CHAPTER IV

Telescopic Philanthropy

We were to pass the night, Mr. Kenge told us when we arrived in his

room, at Mrs. Jellyby’s; and then he turned to me and said he took it

for granted I knew who Mrs. Jellyby was.

“I really don’t, sir,” I returned. “Perhaps Mr. Carstone—or Miss

Clare—”

But no, they knew nothing whatever about Mrs. Jellyby. “In-deed! Mrs.

Jellyby,” said Mr. Kenge, standing with his back to the fire and

casting his eyes over the dusty hearth-rug as if it were Mrs.

Jellyby’s biography, “is a lady of very remarkable strength of

character who devotes herself entirely to the public. She has devoted

herself to an extensive variety of public subjects at various times

and is at present (until something else attracts her) devoted to the

subject of Africa, with a view to the general cultivation of the

coffee berry—AND the natives—and the happy settlement, on the banks

of the African rivers, of our superabundant home population. Mr.

Jarndyce, who is desirous to aid any work that is considered likely

to be a good work and who is much sought after by philanthropists,

has, I believe, a very high opinion of Mrs. Jellyby.”

Mr. Kenge, adjusting his cravat, then looked at us.

“And Mr. Jellyby, sir?” suggested Richard.

“Ah! Mr. Jellyby,” said Mr. Kenge, “is—a—I don’t know that I can

describe him to you better than by saying that he is the husband of

Mrs. Jellyby.”

“A nonentity, sir?” said Richard with a droll look.

“I don’t say that,” returned Mr. Kenge gravely. “I can’t say that,

indeed, for I know nothing whatever OF Mr. Jellyby. I never, to my

knowledge, had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Jellyby. He may be a very

superior man, but he is, so to speak, merged—merged—in the more

shining qualities of his wife.” Mr. Kenge proceeded to tell us that

as the road to Bleak House would have been very long, dark, and

tedious on such an evening, and as we had been travelling already,

Mr. Jarndyce had himself proposed this arrangement. A carriage would

be at Mrs. Jellyby’s to convey us out of town early in the forenoon

of to-morrow.

He then rang a little bell, and the young gentleman came in.

Addressing him by the name of Guppy, Mr. Kenge inquired whether Miss

Summerson’s boxes and the rest of the baggage had been “sent round.”

Mr. Guppy said yes, they had been sent round, and a coach was waiting

to take us round too as soon as we pleased.

“Then it only remains,” said Mr. Kenge, shaking hands with us, “for

me to express my lively satisfaction in (good day, Miss Clare!) the

arrangement this day concluded and my (GOOD-bye to you, Miss

Summerson!) lively hope that it will conduce to the happiness, the

(glad to have had the honour of making your acquaintance, Mr.

Carstone!) welfare, the advantage in all points of view, of all

concerned! Guppy, see the party safely there.”

“Where IS ‘there,’ Mr. Guppy?” said Richard as we went downstairs.

“No distance,” said Mr. Guppy; “round in Thavies Inn, you know.”

“I can’t say I know where it is, for I come from Winchester and am

strange in London.”

“Only round the corner,” said Mr. Guppy. “We just twist up Chancery

Lane, and cut along Holborn, and there we are in four minutes’ time,

as near as a toucher. This is about a London particular NOW, ain’t

it, miss?” He seemed quite delighted with it on my account.

“The fog is very dense indeed!” said I.

“Not that it affects you, though, I’m sure,” said Mr. Guppy, putting

up the steps. “On the contrary, it seems to do you good, miss,

judging from your appearance.”

I knew he meant well in paying me this compliment, so I laughed at

myself for blushing at it when he had shut the door and got upon the

box; and we all three laughed and chatted about our inexperience and

the strangeness of London until we turned up under an archway to our

destination—a narrow street of high houses like an oblong cistern to

hold the fog. There was a confused little crowd of people,

principally children, gathered about the house at which we stopped,

which had a tarnished brass plate on the door with the inscription

JELLYBY.

