Bleak House, Charles Dickens [the beginning after the end novel read .txt] 📗

the papers

as I did when I was at Kenge’s, if you only knew what an

accumulation of charges and counter-charges, and suspicions and

cross-suspicions, they involve, you would think me moderate in

comparison.”

 

“Perhaps so,” said I. “But do you think that, among those many

papers, there is much truth and justice, Richard?”

 

“There is truth and justice somewhere in the case, Esther—”

 

“Or was once, long ago,” said I.

 

“Is—is—must be somewhere,” pursued Richard impetuously, “and must

be brought out. To allow Ada to be made a bribe and hush-money of

is not the way to bring it out. You say the suit is changing me;

John Jarndyce says it changes, has changed, and will change

everybody who has any share in it. Then the greater right I have

on my side when I resolve to do all I can to bring it to an end.”

 

“All you can, Richard! Do you think that in these many years no

others have done all they could? Has the difficulty grown easier

because of so many failures?”

 

“It can’t last for ever,” returned Richard with a fierceness

kindling in him which again presented to me that last sad reminder.

“I am young and earnest, and energy and determination have done

wonders many a time. Others have only half thrown themselves into

it. I devote myself to it. I make it the object of my life.”

 

“Oh, Richard, my dear, so much the worse, so much the worse!”

 

“No, no, no, don’t you be afraid for me,” he returned

affectionately. “You’re a dear, good, wise, quiet, blessed girl;

but you have your prepossessions. So I come round to John

Jarndyce. I tell you, my good Esther, when he and I were on those

terms which he found so convenient, we were not on natural terms.”

 

“Are division and animosity your natural terms, Richard?”

 

“No, I don’t say that. I mean that all this business puts us on

unnatural terms, with which natural relations are incompatible.

See another reason for urging it on! I may find out when it’s over

that I have been mistaken in John Jarndyce. My head may be clearer

when I am free of it, and I may then agree with what you say to-day. Very well. Then I shall acknowledge it and make him

reparation.”

 

Everything postponed to that imaginary time! Everything held in

confusion and indecision until then!

 

“Now, my best of confidantes,” said Richard, “I want my cousin Ada

to understand that I am not captious, fickle, and wilful about John

Jarndyce, but that I have this purpose and reason at my back. I

wish to represent myself to her through you, because she has a

great esteem and respect for her cousin John; and I know you will

soften the course I take, even though you disapprove of it; and—

and in short,” said Richard, who had been hesitating through these

words, “I—I don’t like to represent myself in this litigious,

contentious, doubting character to a confiding girl like Ada.”

 

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