Tales from Dickens

by Hallie Erminie Rives; Charles Dickens

Richard Carstone had soon begun to be a source of great anxiety to all at Bleak House. It was plainly to be seen that he loved Ada dearly, and that she loved him as well, but to Mr. Jarndyce's regret he had begun to think and dream of the famous chancery suit and of the fortune that would be his when it ended. Mr. Jarndyce, from his own bitter experience, hated the Chancery Court and everything connected with it, and saw with grief that Richard was growing to be a ne'er-do-well, who found it easier to trust in the future than to labor in the present.

In spite of all advice Richard went from bad to worse. He began the study of medicine, soon changed this for law, and lastly decided to enter the army. He was naturally a spendthrift, and as long as his money lasted Harold Skimpole found him a very fine friend and helped him spend it.

Skimpole also introduced to him a knavish lawyer named Vholes, who made him believe the great chancery suit must soon end in his favor, and who (when Richard had put the case in his hands) proceeded to rob him of all he had. He poisoned his mind, too, against Mr. Jarndyce, so that Richard began to think his truest friend deceitful.

Ada saw this with pain, but she loved Richard above all else, and the more so when she saw him so wretched and deceived; and at last, without telling either Mr. Jarndyce or Esther what she was going to do, she went to Richard one day and married him, so that, as her husband, he could take the little fortune she possessed to pay Vholes to go on with the chancery suit.

A great misfortune befell Esther about this time—a misfortune that came to her, strangely enough, through little Joe, the crossing sweeper.

Half-starved, ragged and homeless all his life, Joe had never known kindness save that given to him by the poor copyist who had lived above Krook's rag-and-bottle shop. He lived (if having a corner to sleep in can be called living) in a filthy alley called "Tom-all-Alone's." It seemed to him that every one he met told him to "move on." The policeman, the shopkeepers at whose doors he stopped for warmth, all told him to "move on," till the wretched lad wondered if there was any spot in London where he could rest undisturbed.

Mr. Tulkinghorn, in his search to find out the woman who had hired Joe to show her the cemetery, had dogged him so with his detective that at length the lad had become frightened and left London for the open country. There he was taken very ill, and on the highway near Bleak House one evening Esther found him helpless and delirious with fever.

Touched by his condition she had him taken at once to Bleak House and put to bed, intending when morning came to send for a doctor.

But in the morning little Joe was missing. Though they searched high and low he was not to be found, and they decided that in his delirium he had taken to the road again. It was not till long after that Esther found his leaving had been brought about by Harold Skimpole, who was then visiting Bleak House, and who, in his selfishness, feared the boy might be the bearer of some contagious disease.

This unfortunately proved to be the case. Joe's illness was smallpox, and a few days later a maid of Esther's fell ill with it. Esther nursed her day and night, and just as she was recovering was stricken with it herself.