CHAPTER III

A Progress

I have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of

these pages, for I know I am not clever. I always knew that. I can

remember, when I was a very little girl indeed, I used to say to my

doll when we were alone together, “Now, Dolly, I am not clever, you

know very well, and you must be patient with me, like a dear!” And so

she used to sit propped up in a great arm-chair, with her beautiful

complexion and rosy lips, staring at me—or not so much at me, I

think, as at nothing—while I busily stitched away and told her every

one of my secrets.

My dear old doll! I was such a shy little thing that I seldom dared

to open my lips, and never dared to open my heart, to anybody else.

It almost makes me cry to think what a relief it used to be to me

when I came home from school of a day to run upstairs to my room and

say, “Oh, you dear faithful Dolly, I knew you would be expecting me!”

and then to sit down on the floor, leaning on the elbow of her great

chair, and tell her all I had noticed since we parted. I had always

rather a noticing way—not a quick way, oh, no!—a silent way of

noticing what passed before me and thinking I should like to

understand it better. I have not by any means a quick understanding.

When I love a person very tenderly indeed, it seems to brighten. But

even that may be my vanity.

I was brought up, from my earliest remembrance—like some of the

princesses in the fairy stories, only I was not charming—by my

godmother. At least, I only knew her as such. She was a good, good

woman! She went to church three times every Sunday, and to morning

prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays, and to lectures whenever there

were lectures; and never missed. She was handsome; and if she had

ever smiled, would have been (I used to think) like an angel—but she

never smiled. She was always grave and strict. She was so very good

herself, I thought, that the badness of other people made her frown

all her life. I felt so different from her, even making every

allowance for the differences between a child and a woman; I felt so

poor, so trifling, and so far off that I never could be unrestrained

with her—no, could never even love her as I wished. It made me very

sorry to consider how good she was and how unworthy of her I was, and

I used ardently to hope that I might have a better heart; and I

talked it over very often with the dear old doll, but I never loved

my godmother as I ought to have loved her and as I felt I must have

loved her if I had been a better girl.

This made me, I dare say, more timid and retiring than I naturally

was and cast me upon Dolly as the only friend with whom I felt at

ease. But something happened when I was still quite a little thing

that helped it very much.

I had never heard my mama spoken of. I had never heard of my papa

either, but I felt more interested about my mama. I had never worn a

black frock, that I could recollect. I had never been shown my mama’s

grave. I had never been told where it was. Yet I had never been

taught to pray for any relation but my godmother. I had more than

once approached this subject of my thoughts with Mrs. Rachael, our

only servant, who took my light away when I was in bed (another very

good woman, but austere to me), and she had only said, “Esther, good

night!” and gone away and left me.

Although there were seven girls at the neighbouring school where I

was a day boarder, and although they called me little Esther

Summerson, I knew none of them at home. All of them were older than

I, to be sure (I was the youngest there by a good deal), but there

seemed to be some other separation between us besides that, and

besides their being far more clever than I was and knowing much more

than I did. One of them in the first week of my going to the school

(I remember it very well) invited me home to a little party, to my

great joy. But my godmother wrote a stiff letter declining for me,

and I never went. I never went out at all.

It was my birthday. There were holidays at school on other

birthdays—none on mine. There were rejoicings at home on other

birthdays, as I knew from what I heard the girls relate to one

another—there were none on mine. My birthday was the most melancholy

day at home in the whole year.

I have mentioned that unless my vanity should deceive me (as I know

it may, for I may be very vain without suspecting it, though indeed I

don’t), my comprehension is quickened when my affection is. My

disposition is very affectionate, and perhaps I might still feel such

a wound if such a wound could be received more than once with the

quickness of that birthday.

Dinner was over, and my godmother and I were sitting at the table

before the fire. The clock ticked, the fire clicked; not another

sound had been heard in the room or in the house for I don’t know how

long. I happened to look timidly up from my stitching, across the

table at my godmother, and I saw in her face, looking gloomily at me,

“It would have been far better, little Esther, that you had had no

birthday, that you had never been born!”

I broke out crying and sobbing, and I said, “Oh, dear godmother, tell

me, pray do tell me, did Mama die on my birthday?”

“No,” she returned. “Ask me no more, child!”

“Oh, do pray tell me something of her. Do now, at last, dear

godmother, if you please! What did I do to her? How did I lose her?

Why am I so different from other children, and why is it my fault,

dear godmother? No, no, no, don’t go away. Oh, speak to me!”