“Don’t be frightened!” said Mr. Guppy, looking in at the

coach-window. “One of the young Jellybys been and got his head

through the area railings!”

“Oh, poor child,” said I; “let me out, if you please!”

“Pray be careful of yourself, miss. The young Jellybys are always up

to something,” said Mr. Guppy.

I made my way to the poor child, who was one of the dirtiest little

unfortunates I ever saw, and found him very hot and frightened and

crying loudly, fixed by the neck between two iron railings, while a

milkman and a beadle, with the kindest intentions possible, were

endeavouring to drag him back by the legs, under a general impression

that his skull was compressible by those means. As I found (after

pacifying him) that he was a little boy with a naturally large head,

I thought that perhaps where his head could go, his body could

follow, and mentioned that the best mode of extrication might be to

push him forward. This was so favourably received by the milkman and

beadle that he would immediately have been pushed into the area if I

had not held his pinafore while Richard and Mr. Guppy ran down

through the kitchen to catch him when he should be released. At last

he was happily got down without any accident, and then he began to

beat Mr. Guppy with a hoop-stick in quite a frantic manner.

Nobody had appeared belonging to the house except a person in

pattens, who had been poking at the child from below with a broom; I

don’t know with what object, and I don’t think she did. I therefore

supposed that Mrs. Jellyby was not at home, and was quite surprised

when the person appeared in the passage without the pattens, and

going up to the back room on the first floor before Ada and me,

announced us as, “Them two young ladies, Missis Jellyby!” We passed

several more children on the way up, whom it was difficult to avoid

treading on in the dark; and as we came into Mrs. Jellyby’s presence,

one of the poor little things fell downstairs—down a whole flight

(as it sounded to me), with a great noise.

Mrs. Jellyby, whose face reflected none of the uneasiness which we

could not help showing in our own faces as the dear child’s head

recorded its passage with a bump on every stair—Richard afterwards

said he counted seven, besides one for the landing—received us with

perfect equanimity. She was a pretty, very diminutive, plump woman of

from forty to fifty, with handsome eyes, though they had a curious

habit of seeming to look a long way off. As if—I am quoting Richard

again—they could see nothing nearer than Africa!

“I am very glad indeed,” said Mrs. Jellyby in an agreeable voice, “to

have the pleasure of receiving you. I have a great respect for Mr.

Jarndyce, and no one in whom he is interested can be an object of

indifference to me.”

We expressed our acknowledgments and sat down behind the door, where

there was a lame invalid of a sofa. Mrs. Jellyby had very good hair

but was too much occupied with her African duties to brush it. The

shawl in which she had been loosely muffled dropped onto her chair

when she advanced to us; and as she turned to resume her seat, we

could not help noticing that her dress didn’t nearly meet up the back

and that the open space was railed across with a lattice-work of

stay-lace—like a summer-house.

The room, which was strewn with papers and nearly filled by a great

writing-table covered with similar litter, was, I must say, not only

very untidy but very dirty. We were obliged to take notice of that

with our sense of sight, even while, with our sense of hearing, we

followed the poor child who had tumbled downstairs: I think into the

back kitchen, where somebody seemed to stifle him.

But what principally struck us was a jaded and unhealthy-looking

though by no means plain girl at the writing-table, who sat biting

the feather of her pen and staring at us. I suppose nobody ever was

in such a state of ink. And from her tumbled hair to her pretty feet,

which were disfigured with frayed and broken satin slippers trodden

down at heel, she really seemed to have no article of dress upon her,

from a pin upwards, that was in its proper condition or its right

place.

“You find me, my dears,” said Mrs. Jellyby, snuffing the two great

office candles in tin candlesticks, which made the room taste

strongly of hot tallow (the fire had gone out, and there was nothing

in the grate but ashes, a bundle of wood, and a poker), “you find me,

my dears, as usual, very busy; but that you will excuse. The African

project at present employs my whole time. It involves me in

correspondence with public bodies and with private individuals

anxious for the welfare of their species all over the country. I am

happy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have

from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating

coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank

of the Niger.”

