5. Bleak House, by Charles Dickens, pp. 137-181

Chapter 9: Signs and Tokens through Chapter 11: Our Dear Brother


Days pass at Bleak House, and Esther begins to notice that Richard is "one of the most restless people in the world." So far, however, nobody seems to be terribly concerned about his restlessness. He expresses a vague interest in going to sea, so Jarndyce writes "to a relation of the family, a great Sir Leicester Dedlock," about Richard's prospects, but Sir Leicester responds by essentially blowing Richard off: "he would be happy to advance the prospects of the young gentleman if it should ever prove to be within his power, which was not at all probable." Lady Dedlock does add a nice note about recalling that she was related to Richard in some distant fashion "and trusted that he would ever do his duty in any honourable profession to which he might devote himself." This is notable only as the first intersection of the distantly separated worlds of Bleak House and Chesney Wold. Richard shrugs off the shrugging off, and retreats into fantasies of commanding his own "clipping privateer" -- a merchant vessel -- and abducting the Lord Chancellor until he judges in their favor.

Esther remarks to herself that "Richard had a carelessness in his character that quite perplexed me -- principally because he mistook it, in such a very odd way, for prudence." When Mr Jarndyce replaces the money Richard and Esther had contributed to pay off Skimpole's debts, Richard treats it not as replenished funds but as "found money" -- as if he now had an extra ten pounds. Esther tries to talk sense to him, but he isn't hearing it. Still, she regards him as "frank and generous" and notes, "He was ardent and brave, and in the midst of all his wild restlessness, was so gentle that I knew him like a brother in a few weeks."

Jarndyce now receives a visit from an old friend, Lawrence Boythorn, who is modeled on the writer Walter Savage Landor, a friend of Dickens. Jarndyce, who knew Boythorn at school, says, "He was the most impetuous boy in the world, and now he is the most impetuous man. He was then the loudest boy in the world, and he is now the loudest man. He was then the heartiest and sturdiest boy in the world, and he is now the heartiest and sturdiest man. He is a tremendous fellow." All of this seems to presage Boythorn's being something of a bore to the reader, and he is, but Dickens is determined to wedge Boythorn/Landor into the novel, and he does. His chief role in the novel is as an antagonist to Sir Leicester Dedlock, who is his neighbor in Lincolnshire, and with whom he has a running feud over right of way to his property. Once again, the Bleak House and Chesney Wold worlds make contact.

Aside from being a large and loud and "very handsome old gentleman" in Esther's view, he also brings with him a tiny canary who flits around and perches on his head in a manner that is supposed to emphasize Boythorn's gentle-giantness. At the dinner table, Boythorn fulminates about the Dedlocks: "that fellow is, and his father was, and his grandfather was, the most stiff-necked, arrogant, imbecile, pig-headed numskull, ever, by some inexplicable mistake of Nature, born in any station of life but a walking-stick's!" But he has kind words for Lady Dedlock, "the most accomplished lady in the world, to whom I would do any homage that a plain gentleman, and no baronet with a head seven hundred years thick, may."

Boythorn asks if there have been any communications for him from Kenge and Carboy, but Esther, who now keeps track of the mail, says no. Later, playing backgammon with Jarndyce, she asks if Mr Boythorn had been married. Jarndyce says no, but "He was all but married, once. Long ago. And once." He hints that the failure of this romance "has had its influence on all his later life," but Esther senses that Jarndyce really doesn't want to talk about it: "I could not pursue the subject without changing the wind."

The next morning, a letter comes from Kenge and Carboy brought by one of their clerks, who turns out to be Mr Guppy. At first, Esther is "glad to see him, because he was associated with my present happiness," insofar as he was the one who met her when she arrived in London to join the Jarndyce household. Guppy takes the correspondence to Boythorn, and it seems to upset him. Even though his room was in another part of the house, Esther "heard his loud voice rising every now and then like a high wind, and evidently blowing perfect broadsides of denunciation."

