Bleak House, Charles Dickens [the beginning after the end novel read .txt] 📗
- Author: Charles Dickens
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eradicated. Its influence over me is still tremenjous, and
yielding to it, I am willing to overlook the circumstances over
which none of us have had any control and to renew those proposals
to Miss Summerson which I had the honour to make at a former
period. I beg to lay the ‘ouse in Walcot Square, the business, and
myself before Miss Summerson for her acceptance.”
“Very magnanimous indeed, sir,” observed my guardian.
“Well, sir,” replied Mr. Guppy with candour, “my wish is to BE
magnanimous. I do not consider that in making this offer to Miss
Summerson I am by any means throwing myself away; neither is that
the opinion of my friends. Still, there are circumstances which I
submit may be taken into account as a set off against any little
drawbacks of mine, and so a fair and equitable balance arrived at.”
“I take upon myself, sir,” said my guardian, laughing as he rang
the bell, “to reply to your proposals on behalf of Miss Summerson.
She is very sensible of your handsome intentions, and wishes you
good evening, and wishes you well.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Guppy with a blank look. “Is that tantamount, sir,
to acceptance, or rejection, or consideration?”
“To decided rejection, if you please,” returned my guardian.
Mr. Guppy looked incredulously at his friend, and at his mother,
who suddenly turned very angry, and at the floor, and at the
ceiling.
“Indeed?” said he. “Then, Jobling, if you was the friend you
represent yourself, I should think you might hand my mother out of
the gangway instead of allowing her to remain where she ain’t
wanted.”
But Mrs. Guppy positively refused to come out of the gangway. She
wouldn’t hear of it. “Why, get along with you,” said she to my
guardian, “what do you mean? Ain’t my son good enough for you?
You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Get out with you!”
“My good lady,” returned my guardian, “it is hardly reasonable to
ask me to get out of my own room.”
“I don’t care for that,” said Mrs. Guppy. “Get out with you. If
we ain’t good enough for you, go and procure somebody that is good
enough. Go along and find ‘em.”
I was quite unprepared for the rapid manner in which Mrs. Guppy’s
power of jocularity merged into a power of taking the profoundest
offence.
“Go along and find somebody that’s good enough for you,” repeated
Mrs. Guppy. “Get out!” Nothing seemed to astonish Mr. Guppy’s
mother so much and to make her so very indignant as our not getting
out. “Why don’t you get out?” said Mrs. Guppy. “What are you
stopping here for?”
“Mother,” interposed her son, always getting before her and pushing
her back with one shoulder as she sidled at my guardian, “WILL you
hold your tongue?”
“No, William,” she returned, “I won’t! Not unless he gets out, I
won’t!”
However, Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling together closed on Mr. Guppy’s
mother (who began to be quite abusive) and took her, very much
against her will, downstairs, her voice rising a stair higher every
time her figure got a stair lower, and insisting that we should
immediately go and find somebody who was good enough for us, and
above all things that we should get out.
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 calm 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
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