I was in a kind of fright beyond my grief, and I caught hold of her

dress and was kneeling to her. She had been saying all the while,

“Let me go!” But now she stood still.

Her darkened face had such power over me that it stopped me in the

midst of my vehemence. I put up my trembling little hand to clasp

hers or to beg her pardon with what earnestness I might, but withdrew

it as she looked at me, and laid it on my fluttering heart. She

raised me, sat in her chair, and standing me before her, said slowly

in a cold, low voice—I see her knitted brow and pointed

finger—“Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers.

The time will come—and soon enough—when you will understand this

better and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can. I have

forgiven her”—but her face did not relent—“the wrong she did to me,

and I say no more of it, though it was greater than you will ever

know—than any one will ever know but I, the sufferer. For yourself,

unfortunate girl, orphaned and degraded from the first of these evil

anniversaries, pray daily that the sins of others be not visited upon

your head, according to what is written. Forget your mother and leave

all other people to forget her who will do her unhappy child that

greatest kindness. Now, go!”

She checked me, however, as I was about to depart from her—so frozen

as I was!—and added this, “Submission, self-denial, diligent work,

are the preparations for a life begun with such a shadow on it. You

are different from other children, Esther, because you were not born,

like them, in common sinfulness and wrath. You are set apart.”

I went up to my room, and crept to bed, and laid my doll’s cheek

against mine wet with tears, and holding that solitary friend upon my

bosom, cried myself to sleep. Imperfect as my understanding of my

sorrow was, I knew that I had brought no joy at any time to anybody’s

heart and that I was to no one upon earth what Dolly was to me.

Dear, dear, to think how much time we passed alone together

afterwards, and how often I repeated to the doll the story of my

birthday and confided to her that I would try as hard as ever I could

to repair the fault I had been born with (of which I confessedly felt

guilty and yet innocent) and would strive as I grew up to be

industrious, contented, and kind-hearted and to do some good to some

one, and win some love to myself if I could. I hope it is not

self-indulgent to shed these tears as I think of it. I am very

thankful, I am very cheerful, but I cannot quite help their coming to

my eyes.

There! I have wiped them away now and can go on again properly.

I felt the distance between my godmother and myself so much more

after the birthday, and felt so sensible of filling a place in her

house which ought to have been empty, that I found her more difficult

of approach, though I was fervently grateful to her in my heart, than

ever. I felt in the same way towards my school companions; I felt in

the same way towards Mrs. Rachael, who was a widow; and oh, towards

her daughter, of whom she was proud, who came to see her once a

fortnight! I was very retired and quiet, and tried to be very

diligent.

One sunny afternoon when I had come home from school with my books

and portfolio, watching my long shadow at my side, and as I was

gliding upstairs to my room as usual, my godmother looked out of the

parlour-door and called me back. Sitting with her, I found—which was

very unusual indeed—a stranger. A portly, important-looking

gentleman, dressed all in black, with a white cravat, large gold

watch seals, a pair of gold eye-glasses, and a large seal-ring upon

his little finger.

“This,” said my godmother in an undertone, “is the child.” Then she

said in her naturally stern way of speaking, “This is Esther, sir.”

The gentleman put up his eye-glasses to look at me and said, “Come

here, my dear!” He shook hands with me and asked me to take off my

bonnet, looking at me all the while. When I had complied, he said,

“Ah!” and afterwards “Yes!” And then, taking off his eye-glasses and

folding them in a red case, and leaning back in his arm-chair,

turning the case about in his two hands, he gave my godmother a nod.

Upon that, my godmother said, “You may go upstairs, Esther!” And I

made him my curtsy and left him.

It must have been two years afterwards, and I was almost fourteen,

when one dreadful night my godmother and I sat at the fireside. I was

reading aloud, and she was listening. I had come down at nine o’clock

as I always did to read the Bible to her, and was reading from St.

John how our Saviour stooped down, writing with his finger in the

dust, when they brought the sinful woman to him.

“So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said

unto them, ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a

stone at her!’”

I was stopped by my godmother’s rising, putting her hand to her head,

and crying out in an awful voice from quite another part of the book,

“‘Watch ye, therefore, lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And

what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch!’”

In an instant, while she stood before me repeating these words, she

fell down on the floor. I had no need to cry out; her voice had

sounded through the house and been heard in the street.

She was laid upon her bed. For more than a week she lay there, little

altered outwardly, with her old handsome resolute frown that I so

well knew carved upon her face. Many and many a time, in the day and

in the night, with my head upon the pillow by her that my whispers

might be plainer to her, I kissed her, thanked her, prayed for her,

asked her for her blessing and forgiveness, entreated her to give me

the least sign that she knew or heard me. No, no, no. Her face was

immovable. To the very last, and even afterwards, her frown remained

unsoftened.

