When I told him, he laughed. In the same odd way, yet with the same rapidity, he then produced singly, and rubbed out singly, the letters forming the words BLEAK HOUSE. These, in some astonishment, I also read; and he laughed again.
“Hi!” said the old man, laying aside the chalk. “I have a turn for copying from memory, you see, miss, though I can neither read nor write.”
He looked so disagreeable, and his cat looked so wickedly at me, as if I were a blood-relation of the birds upstairs, that I was quite relieved by Richard’s appearing at the door and saying:
“Miss Summerson, I hope you are not bargaining for the sale of your hair. Don’t be tempted. Three sacks below are quite enough for Mr Krook!”
I lost no time in wishing Mr Krook good morning, and joining my friends outside, where we parted with the little old lady, who gave us her blessing with great ceremony, and renewed her assurance of yesterday in reference to her intention of settling estates on Ada and me. Before we finally turned out of those lanes, we looked back, and saw Mr Krook standing at his shop-door, in his spectacles, looking after us, with his cat upon his shoulder, and her tail sticking up on one side of his hairy cap, like a tall feather.
“Quite an adventure for a morning in London!” said Richard, with a sigh. “Ah, cousin, cousin, it’s a weary word this Chancery!”
“It is to me, and has been ever since I can remember,” returned Ada. “I am grieved that I should be the enemy — as I suppose I am — of a great number of relations and others; and that they should be my enemies — as I suppose they are; and that we should all be ruining one another, without knowing how or why, and be in constant doubt and discord all our lives. It seems very strange, as there must be right somewhere, that an honest judge in real earnest has not been able to find out through all these years where it is.”
“Ah, cousin!” said Richard. “Strange, indeed! All this wasteful, wanton chess-playing is very strange. To see that composed Court yesterday jogging on so serenely, and to think of the wretchedness of the pieces on the board, gave me the headache and the heartache both together. My head ached with wondering how it happened, if men were neither fools nor rascals; and my heart ached to think they could possibly be either. But at all events, Ada — I may call you Ada?”
“Of course you may, cousin Richard.”
“At all events, Ada, Chancery will work none of its bad influences on us. We have happily been brought together, thanks to our good kinsman, and it can’t divide us now!”
“Never, I hope, cousin Richard!” said Ada, gently.
Miss Jellyby gave my arm a squeeze and me a very significant look. I smiled in return, and we made the rest of the way back very pleasantly.
In half-an-hour after our arrival, Mrs Jellyby appeared; and in the course of an hour the various things necessary for breakfast straggled one by one into the dining-room. I do not doubt that Mrs Jellyby had gone to bed, and got up in the usual manner, but she presented no appearance of having changed her dress. She was greatly occupied during breakfast; for the morning’s post brought a heavy correspondence relative to Borrioboola-Gha, which would occasion her (she said) to pass a busy day. The children tumbled about, and notched memoranda of their accidents in their legs, which were perfect little calendars of distress; and Peepy was lost for an hour and a half, and brought home from Newgate market by a policeman. The equable manner in which Mrs Jellyby sustained both his absence, and his restoration to the family circle, surprised us all.