25. Bleak House, by Charles Dickens, pp. 916-989

Chapter 60: Perspective through Chapter 67: The Close of Esther's Narrative

As one might expect from the shock and the exposure to the elements she has endured, Esther becomes ill, though not for a long time. When Esther recovers he tells her that he plans to stay on in London for as much as six months, because "Ada stands much in need of you." Jarndyce is concerned that, because of his estrangement from Richard, he has little contact with the wards in Jarndyce, so he cautions Esther, as he says he cautioned Woodcourt, not to bring up the subject of the case with Ada and Richard, lest she alienate herself from them: "She cannot afford, and he cannot afford, the remotest chance of another separation from a friend."

Then he mentions Mrs Woodcourt, who has been a guest at his house in London for some time. Esther admits that she finds her "more agreeable than she used to be," and that she hasn't harped on the Woodcourt pedigree as much as she used to. So he proposes to ask Mrs Woodcourt to stay a while longer. Esther has some mixed feelings about this that she can't articulate to herself, given that she doesn't want to admit that she is still in love with Woodcourt, but she agrees. She asks Jarndyce if Woodcourt still has plans to try his profession in another country, and he tells her that in about half a year there is to be an opening for "a medical attendant for the poor" in Yorkshire, and that Woodcourt is a strong candidate for it.

So Esther resumes regular visits to Ada and Richard, and on one of them meets Miss Flite, who has just been to see Ada. She tells Esther that Richard hasn't returned from the court yet, and that when she left he was in conference with Mr Vholes. She urges Esther, "Don't like Vholes. Dan-gerous man!" She has named Richard her executor, she says, "if I should wear out, he will be able to watch that judgment." Her previous executor was Gridley, "But he wore out." And then she mentions that she has added two birds to her collection and named them "the Wards in Jarndyce." Esther recalls, "Her manner of running over the names of her birds, as if she were afraid of hearing them even from her own lips, quite chilled me."

Richard brings Vholes to dinner with him, and the lawyer takes Esther aside to sound her out on how ill Richard is looking. But his manner is "So slow, so eager, so bloodless and gaunt, I felt as if Richard were wasting away beneath the eyes of this adviser, and there were something of the Vampire in him." Vholes also comments that he thinks the marriage of Richard and Ada is "very ill-advised," to which Esther retorts that it would be much better "if Richard were persuaded to turn his back on the fatal pursuit in which you are engaged with him." Vholes "inclined his head as if he did not wholly dispute even that." His defense is that Richard "had laid down the principle of watching his own interests; and that when a client of mine laid down a principle which was not of an immoral (that is to say, unlawful) nature, it devolved upon me to carry it out. I have carried it out; I do carry it out." Esther can only reflect that she "well understood Mr Vholes's scrupulous way of saving himself and his respectability."

She observes of Richard, "There is a ruin of youth which is not like age; and into such a ruin, Richard's youth and youthful beauty had all fallen away." Richard sees Mr Vholes out. "On his return he told us, more than once, that Vholes was a good fellow, a safe fellow, a man who did what he pretended to do, a very good fellow indeed! He was so defiant about it, that it struck me he had begun to doubt Mr Vholes."

Woodcourt arrives, and takes Richard out for a walk, leaving Esther alone with Ada, who tells her she is perfectly aware of Richard's condition and their financial plight. "But when I married Richard I as quite determined, Esther, if Heaven would help me, never to show him that I grieved for what he did, and so to make him unhappy." And then she adds, "And something else supports me, Esther." She is pregnant. (Dickens doesn't say so in those words, of course, and the way in which Ada delivers the news is curiously oblique, as if designed to avoid shocking the most squeamish of Victorian readers.) But she can't help feeling dread when she looks at Richard: "That he may not live to see his child."