On the day after my poor good godmother was buried, the gentleman in

black with the white neckcloth reappeared. I was sent for by Mrs.

Rachael, and found him in the same place, as if he had never gone

away.

“My name is Kenge,” he said; “you may remember it, my child; Kenge

and Carboy, Lincoln’s Inn.”

I replied that I remembered to have seen him once before.

“Pray be seated—here near me. Don’t distress yourself; it’s of no

use. Mrs. Rachael, I needn’t inform you who were acquainted with the

late Miss Barbary’s affairs, that her means die with her and that

this young lady, now her aunt is dead—”

“My aunt, sir!”

“It is really of no use carrying on a deception when no object is to

be gained by it,” said Mr. Kenge smoothly, “Aunt in fact, though not

in law. Don’t distress yourself! Don’t weep! Don’t tremble! Mrs.

Rachael, our young friend has no doubt heard of—the—a—Jarndyce and

Jarndyce.”

“Never,” said Mrs. Rachael.

“Is it possible,” pursued Mr. Kenge, putting up his eye-glasses,

“that our young friend—I BEG you won’t distress yourself!—never

heard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce!”

I shook my head, wondering even what it was.

“Not of Jarndyce and Jarndyce?” said Mr. Kenge, looking over his

glasses at me and softly turning the case about and about as if he

were petting something. “Not of one of the greatest Chancery suits

known? Not of Jarndyce and Jarndyce—the—a—in itself a monument of

Chancery practice. In which (I would say) every difficulty, every

contingency, every masterly fiction, every form of procedure known

in that court, is represented over and over again? It is a cause

that could not exist out of this free and great country. I should

say that the aggregate of costs in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mrs.

Rachael”—I was afraid he addressed himself to her because I appeared

inattentive—“amounts at the present hour to from SIX-ty to SEVEN-ty

THOUSAND POUNDS!” said Mr. Kenge, leaning back in his chair.

I felt very ignorant, but what could I do? I was so entirely

unacquainted with the subject that I understood nothing about it even

then.

“And she really never heard of the cause!” said Mr. Kenge.

“Surprising!”

“Miss Barbary, sir,” returned Mrs. Rachael, “who is now among the

Seraphim—”

“I hope so, I am sure,” said Mr. Kenge politely.

“—Wished Esther only to know what would be serviceable to her. And

she knows, from any teaching she has had here, nothing more.”

“Well!” said Mr. Kenge. “Upon the whole, very proper. Now to the

point,” addressing me. “Miss Barbary, your sole relation (in fact

that is, for I am bound to observe that in law you had none) being

deceased and it naturally not being to be expected that Mrs.

Rachael—”

“Oh, dear no!” said Mrs. Rachael quickly.

“Quite so,” assented Mr. Kenge; “—that Mrs. Rachael should charge

herself with your maintenance and support (I beg you won’t distress

yourself), you are in a position to receive the renewal of an offer

which I was instructed to make to Miss Barbary some two years ago and

which, though rejected then, was understood to be renewable under the

lamentable circumstances that have since occurred. Now, if I avow

that I represent, in Jarndyce and Jarndyce and otherwise, a highly

humane, but at the same time singular, man, shall I compromise myself

by any stretch of my professional caution?” said Mr. Kenge, leaning

back in his chair again and looking calmly at us both.

He appeared to enjoy beyond everything the sound of his own voice. I

couldn’t wonder at that, for it was mellow and full and gave great

importance to every word he uttered. He listened to himself with

obvious satisfaction and sometimes gently beat time to his own music

with his head or rounded a sentence with his hand. I was very much

impressed by him—even then, before I knew that he formed himself on

the model of a great lord who was his client and that he was

generally called Conversation Kenge.

“Mr. Jarndyce,” he pursued, “being aware of the—I would say,

desolate—position of our young friend, offers to place her at a

first-rate establishment where her education shall be completed,

where her comfort shall be secured, where her reasonable wants shall

be anticipated, where she shall be eminently qualified to discharge

her duty in that station of life unto which it has pleased—shall I

say Providence?—to call her.”

My heart was filled so full, both by what he said and by his

affecting manner of saying it, that I was not able to speak, though I

tried.

