Bleak Expectations Read Online Free PDF

acted like a scald to Mr Parsimonious’s hand, and he swiftly withdrew it. ‘There is business to attend to.’
    ‘What business?’ I asked.
    ‘First, the question of your mother. And the answer to that question is: an asylum.’
    Benevolent clapped his hands and two burly men entered, three, if you counted one of them twice. They went to the linen cupboard, opened it, removed my mother and carried her from the room.
    She struggled and cried out, ‘No! I can’t go to the asylum! I haven’t been ironed! And my napkin children are all stained with soup!’
    Pippa, Poppy and I leaped forward to save her – but to no avail. Mr Benevolent seized us by the collar and all we could do as we were de-mothered was cry out in fear and frustration.
    ‘Mother!’
    We wept; we sobbed; we tearified. Benevolent stared at us, his face a rictus of disdain. ‘Oh, don’t be so nauseatingly sentimental . . .’
    There was but one person we could appeal to. ‘Mr Parsimonious: will you not stop this?’
    Mr Parsimonious twitched with angst and guilt. Or it may have been a nervous condition. ‘I am afraid I can do nothing, a fact that makes me both guilty and angst-ridden.’ It was angst and guilt, not a nervous condition.
    ‘But why not?’
    ‘Because it is a matter of law, not conscience.’
    ‘If I may clarify . . .’ This comment came from the corner, where a bewigged and be-gowned figure had been standing silently all this time. It was my father’s lawyer, a man so distinguished that his name took fully twenty minutes to say. As a lawyer, he charged by the hour; his name was his greatest asset.
    ‘Please do clarify Mr Wickham Post Forberton Fenugreek Chasby Twistleton Montmorency Aurelius Pargordon Jezthisby Cumquatly Pobbleton Tendling . . . [text omitted] 3 . . . Beastworthy Fennelham Jones.’
    ‘It is quite simple. The estatelment of the deceased deady person including but not excluding or outcluding all chattels, listingtons, possessionaries and what we lawyers call “stuff” has devolved to the bequestified normally nominal nominee nommy-nommy-nom-nom. Nine shillings and sixpence, please.’ He always added his fee to the end of every sentence.
    ‘But, Mr Wickham—’
    My father’s lawyer held up his hand to stop me. ‘Please. Given the circumstances we may dispense with formality. You may call me sir. 4 I shall, however, bill you for the entire name.’
    ‘Sir, I do not understand your lawyerly talk.’ How could I be expected to? I was barely seventeen: all I understood was horseplay and whittling.
    ‘It’s quite simple.’ My father’s lawyer took a deep breath, then proceeded to speak more quickly than any man I had previously heard. ‘Base fee, fee simple, habeas corpus,
res ipsa
,
ad hoc
, subtract
hoc
, divide
hoc
and drink hock, yummy. Yes? One guinea and half a crown, payable two weeks hence.’
    I still did not understand, and let him know it in no uncertain terms or, to put it another way, in certain terms. ‘But that is just gibberish!’
    Mr Parsimonious spoke soothingly. ‘No, it is the law. But close.’
    ‘Look, you little dimwit, it’s perfectly obvious.’ Mr Benevolent sighed as if I was the stupidest thing he had ever seen. ‘Your father’s will makes me your guardian. I control you, your sisters and all of your father’s money.’
    ‘Surely, as his heir, the control and money are mine.’
    ‘Not until you are eighteen. Which is, oh-so-unfortunately, some time away. In the meantime you are to go to boarding-school. And Poppy and Pippa will live with me until they are old enough to be married off or sold to high-class bordellos.’
    At this, Poppy exclaimed loudly, ‘Never! I will never leave our home!’ She leaped up and ran from the room, out of the front door and thereby left our home, which was exactly what she had just said she would never do. Although I suspect when she had said ‘home’ she had actually meant to include the grounds as well, in which case as long as she