On one of Esther's visits Skimpole is there, and realizing what a potential drain on Richard and Ada's meager resources he can be, Esther decides to pay him a visit. She informs him that Richard is "in very embarrassed circumstance," which only delights Skimpole because he is, too. She hesitates to ask him outright not to go there anymore, but Skimpole anticipates the request: "Not go there? Certainly not, my dear Miss Summerson, most assuredly not. Why should I go there? When I go anywhere, I go for pleasure. I don't go anywhere for pain, because I was made for pleasure." Esther is "disconcerted" by Skimpole's backward logic, and then emboldened to bring up the matter of his ratting on Jo. He blithely falls back into the old "I'm just a child" routine, cheerfully admitting his irresponsibility. So Esther says "that it was not right to betray my guardian's confidence for a bribe." Skimpole retorts, "I can't be bribed." He doesn't understand money, so he has no idea of its value, therefore, he argues, bribing him is impossible. And he weaves an airy justification for turning Jo over to Bucket that is perfectly logical if based on the premise that Skimpole is a child and therefore by nature incapable of responsibility.

After Skimpole accompanies her home, Esther says, she never saw him again. Jarndyce broke with him, and he died five years later, leaving a diary and letters from which a biography was constructed. "It was considered very pleasant reading, but I never read more of it myself than the sentence on which I chanced to light on opening the book. It was this. 'Jarndyce, in common with most other men I have known, is the Incarnation of Selfishness.'"

The months pass, and one day after visiting Richard and Ada, Esther goes to the place where she usually meets Jarndyce for the return home. She is accompanied by Woodcourt, but Jarndyce is late, and after half an hour Woodcourt walks her home. When they get there, both Jarndyce and Mrs Woodcourt are out. Woodcourt takes the opportunity of being alone with Esther to declare his love for her. She reflects, "O, too late to know it now, too late, too late. That was the first ungrateful thought I had. Too late." She tells him that she is not free to accept him, but "never believe ... that while my heart beats, it can be insensible to the pride and joy of having been beloved by you." Esther also learns that he has accepted the position in Yorkshire, which Jarndyce helped him obtain. When she wishes him "Good night" and "good-bye," he understands her meaning: "The first, until we meet to-morrow; the second, as a farewell to this theme between us for ever."

Yeah, well, we'll see about that. Again, having locked himself into Esther's point of view, Dickens shows his uncertainty about how to handle the Woodcourt-Esther-Jarndyce triangle. The omniscient narrator could have presented the irony of Esther's situation -- love vs. respect, duty vs. passion -- without some of the mawkishness attendant on Esther's self-consciousness, as well as the awkwardness of her withholding an outcome she knows too well. We feel a genuine sympathy for Elizabeth when she thinks she has lost Darcy or Emma when she thinks she has lost Mr Knightley, but that's because Jane Austen has been able to view the situation with some measure of objectivity. Esther's emotion here seems false and sentimental by contrast.

So of course what Esther does is go to her room and cry and then take out Jarndyce's proposal letter, which, she says, she knows by heart. And then the next day to keep "as busy as possible," repressing her emotions. (Though still crabbing about Charley's inability to learn grammar.) Jarndyce congratulates her on how well she handles the household finances: In fact, he does it twice, repeating the sentence "There never was such a Dame Durden ... for making money last." His praise reminds us that Esther is not marrying Jarndyce so much as she is marrying Bleak House -- which becomes a key point later. Finally, she announces, "I will be the mistress of Bleak House when you please." She leaves the decision up to him, and when he proposes "Next month?" she agrees.

They are interrupted by the appearance of Mr Bucket, who brings with him "an old man in a black skull-cap, unable to walk" and therefore carried in a chair. They are introduced to Smallweed, and are informed that in rummaging through the papers at Krook's Smallweed has discovered another Jarndyce will. Jarndyce refuses to examine it, however, holding to his refusal to become involved in the case, but promises Smallweed that he will be remunerated for discovering it. Jarndyce and Esther go to Kenge's office, where the lawyer tells them that "it is a Will of later date than any in the suit. It appears to be all in the Testator's handwriting. It is duly executed and attested." It is "a perfect instrument!" Its effect would be to reduce Jarndyce's share of the estate in the favor of Richard and Ada. Vholes is summoned, and he agrees that it is "a very remarkable document" and "a very important document," and that it should be introduced in court when the term begins next month.

Meanwhile, Mr George, who has been at Chesney Wold tending to the recuperating Sir Leicester, goes to "the iron country farther north" to see his brother, and learns how prominent a name Rouncewell is there, which almost makes him back off from the encounter. But at the factory, which is "a place to make a man's head ache," in his opinion, he encounters his nephew, who is "devilish like me!" George thinks. He asks his nephew to take him to see Mr Rouncewell, and when the nephew asks what name he should tell his father, "George, full of the idea of iron, in desperation answers, 'Steel.'"

