Chesney Wold and the Mystery of the Ghosts Walk
Another side to 'Bleak House'
"The rain is ever falling, drip, drip, drip, by day and night, upon the broad flagged terrace - pavement, The Ghosts Walk."
Personally I regard 'Bleak House' as Charles Dickens's masterpiece: The longest of his novels, and one that includes 'social concerns' with its blistering attacks on both rural and urban poverty. But also looms as a forerunner of the later sensation novel genre-with illegitimacy, scandal, stalking, drug use, spontaneous combustion as significant themes. There is also a detective story, an infamous long drawn out legal battle where only the lawyers are victorious. Not to mention a ghost tale.
In chapter seven of 'Bleak House' we are introduced to 'Chesney Wold', the country mansion in rural Lincolnshire, where Lord and Lady Dedlock reside at least part of the year. We are presented with an array of horses, pigeons, a mastiff, and a roan, plus a 'discontented goose' who prefers the warmer weather when the gateway casts its shadow. There are stables and a courtyard with a giant clock.
The first human the reader encounters is Mrs Rouncewell the housekeeper, a widow who has had two sons. One served abroad in the army, and his whereabouts are unknown. Another has become a successful inventor. Two male visitors appear, one is the notorious solicitors' clerk Mr Guppy. They have travelled on an all night stage coach from London to the nearest town. In other words Chesney Wold still seems quite detached from the encroaching railway network. Mrs Rouncewell proceeds to give the two visitors a tour of the grand old house, but they seemed to be too tired from their journey to appreciate the artefacts on display. They also remain unmoved by hearing about the seven hundred year pedigree of the Dedlock family. Then the two chaps are shown a portrait of the current Lady Dedlock . Mr Guppy is suddenly transfixed, He seeks a likeness to an orphan girl that he has met as part of his legal obligations.
The portraits of aristocracy in stately homes were hardly unusual. But as a literary device, they tend to represent mystery. The leading character in Mary Elizabeth Braddon's 'Lady Audley's Secret' (1862) has a prominent portrait displayed, which suggests that she has somehow usurped her position. And in Oscar Wilde's 'Picture of Dorian Gray' ( 1890) , the portrait takes on its own sinister momentum.
Mr Guppy's boredom and fatigue are swiftly set aside. He manages to prise out the tale of the Ghost's Walk from Mrs Rounsewell, who believes that having a ghost in the house is very much a symbol of aristocratic privilege.Something that common people can have no claim to. The rain falling on the paved outdoor paved walk are compared to phantom footsteps.
From Mrs Rounsewell we learn that an esteemed occupant of Chesney Wold, Lord Morbury Dedlock and his wife were what we now call 'by the sword divided' once the English Civil War began. Their marriage was already faltering.
"She (Lady Dedlock) was a lady of a haughty temper. They were not well suited to each other in age or character, and they had no children to moderate between them."
One of Sir Morbury's near relatives kills Lady Dedlock's favourite brother. Her grief turns into violent hatred for the whole Dedlock clan. One more than one occasions, just before Sir Morbury's Royalist posse ride out from Chesney Wold to fight for the King, the Roundhead supporting Lady Dedlock creeps into the stables and nobbles some of their horses. One night Sir Morbury follows her and catch his Lady trying to lame his favourite stead. A struggle ensues and the frightened beast lashes out, and with a sense of ironic justice, maims Lady Dedlock in the hip. From then onwards, she begins a physical and mental decline.
Every day in all weathers Lady Dedlock defies the pain to move up and down the Walk. When she finally collapses, proclaims
"I will die here, where I have walked. And I will walk here, though I am in my grave. I will walk here under the pride of this house is humbled."
Mrs Rounsewell insists
"If the tread is an echo, it is an echo only heard after dark, and is often unheard for a long while together. But it comes back from time to time, and so sure as there is sickness in the family, it will be heard then."
A great strength of the Ghost's Walk legend is that the reader is left to be indulgent or sceptical about the supernatural. Though Dickens wrote the most famous ghost story in English literature, he was not necessarily a believer in such phenomena. At the time a great wave of interest in Spiritualism was building up during the 1850's. and one of the legacies of the Victorian World was the seance but Dickens was holding back. Whilst Charlotte Bronte's 'Villette' (1853) features a faked phantom, Dickens didn't reach that level of doubt, but as 'Bleak House' unravelled via monthly instalments, the ghost doesn't make an appearance.
In fact Lady Dedlock in 'Bleak House' is tragically brought down, not for any cruelty on her part, but due to the fact that she had had a child before she was married comes to light.When she dies on the run once her 'shame' is discovered, Lord Dedlock is devastated. It's up to the reader to either make a connection with the Ghost's Walk, or remaining aloof from it. There is no clear message.
For anyone interested in Dickens's own view of the English Civil War, it is worth consulting 'The Child's History of England 'Volume 3 (1853).
Picture Credit
'Knostrop Hall Early Morning' , John Atkinson Grimshaw ( 1836-1893) , in the public domain, courtesy of 'Wikipedia'
Sources
Bleak House on line text CHAPTER SEVEN
A Child's History of England CHAPTER XXXIII Third Part page 699
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