As Ada said nothing, but looked at me, I said it must be very

gratifying.

“It IS gratifying,” said Mrs. Jellyby. “It involves the devotion of

all my energies, such as they are; but that is nothing, so that it

succeeds; and I am more confident of success every day. Do you know,

Miss Summerson, I almost wonder that YOU never turned your thoughts

to Africa.”

This application of the subject was really so unexpected to me that I

was quite at a loss how to receive it. I hinted that the climate—

“The finest climate in the world!” said Mrs. Jellyby.

“Indeed, ma’am?”

“Certainly. With precaution,” said Mrs. Jellyby. “You may go into

Holborn, without precaution, and be run over. You may go into

Holborn, with precaution, and never be run over. Just so with

Africa.”

I said, “No doubt.” I meant as to Holborn.

“If you would like,” said Mrs. Jellyby, putting a number of papers

towards us, “to look over some remarks on that head, and on the

general subject, which have been extensively circulated, while I

finish a letter I am now dictating to my eldest daughter, who is my

amanuensis—”

The girl at the table left off biting her pen and made a return to

our recognition, which was half bashful and half sulky.

“—I shall then have finished for the present,” proceeded Mrs.

Jellyby with a sweet smile, “though my work is never done. Where are

you, Caddy?”

“‘Presents her compliments to Mr. Swallow, and begs—’” said Caddy.

“‘And begs,’” said Mrs. Jellyby, dictating, “‘to inform him, in

reference to his letter of inquiry on the African project—’ No,

Peepy! Not on my account!”

Peepy (so self-named) was the unfortunate child who had fallen

downstairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting

himself, with a strip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his

wounded knees, in which Ada and I did not know which to pity

most—the bruises or the dirt. Mrs. Jellyby merely added, with the

serene composure with which she said everything, “Go along, you

naughty Peepy!” and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again.

However, as she at once proceeded with her dictation, and as I

interrupted nothing by doing it, I ventured quietly to stop poor

Peepy as he was going out and to take him up to nurse. He looked very

much astonished at it and at Ada’s kissing him, but soon fell fast

asleep in my arms, sobbing at longer and longer intervals, until he

was quiet. I was so occupied with Peepy that I lost the letter in

detail, though I derived such a general impression from it of the

momentous importance of Africa, and the utter insignificance of all

other places and things, that I felt quite ashamed to have thought so

little about it.

“Six o’clock!” said Mrs. Jellyby. “And our dinner hour is nominally

(for we dine at all hours) five! Caddy, show Miss Clare and Miss

Summerson their rooms. You will like to make some change, perhaps?

You will excuse me, I know, being so much occupied. Oh, that very bad

child! Pray put him down, Miss Summerson!”

I begged permission to retain him, truly saying that he was not at

all troublesome, and carried him upstairs and laid him on my bed. Ada

and I had two upper rooms with a door of communication between. They

were excessively bare and disorderly, and the curtain to my window

was fastened up with a fork.

“You would like some hot water, wouldn’t you?” said Miss Jellyby,

looking round for a jug with a handle to it, but looking in vain.

“If it is not being troublesome,” said we.

“Oh, it’s not the trouble,” returned Miss Jellyby; “the question is,

if there IS any.”

The evening was so very cold and the rooms had such a marshy smell

that I must confess it was a little miserable, and Ada was half

crying. We soon laughed, however, and were busily unpacking when Miss

Jellyby came back to say that she was sorry there was no hot water,

but they couldn’t find the kettle, and the boiler was out of order.

We begged her not to mention it and made all the haste we could to

get down to the fire again. But all the little children had come up

to the landing outside to look at the phenomenon of Peepy lying on my

bed, and our attention was distracted by the constant apparition of

noses and fingers in situations of danger between the hinges of the

doors. It was impossible to shut the door of either room, for my

lock, with no knob to it, looked as if it wanted to be wound up; and

though the handle of Ada’s went round and round with the greatest

smoothness, it was attended with no effect whatever on the door.