Presented to Rouncewell, George claims to have been in the army with Rouncewell's brother, but the ironmaster recognizes him and embraces him. Rouncewell tells George that he has come on an auspicious day: He is about to announce Watt's engagement to Rosa, who is leaving for Germany as part of her education tomorrow: The wedding will be in a year. George is astonished by his swift acceptance into the family, but balks when Rouncewell proposes to find a job for him in the business. He is also concerned that his return will disadvantage Rouncewell's children: He wants their mother to "scratch" him out of her will. Rouncewell assures him that their mother would never do such a thing, but if he feels so strongly about it, he can dispose of any inheritance however he sees fit, which George accepts. As for a job in the business, "I am a kind of a Weed, and it's too late to plant me in a regular garden.... But I shall get on best at Chesney Wold -- where there's more room for a Weed than there is here; and the dear old lady will be made happy besides."

George also asks his brother to send a letter he has written to Esther, but didn't want to mail to her from Chesney Wold because he was afraid the associations with the place would pain her. In it he apologizes for turning over to Tulkinghorn the paper in Hawdon's handwriting. Finally, the brothers part, "the ironmaster turning his face to the smoke and fires, and the trooper to the green country."

Jarndyce has given Esther two hundred pounds for the wedding preparations, with the understanding that the wedding would not take place until after the court hearing on the new will. Jarndyce goes to Yorkshire "on Mr Woodcourt's business," and sends for Esther. When she arrives, he tells her that he had wanted to do something to thank Woodcourt for "his humanity to poor unfortunate Jo, his inestimable service to my young cousins, and his value to us all," so he has found a house for him and he wants Esther to look it over, since she is so experienced as a housekeeper. Esther is so touched by the generosity, she tells us, that she starts to cry. Jarndyce tells her "I meant it as a pleasant surprise for the little mistress of Bleak House."

She cries again that night, she tells us, "but I hope it was with pleasure, though I am not quite sure it was with pleasure," and she repeats the words of Jarndyce's proposal letter twice, as a reminder of her duty. In the morning they tour the house, which is a perfect replica of "all the pretty objects, my little tastes and fancies, my little methods and inventions which they used to laugh at while they praised them, my odd ways everywhere." She is a little disturbed, she says, at the thought that it might remind Woodcourt of her, and "what he believed he had lost." Finally, Jarndyce tells her, there's the name of the house: "We went out of the porch; and he showed me written over it, BLEAK HOUSE."

He tells her, "I had no doubt of your being contented and happy with me, being so dutiful and so devoted; but I saw with whom you would be happier." Woodcourt had confided in him, but he hadn't confided in Woodcourt until yesterday. He had also taken Mrs Woodcourt "into a separate confidence," and had invited her to stay with them so she would get to know and appreciate Esther. And when Woodcourt made his declaration of love to Esther, "he spoke with my knowledge and consent -- but I gave him no encouragement, not I, for these surprises were my great reward, and I was too miserly to part with a scrap of it." So now Woodcourt enters. "My husband -- I have called him by that name full seven happy years now -- stood at my side."

Jarndyce's renunciation is barely credible, and only because we have never really known Jarndyce: We have seen him only through Esther's eyes. It exists as a plot device, and what satisfactions we may derive from it are from the outcome of a story, the resolution of a prickly dilemma.

From here on out, the novel largely consists of tying up loose ends. Guppy is one of those loose ends: a character so prominent in the narrative that he needs to be disposed of one way or another. So when Esther returns to London, she finds that he has called on her during her absence. She agrees to receive him, and he arrives with his mother and his "particular friend, Mr Weevle. that is to say, my friend has gone by the name of Weevle, but his name is really and truly Jobling." Guppy informs them that his apprenticeship is over and he is now "admitted ... on the roll of attorneys," and that he is setting up housekeeping in Lambeth, where Jobling, his clerk, and his mother will also reside. And so now he wants to renew his proposal to Esther.

Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), Magnanimous Conduct of Mr Guppy (Source: David Perdue's Charles Dickens Page)

Jarndyce has been listening and responding to all of this on Esther's behalf.

"I take it upon myself, sir," said my guardian, laughing as he rang the bell, "to reply to your proposals on the part of Miss Summerson. She is very sensible of your handsome intentions, and wishes you good evening, and wishes you well." 

Guppy is uncertain whether this signifies "acceptance, or rejection, or consideration," and Jarndyce says, "decided rejection." Whereupon Mrs Guppy indignantly orders Jarndyce out of his own house, and has to be bodily ushered out by Guppy and Jobling.

Court resumes, and Esther and Woodcourt decide to be present at the hearing on the new will. "Richard was extremely agitated, and was so weak and low, though his illness was still of the mind, that my dear girl indeed had sore occasion to be supported." But on the way, Esther and Woodcourt are stopped by Caddy Jellyby, who is on her way to one of her dancing classes, so they are late arriving at the court. They find, to their amazement, that there is a great crowd that seems to be amused at something. They find that Jarndyce and Jarndyce is "over for good." They assume that this means there has been a ruling in favor of the new will, but then they meet Kenge and Vholes, who tell them that the will hasn't even been discussed. Finally Woodcourt figures out what they're saying: the estate has been found to be entirely absorbed by the costs of litigating it, and "thus the suit lapses and melts away."

Woodcourt realizes, too, what this will mean to Richard. Vholes tells them that he left Richard still in the courtroom, and then "gave one gasp as if he had swallowed the last morsel of this client, and his black buttoned-up unwholesome figure glided away." Woodcourt sends Esther to Jarndyce with the news, and then goes to find Richard. In the afternoon, Jarndyce accompanies Esther to Richard and Ada's, where Ada tells her that Woodcourt had found Richard "sitting in a corner of the court ... 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."

Richard is week but looks "handsomer than I had seen him look for many a day." He welcomes Esther, and promises to be at her wedding if he can stand. He dozes for a while, and then notices Jarndyce waiting in the hall and asks who it is. Richard admits him and Jarndyce comes in and puts his hand on Richard's. "'O sir,' said Richard, 'you are a good man, you are good man!' and burst into tears for the first time." He tells Jarndyce that he would like to see Esther and Woodcourt's house. "If I could be moved there when I begin to recover my strength, I feel as if I should get well there, sooner than anywhere." He talks of visiting the old Bleak House as well, and then of starting a new life: "'I will begin the world!' said Richard, with a light in his eyes." Esther notices that Woodcourt "drew a little nearer towards Ada, and I saw him solemnly life up his hand to warn my guardian." He speaks of being "a guide to my unborn child," and asks Ada to forgive him. She kisses him and he dies.

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

Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), The Mausoleum at Chesney Wold (Source: David Perdue's Charles Dickens Page)

At Chesney Wold, Sir Leicester is "invalided, bent, and almost blind, but of a worthy presence yet -- riding with a stalwart man beside him, constant to his bridle-rein." He still carries on his feud with Boythorn, but Boythorn is really humoring the old baronet, who doesn't know "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."

Mr George has taken up lodging in the keeper's house where Esther took shelter from the rain and had her first encounter with her mother, and Phil Squod stays busy polishing "anything in the way of a stable-yard that will take a polish." The house is mostly shut up, and is not open to visitors anymore. "Volumnia, growing with the flight of time pinker as to the red in her face and yellower as to the white, reads to Sir Leicester in the long evenings," fighting off yawns; "passion and pride, even to the stranger's eye, have died away from the place in Lincolnshire, and yielded it to dull repose."

Ada gives birth to a boy who is named Richard, and goes to live at the old Bleak House. Esther and Woodcourt have two daughters. Charley marries a miller, and her little sister, Emma, takes over as Esther's maid. Their brother, Tom, is apprenticed to the miller. Caddy gives the dancing lessons now, because Prince is lame. Their daughter is deaf and dumb. Mrs Jellyby has turned against Africa because the King of Borrioboola tried "to sell everybody -- who survived the climate -- for Rum; but she has taken up with the rights of women to sit in Parliament."

Esther is still in love with Ada: Richard, Ada's son, "says that he has two mamas, and I am one."