Guppy returns a little shaken, and Esther serves him lunch, at which Guppy quickly drinks several glasses of wine. She is in the middle of working on the household accounts, and continues to do so as Guppy launches into a proposal:

"My present salary, Miss Summerson, at Kenge and Carboy's, is two pound a-week.... My mother has a little property, which takes the form of a small life annuity.... She is eminently calculated for a mother-in-law.... My own abode is lodgings at Penton Place, Pentonville. It is lowly, but airy, open at the back, and considered one of the 'ealthiest outlets. Miss Summerson! In the mildest language, I adore you. Would you be so kind as to allow me (as I may say) to file a declaration -- to make an offer!"

Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), In Re Guppy. Extraordinary Proceedings (Source: David Perdue's Charles Dickens Page)

Esther declines, decisively: "Get up from that ridiculous position immediately, sir, or you will oblige me to break my implied promise and rink the bell!" Guppy persists. Esther resists. Finally, she gets rid of him, but it's clear that Guppy is not one to take a firm no for anything but a maybe.

I sat there for another hour or more, finishing my books and payments, and getting through plenty of business. Then, I arranged my desk, and put everything away, and was so composed and cheerful that I thought I had quite dismissed this unexpected incident. But, when I went up-stairs to my own room, I surprised myself by beginning to laugh about it, and then surprised myself still more by beginning to cry about it.

Dickens is not always as psychologically shrewd as he is with Esther at this moment.

Back in London, the omniscient narrator introduces us to Mr Snagsby, who deals in paper, parchment, and other stationery supplies necessary in the legal business. "He is a mild, bald, timid man, with a shining head, and a scrubby clump of black hair sticking out at the back. He tends to meekness and obesity." He is, of course, as Dickens's "mild, bald, timid" men tend to be, thoroughly henpecked. He and his wife have a servant named Guster, "a lean young woman from a workhouse," who is subject to fits.

Today, Mr Snagsby receives a visit from Tulkinghorn, who interrupts the Snagsbys' tea. He has come to inquire about some affidavits that he recently commissioned Snagsby to have copied, and in particular one, "the handwriting of which is peculiar, and I rather like." It takes Snagsby some time to identify the copyist, but he tells Tulkinghorn that it "was given out, sir, to a Writer who lodges just over on the opposite side of the lane." His name, Snagsby says, is Nemo. Tulkinghorn repeats the name and says, "Nemo is Latin for no one." Snagsby assures him that "It must be English for some one, sir, I think." At least, "this may not be his name, but it's the name he goes by." He also tells Tulkinghorn, "The advantage of this particular man is, that he never wants sleep. He'll go at it right on end, if you want him to, as long as ever you like."

So at Tulkinghorn's request, Snagsby conducts him to where Nemo lives, then bids him good evening. Tulkinghorn walks on "a short way, turns back, comes again to the shop of Mr Krook, and enters it straight." Krook recognizes Tulkinghorn and offers to go up to Nemo's lodging and ask him to come down, but Tulkinghorn takes a candle and goes up the stairs to the second floor. "The lawyer looks down over the hand-rail. The cat expands her wicked mouth, and snarls at him." Krook scolds the cat and whispers up to Tulkinghorn, "You know what they say of my lodger? ... They say he has sold himself to the Enemy; but you and I know better -- he don't buy."

Tulkinghorn knocks on Nemo's door, and receiving no answer, he opens it. A gust of air blows out his candle. "The air of the room is almost bad enough to have extinguished it, if he had not. It is a small room, nearly black with soot, and grease, and dirt." On one of the chairs is "a ragged portmanteau," which is all the "cabinet or wardrobe" that the tenant needs. By the light of a guttering candle, Tulkinghorn sees a man lying on a low bed.

Foul and filthy as the room is, foul and filthy as the air, it is not easy to perceive what fumes those are which most oppress the senses in it; but through the general sickliness and faintness, and the odour of stale tobacco, there comes into the lawyer's mouth the bitter, vapid taste of opium.

The candle near the bed goes out, and in the darkness Tulkinghorn feels someone touch his hand. It is Krook, who has followed him into the room. As Krook goes back downstairs to fetch a candle, Tulkinghorn waits on the stairs rather than in the room. The cat follows Krook as he returns. Tulkinghorn re-enters the room with the light and looks at the man on the bed: "God save us!" exclaims Mr Tulkinghorn. "He is dead!"

