the parent suit, and really will come
to a settlement one of these days.

The Chancellor rises; the bar rises; the prisoner is brought forward
in a hurry; the man from Shropshire cries, "My lord!" Maces, bags,
and purses indignantly proclaim silence and frown at the man from
Shropshire.

"In reference," proceeds the Chancellor, still on Jarndyce and
Jarndyce, "to the young girl--"

"Begludship's pardon--boy," says Mr. Tangle prematurely. "In
reference," proceeds the Chancellor with extra distinctness, "to the
young girl and boy, the two young people"--Mr. Tangle crushed--"whom
I directed to be in attendance to-day and who are now in my private
room, I will see them and satisfy myself as to the expediency of
making the order for their residing with their uncle."

Mr. Tangle on his legs again. "Begludship's pardon--dead."

"With their"--Chancellor looking through his double eye-glass at the
papers on his desk--"grandfather."

"Begludship's pardon--victim of rash action--brains."

Suddenly a very little counsel with a terrific bass voice arises,
fully inflated, in the back settlements of the fog, and says, "Will
your lordship allow me? I appear for him. He is a cousin, several
times removed. I am not at the moment prepared to inform the court in
what exact remove he is a cousin, but he IS a cousin."

Leaving this address (delivered like a sepulchral message) ringing in
the rafters of the roof, the very little counsel drops, and the fog
knows him no more. Everybody looks for him. Nobody can see him.

"I will speak with both the young people," says the Chancellor anew,
"and satisfy myself on the subject of their residing with their
cousin. I will mention the matter to-morrow morning when I take my
seat."

The Chancellor is about to bow to the bar when the prisoner is
presented. Nothing can possibly come of the prisoner's conglomeration
but his being sent back to prison, which is soon done. The man from
Shropshire ventures another remonstrative "My lord!" but the
Chancellor, being aware of him, has dexterously vanished. Everybody
else quickly vanishes too. A battery of blue bags is loaded with
heavy charges of papers and carried off by clerks; the little mad old
woman marches off with her documents; the empty court is locked up.
If all the injustice it has committed and all the misery it has
caused could only be locked up with it, and the whole burnt away in a
great funeral pyre--why so much the better for other parties than the
parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce!

Right away the gloves come off with the third-person narrator. It's November in London, cold and miserable, and there's chimney soot all over the place. To top it all off, it's super foggy - foggy for real, as in bad weather outside, and foggy metaphorically, as in the Court of Chancery is full of idiotic and needlessly complicated lawsuits. Court of whoswhatsit, you say? No worries, Shmoop has your back: In Victorian times, there were a whole bunch of different courts for different lawsuits, kind of like we have one type of court for criminal cases and another for civil cases. The Chancery Court dealt with noncriminal stuff, mostly having to do with inheritance issues and wills. These cases could drag on forever - the one that Jarndyce is based on went on for 70-some years. You won't be surprised to learn that Dickens was totally not a fan of that the system. The case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce involves some sort of inheritance and estate business. It's so confusing that no one knows what it's actually about, and it's been going on so long that the original people involved are all dead and now it's their children and grandchildren. No one thinks it will ever be resolved. The court is a huge, impersonal, totally uncaring bureaucracy. There are a bazillion different kinds of lawyers and clerks, and a Judge who really couldn't care less about anything and basically just tries to do as little as possible. Today in the court there is also a crazy old woman who is a frequent visitor and whom "no one knows for certain, because no one cares" . There's also a guy from far-away Shropshire yelling to get the Lord Chancellor's attention. Finally the day's session is done and the Lord Chancellor goes to his chambers to talk to two young people there who are wards of the court and parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce. They need the court's permission to go to live with their cousin.

On a raw November afternoon, London is enshrouded in heavy fog made harsher by chimney smoke. The fog seems thickest in the vicinity of the High Court of Chancery. The court, now in session, is hearing an aspect of the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. A "little mad old woman" is, as always, one of the spectators. Two ruined men, one a "sallow prisoner," the other a man from Shropshire, appear before the court -- to no avail. Toward the end of the sitting, the Lord High Chancellor announces that in the morning he will meet with "the two young people" and decide about making them wards of their cousin.

This first chapter makes Dickens' social criticism explicit and introduces one of the book's principal themes: the ruin that the Chancery Court has made and will continue to make of many people's lives. Court costs and lawyers' fees have already exhausted all the inheritance money in Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The case has gone on for so many years and has "become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means." Rather than producing clarity and justice, the court -- like much of the workings of the law in general -- produces a fog that obscures, a fog that creates confusion and depression in which people are lost. The "little mad old woman" is one of these; the prisoner and the Shropshire man  are others. The effect of presenting them is to persuade us that Dickens is right: The High Court of Chancery is an institutionalized abuse of the law. Since "the two young people"  and their cousin  will soon figure prominently in the story, Dickens prepares us for the eventual meeting. Their names are not given here; they would mean nothing to us at this point, and Dickens strengthens his attack on the court by implying that the Chancellor, though he is "Lord" and "High," is, as usual, too negligent and uninterested to be able to recall their names. Chapter 1 moves ponderously, dramatizing the inaction of Chancery and the stagnation of the lives that wait for its decisions. There is nothing here to satisfy a taste for fast-moving action. To stick with Dickens, we have to adjust to his method, which is to offer a feast in description and in language, rather than in a rapidly developing plot.