_____

The 2005 BBC/Masterpiece Theatre dramatization features Carey Mulligan as Ada Clare, Anna Maxwell Martin as Esther Summerson, Richard Harrington as Allan Woodcourt, Patrick Kennedy as Richard Carstone, Denis Lawson as John Jarndyce, Phil Davis as Smallweed, Loo Brealey as Judy Smallweed, Alun Armstrong as Mr Bucket, Burn Gorman as Guppy, Alistair McGowan as Kenge, Dermot Crowley as Mr Vholes, Katie Angelou as Charley Neckett, Sheila Hancock as Mrs Guppy, Ian Richardson as the Lord Chancellor, Pauline Collins as Miss Flite.

2. Bleak House, by Charles Dickens, pp. 27-63

Chapter 3: A Progress through Chapter 4: Telescopic Philanthropy


Esther Summerson begins her part of the narrative. The self-effacement -- "I know I am not clever," etc. -- quickly grows cloying, but fortunately Dickens has a story to tell that distracts us from it. We learn that Esther is an orphan being raised by her "godmother," a Miss Barbary, who is her aunt "in fact, though not in law" -- a curious distinction. And that her childhood is a lonely one, made more so by her godmother's piety: "She was so good herself, I thought, that the badness of other people made her frown all her life."

Esther is raised with no mention of her parents: "I had never heard my mama spoken of. I had never heard of my papa either, but I felt more interested about my mama." And when she broaches the subject to the servant, Mrs Rachael, "another very good woman, but austere to me"), the topic is quickly closed. Birthdays are particularly trying: At school she hears reports of other girls' birthday celebrations but hers "was the most melancholy day at home, in the whole year."

Finally, she thinks she may have guessed the reason for the particular gloominess surrounding her birthdays, and asks her godmother, "did mama die on my birthday?" When the question is rejected -- "Ask me no more, child!" -- Esther becomes upset and demands to know, "Why am I so different from other children, and why is it my fault, godmother?" She receives a terrible answer: "Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers." And the godmother/aunt lashes out cruelly because of "the wrong she did to me," meaning Esther's mother.

"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 since 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!" 

No wonder Esther is self-effacing, and strives "to repair the fault I had been born with," about which she feels, in a nice Dickensian insight, "confusedly" both "guilty and yet innocent." It is this spark of recognition that maybe there's a truth beyond that which is proclaimed by others that gives Esther some backbone and more complexity than just the stereotypical virtuous waif.

And then one day they are visited by "A portly important-looking gentleman," to whom Esther is presented by her godmother for inspection and then dismissed. Two years pass, and one evening Esther is reading to her godmother from the Bible and comes across the passage in the gospel of John about the woman taken in adultery. Jesus proclaims, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her!" Suddenly the godmother arises, puts her hand to her head and cries out, "Watch ye therefore! lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch!" It's from the gospel of Mark about the second coming. She falls down unconscious, presumably from a stroke, and dies a week or so later.

The "portly important-looking gentleman" returns on the day after the godmother's funeral, introduces himself as Kenge, of the firm "Kenge and Carboy, Lincoln's Inn," and asks if Esther has heard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. He's astonished that she hasn't, because, after all, "the aggregate of costs in Jarndyce and Jarndyce ... amounts at the present hour to from SIX-ty to SEVEN-ty THOUSAND POUNDS!" He informs Esther that he is there to renew "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" in the event of the godmother/aunt's death. The offer comes from a Mr Jarndyce who wants "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," and so on. As Esther notes here, she later learned "that he was generally called Conversation Kenge."

And so a week later, Esther leaves Windsor, where she has spent her whole life, for a school in Reading. She shares the coach with a man who "looked very large in a quantity of wrappings" but who takes no notice of her until she starts to cry quietly. He demands, "What the de-vil are you crying for?" And she admits that she wasn't aware that she had been, but "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." He denounces Mrs Rachael and mutters "to himself in an angry manner, ... calling Mrs Rachael names." He opens one of his voluminous cloaks and takes out a plum cake and a pie made from foie gras and offers them to her. She declines them as too rich for her, so he throws them out of the window and doesn't speak to her again until they near Reading, where he takes his leave and tells her to be a good girl and to study.

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.