Therefore I proposed to the children that they should come in and be

very good at my table, and I would tell them the story of Little Red

Riding Hood while I dressed; which they did, and were as quiet as

mice, including Peepy, who awoke opportunely before the appearance of

the wolf.

When we went downstairs we found a mug with “A Present from Tunbridge

Wells” on it lighted up in the staircase window with a floating wick,

and a young woman, with a swelled face bound up in a flannel bandage

blowing the fire of the drawing-room (now connected by an open door

with Mrs. Jellyby’s room) and choking dreadfully. It smoked to that

degree, in short, that we all sat coughing and crying with the

windows open for half an hour, during which Mrs. Jellyby, with the

same sweetness of temper, directed letters about Africa. Her being so

employed was, I must say, a great relief to me, for Richard told us

that he had washed his hands in a pie-dish and that they had found

the kettle on his dressing-table, and he made Ada laugh so that they

made me laugh in the most ridiculous manner.

Soon after seven o’clock we went down to dinner, carefully, by Mrs.

Jellyby’s advice, for the stair-carpets, besides being very deficient

in stair-wires, were so torn as to be absolute traps. We had a fine

cod-fish, a piece of roast beef, a dish of cutlets, and a pudding; an

excellent dinner, if it had had any cooking to speak of, but it was

almost raw. The young woman with the flannel bandage waited, and

dropped everything on the table wherever it happened to go, and never

moved it again until she put it on the stairs. The person I had seen

in pattens, who I suppose to have been the cook, frequently came and

skirmished with her at the door, and there appeared to be ill will

between them.

All through dinner—which was long, in consequence of such accidents

as the dish of potatoes being mislaid in the coal skuttle and the

handle of the corkscrew coming off and striking the young woman in

the chin—Mrs. Jellyby preserved the evenness of her disposition. She

told us a great deal that was interesting about Borrioboola-Gha and

the natives, and received so many letters that Richard, who sat by

her, saw four envelopes in the gravy at once. Some of the letters

were proceedings of ladies’ committees or resolutions of ladies’

meetings, which she read to us; others were applications from people

excited in various ways about the cultivation of coffee, and natives;

others required answers, and these she sent her eldest daughter from

the table three or four times to write. She was full of business and

undoubtedly was, as she had told us, devoted to the cause.

I was a little curious to know who a mild bald gentleman in

spectacles was, who dropped into a vacant chair (there was no top or

bottom in particular) after the fish was taken away and seemed

passively to submit himself to Borrioboola-Gha but not to be actively

interested in that settlement. As he never spoke a word, he might

have been a native but for his complexion. It was not until we left

the table and he remained alone with Richard that the possibility of

his being Mr. Jellyby ever entered my head. But he WAS Mr. Jellyby;

and a loquacious young man called Mr. Quale, with large shining knobs

for temples and his hair all brushed to the back of his head, who

came in the evening, and told Ada he was a philanthropist, also

informed her that he called the matrimonial alliance of Mrs. Jellyby

with Mr. Jellyby the union of mind and matter.

This young man, besides having a great deal to say for himself about

Africa and a project of his for teaching the coffee colonists to

teach the natives to turn piano-forte legs and establish an export

trade, delighted in drawing Mrs. Jellyby out by saying, “I believe

now, Mrs. Jellyby, you have received as many as from one hundred and

fifty to two hundred letters respecting Africa in a single day, have

you not?” or, “If my memory does not deceive me, Mrs. Jellyby, you

once mentioned that you had sent off five thousand circulars from one

post-office at one time?”—always repeating Mrs. Jellyby’s answer to

us like an interpreter. During the whole evening, Mr. Jellyby sat in

a corner with his head against the wall as if he were subject to low

spirits. It seemed that he had several times opened his mouth when

alone with Richard after dinner, as if he had something on his mind,

but had always shut it again, to Richard’s extreme confusion, without

saying anything.

