"I don't know who does," he returned. "The lawyers have twisted it into
such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the case have
long disappeared. Its about a will, and the trusts under a will--or it
was once. It's about nothing but costs now. It was about a will when it
was about anything. A certain Jarndyce, in an evil hour, made a great
fortune and made a great will. In the question how the trusts under that
will are to be administered, the fortune left by the will is squandered
away; the legatees under the will are reduced to such a miserable
condition that they would be sufficiently punished if they had committed
an enormous crime in having money left them, and the will itself is made
a dead letter. All through the deplorable cause everybody must have
copies, over and over again, of everything that has accumulated about it
in the way of cartloads of papers, and must go down the middle and up
again, through such an infernal country-dance of costs and fees and
nonsense and corruption as was never dreamed of in the wildest visions
of a witch's sabbath. And we can't get out of the suit on any terms, for
we are made parties to it, and _must be_ parties to it, whether we like
it or not. But it won't do to think of it! Thinking of it drove my
great-uncle, poor Tom Jarndyce, to blow his brains out."
"I hope sir--" said I.
"I think you had better call me Guardian, my dear."
"I hope, Guardian," said I, giving the housekeeping keys the least shake
in the world, "that you may not be trusting too much to my discretion. I
am not clever, and that's the truth."
"You are clever enough to be the good little woman of our lives here, my
dear," he returned playfully; "the little old woman of the rhyme, who
sweeps the cobwebs of the sky, and you will sweep them out of _our_ sky
in the course of your housekeeping, Esther."
This was the beginning of my being called Old Woman, and Mother Hubbard,
and Dame Durden, and so many names of that sort, that my own soon became
quite lost.
One of the things I noticed from the first about my guardian was that,
though he was always doing a thousand acts of kindness, he could not
bear any acknowledgments.
We had somehow got to see more of Miss Flite on our visits to London:
for the Lord Chancellor always had to be consulted before Richard could
settle in any profession, and as Richard first wanted to be a doctor and
then tired of that in favour of the army, there were several
consultations. I remember one visit because it was the first time we met
Mr. Woodcourt.
My guardian and Ada and I heard of Miss Flite having been ill, and when
we called we found a medical gentleman attending her in her garret in
Lincoln's Inn.
Miss Flite dropped a general curtsy.
"Honoured, indeed," she said, "by another visit from the wards in
Jarndyce! Very happy to receive Jarndyce of Bleak House beneath my
humble roof!"
"Has she been very ill?" asked Mr. Jarndyce in a whisper of the doctor.
"Oh, decidedly unwell!" she answered confidentially. "Not pain, you
know--trouble. Only Mr. Woodcourt knows how much. My physician, Mr.
Woodcourt"--with great stateliness--"The wards in Jarndyce; Jarndyce of
Bleak House. The kindest physician in the college," she whispered to me.
"I expect a judgment. On the Day of Judgment. And shall then confer
estates."
"She will be as well, in a day or two," said Mr. Woodcourt, with an
observant smile, "as she ever will be. Have you heard of her good
fortune?"
"Most extraordinary!" said Miss Flite. "Every Saturday Kenge and Carboy
place a paper of shillings in my hand. Always the same number. One for
every day in the week. _I_ think that the Lord Chancellor forwards them.
Until the judgment I expect is given."
My guardian was contemplating Miss Flite's birds, and I had no need to
look beyond him.
_III.--I Am Made Happy_
I sometimes thought that Mr. Woodcourt loved me, and that, if he had
been richer, he would perhaps have told me that he loved me before he
went away. I had thought sometimes that if he had done so I should have
been glad. As it was, he went to the East Indies, and later we read in
the papers of a great shipwreck, that Allan Woodcourt had worked like a
hero to save the drowning, and succour the survivors.
I had been ill when my dear guardian asked me one day if I would care to
read something he had written, and I said "Yes." There was estrangement
at that time between Richard and Mr. Jarndyce, for the unhappy boy had
taken it into his head that the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce would yet
be settled, and would bring him fortune, and this kept him from devoting
himself seriously to any profession. Of course, he and my darling Ada
had fallen in love, and my guardian insisting on their waiting till
Richard was earning some income before any engagement could be
recognised, increased the estrangement. I knew, to my distress, that
Richard suspected my guardian of having a conflicting claim in the
horrible lawsuit and this made him think unjustly of Mr. Jarndyce.
I read the letter. It was so impressive in its love for me, and in the
unselfish caution it gave me, that my eyes were too often blinded to
read much at a time. But I read it through three times before I laid it
down. It asked me would I be the mistress of Bleak House. It was not a
love-letter, though it expressed so much love, but was written just as
he would at any time have spoken to me.
I felt that to devote my life to his happiness was to thank him poorly
for all he had done for me. Still I cried very much; not only in the
fulness of my heart after reading the letter, but as if something for
which there was no name or distinct idea were lost to me. I was very
happy, very thankful, very hopeful, but I cried very much.
On entering the breakfast-room next morning I found my guardian just as
usual; quite as frank, as open, as free. I thought he might speak to me
about the letter, but he never did.
At the end of a week I went to him and said, rather hesitating and
trembling, "Guardian, when would you like to have the answer to the
letter?"
"When it's ready, my dear," he replied.
"I think it's ready," said I, "and I have brought it myself."
I put my two arms around his neck and kissed him, and he said was this
the mistress of Bleak House? And I said "Yes," and it made no difference
presently, and I said nothing to my pet, Ada, about it.