At the school she is met by Miss Donny, who assures her that everything "has been arranged in exact accordance with the wishes of your guardian, Mr Jarndyce." She is taken to Greenleaf, the home of the two Misses Donny, who are twins, and learns that she is to be trained to become a governess. So in addition to her lessons, she also is "very soon engaged in helping to instruct others" among the school's twelve boarders. "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."

So Esther is almost twenty when she receives a letter from Mr Kenge informing her that Mr Jarndyce wants her to become the companion for a ward of the court in the matter of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. She goes to London, where she is met by a young man from the firm of Kenge and Carboy. We'll soon learn that his name is Guppy. Esther is shocked by the choking fog of London and by the ride "through the dirtiest and darkest streets in the world (I thought)."

At Kenge and Carboy, Mr Kenge informs her that she is going to meet with the Lord Chancellor, and is taken to a room where she meets the wards of the court, Ada Clare and Richard Carstone. Richard is "a handsome youth, with an ingenuous face, and a most engaging laugh." Ada has "such rich golden hair, such soft blue eyes, and such a bright, innocent, trusting face!" (Esther's infatuation with Ada grows thicker as the novel progresses.) Richard is not quite nineteen and Ada is two years younger. They are ushered into the presence of the Lord Chancellor, who is informed by Kenge that Mr Jarndyce is "Jarndyce of Bleak House," which is in Hertfordshire, and that Mr Jarndyce is unmarried. It's then that Esther learns that she is to be the companion for Ada, the Lord Chancellor being assured that "Miss Summerson is not related to any party in the case."

After the Lord Chancellor departs, Esther, Ada and Richard are left to wait in the colonnade outside of Kenge's office while he goes inside to check on something. While they are waiting to be taken to their next destination, "a curious little old woman in a squeezed bonnet, and carrying a reticule, came curtseying and smiling up to us, with an air of great ceremony." We saw her in the first chapter, and we'll later learn that she is Miss Flite and that she is, as Richard observes at this moment, "Mad!" She accepts the designation, which she has overheard, and informs them that she was once a ward of the court, too. "I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the Day of Judgment. I have discovered that the sixth seal mention in the Revelations is the Great Seal. It has been open a long time! Pray accept my blessing." Then Kenge arrives and shoos her away.

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 curtsey and a smile between every little sentence, "Youth. And hope. And beauty. And Chancery. And Conversation Kenge! Ha! Pray accept my blessing!"

Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), The Little Old Lady (Source: David Perdue's Charles Dickens Page)

It is too late in the day to go straight to Bleak House, so arrangements have been made for Esther, Ada and Richard to spend the night at Mrs Jellyby's. Kenge is astonished that none of them have heard of Mrs Jellyby, who he tells them "is a lady of very remarkable strength of character, who devotes herself entirely to the public," and especially to "the happy settlement, on the banks of the African rivers, of our superabundant home population." Richard asks about Mr Jellyby, but Kenge has nothing to say about him. "'A nonentity, sir?' said Richard with a droll look." But Kenge is not willing to say even that about Mr Jellyby.

Mr Guppy accompanies them to Mrs Jellyby's, along the way taking the opportunity to say to Esther that the fog "seems to do you good, miss, judging from your appearance." Esther doesn't know what to say in reply. When they reach the Jellybys they discover a great commotion outside, and Guppy goes to investigate. "One of the young Jellybys been and got his head through the area railings!" he reports. Esther, whose schooling has given her some experience with younger children, goes to investigate and discovers that the boy is being attended to by a milkman and a beadle who, "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." There, Dickens's usual narrative voice substitutes for the one he has been trying to craft for Esther, who doesn't characteristically take such a distant and ironic attitude toward someone else's misfortune. This confusion of voice continues throughout the visit to the Jellybys.

Esther persuades them that it would be better to push the boy through the railings: "I thought that, perhaps, where his head could go, his body could follow." They manage to extricate him this way. A servant, "who had been poking at the child from below with a broom," goes to inform Mrs Jellyby that her guests had arrived, and as another child tumbles down the stairs with a great noise, they are ushered into her presence. To Esther's astonishment, Mrs Jellyby takes no account of any of the accidents of the many children in her household.

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!

"Quoting Richard" is a convenient way for Dickens to introduce a sarcastic tone into Esther's narrative.

