Bleak House

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I told him that he was more like himself in those latter words than
in anything he had said yet.

"Why," acknowledged Richard, "that may be true enough, my love. I
rather feel it to be so. But I shall be able to give myself fair-
play by and by. I shall come all right again, then, don't you be
afraid."

I asked him if this were all he wished me to tell Ada.

"Not quite," said Richard. "I am bound not to withhold from her
that John Jarndyce answered my letter in his usual manner,
addressing me as 'My dear Rick,' trying to argue me out of my
opinions, and telling me that they should make no difference in
him. (All very well of course, but not altering the case.) I also
want Ada to know that if I see her seldom just now, I am looking
after her interests as well as my own--we two being in the same
boat exactly--and that I hope she will not suppose from any flying
rumours she may hear that I am at all light-headed or imprudent; on
the contrary, I am always looking forward to the termination of the
suit, and always planning in that direction. Being of age now and
having taken the step I have taken, I consider myself free from any
accountability to John Jarndyce; but Ada being still a ward of the
court, I don't yet ask her to renew our engagement. When she is
free to act for herself, I shall be myself once more and we shall
both be in very different worldly circumstances, I believe. If you
tell her all this with the advantage of your considerate way, you
will do me a very great and a very kind service, my dear Esther;
and I shall knock Jarndyce and Jarndyce on the head with greater
vigour. Of course I ask for no secrecy at Bleak House."

"Richard," said I, "you place great confidence in me, but I fear
you will not take advice from me?"

"It's impossible that I can on this subject, my dear girl. On any
other, readily."

As if there were any other in his life! As if his whole career and
character were not being dyed one colour!

"But I may ask you a question, Richard?"

"I think so," said he, laughing. "I don't know who may not, if you
may not."

"You say, yourself, you are not leading a very settled life."

"How can I, my dear Esther, with nothing settled!"

"Are you in debt again?"

"Why, of course I am," said Richard, astonished at my simplicity.

"Is it of course?"

"My dear child, certainly. I can't throw myself into an object so
completely without expense. You forget, or perhaps you don't know,
that under either of the wills Ada and I take something. It's only
a question between the larger sum and the smaller. I shall be
within the mark any way. Bless your heart, my excellent girl,"
said Richard, quite amused with me, "I shall be all right! I shall
pull through, my dear!"

I felt so deeply sensible of the danger in which he stood that I
tried, in Ada's name, in my guardian's, in my own, by every fervent
means that I could think of, to warn him of it and to show him some
of his mistakes. He received everything I said with patience and
gentleness, but it all rebounded from him without taking the least
effect. I could not wonder at this after the reception his
preoccupied mind had given to my guardian's letter, but I
determined to try Ada's influence yet.

So when our walk brought us round to the village again, and I went
home to breakfast, I prepared Ada for the account I was going to
give her and told her exactly what reason we had to dread that
Richard was losing himself and scattering his whole life to the
winds. It made her very unhappy, of course, though she had a far,
far greater reliance on his correcting his errors than I could
have--which was so natural and loving in my dear!--and she
presently wrote him this little letter:

My dearest cousin,

Esther has told me all you said to her this morning. I write this
to repeat most earnestly for myself all that she said to you and to
let you know how sure I am that you will sooner or later find our
cousin John a pattern of truth, sincerity, and goodness, when you
will deeply, deeply grieve to have done him (without intending it)
so much wrong.

I do not quite know how to write what I wish to say next, but I
trust you will understand it as I mean it. I have some fears, my
dearest cousin, that it may be partly for my sake you are now
laying up so much unhappiness for yourself--and if for yourself,
for me. In case this should be so, or in case you should entertain
much thought of me in what you are doing, I most earnestly entreat
and beg you to desist. You can do nothing for my sake that will
make me half so happy as for ever turning your back upon the shadow
in which we both were born. Do not be angry with me for saying
this. Pray, pray, dear Richard, for my sake, and for your own, and
in a natural repugnance for that source of trouble which had its
share in making us both orphans when we were very young, pray,
pray, let it go for ever. We have reason to know by this time that
there is no good in it and no hope, that there is nothing to be got
from it but sorrow.

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

Ever, my dearest cousin, your most affectionate

Ada

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was very unfortunate for Richard, I said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Had you known him long?" asked Ada.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And she kept her word?

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

CHAPTER XXXVIII

A Struggle

When our time came for returning to Bleak House again, we were
punctual to the day and were received with an overpowering welcome.
I was perfectly restored to health and strength, and finding my
housekeeping keys laid ready for me in my room, rang myself in as
if I had been a new year, with a merry little peal. "Once more,
duty, duty, Esther," said I; "and if you are not overjoyed to do
it, more than cheerfully and contentedly, through anything and
everything, you ought to be. That's all I have to say to you, my
dear!"