“Mr. Jarndyce,” he went on, “makes no condition beyond expressing his

expectation that our young friend will not at any time remove herself

from the establishment in question without his knowledge and

concurrence. That she will faithfully apply herself to the

acquisition of those accomplishments, upon the exercise of which she

will be ultimately dependent. That she will tread in the paths of

virtue and honour, and—the—a——so forth.”

I was still less able to speak than before.

“Now, what does our young friend say?” proceeded Mr. Kenge. “Take

time, take time! I pause for her reply. But take time!”

What the destitute subject of such an offer tried to say, I need not

repeat. What she did say, I could more easily tell, if it were worth

the telling. What she felt, and will feel to her dying hour, I could

never relate.

This interview took place at Windsor, where I had passed (as far as I

knew) my whole life. On that day week, amply provided with all

necessaries, I left it, inside the stagecoach, for Reading.

Mrs. Rachael was too good to feel any emotion at parting, but I was

not so good, and wept bitterly. I thought that I ought to have known

her better after so many years and ought to have made myself enough

of a favourite with her to make her sorry then. When she gave me one

cold parting kiss upon my forehead, like a thaw-drop from the stone

porch—it was a very frosty day—I felt so miserable and

self-reproachful that I clung to her and told her it was my fault, I

knew, that she could say good-bye so easily!

“No, Esther!” she returned. “It is your misfortune!”

The coach was at the little lawn-gate—we had not come out until we

heard the wheels—and thus I left her, with a sorrowful heart. She

went in before my boxes were lifted to the coach-roof and shut the

door. As long as I could see the house, I looked back at it from the

window through my tears. My godmother had left Mrs. Rachael all the

little property she possessed; and there was to be a sale; and an old

hearth-rug with roses on it, which always seemed to me the first

thing in the world I had ever seen, was hanging outside in the frost

and snow. A day or two before, I had wrapped the dear old doll in her

own shawl and quietly laid her—I am half ashamed to tell it—in the

garden-earth under the tree that shaded my old window. I had no

companion left but my bird, and him I carried with me in his cage.

When the house was out of sight, I sat, with my bird-cage in the

straw at my feet, forward on the low seat to look out of the high

window, watching the frosty trees, that were like beautiful pieces of

spar, and the fields all smooth and white with last night’s snow, and

the sun, so red but yielding so little heat, and the ice, dark like

metal where the skaters and sliders had brushed the snow away. There

was a gentleman in the coach who sat on the opposite seat and looked

very large in a quantity of wrappings, but he sat gazing out of the

other window and took no notice of me.

I thought of my dead godmother, of the night when I read to her, of

her frowning so fixedly and sternly in her bed, of the strange place

I was going to, of the people I should find there, and what they

would be like, and what they would say to me, when a voice in the

coach gave me a terrible start.

It said, “What the de-vil are you crying for?”

I was so frightened that I lost my voice and could only answer in a

whisper, “Me, sir?” For of course I knew it must have been the

gentleman in the quantity of wrappings, though he was still looking

out of his window.

“Yes, you,” he said, turning round.

“I didn’t know I was crying, sir,” I faltered.

“But you are!” said the gentleman. “Look here!” He came quite

opposite to me from the other corner of the coach, brushed one of his

large furry cuffs across my eyes (but without hurting me), and showed

me that it was wet.

“There! Now you know you are,” he said. “Don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“And what are you crying for?” said the gentleman, “Don’t you want to

go there?”

“Where, sir?”

“Where? Why, wherever you are going,” said the gentleman.

“I am very glad to go there, sir,” I answered.

“Well, then! Look glad!” said the gentleman.

I thought he was very strange, or at least that what I could see of

him was very strange, for he was wrapped up to the chin, and his face

was almost hidden in a fur cap with broad fur straps at the side of

his head fastened under his chin; but I was composed again, and not

afraid of him. So I told him that I thought I must have been crying

because of my godmother’s death and because of Mrs. Rachael’s not

being sorry to part with me.

“Confound Mrs. Rachael!” said the gentleman. “Let her fly away in a

high wind on a broomstick!”

I began to be really afraid of him now and looked at him with the

greatest astonishment. But I thought that he had pleasant eyes,

although he kept on muttering to himself in an angry manner and

calling Mrs. Rachael names.

After a little while he opened his outer wrapper, which appeared to

me large enough to wrap up the whole coach, and put his arm down into

a deep pocket in the side.

“Now, look here!” he said. “In this paper,” which was nicely folded,

“is a piece of the best plum-cake that can be got for money—sugar on

the outside an inch thick, like fat on mutton chops. Here’s a little

pie (a gem this is, both for size and quality), made in France. And

what do you suppose it’s made of? Livers of fat geese. There’s a pie!

