Bleak House. Charles Dickens
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 up-stairs, 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.
Chapter VI
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, rickyards, 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 postillion 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, reawakened 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