"In Chancery" In London, the Lord High Chancellor sits in Lincoln's Inn Hall in the High Court of Chancery. It is November and very foggy. Several counsels and solicitors are looking through the paperwork of a court case called Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which has gone on for generations. An old woman who appears to be crazy sits at the side of the room. She may be a party in the lawsuit. The case is so old that no one really remembers what it is about anymore, and it has corrupted countless people. A man named Mr. Tangle knows more about the case than anyone else. The chancellor determines to send two young people, a girl and a boy, to live with their uncle

Fog, which appears throughout the beginning of Bleak House, both sets the mood of the novel and highlights the muddled state of the Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit. Fog literally covers London when the third-person narrator sets the scene on the first page of the novel. "Fog everywhere," he says simply. The narrator provides three paragraphs of gloomy, evocative description before introducing us to the Lord High Chancellor and the disaster that is the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case. Much as London is covered in fog, our own understanding of what, exactly, this case entails is unclear. The narrator doesn't tell us exactly who is involved in the case or exactly what issue the case addresses. Indeed, the narrator acknowledges that "no man alive knows what it means"--the fogginess of the case is chronic. The gloomy aspects of fog are also connected to this case, and the narrator tells us that "no man's nature has been made better" by the doings. This pervasive image sets the tone of the narrative to come and adds to the already gloomy atmosphere the novel's title suggests. In chapter 3, Esther Summerson replaces the third-person narrator, a shift that has the effect of pulling us deeper into the story. Although Esther claims to have difficulty in telling her story and asserts right away that she isn't very clever, her voice is clear and unhesitating as she tells us about herself and how she became involved in the Jarndyce case. Esther comes across as slightly self-pitying in her descriptions of her strict, emotionally distant godmother and her unhappy birthdays, but her self-deprecation and constant denial of her own intelligence are manipulative gestures that both endear us to her and give her an excuse in case we don't like the story. In other words, she is so insistent that she is not clever and is so doubtful of her ability to tell the story correctly that she has a lot of leeway to tell the story according to her own very subjective view. If things turn out to be different from the way she describes them, she can claim she warned us of her fallibility from the start. Also, even though Esther claims to be unimportant to the story, she clearly relishes talking about herself. In the space of just five chapters , Dickens manages to introduce us to a host of lively, vivid characters. For example, in chapter 2 we meet Mr. Tulkinghorn, who Dickens describes as "old school . . . generally meaning any school that seems never to have been young." The chaotic Jellybys appear in chapter 4, when Dickens introduces the unforgettable Mrs. Jellyby, who is more concerned with writing letters about Africa than she is with her filthy, unhappy children. One of Dickens's greatest skills is his ability to draw such striking portraits with so few details in so little space. Dickens dismisses his characters and moves on to new ones after a few lines, paragraphs, or pages, giving the effect of a rollicking, speeding story that can stop for no one, not even the most interesting, quirky people that cross his protagonists' paths.

All quotations taken from Charles Dickens, Bleak House, edited by Morton Dauwen Zabel. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Riverside Press, 1956. Author's Preface Dickens briefly defends two points raised against the novel: the validity of the charges against the Court of Chancery, and the evidence for death by Spontaneous Combustion. of Chapter I: In Chancery The story opens in London in a dreary November fog in the 1840s or 1850s. The air is full of dirty soot. The fog seems to be thickest at the Court of Chancery where proceedings go on, day after day, without any outcome, for it is mired in procedures, while those who come for relief are forgotten in the snares of the legal system. We get fleeting portraits of nameless people--an old mad woman, there every day, waiting for some judgment, a ruined suitor from Shropshire, a prisoner who must always go back to prison because there is no time for him. The court is listening to Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce, which has become a professional joke for its long standing. It is not a joke to the people involved, many of whom have been born into and died during this suit, their lives on hold, while thousands of pounds of costs have been eaten up. It is so complicated that no one agrees on any details. Today's court business concerns two young people in the suit, who want to live with their cousin. The Lord High Chancellor says he will see them in his chamber, and meanwhile, the incomprehensible and mountainous paperwork of the suit goes on, and court is adjourned.

Commentary on Chapter I Dickens opens the novel with his famous description of the metaphorical fog and rain that have engulfed English society in the mid-nineteenth century. The fog is thickest at the Court of Chancery in London where the famous lawsuit Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce has continued for generations, ruining the lives of many waiting for the outcome. This chapter is a satirical look at a day in court with a lawyer called Tangle addressing the Chancellor as "Mlud," a contraction for "My Lord" that sounds like the mud in the street. The law, which should be clarifying lives, muddies them up, and the only winners are the lawyers "tripping one another up on slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities" . The Court of Chancery, says the narrator, "gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right" making the law a weapon or blight used by the rich. It does not create justice for the average person. We see a few nameless ghosts haunting the court that will become known characters, such as the two young people, Ada Clare and Richard Carstone, who are pleading to be wards of their cousin, John Jarndyce. The man from Shropshire is Gridley. The madwoman is Miss Flite. They are nameless now because in court there are no personal lives: "no one cares" . Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce has to do with an ancient disputed inheritance and now the case drags on "perennially hopeless," eaten up in fees . One of the casualties was Tom Jarndyce who "in despair blew his brains out" in Chancery Lane, waiting for the outcome . We will hear the back story as we go, for there are many mysteries to be unfolded about all the characters who are somehow connected in the network of this case. Dickens says "This is the Court of Chancery; which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire" , showing that somehow every English citizen is affected by this corrupt court. In the "Author's Preface" Dickens defends his portrait of Chancery as "substantially true" and names a current case of twenty years' duration. The law is portrayed as an evil net than enmeshes lives in despair and poverty.