Now let’s see you eat ’em.”

“Thank you, sir,” I replied; “thank you very much indeed, but I hope

you won’t be offended—they are too rich for me.”

“Floored again!” said the gentleman, which I didn’t at all

understand, and threw them both out of window.

He did not speak to me any more until he got out of the coach a

little way short of Reading, when he advised me to be a good girl and

to be studious, and shook hands with me. I must say I was relieved by

his departure. We left him at a milestone. I often walked past it

afterwards, and never for a long time without thinking of him and

half expecting to meet him. But I never did; and so, as time went on,

he passed out of my mind.

When the coach stopped, a very neat lady looked up at the window and

said, “Miss Donny.”

“No, ma’am, Esther Summerson.”

“That is quite right,” said the lady, “Miss Donny.”

I now understood that she introduced herself by that name, and begged

Miss Donny’s pardon for my mistake, and pointed out my boxes at her

request. Under the direction of a very neat maid, they were put

outside a very small green carriage; and then Miss Donny, the maid,

and I got inside and were driven away.

“Everything is ready for you, Esther,” said Miss Donny, “and the

scheme of your pursuits has been arranged in exact accordance with

the wishes of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce.”

“Of—did you say, ma’am?”

“Of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce,” said Miss Donny.

I was so bewildered that Miss Donny thought the cold had been too

severe for me and lent me her smelling-bottle.

“Do you know my—guardian, Mr. Jarndyce, ma’am?” I asked after a good

deal of hesitation.

“Not personally, Esther,” said Miss Donny; “merely through his

solicitors, Messrs. Kenge and Carboy, of London. A very superior

gentleman, Mr. Kenge. Truly eloquent indeed. Some of his periods

quite majestic!”

I felt this to be very true but was too confused to attend to it. Our

speedy arrival at our destination, before I had time to recover

myself, increased my confusion, and I never shall forget the

uncertain and the unreal air of everything at Greenleaf (Miss Donny’s

house) that afternoon!

But I soon became used to it. I was so adapted to the routine of

Greenleaf before long that I seemed to have been there a great while

and almost to have dreamed rather than really lived my old life at my

godmother’s. Nothing could be more precise, exact, and orderly than

Greenleaf. There was a time for everything all round the dial of the

clock, and everything was done at its appointed moment.

We were twelve boarders, and there were two Miss Donnys, twins. It

was understood that I would have to depend, by and by, on my

qualifications as a governess, and I was not only instructed in

everything that was taught at Greenleaf, but was very soon engaged in

helping to instruct others. Although I was treated in every other

respect like the rest of the school, this single difference was made

in my case from the first. As I began to know more, I taught more,

and so in course of time I had plenty to do, which I was very fond of

doing because it made the dear girls fond of me. At last, whenever a

new pupil came who was a little downcast and unhappy, she was so

sure—indeed I don’t know why—to make a friend of me that all

new-comers were confided to my care. They said I was so gentle, but I

am sure THEY were! I often thought of the resolution I had made on my

birthday to try to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted and to

do some good to some one and win some love if I could; and indeed,

indeed, I felt almost ashamed to have done so little and have won so

much.

I passed at Greenleaf six happy, quiet years. I never saw in any face

there, thank heaven, on my birthday, that it would have been better

if I had never been born. When the day came round, it brought me so

many tokens of affectionate remembrance that my room was beautiful

with them from New Year’s Day to Christmas.

In those six years I had never been away except on visits at holiday

time in the neighbourhood. After the first six months or so I had

taken Miss Donny’s advice in reference to the propriety of writing to

Mr. Kenge to say that I was happy and grateful, and with her approval

I had written such a letter. I had received a formal answer

acknowledging its receipt and saying, “We note the contents thereof,

which shall be duly communicated to our client.” After that I

sometimes heard Miss Donny and her sister mention how regular my

accounts were paid, and about twice a year I ventured to write a

similar letter. I always received by return of post exactly the same

answer in the same round hand, with the signature of Kenge and Carboy

in another writing, which I supposed to be Mr. Kenge’s.

It seems so curious to me to be obliged to write all this about

myself! As if this narrative were the narrative of MY life! But my

little body will soon fall into the background now.

Six quiet years (I find I am saying it for the second time) I had

passed at Greenleaf, seeing in those around me, as it might be in a

looking-glass, every stage of my own growth and change there, when,

one November morning, I received this letter. I omit the date.

