Ada dimly remembered to have heard her mother tell, when she was a very little child, that he had once done her an act of uncommon generosity and that on her going to his house to thank him, he happened to see her through a window coming to the door, and immediately escaped by the back gate, and was not heard of for three months. This discourse led to a great deal more on the same theme, and indeed it lasted us all day, and we talked of scarcely anything else. If we did by any chance diverge into another subject, we soon returned to this, and wondered what the house would be like, and when we should get there, and whether we should see Mr. Jarndyce as soon as we arrived or after a delay, and what he would say to us, and what we should say to him. All of which we wondered about, over and over again.
The roads were very heavy for the horses, but the pathway was generally good, so we alighted and walked up all the hills, and liked it so well that we prolonged our walk on the level ground when we got to the top. At Barnet there were other horses waiting for us, but as they had only just been fed, we had to wait for them too, and got a long fresh walk over a common and an old battlefield before the carriage came up. These delays so protracted the journey that the short day was spent and the long night had closed in before we came to St. Albans, near to which town Bleak House was, we knew.
By that time we were so anxious and nervous that even Richard confessed, as we rattled over the stones of the old street, to feeling an irrational desire to drive back again. As to Ada and me, whom he had wrapped up with great care, the night being sharp and frosty, we trembled from head to foot. When we turned out of the town, round a corner, and Richard told us that the post-boy, who had for a long time sympathized with our heightened expectation, was looking back and nodding, we both stood up in the carriage (Richard holding Ada lest she should be jolted down) and gazed round upon the open country and the starlight night for our destination. There was a light sparkling on the top of a hill before us, and the driver, pointing to it with his whip and crying,
'That's Bleak House!' put his horses into a canter and took us forward at such a rate, uphill though it was, that the wheels sent the road drift flying about our heads like spray from a water-mill.
Presently we lost the light, presently saw it, presently lost it, presently saw it, and turned into an avenue of trees and cantered up towards where it was beaming brightly. It was in a window of what seemed to be an old- fashioned house with three peaks in the roof in front and a circular sweep leading to the porch. A bell was rung as we drew up, and amidst the sound of its deep voice in the still air, and the distant barking of some dogs, and a gush of light from the opened door, and the smoking and steaming of the heated horses, and the quickened beating of our own hearts, we alighted in no inconsiderable confusion.
'Ada, my love, Esther, my dear, you are welcome. I rejoice to see you! Rick, if I had a hand to spare at present, I would give it you!'
The gentleman who said these words in a clear, bright, hospitable voice had one of his arms round Ada's waist and the other round mine, and kissed us both in a fatherly way, and bore us across the hall into a ruddy little room, all in a glow with a blazing fire.
Here he kissed us again, and opening his arms, made us sit down side by side on a sofa ready drawn out near the hearth. I felt that if we had been at all demonstrative, he would have run away in a moment.
'Now, Rick!' said he. 'I have a hand at liberty. A word in earnest is as good as a speech. I am heartily glad to see you.
You are at home. Warm yourself!'
Richard shook him by both hands with an intuitive mixture of respect and frankness, and only saying (though with an earnestness that rather alarmed me, I was so afraid of Mr. Jarndyce's suddenly disappearing), 'You are very kind, sir! We are very much obliged to you!' laid aside his hat and coat and came up to the fire.
'And how did you like the ride? And how did you like Mrs. Jellyby, my dear?' said Mr. Jarndyce to Ada.
While Ada was speaking to him in reply, I glanced (I need not say with how much interest) at his face. It was 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. From the moment of his first speaking to us his voice had connected itself with an association in my mind that I could not define; but now, all at once, a something sudden in his manner and a pleasant expression in his eyes recalled the gentleman in the stagecoach six years ago on the memorable day of my journey to Reading. I was certain it was he. I never was so frightened in my life as when I made the discovery, for he caught my glance, and appearing to read my thoughts, gave such a look at the door that I thought we had lost him.
However, I am happy to say he remained where he was, and asked me what I thought of Mrs. Jellyby.
'She exerts herself very much for Africa, sir,' I said.
'Nobly!' returned Mr. Jarndyce. 'But you answer like Ada.' Whom I had not heard. 'You all think something else, I see.'
'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.'
'Floored!' cried Mr. Jarndyce.
I was rather alarmed again.
'Well! I want to know your real thoughts, my dear. I may have sent you there on purpose.'
'We thought that, perhaps,' said I, hesitating, 'it is right to begin with the obligations of home, sir; and that, perhaps, while those are overlooked and neglected, no other duties can possibly be substituted for them.'
'The little Jellybys,' said Richard, coming to my relief, 'are really-I can't help expressing myself strongly, sir-in a devil of a state.'
'She means well,' said Mr. Jarndyce hastily. 'The wind's in the east.'
'It was in the north, sir, as we came down,' observed Richard.
'My dear Rick,' said Mr. Jarndyce, poking the fire, 'I'll take an oath it's either in the east or going to be. I am always conscious of an uncomfortable sensation now and then when the wind is blowing in the east.'
'Rheumatism, sir?' said Richard.
'I dare say it is, Rick. I believe it is. And so the little Jell -I had my doubts about 'em-are in a-oh, Lord, yes, it's easterly!' said Mr. Jarndyce.
He had taken two or three undecided turns up and down while uttering these broken sentences, retaining the poker in one hand and rubbing his hair with the other, with a good-natured vexation at once so whimsical and so lovable that I am sure we were more delighted with him than we could possibly have expressed in any words. He gave an arm to Ada and an arm to me, and bidding Richard bring a candle, was leading the way out when he suddenly turned us all back again.
'Those little Jellybys. Couldn't you-didn't you-now, if it had rained sugar-plums, or three-cornered raspberry tarts, or anything of that sort!' said Mr. Jarndyce.
'Oh, cousin-' Ada hastily began.
'Good, my pretty pet. I like cousin. Cousin John, perhaps, is better.'
'Then, cousin John-' Ada laughingly began again.
'Ha, ha! Very good indeed!' said Mr. Jarndyce with great enjoyment. 'Sounds uncommonly natural. Yes, my dear?'
'It did better than that. It rained Esther.'
'Aye?' said Mr. Jarndyce. 'What did Esther do?'
'Why, cousin John,' said Ada, clasping her hands upon his arm and shaking her head at me across him-for I wanted her to be quiet-'Esther was their friend directly. Esther nursed them, coaxed them to sleep, washed and dressed them, told them stories, kept them quiet, bought them keepsakes'-My dear girl! I had only gone out with Peepy after he was found and given him a little, tiny horse!-'and, cousin John, she softened poor Caroline, the eldest one, so much and was so thoughtful for me and so amiable! No, no, I won't be contradicted, Esther dear! You know, you know, it's true!'
The warm-hearted darling leaned across her cousin John and kissed me, and then looking up in his face, boldly said, 'At all events, cousin John, I WILL thank you for the companion you have given me.'
I felt as if she challenged him to run away. But he didn't.
'Where did you say the wind was, Rick?' asked Mr. Jarndyce.
'In the north as we came down, sir.'
'You are right. There's no east in it. A mistake of mine. Come, girls, come and see your home!'
It was one of those delightfully irregular houses where you go up and down steps out of one room into
