Summary: Chapter 59, “Esther’s Narrative”
Esther tells us that she and Bucket reach London around
three in the morning. Esther still fears they’ve abandoned Lady
Dedlock, but Bucket assures her he has reasons for coming back.
As they travel through the winding London streets, Bucket occasionally
stops and meets with others. Finally he says he’s tracked the woman
down and that they need to walk for a bit. As they walk down Chancery
Lane, they cross paths with Mr. Woodcourt, and he joins them. Woodcourt
says he has been with Richard, who is not well.
They arrive at Mr. Snagsby’s and hear a girl sobbing.
Bucket says it’s the Snagsbys’ servant, Guster, and that he needs
information from her. He asks Woodcourt to try to calm her down
so that Bucket can get a letter he needs. Mr. Snagsby lets them
in and introduces them to Mrs. Snagsby. Woodcourt and Snagsby go
to see Guster. Bucket chastises Mrs. Snagsby for being so jealous
and suspicious. Woodcourt returns with the letter, and Bucket asks
Esther whose writing it is. She says it’s Lady Dedlock’s. The letter
says she went to the cottage and got help from Jenny, and that her
only purpose is to die.
Esther asks Guster how she got the letter. Guster says
she had been running errands when a woman stopped her, asking the
way to the burial ground. Guster says it was the burial ground in
which Krook’s lodger was buried. The lady gave Guster a letter and instructed
her to send it.
They leave the Snagsbys’ house and rush to the burial
ground. Esther is numb and confused. At the gate to the burial ground,
she sees a woman on the ground, who she thinks is Jenny. She starts
to run toward her, but Bucket stops her, telling her that he suspects Lady
Dedlock and Jenny traded clothes and that Jenny walked only a short
distance before turning around and going home. The purpose was to
deceive. Esther doesn’t understand what all this means. She goes
to the woman and sees that it is Lady Dedlock, dead.
Summary: Chapter 60, “Perspective”
Esther says that she doesn’t want to discuss her sadness
too much and that she will move on in her story. She says that she
becomes briefly sick in London and that Mrs. Woodcourt stays with
them for a while. Mr. Jarndyce suggests they stay in London so that
Esther can be closer to Ada. Esther asks if he sees Woodcourt, and
Mr. Jarndyce says he sees him every day. Mr. Jarndyce wants to stay
in London so that he can get news of Richard more easily, since
Richard won’t speak to him. Mr. Jarndyce asks Esther if she likes
Mrs. Woodcourt, and Esther answers that she does. Mr. Jarndyce asks
if she has any objections to Mrs. Woodcourt’s staying with them,
and even though Esther says she doesn’t, she is unsettled without
really knowing why. Mr. Jarndyce tells Esther that Mr. Woodcourt
will probably not be leaving the country and may instead take up
a position in Yorkshire.
Esther visits Ada every day. She sometimes sees Richard,
and he is much changed. Esther understands that Vholes is taking
all of Richard’s money. She suspects Ada doesn’t understand that
Richard is destroying himself. During one visit, Miss Flite is just
leaving when Esther arrives. Miss Flite says she doesn’t like Vholes
and that she has made Richard the executor of her estate, since
he is at Chancery so much. She had planned to appoint Gridley, but
he had died. Vholes joins Esther, Ada, and Richard for dinner. When
Richard and Ada are out of the room, Vholes tells Esther he thinks
Richard and Ada’s marriage was unwise and that Richard and his interests are
doing very poorly. When Vholes leaves after dinner, Richard overpraises
him, which makes Esther think that he has actually begun to doubt
Vholes.
Mr. Woodcourt arrives, and he and Richard go for a walk.
Ada tells Esther that when she married Richard, she knew what she
was getting into but hoped she could change him. She says that she
has been determined not to make him any unhappier than he already was.
She also reveals that she’s pregnant. She has hoped that the baby
will save Richard, but now she is afraid that Richard will die before
the baby is born.
Analysis: Chapters 56–60
Lady Dedlock is Sir Leicester’s greatest weakness, and
the revelation of her secret personal history is enough to nearly
destroy him. Bombastic, influential Sir Leicester collapses when
he learns Lady Dedlock’s secret, losing his ability to move and
speak after suffering what appears to be a stroke. Suddenly bedridden,
he is dependent on his subordinates to care for him and understand
him. Although there are many tragedies in Bleak House, Jo’s
death among them, the fall of Sir Leicester may be the most affecting.
We may see it as a tragedy caused by love: Lady Dedlock hid her
secret to protect Sir Leicester and then fled to escape the wrath
she expected, while Sir Leicester forgives her easily and fully
despite her transgressions. He never has the chance to prove the
depth of his devotion, nor does Lady Dedlock ever have the opportunity
to see it. Their partnership has never been an obviously warm one,
thanks in part to Lady Dedlock’s carefully maintained haughtiness,
but the tragic fall of Sir Leicester shows that there was passion
in their marriage after all.
Esther and Bucket’s frantic nighttime pursuit of Lady
Dedlock ratchets up the suspense of the novel, and Dickens skillfully
raises the tension by switching between his two narrators more frequently than
usual. The third-person narrator narrates chapter 56,
describing Sir Leicester’s sad state and then following Bucket as
he calls for Esther in the middle of the night. Esther takes over
the narration in chapter 57, and she leads
us on their fast, feverish journey. The chapter ends in a rush,
with Bucket making the unexpected decision to return to London.
The third-person narrator takes over again in chapter 58,
removing us from the nighttime journey and taking us back to Sir
Leicester, who is waiting earnestly in his bed for news. In chapter 59,
we’re back out in the cold with Esther as the search continues and
finally ends. This quick back-and-forth, which jerks us in and out
of the action of the search, increases the suspense of the journey
and raises the stakes. Esther is not the only one frantic to find
Lady Dedlock; Sir Leicester, who has prepared Lady Dedlock’s rooms
and lit the fires, is perhaps even more desperate than she is. Dickens’s
use of two narrators in these chapters is perhaps more affecting
than at any other point in the novel.
Esther demonstrates a remarkable control over her narrative
in chapters 59 and 60,
proving once again that she is an agile storyteller and a confident
guide through this sordid, bulky tale. Although she is narrating Bleak
House from a point seven years in the future, she withholds
information and feigns ignorance when doing so increases the dramatic
effect. We’ve seen her do this with her feelings for Woodcourt,
which increased the poignancy of Mr. Jarndyce’s proposal. In this
section, when Esther, Bucket, and Woodcourt finally find the woman
they’ve been pursuing, who Esther believes is Jenny, she tells us
she doesn’t understand what Bucket is getting at when he explains
that Jenny and Lady Dedlock switched clothes. When Esther sees that
the woman is actually Lady Dedlock’s body, we share her shock. She
has successfully drawn us into her own disoriented confusion to
make the story more intriguing.