Old Square, Lincoln’s Inn

Madam,

Jarndyce and Jarndyce

Our clt Mr. Jarndyce being abt to rece into his house,

under an Order of the Ct of Chy, a Ward of the Ct in this

cause, for whom he wishes to secure an elgble compn,

directs us to inform you that he will be glad of your

serces in the afsd capacity.

We have arrngd for your being forded, carriage free, pr

eight o’clock coach from Reading, on Monday morning next,

to White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, London, where one of

our clks will be in waiting to convey you to our offe as

above.

We are, Madam, Your obedt Servts,

Kenge and Carboy

Miss Esther Summerson

Oh, never, never, never shall I forget the emotion this letter caused

in the house! It was so tender in them to care so much for me, it was

so gracious in that father who had not forgotten me to have made my

orphan way so smooth and easy and to have inclined so many youthful

natures towards me, that I could hardly bear it. Not that I would

have had them less sorry—I am afraid not; but the pleasure of it,

and the pain of it, and the pride and joy of it, and the humble

regret of it were so blended that my heart seemed almost breaking

while it was full of rapture.

The letter gave me only five days’ notice of my removal. When every

minute added to the proofs of love and kindness that were given me in

those five days, and when at last the morning came and when they took

me through all the rooms that I might see them for the last time, and

when some cried, “Esther, dear, say good-bye to me here at my

bedside, where you first spoke so kindly to me!” and when others

asked me only to write their names, “With Esther’s love,” and when

they all surrounded me with their parting presents and clung to me

weeping and cried, “What shall we do when dear, dear Esther’s gone!”

and when I tried to tell them how forbearing and how good they had

all been to me and how I blessed and thanked them every one, what a

heart I had!

And when the two Miss Donnys grieved as much to part with me as the

least among them, and when the maids said, “Bless you, miss, wherever

you go!” and when the ugly lame old gardener, who I thought had

hardly noticed me in all those years, came panting after the coach to

give me a little nosegay of geraniums and told me I had been the

light of his eyes—indeed the old man said so!—what a heart I had

then!

And could I help it if with all this, and the coming to the little

school, and the unexpected sight of the poor children outside waving

their hats and bonnets to me, and of a grey-haired gentleman and lady

whose daughter I had helped to teach and at whose house I had visited

(who were said to be the proudest people in all that country), caring

for nothing but calling out, “Good-bye, Esther. May you be very

happy!”—could I help it if I was quite bowed down in the coach by

myself and said “Oh, I am so thankful, I am so thankful!” many times

over!

But of course I soon considered that I must not take tears where I

was going after all that had been done for me. Therefore, of course,

I made myself sob less and persuaded myself to be quiet by saying

very often, “Esther, now you really must! This WILL NOT do!” I

cheered myself up pretty well at last, though I am afraid I was

longer about it than I ought to have been; and when I had cooled my

eyes with lavender water, it was time to watch for London.

I was quite persuaded that we were there when we were ten miles off,

and when we really were there, that we should never get there.

However, when we began to jolt upon a stone pavement, and

particularly when every other conveyance seemed to be running into

us, and we seemed to be running into every other conveyance, I began

to believe that we really were approaching the end of our journey.

Very soon afterwards we stopped.

A young gentleman who had inked himself by accident addressed me from

the pavement and said, “I am from Kenge and Carboy’s, miss, of

Lincoln’s Inn.”

“If you please, sir,” said I.

He was very obliging, and as he handed me into a fly after

superintending the removal of my boxes, I asked him whether there was

a great fire anywhere? For the streets were so full of dense brown

smoke that scarcely anything was to be seen.

“Oh, dear no, miss,” he said. “This is a London particular.”

I had never heard of such a thing.

“A fog, miss,” said the young gentleman.

“Oh, indeed!” said I.

We drove slowly through the dirtiest and darkest streets that ever

were seen in the world (I thought) and in such a distracting state of

confusion that I wondered how the people kept their senses, until we

passed into sudden quietude under an old gateway and drove on through

a silent square until we came to an odd nook in a corner, where there

was an entrance up a steep, broad flight of stairs, like an entrance

to a church. And there really was a churchyard outside under some

cloisters, for I saw the gravestones from the staircase window.

This was Kenge and Carboy’s. The young gentleman showed me through an

outer office into Mr. Kenge’s room—there was no one in it—and

politely put an arm-chair for me by the fire. He then called my

attention to a little looking-glass hanging from a nail on one side

of the chimney-piece.

“In case you should wish to look at yourself, miss, after the

journey, as you’re going before the Chancellor. Not that it’s

requisite, I am sure,” said the young gentleman civilly.

