The Solitary House (182 page)

“Pray what has been done today?” asked Allan.

“I beg your pardon?” said Mr. Kenge, with excessive urbanity.

“What has been done today?”

“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 condescending 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 case you should be wanting Mr. C., sir,” said Mr. Vholes, coming after us, “you’ll find him in Court. I left him there resting himself a little. Good day, sir; good day, Miss Summerson.” As he gave me that slowly devouring look of his, while twisting up the strings of his bag, before he hastened with it after Mr. Kenge, the benignant shadow of whose conversational presence he seemed afraid to leave, he gave one gasp as if he had swallowed the last morsel of his client, and his black buttoned-up unwholesome figure glided away to the low door at the end of the Hall.

“My dear love,” said Allan, “leave to me, for a little while the charge you gave me. Go home with this intelligence, and come to Ada’s by and by!”

I would not let him take me to a coach, but entreated him to go to Richard without a moment’s delay, and leave me to do as he wished. Hurrying home, I found my guardian, and told him gradually with what news I had returned. “Little woman,” said he, quite unmoved for himself, “to have done with the suit on any terms is a greater blessing than I had looked for. But my poor young cousins!”

We talked about them all the morning, and discussed what it
was possible to do. In the afternoon, my guardian walked with me to Symond’s Inn, and left me at the door. I went upstairs. When my darling heard my footsteps, she came out into the small passage and threw her arms round my neck; but she composed herself directly, and said that Richard had asked for me several times. Allan had found him sitting in the corner of the Court, she told me, like a stone figure. On being roused, he had broken away, and made as if he would have spoken in a fierce voice to the Judge. He was stopped by his mouth being full of blood, and Allan had brought him home.

He was lying on a sofa with his eyes closed, when I went in. There were restoratives on the table; the room was made as airy as possible, and was darkened, and was very orderly and quiet. Allan stood behind him, watching him gravely. His face appeared to me to be quite destitute of colour, and now that I saw him without his seeing me, I fully saw, for the first time, how worn away he was. But he looked handsomer than I had seen him look for many a day.

I sat down by his side in silence. Opening his eyes by and by, he said, in a weak voice, but with his old smile, “Dame Durden, kiss me, my dear!”

It was a great comfort and surprise to me, to find him in his low state cheerful and looking forward. He was happier, he said, in our intended marriage, than he could find words to tell me. My husband had been a guardian angel to him and Ada, and he blessed us both, and wished us all the joy that life could yield us. I almost felt as if my own heart would have broken, when I saw him take my husband’s hand, and hold it to his breast.

We spoke of the future as much as possible, and he said several times that he must be present at our marriage if he could stand upon his feet. Ada would contrive to take him, somehow, he said. “Yes, surely, dearest Richard!” But as my darling answered him thus hopefully, so serene and beautiful, with the help that was to come to her so near—I knew—I knew!

It was not good for him to talk too much; and when he was silent, we were silent too. Sitting beside him, I made a pretence of working for my dear, as he had always been used to joke about my being busy. Ada leaned upon his pillow, holding his
head upon her arm. He dozed often; and whenever he awoke without seeing him, said, first of all, “Where is Woodcourt?”

Evening had come on, when I lifted up my eyes, and saw my guardian standing in the little hall. “Who is that, Dame Durden?” Richard asked me. The door was behind him, but he had observed in my face that some one was there.

I looked to Allan for advice, and as he nodded “Yes,” bent over Richard and told him. My guardian saw what passed, came softly by me in a moment, and laid his hand on Richard’s. “O sir,” said Richard, “you are a good man, you are a good man!” and burst into tears for the first time.

My guardian, the picture of a good man, sat down in my place, keeping his hand on Richard’s.

“My dear Rick,” said he, “the clouds have cleared away, and it is bright now. We can see now. We were all bewildered, Rick, more or less. What matters! And how are you, my dear boy?”

“I am very weak, sir, but I hope I shall be stronger. I have to begin the world.”

“Aye, truly; well said!” cried my guardian.

“I will not begin it in the old way now,” said Richard with a sad smile. “I have learned a lesson now, sir. It was a hard one; but you shall be assured, indeed, that I have learned it.”

“Well, well,” said my guardian, comforting him; “well, well, well, dear boy!”

“I was thinking, sir,” resumed Richard, “that there is nothing on earth I should so much like to see as their house—Dame Durden’s and Woodcourt’s house. If I could be removed there when I begin to recover my strength, I feel as if I should get well there, sooner than anywhere.”

“Why, so have I been thinking too, Rick,” said my guardian, “and our little woman likewise; she and I have been talking of it this very day. I dare say her husband won’t object. What do you think?”

Richard smiled; and lifted up his arm to touch him, as he stood behind the head of the couch.

“I say nothing of Ada,” said Richard, “but I think of her, and have thought of her very much. Look at her! see her here, sir,
bending over this pillow when she has so much need to rest upon it herself, my dear love, my poor girl!”

