Bleak House by Charles Dickens (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) đź“–
- Author: Charles Dickens
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discovered,” whispering mysteriously, “that her natural cruelty is
sharpened by a jealous fear of their regaining their liberty. In
consequence of the judgment I expect being shortly given. She is
sly and full of malice. I half believe, sometimes, that she is no
cat, but the wolf of the old saying. It is so very difficult to
keep her from the door.”
Some neighbouring bells, reminding the poor soul that it was half-past nine, did more for us in the way of bringing our visit to an
end than we could easily have done for ourselves. She hurriedly
took up her little bag of documents, which she had laid upon the
table on coming in, and asked if we were also going into court. On
our answering no, and that we would on no account detain her, she
opened the door to attend us downstairs.
“With such an omen, it is even more necessary than usual that I
should be there before the Chancellor comes in,” said she, “for he
might mention my case the first thing. I have a presentiment that
he WILL mention it the first thing this morning.”
She stopped to tell us in a whisper as we were going down that the
whole house was filled with strange lumber which her landlord had
bought piecemeal and had no wish to sell, in consequence of being a
little M. This was on the first floor. But she had made a
previous stoppage on the second floor and had silently pointed at a
dark door there.
“The only other lodger,” she now whispered in explanation, “a law-writer. The children in the lanes here say he has sold himself to
the devil. I don’t know what he can have done with the money.
Hush!”
She appeared to mistrust that the lodger might hear her even there,
and repeating “Hush!” went before us on tiptoe as though even the
sound of her footsteps might reveal to him what she had said.
Passing through the shop on our way out, as we had passed through
it on our way in, we found the old man storing a quantity of
packets of waste-paper in a kind of well in the floor. He seemed
to be working hard, with the perspiration standing on his forehead,
and had a piece of chalk by him, with which, as he put each
separate package or bundle down, he made a crooked mark on the
panelling of the wall.
Richard and Ada, and Miss Jellyby, and the little old lady had gone
by him, and I was going when he touched me on the arm to stay me,
and chalked the letter J upon the wall—in a very curious manner,
beginning with the end of the letter and shaping it backward. It
was a capital letter, not a printed one, but just such a letter as
any clerk in Messrs. Kenge and Carboy’s office would have made.
“Can you read it?” he asked me with a keen glance.
“Surely,” said I. “It’s very plain.”
“What is it?”
“J.”
With another glance at me, and a glance at the door, he rubbed it
out and turned an “a” in its place (not a capital letter this
time), and said, “What’s that?”
I told him. He then rubbed that out and turned the letter “r,” and
asked me the same question. He went on quickly until he had formed
in the same curious manner, beginning at the ends and bottoms of
the letters, the word Jarndyce, without once leaving two letters on
the wall together.
“What does that spell?” he asked me.
When I told him, he laughed. In the same odd way, yet with the
same rapidity, he then produced singly, and rubbed out singly, the
letters forming the words Bleak House. These, in some astonishment,
I also read; and he laughed again.
“Hi!” said the old man, laying aside the chalk. “I have a turn for
copying from memory, you see, miss, though I can neither read nor
write.”
He looked so disagreeable and his cat looked so wickedly at me, as
if I were a blood-relation of the birds upstairs, that I was quite
relieved by Richard’s appearing at the door and saying, “Miss
Summerson, I hope you are not bargaining for the sale of your hair.
Don’t be tempted. Three sacks below are quite enough for Mr. Krook!”
I lost no time in wishing Mr. Krook good morning and joining my
friends outside, where we parted with the little old lady, who gave
us her blessing with great ceremony and renewed her assurance of
yesterday in reference to her intention of settling estates on Ada
and me. Before we finally turned out of those lanes, we looked
back and saw Mr. Krook standing at his shop-door, in his
spectacles, looking after us, with his cat upon his shoulder, and
her tail sticking up on one side of his hairy cap like a tall
feather.
“Quite an adventure for a morning in London!” said Richard with a
sigh. “Ah, cousin, cousin, it’s a weary word this Chancery!”
“It is to me, and has been ever since I can remember,” returned
Ada. “I am grieved that I should be the enemy—as I suppose I am
—of a great number of relations and others, and that they should be
my enemies—as I suppose they are—and that we should all be
ruining one another without knowing how or why and be in constant
doubt and discord all our lives. It seems very strange, as there
must be right somewhere, that an honest judge in real earnest has
not been able to find out through all these years where it is.”
“Ah, cousin!” said Richard. “Strange, indeed! All this wasteful,
wanton chess-playing IS very strange. To see that composed court
yesterday jogging on so serenely and to think of the wretchedness
of the pieces on the board gave me the headache and the heartache
both together. My head ached with wondering how it happened, if
men were neither fools nor rascals; and my heart ached to think
they could possibly be either. But at all events, Ada—I may call
you Ada?”