“Going before the Chancellor?” I said, startled for a moment.

“Only a matter of form, miss,” returned the young gentleman. “Mr.

Kenge is in court now. He left his compliments, and would you partake

of some refreshment”—there were biscuits and a decanter of wine on a

small table—“and look over the paper,” which the young gentleman

gave me as he spoke. He then stirred the fire and left me.

Everything was so strange—the stranger from its being night in the

day-time, the candles burning with a white flame, and looking raw and

cold—that I read the words in the newspaper without knowing what

they meant and found myself reading the same words repeatedly. As it

was of no use going on in that way, I put the paper down, took a peep

at my bonnet in the glass to see if it was neat, and looked at the

room, which was not half lighted, and at the shabby, dusty tables,

and at the piles of writings, and at a bookcase full of the most

inexpressive-looking books that ever had anything to say for

themselves. Then I went on, thinking, thinking, thinking; and the

fire went on, burning, burning, burning; and the candles went on

flickering and guttering, and there were no snuffers—until the young

gentleman by and by brought a very dirty pair—for two hours.

At last Mr. Kenge came. HE was not altered, but he was surprised to

see how altered I was and appeared quite pleased. “As you are going

to be the companion of the young lady who is now in the Chancellor’s

private room, Miss Summerson,” he said, “we thought it well that you

should be in attendance also. You will not be discomposed by the Lord

Chancellor, I dare say?”

“No, sir,” I said, “I don’t think I shall,” really not seeing on

consideration why I should be.

So Mr. Kenge gave me his arm and we went round the corner, under a

colonnade, and in at a side door. And so we came, along a passage,

into a comfortable sort of room where a young lady and a young

gentleman were standing near a great, loud-roaring fire. A screen was

interposed between them and it, and they were leaning on the screen,

talking.

They both looked up when I came in, and I saw in the young lady, with

the fire shining upon her, such a beautiful girl! With such rich

golden hair, such soft blue eyes, and such a bright, innocent,

trusting face!

“Miss Ada,” said Mr. Kenge, “this is Miss Summerson.”

She came to meet me with a smile of welcome and her hand extended,

but seemed to change her mind in a moment and kissed me. In short,

she had such a natural, captivating, winning manner that in a few

minutes we were sitting in the window-seat, with the light of the

fire upon us, talking together as free and happy as could be.

What a load off my mind! It was so delightful to know that she could

confide in me and like me! It was so good of her, and so encouraging

to me!

The young gentleman was her distant cousin, she told me, and his name

Richard Carstone. He was a handsome youth with an ingenuous face and

a most engaging laugh; and after she had called him up to where we

sat, he stood by us, in the light of the fire, talking gaily, like a

light-hearted boy. He was very young, not more than nineteen then, if

quite so much, but nearly two years older than she was. They were

both orphans and (what was very unexpected and curious to me) had

never met before that day. Our all three coming together for the

first time in such an unusual place was a thing to talk about, and we

talked about it; and the fire, which had left off roaring, winked its

red eyes at us—as Richard said—like a drowsy old Chancery lion.

We conversed in a low tone because a full-dressed gentleman in a bag

wig frequently came in and out, and when he did so, we could hear a

drawling sound in the distance, which he said was one of the counsel

in our case addressing the Lord Chancellor. He told Mr. Kenge that

the Chancellor would be up in five minutes; and presently we heard a

bustle and a tread of feet, and Mr. Kenge said that the Court had

risen and his lordship was in the next room.

The gentleman in the bag wig opened the door almost directly and

requested Mr. Kenge to come in. Upon that, we all went into the next

room, Mr. Kenge first, with my darling—it is so natural to me now

that I can’t help writing it; and there, plainly dressed in black and

sitting in an arm-chair at a table near the fire, was his lordship,

whose robe, trimmed with beautiful gold lace, was thrown upon another

chair. He gave us a searching look as we entered, but his manner was

both courtly and kind.

The gentleman in the bag wig laid bundles of papers on his lordship’s

table, and his lordship silently selected one and turned over the

leaves.

“Miss Clare,” said the Lord Chancellor. “Miss Ada Clare?”

Mr. Kenge presented her, and his lordship begged her to sit down near

him. That he admired her and was interested by her even I could see

in a moment. It touched me that the home of such a beautiful young

creature should be represented by that dry, official place. The Lord

High Chancellor, at his best, appeared so poor a substitute for the

love and pride of parents.

“The Jarndyce in question,” said the Lord Chancellor, still turning

over leaves, “is Jarndyce of Bleak House.”

“Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord,” said Mr. Kenge.

“A dreary name,” said the Lord Chancellor.

“But not a dreary place at present, my lord,” said Mr. Kenge.

“And Bleak House,” said his lordship, “is in—”

“Hertfordshire, my lord.”

“Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House is not married?” said his lordship.

“He is not, my lord,” said Mr. Kenge.

A pause.

“Young Mr. Richard Carstone is present?” said the Lord Chancellor,

glancing towards him.

Richard bowed and stepped forward.

“Hum!” said the Lord Chancellor, turning over more leaves.

“Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord,” Mr. Kenge observed in a low

voice, “if I may venture to remind your lordship, provides a suitable

companion for—”

“For Mr. Richard Carstone?” I thought (but I am not quite sure) I

heard his lordship say in an equally low voice and with a smile.

“For Miss Ada Clare. This is the young lady. Miss Summerson.”

His lordship gave me an indulgent look and acknowledged my curtsy

very graciously.

“Miss Summerson is not related to any party in the cause, I think?”

“No, my lord.”

Mr. Kenge leant over before it was quite said and whispered. His

lordship, with his eyes upon his papers, listened, nodded twice or

thrice, turned over more leaves, and did not look towards me again

until we were going away.

Mr. Kenge now retired, and Richard with him, to where I was, near the

door, leaving my pet (it is so natural to me that again I can’t help

it!) sitting near the Lord Chancellor, with whom his lordship spoke a

little part, asking her, as she told me afterwards, whether she had

well reflected on the proposed arrangement, and if she thought she

would be happy under the roof of Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, and why

she thought so? Presently he rose courteously and released her, and

then he spoke for a minute or two with Richard Carstone, not seated,

but standing, and altogether with more ease and less ceremony, as if

he still knew, though he WAS Lord Chancellor, how to go straight to

the candour of a boy.

“Very well!” said his lordship aloud. “I shall make the order. Mr.

Jarndyce of Bleak House has chosen, so far as I may judge,” and this

was when he looked at me, “a very good companion for the young lady,

and the arrangement altogether seems the best of which the

circumstances admit.”

He dismissed us pleasantly, and we all went out, very much obliged to

him for being so affable and polite, by which he had certainly lost

no dignity but seemed to us to have gained some.

When we got under the colonnade, Mr. Kenge remembered that he must go

back for a moment to ask a question and left us in the fog, with the

Lord Chancellor’s carriage and servants waiting for him to come out.

“Well!” said Richard Carstone. “THAT’S over! And where do we go next,

Miss Summerson?”

“Don’t you know?” I said.

“Not in the least,” said he.

“And don’t YOU know, my love?” I asked Ada.

“No!” said she. “Don’t you?”

“Not at all!” said I.

We looked at one another, half laughing at our being like the

children in the wood, when a curious little old woman in a squeezed

bonnet and carrying a reticule came curtsying and smiling up to us

with an air of great ceremony.

“Oh!” said she. “The wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure, to

have the honour! It is a good omen for youth, and hope, and beauty

when they find themselves in this place, and don’t know what’s to

come of it.”

“Mad!” whispered Richard, not thinking she could hear him.

“Right! Mad, young gentleman,” she returned so quickly that he was

quite abashed. “I was a ward myself. I was not mad at that time,”

curtsying low and smiling between every little sentence. “I had youth

and hope. I believe, beauty. It matters very little now. Neither of

the three served or saved me. I have the honour to attend court

regularly. With my documents. I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the

Day of Judgment. I have discovered that the sixth seal mentioned in

the Revelations is the Great Seal. It has been open a long time! Pray

accept my blessing.”

As Ada was a little frightened, I said, to humour the poor old lady,

that we were much obliged to her.

“Ye-es!” she said mincingly. “I imagine so. And here is Conversation

Kenge. With HIS documents! How does your honourable worship do?”

“Quite well, quite well! Now don’t be troublesome, that’s a good

soul!” said Mr. Kenge, leading the way back.

“By no means,” said the poor old lady, keeping up with Ada and me.

“Anything but troublesome. I shall confer estates on both—which is

not being troublesome, I trust? I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the

Day of Judgment. This is a good omen for you. Accept my blessing!”

She stopped at the bottom of the steep, broad flight of stairs; but

we looked back as we went up, and she was still there, saying, still

with a curtsy and a smile between every little sentence, “Youth. And

hope. And beauty. And Chancery. And Conversation Kenge! Ha! Pray

accept my blessing!”