The first few mornings were mornings of so much bustle and
business, devoted to such settlements of accounts, such repeated
journeys to and fro between the growlery and all other parts of the
house, so many rearrangements of drawers and presses, and such a
general new beginning altogether, that I had not a moment's
leisure. But when these arrangements were completed and everything
was in order, I paid a visit of a few hours to London, which
something in the letter I had destroyed at Chesney Wold had induced
me to decide upon in my own mind.

I made Caddy Jellyby--her maiden name was so natural to me that I
always called her by it--the pretext for this visit and wrote her a
note previously asking the favour of her company on a little
business expedition. Leaving home very early in the morning, I got
to London by stage-coach in such good time that I got to Newman
Street with the day before me.

Caddy, who had not seen me since her wedding-day, was so glad and
so affectionate that I was half inclined to fear I should make her
husband jealous. But he was, in his way, just as bad--I mean as
good; and in short it was the old story, and nobody would leave me
any possibility of doing anything meritorious.

The elder Mr. Turveydrop was in bed, I found, and Caddy was milling
his chocolate, which a melancholy little boy who was an apprentice
--it seemed such a curious thing to be apprenticed to the trade of
dancing--was waiting to carry upstairs. Her father-in-law was
extremely kind and considerate, Caddy told me, and they lived most
happily together. (When she spoke of their living together, she
meant that the old gentleman had all the good things and all the
good lodging, while she and her husband had what they could get,
and were poked into two corner rooms over the Mews.)

"And how is your mama, Caddy?" said I.

"Why, I hear of her, Esther," replied Caddy, "through Pa, but I see
very little of her. We are good friends, I am glad to say, but Ma
thinks there is something absurd in my having married a dancing-
master, and she is rather afraid of its extending to her."

It struck me that if Mrs. Jellyby had discharged her own natural
duties and obligations before she swept the horizon with a
telescope in search of others, she would have taken the best
precautions against becoming absurd, but I need scarcely observe
that I kept this to myself.

"And your papa, Caddy?"

"He comes here every evening," returned Caddy, "and is so fond of
sitting in the corner there that it's a treat to see him."

Looking at the corner, I plainly perceived the mark of Mr.
Jellyby's head against the wall. It was consolatory to know that
he had found such a resting-place for it.

"And you, Caddy," said I, "you are always busy, I'll be bound?"

"Well, my dear," returned Caddy, "I am indeed, for to tell you a
grand secret, I am qualifying myself to give lessons. Prince's
health is not strong, and I want to be able to assist him. What
with schools, and classes here, and private pupils, AND the
apprentices, he really has too much to do, poor fellow!"

The notion of the apprentices was still so odd to me that I asked
Caddy if there were many of them.

"Four," said Caddy. "One in-door, and three out. They are very
good children; only when they get together they WILL play--
children-like--instead of attending to their work. So the little
boy you saw just now waltzes by himself in the empty kitchen, and
we distribute the others over the house as well as we can."

"That is only for their steps, of course?" said I.

"Only for their steps," said Caddy. "In that way they practise, so
many hours at a time, whatever steps they happen to be upon. They
dance in the academy, and at this time of year we do figures at
five every morning."

"Why, what a laborious life!" I exclaimed.

"I assure you, my dear," returned Caddy, smiling, "when the out-
door apprentices ring us up in the morning (the bell rings into our
room, not to disturb old Mr. Turveydrop), and when I put up the
window and see them standing on the door-step with their little
pumps under their arms, I am actually reminded of the Sweeps."

All this presented the art to me in a singular light, to be sure.
Caddy enjoyed the effect of her communication and cheerfully
recounted the particulars of her own studies.

"You see, my dear, to save expense I ought to know something of the
piano, and I ought to know something of the kit too, and
consequently I have to practise those two instruments as well as
the details of our profession. If Ma had been like anybody else, I
might have had some little musical knowledge to begin upon.
However, I hadn't any; and that part of the work is, at first, a
little discouraging, I must allow. But I have a very good ear, and
I am used to drudgery--I have to thank Ma for that, at all events--
and where there's a will there's a way, you know, Esther, the world
over." Saying these words, Caddy laughingly sat down at a little
jingling square piano and really rattled off a quadrille with great
spirit. Then she good-humouredly and blushingly got up again, and
while she still laughed herself, said, "Don't laugh at me, please;
that's a dear girl!"

I would sooner have cried, but I did neither. I encouraged her and
praised her with all my heart. For I conscientiously believed,
dancing-master's wife though she was, and dancing-mistress though
in her limited ambition she aspired to be, she had struck out a
natural, wholesome, loving course of industry and perseverance that
was quite as good as a mission.