“Of course you may, cousin Richard.”
“At all events, Chancery will work none of its bad influences on
US. We have happily been brought together, thanks to our good
kinsman, and it can’t divide us now!”
“Never, I hope, cousin Richard!” said Ada gently.
Miss Jellyby gave my arm a squeeze and me a very significant look.
I smiled in return, and we made the rest of the way back very
pleasantly.
In half an hour after our arrival, Mrs. Jellyby appeared; and in
the course of an hour the various things necessary for breakfast
straggled one by one into the dining-room. I do not doubt that
Mrs. Jellyby had gone to bed and got up in the usual manner, but
she presented no appearance of having changed her dress. She was
greatly occupied during breakfast, for the morning’s post brought a
heavy correspondence relative to Borrioboola-Gha, which would
occasion her (she said) to pass a busy day. The children tumbled
about, and notched memoranda of their accidents in their legs,
which were perfect little calendars of distress; and Peepy was lost
for an hour and a half, and brought home from Newgate market by a
policeman. The equable manner in which Mrs. Jellyby sustained both
his absence and his restoration to the family circle surprised us
all.
She was by that time perseveringly dictating to Caddy, and Caddy
was fast relapsing into the inky condition in which we had found
her. At one o’clock an open carriage arrived for us, and a cart
for our luggage. Mrs. Jellyby charged us with many remembrances to
her good friend Mr. Jarndyce; Caddy left her desk to see us depart,
kissed me in the passage, and stood biting her pen and sobbing on
the steps; Peepy, I am happy to say, was asleep and spared the pain
of separation (I was not without misgivings that he had gone to
Newgate market in search of me); and all the other children got up
behind the barouche and fell off, and we saw them, with great
concern, scattered over the surface of Thavies Inn as we rolled out
of its precincts.
Quite at Home
The day had brightened very much, and still brightened as we went
westward. We went our way through the sunshine and the fresh air,
wondering more and more at the extent of the streets, the
brilliancy of the shops, the great traffic, and the crowds of
people whom the pleasanter weather seemed to have brought out like
many-coloured flowers. By and by we began to leave the wonderful
city and to proceed through suburbs which, of themselves, would
have made a pretty large town in my eyes; and at last we got into a
real country road again, with windmills, rick-yards, milestones,
farmers’ waggons, scents of old hay, swinging signs, and horse
troughs: trees, fields, and hedgerows. It was delightful to see
the green landscape before us and the immense metropolis behind;
and when a waggon with a train of beautiful horses, furnished with
red trappings and clear-sounding bells, came by us with its music,
I believe we could all three have sung to the bells, so cheerful
were the influences around.
“The whole road has been reminding me of my namesake Whittington,”
said Richard, “and that waggon is the finishing touch. Halloa!
What’s the matter?”
We had stopped, and the waggon had stopped too. Its music changed
as the horses came to a stand, and subsided to a gentle tinkling,
except when a horse tossed his head or shook himself and sprinkled
off a little shower of bell-ringing.
“Our postilion is looking after the waggoner,” said Richard, “and
the waggoner is coming back after us. Good day, friend!” The
waggoner was at our coach-door. “Why, here’s an extraordinary
thing!” added Richard, looking closely at the man. “He has got
your name, Ada, in his hat!”
He had all our names in his hat. Tucked within the band were three
small notes—one addressed to Ada, one to Richard, one to me.
These the waggoner delivered to each of us respectively, reading
the name aloud first. In answer to Richard’s inquiry from whom
they came, he briefly answered, “Master, sir, if you please”; and
putting on his hat again (which was like a soft bowl), cracked his
whip, re-awakened his music, and went melodiously away.
“Is that Mr. Jarndyce’s waggon?” said Richard, calling to our post-boy.
“Yes, sir,” he replied. “Going to London.”
We opened the notes. Each was a counterpart of the other and
contained these words in a solid, plain hand.
“I look forward, my dear, to our meeting easily and without
constraint on either side. I therefore have to propose that we
meet as old friends and take the past for granted. It will be a
relief to you possibly, and to me certainly, and so my love to you.
“John Jarndyce”
I had perhaps less reason to be surprised than either of my
companions, having never yet enjoyed an opportunity of thanking one
who had been my benefactor and sole earthly dependence through so
many years. I had not considered how I could thank him, my
gratitude lying too deep in my heart for that; but I now began to
consider how I could meet him without thanking him, and felt it
would be very difficult indeed.
The notes revived in Richard and Ada a general impression that they
both had, without quite knowing how they came by it, that their
cousin Jarndyce could never bear acknowledgments for any kindness
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