BLEAK HOUSE

Inapoi la sumar

 CHAPTER LXV  

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 caln 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  condeseending 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 direcfly 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.

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