For her part, Esther is struck by how "not only untidy, but very dirty" the Jellyby household is, but particularly by "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." This is Caddy Jellyby, the oldest child, who acts as her mother's amanuensis. Mrs Jellyby informs them, "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." She introduces them to Caddy, but is interrupted by "the unfortunate child who had fallen down-stairs," and who is called Peepy. (Neither "peepee" nor "pee" seem to have had their current urinary connotations at the time, at least as far as I can tell from the OED, so maybe Dickens isn't going there. But I still wonder.)

Esther's maternal instincts take over and she scoops up the dirty little child, whom Mrs Jellyby tries to dismiss, and he falls asleep in her arms. Mrs Jellyby orders Caddy to show Esther and Ada their rooms, and tells Esther to put Peepy down, but she pleads that he's no problem, which seems to satisfy Mrs Jellyby. The rooms are as messy and dirty as the rest of the house, but Caddy offers them some hot water to freshen up, then returns to say that there isn't any and "they couldn't find the kettle, and the boiler was out of order."

They go down the treacherous staircase, whose carpet is missing "stair-wires" (we call them "stair rods") and is full of holes, to dinner with is "a fine cod-fish, a piece of roast beef, a dish of cutlets, and a pudding," all of which is "almost raw." It is as chaotic as the rest of the house, because during it Mrs Jellyby "received so many letters that Richard, who sat by her, saw four envelopes in the gravy at once." (Richard proves useful again.) During the meal, "a mild bald gentleman in spectacles" joins them but "never spoke a word." He turns out to be Mr Jellyby. They are joined after dinner by a Mr Quale who tells Ada that he is "a philanthropist," and informs her that the marriage of Mrs Jellyby and Mr Jellyby is "the union of mind and matter." Quale keeps the conversation focused on Africa, where he has plans for "the coffee colonists to teach the natives to turn piano-forte legs and establish an export trade." Throughout it all, "Mr Jellyby sat in a corner with his head against the wall, as if he were subject to low spirits," though Richard says he would sometimes open his mouth as if he had something to say but "always shut it again, to Richard's extreme confusion, without saying anything."

While Mrs Jellyby and Mr Quale discuss "the Brotherhood of Humanity," and she dictates letters to Caddy, the other children enter and Esther and Ada quietly entertain them by telling them stories "until Mrs Jellyby, accidentally remembering them, sent them to bed." Peepy asks Esther to take him to bed, and after she does she goes to her room to stoke the fire. "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." But Ada is impressed with how kind and thoughtful Esther is, which pleases Esther no end.

Esther learns from Ada that she has never seen her cousin Jarndyce, but that her mother used to speak "of the noble generosity of his character. Richard, she says, had seen him once and "recollected him as 'a bluff, rosy fellow.'"  Ada goes to bed and Esther is sitting by the fire when there is a knock at the door. It is Caddy Jellyby, who has come to talk and to pour out her grievances: "'I wish Africa was dead!' she said, on a sudden." She admits "I can't do anything hardly, except write. I'm always writing for Ma." She turns her resentment on Ada and Esther, "You think yourselves very fine, I dare say!" But Esther realizes that she is only expressing her embarrassment and frustration and lets her vent them: "'I wish I was dead!' she broke out. 'I wish we were all dead. It would be a great deal better for us." Finally, she falls asleep from exhaustion and Esther lays Caddy's head in her lap and sits up while the girl slumbers.

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 curtseying and smiling; now, some one in authority at Bleak House. Lastly, it was no one, and I was no one.

In the morning she wakes to find Peepy staring at her, "so cold that his teeth were chattering."

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

_____

The 2005 BBC/Masterpiece Theatre dramatization features Charles Dance as Tulkinghorn, Ian Richardson as the Chancellor, Anna Maxwell Martin as Esther Summerson, Carey Mulligan as Ada Clare, Patrick Kennedy as Richard Carstone, Burn Gorman as Guppy, John Lynch as Nemo, Pauline Collins as Miss Flite, Tom Georgeson as Clamb, Alistair McGowan as Kenge, Johnny Vegas as Krook, Natalie Press as Caddy Jellyby, Liza Tarbuck as Mrs Jellyby.