Krook, "with his lean hands spread out above the body like a vampire's wings," tells Tulkinghorn to call Miss Flite and send her for a doctor. Tulkinghorn goes out onto the landing to call for her. "Krook follows him with his eyes, and, while he is calling, finds opportunity to steal to the old portmanteau, and steal back again."

Miss Flite runs out and "soon returns, accompanied by a testy medical man, brought from his dinner," who certifies that the man on the bed is indeed dead. Tulkinghorn, who is "standing by the old portmanteau" that has recently been the object of Krook's attentions, asks how long he has been dead, and the doctor estimates "about three hours." This estimate is corroborated by "a dark young man, on the other side of the bed," who has appeared seemingly out of nowhere. When the doctor learns that this young man is also a physician, he excuses himself and returns to his dinner. "The dark young surgeon passes the candle across and across the face, and carefully examines the law-writer, who has established his pretensions to the name by become indeed No one."

We'll eventually learn that this "dark young surgeon" is named Allan Woodcourt, but Dickens isn't ready to clue us in to that, or even to why he has made such a sudden appearance in the story. He tells Tulkinghorn and Krook that Nemo has been purchasing opium from him for a year and a half -- it was perfectly legal at the time -- and that he has died of an overdose. There's enough opium in the old teapot near the bed "to kill a dozen people." He doesn't believe it was an intentional overdose, however. "I recollect once thinking there was something in his manner, uncouth as it was, that denoted a fall in life." But Krook says the only thing he knows is that Nemo was his lodger for a year and a half, and that he was a law-writer.

Tulkinghorn suggests that since he was directed there by Snagsby, Miss Flight should go to fetch him. But when Snagsby arrives, he is no help: "'I know no more where he came from, than I know --' 'Where he has gone to, perhaps,' suggests the surgeon, to help him out." Snagsby says he came into the shop a year and a half ago and showed Mrs Snagsby a sample of his handwriting, and it was she who insisted that Snagsby give him some commissions. Tulkinghorn then suggests that they look for some papers that might give them a clue. Snagsby points out the portmanteau, which "Mr Tulkinghorn does not appear to have seen ... before." But aside from some "worthless articles of clothing," some pawnbrokers' tickets, and some memoranda which seemed to track the amount of opium he was taking for a while but were discontinued some time ago, there is nothing.

So Miss Flite is sent out once again, this time for the beadle. As they leave the room, the surgeon orders, "Don't leave the cat there! .... that won't do!" So Lady Jane is hustled down the stairs, "winding her lithe tail  and licking her lips."

Gossip about Nemo's death spreads through the neighborhood, which is excited when the coroner's inquest takes place the next day. The beadle is very officious about keeping order but also about seeing to it "that two gentlemen not very neat about the cuffs and buttons ... should see all that is to be seen." They are reporters, and the beadle "hopes to read in print what 'Mooney, the active and intelligent beadle of the district,' said and did." A Mrs Piper volunteers her testimony that she had seen Nemo "wexed and worrited" by the children in the street, but that she never saw him talk to anyone "excepting the boy that sweeps the crossing down the lane over the way round the corner which if he was here would tell you that he has been seen a speaking to him frequent."

So the coroner sends for the boy, who tells them that his name is Jo. "Nothing else that he knows on. Don't know that everybody has two names." He has "No father, no mother, no friends. Never been to school." The coroner rules Jo's testimony inadmissible and the jury hands down a verdict of "Accidental death."

Tulkinghorn, however, lingers to talk to Jo, and hears what he might have testified:

That one cold winter night, when he, the boy, was shivering in a doorway near his crossing, the man turned to look at him, and came back, and, having questioned him and found that he had not a friend in the world, said, "Neither have I. Not one!" and gave him the price of a supper and a night's lodging. That the man had often spoken to him since; and asked him whether he slept sound at night, and how he bore cold and hunger, and whether he ever wished to die; and similar strange questions. That when the man had no money, he would say in passing, "I am as poor as you to-day, Jo"; but that when he had any, he had always (as the boy most heartily believes) been glad to give him some.

As he leaves, Mr Snagsby gives Jo half a crown and warns him never to refer to it if he sees him in the company of Mrs Snagsby. When he gets back home, however, his account of Nemo's end and the inquest so upsets the servant, Guster, "that at supper-time she projected herself into the kitchen, preceded by a flying Dutch-cheese, and fell into a fit of unusual duration."

