Bleak+House

....... It is November in London. Under heavy fog and chimney smoke, the carriages and pedestrians slog through thick mud on a busy street. Nowhere is the haze denser, and the mire thicker, than in the vicinity of the High Court of Chancery, a court of equity. There, hundreds of cases languish in the bog of a corrupt legal system while devious lawyers swell their moneybags with fees. Because of its profiteering and unethical practices, the court system bankrupts individuals and undermines the commonweal.  ....... The most famous Chancery case is Jarndyce vs Jarndyce, which clogs the docket for years–so long, in fact, that the original litigants are dead and no one fully understands all the intricacies of the case. The lawsuit brings together three innocent young people at an estate called Bleak House, located in Hertfordshire near St. Albans, about twenty miles north of London. Bleak House was passed down to kindly John Jarndyce, a well-to-do bachelor and a descendant of one of the original litigants. Although named in Jarndyce vs Jarndyce, he pays little attention to the case, realizing that only the grasping lawyers and venal court officials stand to benefit from it.  ....... One of the young people is a pleasant and sensible twenty-year-old named Esther Summerson, who was reared by Miss Barbary, her godmother. Miss Barbary, in anticipation of her death, had contacted John Jarndyce to ask him to accept Esther as his ward after Miss Barbary’s demise; Jarndyce agreed to do so.  ....... After Miss Barbary dies, Esther attends a boarding school for six years, then is welcomed to Bleak House by John Jarndyce. She is to act as a companion for Ada Clare, who, along with her distant cousin Richard Carstone, arrives at Bleak House at the same time as Esther. Ada and Richard, relatives of John Jarndyce, are orphans involved in Jarndyce vs Jarndyce. Richard expects to receive a handsome inheritance when the case is settled. The three young people get along wonderfully. Richard and Ada, a beautiful teenager with a sweet disposition, are attracted to each other.