Bleak House by Charles Dickens (best ebook reader for laptop .txt) 📕
Description
Bleak House, completed by Dickens in 1853, tells several interlocking story-lines and features a host of colorful characters. Though very difficult to summarise, the novel centers around the decades-long legal case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, involving the fair distribution of assets of a valuable estate. The case is mired in the legal quagmire of the Court of Chancery, whose byzantine and sluggish workings Dickens spares no effort to expose and condemn. Dickens also exposes the miserable condition of the poor, living in squalid, pestilential circumstances.
The novel’s heroine is Esther Summerson, whose parentage is unclear and who has been brought up by a cold and strict godmother, who tells her only: “Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers.” On the death of her godmother, she is given an education through the unexpected intervention of a Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, whom she has never met. When she comes of age, she is appointed as a companion to Ada, one of two young people who are “wards of Chancery,” whose fates depend on the outcome of the legal struggle and who are taken into guardianship by Mr. Jarndyce. The other ward Richard, despite Mr. Jarndyce’s frequent warnings, eventually goes astray by pinning all his hopes on a successful outcome of Jarndyce and Jarndyce.
We are also introduced to Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, and to their cunning and suspicious lawyer, Mr. Tulkinghorn. He uncovers evidence that Lady Dedlock is not all she seems and determines to remorselessly pursue every lead to expose her secrets.
The novel has a curious construction in that the first-person narrative of Esther, written in the past tense, is interleaved with many chapters written from the omniscient viewpoint and in the present tense.
Several prominent critics such as G. K. Chesterton consider Bleak House to be Dickens’ finest novel, and it is often ranked among the best English-language novels of all time.
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- Author: Charles Dickens
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At last come the Coroner and his inquiry, like as before, except that the Coroner cherishes this case as being out of the common way and tells the gentlemen of the jury, in his private capacity, that “that would seem to be an unlucky house next door, gentlemen, a destined house; but so we sometimes find it, and these are mysteries we can’t account for!” After which the six-footer comes into action and is much admired.
In all these proceedings Mr. Guppy has so slight a part, except when he gives his evidence, that he is moved on like a private individual and can only haunt the secret house on the outside, where he has the mortification of seeing Mr. Smallweed padlocking the door, and of bitterly knowing himself to be shut out. But before these proceedings draw to a close, that is to say, on the night next after the catastrophe, Mr. Guppy has a thing to say that must be said to Lady Dedlock.
For which reason, with a sinking heart and with that hangdog sense of guilt upon him which dread and watching enfolded in the Sol’s Arms have produced, the young man of the name of Guppy presents himself at the town mansion at about seven o’clock in the evening and requests to see her ladyship. Mercury replies that she is going out to dinner; don’t he see the carriage at the door? Yes, he does see the carriage at the door; but he wants to see my Lady too.
Mercury is disposed, as he will presently declare to a fellow-gentleman in waiting, “to pitch into the young man”; but his instructions are positive. Therefore he sulkily supposes that the young man must come up into the library. There he leaves the young man in a large room, not over-light, while he makes report of him.
Mr. Guppy looks into the shade in all directions, discovering everywhere a certain charred and whitened little heap of coal or wood. Presently he hears a rustling. Is it—? No, it’s no ghost, but fair flesh and blood, most brilliantly dressed.
“I have to beg your ladyship’s pardon,” Mr. Guppy stammers, very downcast. “This is an inconvenient time—”
“I told you, you could come at any time.” She takes a chair, looking straight at him as on the last occasion.
“Thank your ladyship. Your ladyship is very affable.”
“You can sit down.” There is not much affability in her tone.
“I don’t know, your ladyship, that it’s worth while my sitting down and detaining you, for I—I have not got the letters that I mentioned when I had the honour of waiting on your ladyship.”
“Have you come merely to say so?”
“Merely to say so, your ladyship.” Mr. Guppy besides being depressed, disappointed, and uneasy, is put at a further disadvantage by the splendour and beauty of her appearance.
She knows its influence perfectly, has studied it too well to miss a grain of its effect on anyone. As she looks at him so steadily and coldly, he not only feels conscious that he has no guide in the least perception of what is really the complexion of her thoughts, but also that he is being every moment, as it were, removed further and further from her.
She will not speak, it is plain. So he must.
“In short, your ladyship,” says Mr. Guppy like a meanly penitent thief, “the person I was to have had the letters of, has come to a sudden end, and—” He stops. Lady Dedlock calmly finishes the sentence.
“And the letters are destroyed with the person?”
Mr. Guppy would say no if he could—as he is unable to hide.
“I believe so, your ladyship.”
If he could see the least sparkle of relief in her face now? No, he could see no such thing, even if that brave outside did not utterly put him away, and he were not looking beyond it and about it.
He falters an awkward excuse or two for his failure.
“Is this all you have to say?” inquires Lady Dedlock, having heard him out—or as nearly out as he can stumble.
Mr. Guppy thinks that’s all.
“You had better be sure that you wish to say nothing more to me, this being the last time you will have the opportunity.”
Mr. Guppy is quite sure. And indeed he has no such wish at present, by any means.
“That is enough. I will dispense with excuses. Good evening to you!” And she rings for Mercury to show the young man of the name of Guppy out.
But in that house, in that same moment, there happens to be an old man of the name of Tulkinghorn. And that old man, coming with his quiet footstep to the library, has his hand at that moment on the handle of the door—comes in—and comes face to face with the young man as he is leaving the room.
One glance between the old man and the lady, and for an instant the blind that is always down flies up. Suspicion, eager and sharp, looks out. Another instant, close again.
“I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. I beg your pardon a thousand times. It is so very unusual to find you here at this hour. I supposed the room was empty. I beg your pardon!”
“Stay!” She negligently calls him back. “Remain here, I beg. I am going out to dinner. I have nothing more to say to this young man!”
The disconcerted young man bows, as he goes out, and cringingly hopes that Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields is well.
“Aye, aye?” says the lawyer, looking at him from under his bent brows, though he has no need to look again—not he. “From Kenge and Carboy’s, surely?”
“Kenge and Carboy’s, Mr. Tulkinghorn. Name of Guppy, sir.”
“To be sure. Why, thank you, Mr. Guppy, I am very well!”
“Happy to hear it, sir. You can’t be too well, sir, for the credit of the profession.”
“Thank you, Mr. Guppy!”
Mr. Guppy
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