The beadle, who has been described in the papers as "active and intelligent," is charged with disposing of Nemo's body, which is taken "to a hemmed-in churchyard, pestiferous and obscene, whence malignant diseases are communicated to the bodies of our dear brothers and sisters who have not departed."

With houses looking on, on every side, save where a reeking little tunnel of a court gives access to the iron gate -- with every villainy of life in action close on death, and every poisonous element of death in action close on life -- here, they lower our dear brother down a foot or two: here, sow him in corruption, to be raised in corruption: an avenging ghost at many a sick-bedside: a shameful testimony to future ages, how civilisation and barbarism walked this boastful island together.

There, at night, Jo comes to sweep the little tunnel clean, and to mutter, "He wos wery good to me, he wos!"

_____

The 2005 BBC/Masterpiece Theatre dramatization features Anna Maxwell Martin as Esther Summerson, Carey Mulligan as Ada Clare, Patrick Kennedy as Richard Carstone, Denis Lawson as John Jarndyce, Nathaniel Parker as Harold Skimpole,  Charles Dance as Tulkinghorn, Tom Georgeson as Clamb, Roberta Taylor as Mrs Pardiggle, John Lynch as Nemo, Harry Eden as Jo, Burn Gorman as Guppy, Sean McGinley as Snagsby, Johnny Vegas as Krook, Richard Harrington as Allan Woodcourt, Peter Guinness as the Coroner, Pauline Collins as Miss Flite. 

3. Bleak House, by Charles Dickens, pp. 63-103

Chapter 5: A Morning Adventure through Chapter 6: Quite at Home


Caddy Jellyby suggests to Esther that they take a walk, which Ester, "sufficiently curious about London," readily agrees to. Ada joins them, and on the street they meet Richard, who has already gone out. So they stroll in pairs, with Caddy and Esther taking the lead and Ada and Richard following, but Caddy walks on so fast that the other two are obliged to ask her to slow down.

Caddy is eager to complain some more to Esther, this time about Mr Quale, who had visited after dinner the night before. Caddy is convinced that her parents are trying to marry her off to Quale. She complains equally about her mother's neglect: "where's Ma's duty as a parent? All made over to the public and Africa, I suppose!"

They find themselves once again in the environs of Chancery, and there they encounter Miss Flite, who is waiting for the court to open. She suggests that the four of them come see her lodgings, which are nearby: "It will be a good omen for me. Youth, and hope, and beauty, are very seldom there." They find themselves in front of a shop with a number of signs: KROOK, BAG AND BOTTLE WAREHOUSE. KROOK, DEALER IN MARINE STORES. BONES BOUGHT. KITCHEN-STUFF BOUGHT. OLD IRON BOUGHT. WASTE PAPER BOUGHT. LADIES' AND GENTLEMEN'S WARDROBES BOUGHT.

Everything seemed to be bought, and nothing to be sold there. In all parts of the window, were quantities of dirty bottles: blacking bottles, medicines bottles, ginger-beer and soda-water bottles, pickle bottles, wine bottles, ink bottles.

There is also a sign advertising the copying services provided by a man named Nemo. Copyists were in demand before the advent of typewriters and carbon paper and of course long before Xerox machines. We have already seen Lady Dedlock express surprise at the handwriting of a copyist in the documents brought to her by Tulkinghorn. Nemo (the name means "no one," of course) resides at Krook's, as does Miss Flite.

The shop is a jumble of papers and rusty old keys, and rags and bones.

One had only to fancy, as Richard whispered to Ada and me while we all stood looking in, that yonder bones in a corner, piled together and picked very clean, were the bones of clients, to make the picture complete.

Krook himself is in the shop, "an old man in spectacles and a hairy cap ... short, cadaverous and withered; with his head sunk sideways between his shoulders, and the breath issuing in visible smoke from his mouth, as if he were on fire within." That last detail is worth remembering. "His throat, chin, and eyebrows, were so frosted with white hairs, and so gnarled with veins and puckered skin, that he looked, from his breast upward, like some old root in a fall of snow."