It was a few days after this, when Mr. Vholes, the attorney whom Richard
employed to watch his interests, called at Bleak House, and told us that
his client was very embarrassed financially, and so thought of throwing
up his commission in the army.
To avert this I went down to Deal and found Richard alone in the
barracks. He was writing at a table, with a great confusion of clothes,
tin cases, books, boots, and brushes strewn all about the floor. So worn
and haggard he looked, even in the fulness of his handsome youth!
My mission was quite fruitless.
"No, Dame Durden! Two subjects I forbid. The first is John Jarndyce. The
second, you know what. Call it madness, and I tell you I can't help it
now, and can't be sane. But it is no such thing; it is the one object I
have to pursue."
He went on to tell me that it was impossible to remain a soldier; that,
apart from debts and duns, he took no interest in his employment and was
not fit for it. He showed me papers to prove that his retirement was
arranged. Knowing I had done no good by coming down, I prepared to
return to London on the morrow.
There was some excitement in the town by reason of the arrival of a big
Indiaman, and, as it happened, amongst those who came on shore from the
ship was Mr. Allan Woodcourt. I met him in the hotel where I was
staying, and he seemed quite pleased to see me. He was glad to meet
Richard again, too, and promised, on my asking him, to befriend Richard
in London.
_IV.--End of Jarndyce and Jarndyce_
Richard always declared that it was Ada he meant to see righted, no less
than himself, and his anxiety on that point so impressed Mr. Woodcourt
that he told me about it. It revived a fear I had had before, that my
dear girl's little property might be absorbed by Mr. Vholes, and that
Richard's justification to himself would be this.
So I went up to London to see Richard, who now lived in Symond's Inn,
and my darling Ada went with me. He was poring over a table covered with
dusty papers, but he received us very affectionately.
I noticed, as he passed his two hands over his head, how sunken and how
large his eyes appeared, and how dry his lips were. He spoke of the case
half-hopefully, half-despondently, "Either the suit must be ended,
Esther, or the suitor. But it shall be the suit--the suit." Then he took
a few turns up and down, and sank upon the sofa. "I get so tired," he
said gloomily. "It is such weary, weary work."
"Esther, dear," Ada said, very quietly, "I am not going home again.
Never any more. I am going to stay with my dear husband. We have been
married above two months. Go home without me, my own Esther; I shall
never go home any more."
I often came to Richard and his wife, and I often met Mr. Woodcourt
there. Richard still suspected my guardian, and refused to see him, and
when I said this was so unreasonable, my guardian only said, "What shall
we find reasonable in Jarndyce and Jarndyce? Unreason and injustice from
beginning to end, if it ever has an end. How should poor Rick, always
hovering near it, pluck reason out of it?"
It was some months after this when Mr. Woodcourt asked me to be his
wife, and I had to tell him I was not free. But I had to tell him that I
could never forget how proud and glad I was at having been beloved by
him.
He took my hand and kissed it, and was like himself again.
All this time my guardian had never referred to his letter or my answer,
so I said to him next morning I would be the mistress of Bleak House
whenever he pleased.
"Next month?" my guardian said gaily.
"Next month, dear guardian."
At the end of the month my guardian went away to Yorkshire, and asked me
to follow him. I was very much surprised, and when the journey was over
my guardian explained that he had asked me to come down to see a house
he had bought for Mr. Woodcourt, with whom he was always very pleased.
It was a beautiful summer morning when we went out to look at the house,
and there over the porch was written. "Bleak House." He led me to a
seat, and sitting down beside me, said:
"When I wrote you the letter to which you brought the answer"--my
guardian smiled as he referred to it--"I had my own happiness too much
in view; but I had yours, too. Hear me, my love, but do not speak. When
Woodcourt came home, I saw that there was other happiness for you; I saw
with whom you would be happier. Well, I have long been in Allan
Woodcourt's confidence, although he was not, until yesterday, in mine.
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. 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 the best wife that ever man
had. What more can I say for you than that I know you deserve her?"
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. Allan, take my dear."
We all three went home together next day. We had an intimation from Mr.
Kenge that the case would come on at Westminster in two days, and that a
certain will had been found which might end the suit in Richard's
favour.
Allan took me down to Westminster, and when we came to Westminster Hall
we found that the Court of Chancery was full, and that something unusual
had occurred. We asked a gentleman by us if he knew what case was on. He
told us Jarndyce and Jarndyce, and that, as well as he could make out,
it was over. Over for the day? "No," he said; "over for good."
In a few minutes a crowd came streaming out, and we saw Mr. Kenge. He
told us that Jarndyce and Jarndyce was a monument of Chancery practice,
and--in a good many words--that the case was over because the whole
estate was found to have been absorbed in costs.
We hurried away, first to my guardian, and then to Ada and Richard.
Richard was lying on the sofa with his eyes closed when I went in. When
he opened them, I fully saw, for the first time, how worn he was. But he
spoke cheerfully, and said how glad he was to think of our intended
marriage.
In the evening my guardian came in and laid his hand softly on
Richard's.
"Oh, sir," said Richard, "you are a good man, a good man!" and burst
into tears.
My guardian sat down beside him, keeping his hand on Richard's.
"My dear Rick," he said, "the clouds have cleared away, and it is bright
now. We can see now. 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."
He sought to raise himself a little.
"Ada, my darling!" Allan raised him, so that she could hold him on her
bosom. "I have done you many wrongs, my own. 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 lit up his face as she bent to kiss him. He slowly laid his face
upon her bosom, drew his arms closer round her neck, and with one
parting sob began the world. Not this--oh, not this! The world that sets
this right.
* * * * *