"Bleak House," a story with a purpose, like most of Dickens's
works, was published when the author was forty years old. The
object of the story was to ventilate the monstrous injustice
wrought by delays in the old Court of Chancery, which defeated
all the purposes of a court of justice. Many of the
characters, who, though famous, are not essential to the
development of the story, were drawn from real life.
Turveydrop was suggested by George IV., and Inspector Bucket
was a friend of the author in the Metropolitan Police Force.
Harold Skimpole was identified with Leigh Hunt. Dickens
himself admitted the resemblance; but only in so far as none
of Skimpole's vices could be attributed to his prototype. The
original of Bleak House was a country mansion in
Hertfordshire, near St. Albans, though it is usually said to
be a summer residence of the novelist at Broadstairs.
_I.--In Chancery_
London. Implacable November weather. The Lord Chancellor sitting in
Lincoln's Inn Hall. Fog everywhere, and at the very heart of the fog
sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery. The case of
Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. No man alive knows what it means. It
has passed into a joke. It has been death to many, but it is a joke in
the profession.
Mr. Kenge (of Kenge and Carboy, solicitors, Lincoln's Inn) first
mentioned Jarndyce and Jarndyce to me, and told me that the costs
already amounted to from sixty to seventy thousand pounds.
My godmother, who brought me up, was just dead, and Mr. Kenge came to
tell me that Mr. Jarndyce proposed, knowing my desolate position, that I
should go to a first-rate school, where my education should be completed
and my comfort secured. What did I say to this? What could I say but
accept the proposal thankfully?
I passed at this school six happy, quiet years, and then one day came a
note from Kenge and Carboy, mentioning that their client, Mr. Jarndyce,
being in the house, desired my services as an eligible companion to this
young lady.
So I said good-bye to the school and went to London, and was driven to
Mr. Kenge's office. He was not altered, but he was surprised to see how
altered I was, and appeared quite pleased.
"As you are going to be the companion of the young lady who is now in
the Chancellor's private room, Miss Summerson," he said, "we thought it
well that you should be in attendance also."
Mr. Kenge gave me his arm, and we went out of his office and into the
court, and then into a comfortable sort of room where a young lady and a
young gentleman were standing talking.
They looked up when I came in, and I saw in the young lady a beautiful
girl, with rich golden hair, and a bright, innocent, trusting face.
"Miss Ada," said Mr. Kenge, "this is Miss Summerson."
She came to meet me with a smile of welcome and her hand extended, but
seemed to change her mind in a moment, and kissed me.
The young gentleman was her distant cousin, she told me, and his name
Richard Carstone. He was a handsome youth, and after she had called him
up to where we sat, he stood by us, talking gaily, like a light-hearted
boy. He was very young, not more than nineteen then, but nearly two
years older than she was. They were both orphans, and had never met
before that day. Our all three coming together for the first time in
such an unusual place was a thing to talk about, and we talked about it.
Presently we heard a bustle, and Mr. Kenge said that the court had
risen, and soon after we all followed him into the next room. There was
the Lord Chancellor sitting in an armchair at the table, and his manner
was both courtly and kind.
"Miss Clare," said his lordship. "Miss Ada Clare?" Mr. Kenge presented
her.
"The Jarndyce in question," said the Lord Chancellor, turning over
papers, "is Jarndyce of Bleak House--a dreary name."
"But not a dreary place, my lord," said Mr. Kenge.
"Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House is not married?" said his lordship.
"He is not, my lord," said Mr. Kenge.
"Young Mr. Richard Carstone is present?" said the Lord Chancellor.
Richard bowed and stepped forward.
"Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord," Mr. Kenge observed, "if I may
venture to remind your lordship, provides a suitable companion for----"
"For Mr. Richard Carstone!" I thought I heard his lordship say in a low
voice.
"For Miss Ada Clare. This is the young lady, Miss Esther Summerson."
"Miss Summerson is not related to any party in the cause, I think."
"No, my lord."
"Very well," said his lordship, after taking Miss Ada aside and asking
her if she thought she would be happy at Bleak House. "I shall make the
order. Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House has chosen, so far as I may judge, a
very good companion for the young lady, and the arrangement seems the
best of which the circumstances admit."
He dismissed us pleasantly and we all went out. As we stood for a
minute, waiting for Mr. Kenge, a curious little old woman, Miss Flite,
in a squeezed bonnet, and carrying a reticule, came curtsying and
smiling up to us, with an air of great ceremony.
"Oh!" said she, "The wards in Jarndyce. Very happy, I am sure, to have
the honour. It is a good omen for youth, and hope, and beauty when they
find themselves in this place, and don't know what's to come of it."
"Mad!" whispered Richard, not thinking she could hear him.
"Right! Mad, young gentleman," she returned quickly. "I was a ward
myself. I was not mad at that time. I had youth and hope; I believe
beauty. It matters very little now. Neither of the three served, or
saved me. I have the honour to attend court regularly. I expect a
judgment. On the Day of Judgment. I have discovered that the sixth seal
mentioned in the Revelations is the great seal. Pray accept my
blessing."
Mr. Kenge coming up, the poor old lady went on. "I shall confer estates
on both. Shortly. On the Day of Judgment. This is a good omen for you.
Accept my blessing."
We left her at the bottom of the stairs. She was still saying, with a
curtsy, and a smile between every little sentence, "Youth. And hope. And
beauty. And Chancery."
The morning after, walking out early, we met the old lady again, smiling
and saying in her air of patronage, "The wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy,
I am sure! Pray come and see my lodgings. It will be a good omen for me.
Youth, and hope, and beauty, are very seldom there."
She took my hand and beckoned Richard and Ada to come too, and in a few
moments she was at home.
She had stopped at a shop over which was written, "Krook, Rag and Bottle
Warehouse." Inside was an old man in spectacles and a hair cap, and
entering the shop the little old lady presented him to us.
"My landlord, Krook," she said. "He is called among the neighbours the
Lord Chancellor. His shop is called the Court of Chancery."
She lived at the top of the house in a room from which she had a glimpse
of the roof of Lincoln's Inn Hall, and this seemed to be her principal
inducement for living there.
_II.--Bleak House_
We drove down to Bleak House, in Hertfordshire, next day, and all three
of us were anxious and nervous when the night closed in, and the driver,
pointing to a light sparkling on the top of a hill, cried, "That's Bleak
House!"
"Ada, my love, Esther, my dear, you are welcome. Rick, if I had a hand
to spare at present I would give it you!"
The gentleman who said these words in a clear, hospitable voice, kissed
us both in a fatherly way, and bore us across the hall into a ruddy
little room, all in a glow with a blazing fire.
"Now, Rick!" said he, "I have a hand at liberty. A word in earnest is as
good as a speech. I am heartily glad to see you. You are at home. Warm
yourself!"
While he spoke I glanced at his face. It was a handsome face, full of
change and motion; and his hair was a silvered iron grey. I took him to
be nearer sixty than fifty, but he was upright, hearty, and robust.
So this was our coming to Bleak House.
The very next morning I was installed as housekeeper and presented with
two bunches of keys--a large bunch for the housekeeping and a little
bunch for the cellars. I could not help trembling when I met Mr.
Jarndyce, for I knew it was he who had done everything for me since my
godmother's death.
"Nonsense!" he said. "I hear of a good little orphan girl without a
protector, and I take it into my head to be that protector. She grows
up, and more than justifies my good opinion, and I remain her guardian
and her friend. What is there in all this?"
He soon began to talk to me confidentially as if I had been in the habit
of conversing with him every morning for I don't know how long.
"Of course, Esther," he said, "you don't understand this Chancery
business?"