Miss Flite urges them in, though none of them are too eager to enter, and introduces them to Krook. "He is called among the neighbours the Lord Chancellor. His shop is called the Court of Chancery." Krook takes a particular interest in Ada's hair: "I have got three sacks of ladies' hair below, but none so beautiful and fine as this. What colour, and what texture!" Richard intervenes indignantly when Krook takes a strand of Ada's hair in his hand. Krook confesses that he can't bear to part with the "old parchmentses and papers in my stock. And I have a liking for rust and must and cobwebs." He is joined by a large gray cat named Lady Jane, and informs them that he also deals in cat skin, but couldn't bear to skin Lady Jane.

He is startled when Miss Flite tells him that these are "the wards in Jarndyce," and when he hears Richard's name, he says, "Carstone.... Yes. There was the name of Barbary, and the name of Clare, and the name of Dedlock, too, I think," among the names he recalls from the case. And he tells them rather gruesomely about the suicide of Tom Jarndyce, who visited the shops when the case was being heard, and said that Chancery was like "being ground to bits in a slow mill; it's being roasted at a slow fire; it's being stung to death by single bees; it's being drowned by drops; it's going mad by grains." The story of Tom Jarndyce makes Ada and Richard turn pale.

Miss Flite intervenes and ushers them upstairs to her room "at the top of the house, ... from which she had a glimpse of the roof of Lincoln's Inn Hall." Esther notes that there is no sign of any food or any clothes other than the ones she is wearing in the room, but in the garret window there are "a number of bird-cages hanging there; some containing birds. There were larks, linnets, and goldfinches -- I thought think at least twenty." Miss Flite tells them that she intends to set them free "When my judgment should be given." But that "Their lives, poor silly things, are so short in comparison with Chancery proceedings, that, one by one, the whole collection has died over and over again." And that she wonders if "I may not one day be found lying stark and senseless here, as I have found so many birds!"

Richard, prompted by Ada, leaves some money on the mantel for Miss Flite, who goes on to say that she can't open the windows because Krook's cat crouches outside looking at the birds, and that "her natural cruelty is sharpened by a jealous fear of their regaining their liberty." As they go back downstairs, she points to the second-floor door to another room, which is Nemo's:

"The only other lodger," she now whispered, 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."

Downstairs, they find Krook putting some papers "in a kind of well in the floor." Esther brings up the rear as they start to leave, and is accosted by him. He begins writing the letter J on the wall with a piece of chalk. And one by one, erasing each letter when it is finished, he spells out the name "Jarndyce." When Esther confirms that that is indeed the word he has spelled, he proceeds to do the same with "the letters forming the words BLEAK HOUSE." He then explains to her, "I have a turn for copying from memory, you see, miss, though I can neither read nor write."

Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), The Lord Chancellor Copies From Memory, (Source: David Perdue's Charles Dickens Page)

 They take their leave of Miss Flite and return to Mrs Jellyby's. Along the way, Richard remarks to Ada on how depressing he finds the Chancery business. She agrees, and also agrees to let him call her Ada. He tells her, "We have been happily brought together, thanks to our good kinsman, and it [Chancery] can't divide us now!" Caddy gives Esther's arm a squeeze, acknowledging this developing relationship between Richard and Ada.

They reach Mrs Jellyby's to find that Peepy has been "lost for an hour and a half, and brought home from Newgate market by a policeman." Esther has a pang of regret when she realizes that he must have been searching for her. Fortunately, he is asleep when the coach arrives that will take her away.

On the road, their coach is met by a wagon headed to London, which stops them and delivers welcoming messages for Esther, Richard and Ada from Mr John Jarndyce. In his message, he proposes "that we meet as old friends, and take the past for granted, which confirms in Ada and Richard an impression "that their cousin Jarndyce could never bear acknowledgments for any kindness he performed, and that, sooner than receive any, he would resort to the most singular expedients and evasions, or would even run away." This characteristic bothers Esther, who wonders how she can possibly thank "one who had been my benefactor and sole earthly dependence through so many years."

Finally, they reach Bleak House and are greeted "in a fatherly way" by Mr Jarndyce, who has "a handsome, lively, quick face, full of change and motion; and his hair was a silvered iron-grey. I took him to be nearer sixty than fifty, but he was upright, hearty, and robust." Then Esther realizes that "a pleasant expression in his eyes, recalled the gentleman in the stage-coach, six years ago, on the memorable day of my journey to Reading. I was certain it was he," but, "appearing to read my thoughts, [he] gave such a look at the door that I thought we had lost him."