He clasped her in his arms, and none of us spoke. He gradually released her; and she looked upon us, and looked up to Heaven, and moved her lips.

“When I get to Bleak House,” said Richard, “I shall have much to tell you, sir, and you will have much to show me. You will go, won’t you?”

“Undoubtedly, dear Rick.”

“Thank you; like you, like you,” said Richard. “But it’s all like you. They have been telling me how you planned it, and how you remembered all Esther’s familiar tastes and ways. It will be like coming to the old Bleak House again.”

“And you will come there too, I hope, Rick. I am a solitary man now, you know, and it will be a charity to come to me. A charity to come to me, my love!” he repeated to Ada, as he gently passed his hand over her golden hair, and put a lock of it to his lips. (I think he vowed within himself to cherish her if she were left alone.)

“It was a troubled dream?” said Richard, clasping both my guardian’s hands eagerly.

“Nothing more, Rick; nothing more.”

“And you, being a good man, can pass it as such, and forgive and pity the dreamer, and be lenient and encouraging when he wakes?”

“Indeed I can. What am I but another dreamer, Rick?”

“I will begin the world!” said Richard, with a light in his eyes.

My husband drew a little nearer towards Ada, and I saw him solemnly lift up his hand to warn my guardian.

“When shall I go from this place, to that pleasant country where the old times are, where I shall have strength to tell what Ada has been to me, where I shall be able to recall my many faults and blindnesses, where I shall prepare myself to be a guide to my unborn child?” said Richard. “When shall I go?”

“Dear Rick, when you are strong enough,” returned my guardian.

“Ada, my darling!”

He sought to raise himself a little. Allan raised him so that she could hold him to her bosom; which was what he wanted.

“I have done you many wrongs, my own. I have fallen like a poor stray shadow on your way, I have married you to poverty and trouble, I have scattered your means to the winds. You will forgive me all this, my Ada, before I begin the world?”

A smile irradiated his face, as she bent to kiss him. He slowly laid his face down upon her bosom, drew his arms closer round her neck, and with one parting sob began the world. Not this world, O not this! The world that sets this right.

When all was still, at a late hour, poor crazed Miss Flite came weeping to me, and told me she had given her birds their liberty.

CHAPTER 66

DOWN IN LINCOLNSHIRE

T
here is a hush upon Chesney Wold in these altered days, as there is upon a portion of the family history. The story goes, that Sir Leicester paid some who could have spoken out, to hold their peace; but it is a lame story, feebly whispering and creeping about and any brighter spark of life it shows soon dies away. It is known for certain that the handsome Lady Dedlock lies in the mausoleum in the park, where the trees arch darkly overhead, and the owl is heard at night making the woods ring; but whence she was brought home, to be laid among the echoes of that solitary place, or how she died, is all mystery. Some of her old friends, principally to be found among the peachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats, did once occasionally say, as they toyed in a ghastly manner with large fans—like charmers reduced to flirting with grim Death, after losing all their other beaux—did once occasionally say, when the Wold
assembled together, that they wondered the ashes of the Dedlocks, entombed in the mausoleum, never rose against the profanation of her company. But the dead-and-gone Dedlocks take it very calmly, and have never been known to object.

Up from among the fern in the hollow, and winding by the bridle-road among the trees, comes sometimes to this lonely spot the sound of horses’ hoofs. Then may be seen Sir Leicester—invalided, bent, and almost blind, but of worthy presence yet—riding with a stalwart man beside him, constant to his bridle-rein. When they come to a certain spot before the mausoleum-door, Sir Leicester’s accustomed horse stops of his own accord, and Sir Leicester, pulling off his hat, is still for a few moments before they ride away.

War rages yet with the audacious Boythorn, though at uncertain intervals, and now hotly, and now coolly; flickering like an unsteady fire. The truth is said to be, that when Sir Leicester came down to Lincolnshire for good, Mr. Boythorn showed a manifest desire to abandon his right of way, and do whatever Sir Leicester would: which Sir Leicester, conceiving to be a condescension to his illness or misfortune, took in such high dudgeon, and was so magnificently aggrieved by, that Mr. Boythorn found himself under the necessity of committing a flagrant trespass to restore his neighbour to himself. Similarly Mr. Boythorn continues to post tremendous placards on the disputed thoroughfare, and (with his bird upon his head) to hold forth vehemently against Sir Leicester in the sanctuary of his own home; similarly, also, he defies him as of old in the little church, by testifying a bland unconsciousness of his existence. But it is whispered that when he is most ferocious towards his old foe, he is really most considerate; and that Sir Leicester, in the dignity of being implacable, little supposes how much he is humoured. As little does he think how near together he and his antagonist have suffered, in the fortunes of two sisters; and his antagonist, who knows it now, is not the man to tell him. So the quarrel goes on to the satisfaction of both.