Mrs. Jellyby, sitting in quite a nest of waste paper, drank coffee

all the evening and dictated at intervals to her eldest daughter. She

also held a discussion with Mr. Quale, of which the subject seemed to

be—if I understood it—the brotherhood of humanity, and gave

utterance to some beautiful sentiments. I was not so attentive an

auditor as I might have wished to be, however, for Peepy and the

other children came flocking about Ada and me in a corner of the

drawing-room to ask for another story; so we sat down among them and

told them in whispers “Puss in Boots” and I don’t know what else

until Mrs. Jellyby, accidentally remembering them, sent them to bed.

As Peepy cried for me to take him to bed, I carried him upstairs,

where the young woman with the flannel bandage charged into the midst

of the little family like a dragon and overturned them into cribs.

After that I occupied myself in making our room a little tidy and in

coaxing a very cross fire that had been lighted to burn, which at

last it did, quite brightly. On my return downstairs, I felt that

Mrs. Jellyby looked down upon me rather for being so frivolous, and I

was sorry for it, though at the same time I knew that I had no higher

pretensions.

It was nearly midnight before we found an opportunity of going to

bed, and even then we left Mrs. Jellyby among her papers drinking

coffee and Miss Jellyby biting the feather of her pen.

“What a strange house!” said Ada when we got upstairs. “How curious

of my cousin Jarndyce to send us here!”

“My love,” said I, “it quite confuses me. I want to understand it,

and I can’t understand it at all.”

“What?” asked Ada with her pretty smile.

“All this, my dear,” said I. “It MUST be very good of Mrs. Jellyby to

take such pains about a scheme for the benefit of natives—and

yet—Peepy and the housekeeping!”

Ada laughed and put her arm about my neck as I stood looking at the

fire, and told me I was a quiet, dear, good creature and had won her

heart. “You are so thoughtful, Esther,” she said, “and yet so

cheerful! And you do so much, so unpretendingly! You would make a

home out of even this house.”

My simple darling! She was quite unconscious that she only praised

herself and that it was in the goodness of her own heart that she

made so much of me!

“May I ask you a question?” said I when we had sat before the fire a

little while.

“Five hundred,” said Ada.

“Your cousin, Mr. Jarndyce. I owe so much to him. Would you mind

describing him to me?”

Shaking her golden hair, Ada turned her eyes upon me with such

laughing wonder that I was full of wonder too, partly at her beauty,

partly at her surprise.

“Esther!” she cried.

“My dear!”

“You want a description of my cousin Jarndyce?”

“My dear, I never saw him.”

“And I never saw him!” returned Ada.

Well, to be sure!

No, she had never seen him. Young as she was when her mama died, she

remembered how the tears would come into her eyes when she spoke of

him and of the noble generosity of his character, which she had said

was to be trusted above all earthly things; and Ada trusted it. Her

cousin Jarndyce had written to her a few months ago—“a plain, honest

letter,” Ada said—proposing the arrangement we were now to enter on

and telling her that “in time it might heal some of the wounds made

by the miserable Chancery suit.” She had replied, gratefully

accepting his proposal. Richard had received a similar letter and had

made a similar response. He HAD seen Mr. Jarndyce once, but only

once, five years ago, at Winchester school. He had told Ada, when

they were leaning on the screen before the fire where I found them,

that he recollected him as “a bluff, rosy fellow.” This was the

utmost description Ada could give me.

It set me thinking so that when Ada was asleep, I still remained

before the fire, wondering and wondering about Bleak House, and

wondering and wondering that yesterday morning should seem so long

ago. I don’t know where my thoughts had wandered when they were

recalled by a tap at the door.

I opened it softly and found Miss Jellyby shivering there with a

broken candle in a broken candlestick in one hand and an egg-cup in

the other.

“Good night!” she said very sulkily.

“Good night!” said I.

“May I come in?” she shortly and unexpectedly asked me in the same

sulky way.

“Certainly,” said I. “Don’t wake Miss Clare.”