There is a moment of awkwardness when Jarndyce asks what they thought of Mrs Jellyby. Richard and Ada are evasive, so Jarndyce confronts Esther. "'We rather thought,' said I, glancing at Richard and Ada, who entreated me with their eyes to speak, 'that perhaps she was a little unmindful of her home.'" Jarndyce claims to be "Floored!" but continues to draw out Esther's real opinion. "I may have sent you there on purpose," he tells her. So Esther opines that Mrs Jellyby neglects her domestic duties and subordinates them to her African cause. And Richard blurts out, "The little Jellybys ... are really -- I can't help expressing myself strongly, sir -- in a devil of a state."

Jarndyce then puzzles them by observing, "The wind's in the east." Richard says it was in the north when they were on their way, but Jarndyce insists, "I am always conscious of an uncomfortable sensation now and then when the wind is blowing in the east." This is one of Jarndyce's identifying Dickensian characteristics, blaming a discomfiting situation on an east wind. But Ada praises Esther for taking charge of the children and for making a friend of Caddy, so that Jarndyce asks Richard again about the wind, and when told that it was from the north agrees, "You are right. There's no east in it. A mistake of mine." And he shows them around the house, which turns out to be one of those cozy and complicated dwellings that Dickens takes such delight in.

It was one of those delightfully irregular houses where you go up and down steps out of one room into another, and where you come upon more rooms when you think you have seen all there are, and where there is a bountiful provision of little halls and passage, and where you find still older cottage-rooms in unexpected places, with lattice windows and green growth pressing through them.... The furniture, old-fashioned rather than old, like the house, was as pleasantly irregular.

After they have settled in their rooms and explored the place some more, Jarndyce tells them there is a guest there, "the finest creature upon earth -- a child." But not "literally a child.... He is grown up -- he is at least as old as I am -- but in simplicity, and freshness, and enthusiasm, and a fine guileless inaptitude for all worldly affairs, he is a perfect child." This is Harold Skimpole, whom Dickens modeled on the essayist and poet Leigh Hunt, a friend of Keats and Shelley whose fecklessness resembled Skimpole's.

Although Jarndyce begins cheerfully praising Skimpole's childlike innocence, when Richard asks questions about Skimpole's children, Jarndyce admits that "Harold Skimpole's children have tumbled up somehow or other," and then begins to admit the truth about his friend. "The wind's getting round again, I am afraid. I feel it rather!" Richard then notes that Bleak House is rather exposed to the elements -- it is on a hilltop. And thus Dickens works in the metaphorical significance of his titular house: Its coziness and charm are threatened by the cold realities of the outside world. It is a retreat, but not an escape.

(A side note on "Skimpole's" children. One of Leigh Hunt's children was Thornton Leigh Hunt, who fathered three children by Agnes Lewes, the wife of George Henry Lewes. When Lewes fell in love with Marian Evans (George Eliot), he was unable to divorce Agnes because he had condoned her adultery with Hunt.)

When they return to their rooms to unpack their luggage, a maid brings the keys to the household to Esther, who is surprised to receive them. They then go downstairs and meet Skimpole, "a little bright creature, with a rather large head; but a delicate face, and a sweet voice, and there was a perfect charm in him.... Indeed, he had more the appearance, in all respects, of a damaged young man, than a well-preserved elderly one." Esther sees in him "a romantic youth who had undergone some unique process of depreciation."

Skimpole rattles on insouciantly about his unfitness for the real world, confessing "that he had no idea of time [and] no idea of money." His advice to others is to "go after glory, holiness, commerce, trade, any object you prefer; only -- let Harold Skimpole live!" He also prides himself on allowing others to express their generous impulses by helping him: "I almost feel as if you ought to be grateful to me, for giving you the opportunity of enjoying the luxury of generosity." Esther shrewdly perceives that this explains the affection Jarndyce feels for Skimpole, who will never be tempted to embarrass Jarndyce by expressing his gratitude. They are charmed by Skimpole themselves, "and especially Richard."

Jarndyce is pleased by the way things are proceeding, though he is alert to nuances. When Skimpole praises Ada as a "child of the universe," for example, Jarndyce observes, "The universe ... makes rather an indifferent parent, I am afraid." He also notices the growing closeness of Ada and Richard -- and Esther notices his noticing: "His look was thoughtful, but had a benignant expression in it which I often (how often!) saw again: which has long been engraven on my heart." And as Ada plays the piano and sings softly, with Richard bending over her, Esther notices:

Upon the wall, their shadows blended together, surrounded by strange forms, not without a ghostly motion caught from the unsteady fire, though reflected from motionless objects. Ada touched the notes so softly, and sang so low, that the wind, sighing away to the distant hills, was as audible as the music. The mystery of the future, and the little clue added to it by the voice of the present, seemed expressed in the whole picture.

As with the remark earlier about the exposure of Bleak House to the elements, there's a sinister element haunting this cozy scene.

Some while later, after first Skimpole and then Richard have left the room, the maid who had brought the keys to Esther asks her to come to Skimpole's room: "He has been took, miss!" Esther assumes that she means Skimpole is ill, but it turns out, as Richard explains to her when she enters, that Skimpole has been "arrested for debt." A man in a white great-coat is there to take him away to jail or, as the man says, to "Coavinses." (The note explains that this would be a house of detention run by a man named Coavins. Skimpole applies the name to the man arresting him, and "Coavins's house" becomes "Coavinses.")

Skimpole is unperturbed, even delighted, by the situation, for although he knows that Jarndyce would readily bail him out of the situation by paying the money owed, "'I have the epicure-like feeling that I would prefer a novelty in help; that I would rather,' and he looked at Richard and me, 'develop generosity in a new soil, and in a new form of flower.'" He can't even remember how much he owes, and when the man says "twenty-four pound, sixteen, and sevenpence ha'penny," Skimpole says it sounds "like a small sum?" Esther and Richard scrape together the amount, Esther reflecting, "It was a most singular thing that the arrest was our embarrassement, and not Mr Skimpole's."

Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), Coavinses (Source: David Perdue's Charles Dickens Page)

 Skimpole observes, "The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!"

The matter settled, they return downstairs, where Esther takes a lesson in playing backgammon from Jarndyce, although "Richard and I seemed to retain the transferred impression of having been arrested since dinner, and that it was very curious altogether." Finally, Skimpole goes to bed, and Ada, Richard and Esther are sitting by the fire when Jarndyce returns, very upset:

"What's this, they tell me? Rick, my boy, Esther, my dear, what have you been doing? Why did you do it? How could you do it? How much apiece was it? -- The wind's round again. I feel it all over me!"

He has learned of their bailing out Skimpole. Esther reminds him that he has characterized Skimpole as a child, and so they treated him as one, which mollifies Jarndyce a bit: "Nobody but a child would have thought of singling you two out for parties in the affair! Nobody but a child would have thought of your having the money! If it had been a thousand pounds, it would have been just the same!" But he makes them promise never to let Skimpole have money -- "Not even sixpences!" -- again. That done, he reports, "I find it was a false alarm about the wind. It's in the south!"

Ada and I agreed, as we talked together for a little while upstairs, that this caprice about the wind was a fiction; and that he used the pretence to account for any disappointment he could not conceal, rather than he would blame the real cause of it, or disparage or depreciate any one.

But it's a dangerous form of transference.

Left alone, Esther reflects on the developing relationship of Ada and Richard, and then to her own situation, particularly the "shadowy speculations which had sometimes trembled there in the dark, as to what knowledge Mr Jarndyce had of my earliest history -- even as to the possibility of his being my father -- though that idle dream was quite gone now."

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The 2005 BBC/Masterpiece Theatre dramatization features Anna Maxwell Martin as Esther Summerson, Carey Mulligan as Ada Clare, Patrick Kennedy as Richard Carstone, Denis Lawson as John Jarndyce, Nathanial Parker as Harold Skimpole, Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock, Timothy West as Sir Leicester Dedlock, Charles Dance as Tulkinghorn, Tom Georgeson as Clamb, John Lynch as Nemo, Johnny Vegas as Krook, Natalie Press as Caddy Jellyby, Lisa Hammond as Harriet, Burn Gorman as Guppy.