She would not sit down, but stood by the fire dipping her inky middle

finger in the egg-cup, which contained vinegar, and smearing it over

the ink stains on her face, frowning the whole time and looking very

gloomy.

“I wish Africa was dead!” she said on a sudden.

I was going to remonstrate.

“I do!” she said “Don’t talk to me, Miss Summerson. I hate it and

detest it. It’s a beast!”

I told her she was tired, and I was sorry. I put my hand upon her

head, and touched her forehead, and said it was hot now but would be

cool to-morrow. She still stood pouting and frowning at me, but

presently put down her egg-cup and turned softly towards the bed

where Ada lay.

“She is very pretty!” she said with the same knitted brow and in the

same uncivil manner.

I assented with a smile.

“An orphan. Ain’t she?”

“Yes.”

“But knows a quantity, I suppose? Can dance, and play music, and

sing? She can talk French, I suppose, and do geography, and globes,

and needlework, and everything?”

“No doubt,” said I.

“I can’t,” she returned. “I can’t do anything hardly, except write.

I’m always writing for Ma. I wonder you two were not ashamed of

yourselves to come in this afternoon and see me able to do nothing

else. It was like your ill nature. Yet you think yourselves very

fine, I dare say!”

I could see that the poor girl was near crying, and I resumed my

chair without speaking and looked at her (I hope) as mildly as I felt

towards her.

“It’s disgraceful,” she said. “You know it is. The whole house is

disgraceful. The children are disgraceful. I’M disgraceful. Pa’s

miserable, and no wonder! Priscilla drinks—she’s always drinking.

It’s a great shame and a great story of you if you say you didn’t

smell her to-day. It was as bad as a public-house, waiting at dinner;

you know it was!”

“My dear, I don’t know it,” said I.

“You do,” she said very shortly. “You shan’t say you don’t. You do!”

“Oh, my dear!” said I. “If you won’t let me speak—”

“You’re speaking now. You know you are. Don’t tell stories, Miss

Summerson.”

“My dear,” said I, “as long as you won’t hear me out—”

“I don’t want to hear you out.”

“Oh, yes, I think you do,” said I, “because that would be so very

unreasonable. I did not know what you tell me because the servant did

not come near me at dinner; but I don’t doubt what you tell me, and I

am sorry to hear it.”

“You needn’t make a merit of that,” said she.

“No, my dear,” said I. “That would be very foolish.”

She was still standing by the bed, and now stooped down (but still

with the same discontented face) and kissed Ada. That done, she came

softly back and stood by the side of my chair. Her bosom was heaving

in a distressful manner that I greatly pitied, but I thought it

better not to speak.

“I wish I was dead!” she broke out. “I wish we were all dead. It

would be a great deal better for us.”

In a moment afterwards, she knelt on the ground at my side, hid her

face in my dress, passionately begged my pardon, and wept. I

comforted her and would have raised her, but she cried no, no; she

wanted to stay there!

“You used to teach girls,” she said, “If you could only have taught

me, I could have learnt from you! I am so very miserable, and I like

you so much!”

I could not persuade her to sit by me or to do anything but move a

ragged stool to where she was kneeling, and take that, and still hold

my dress in the same manner. By degrees the poor tired girl fell

asleep, and then I contrived to raise her head so that it should rest

on my lap, and to cover us both with shawls. The fire went out, and

all night long she slumbered thus before the ashy grate. At first I

was painfully awake and vainly tried to lose myself, with my eyes

closed, among the scenes of the day. At length, by slow degrees, they

became indistinct and mingled. I began to lose the identity of the

sleeper resting on me. Now it was Ada, now one of my old Reading

friends from whom I could not believe I had so recently parted. Now

it was the little mad woman worn out with curtsying and smiling, now

some one in authority at Bleak House. Lastly, it was no one, and I

was no one.

The purblind day was feebly struggling with the fog when I opened my

eyes to encounter those of a dirty-faced little spectre fixed upon

me. Peepy had scaled his crib, and crept down in his bed-gown and

cap, and was so cold that his teeth were chattering as if he had cut

them all.