Throughout the sixteenth installment of Bleak House, we see a flurry of character interactions and important turns in the overall plot. Installment sixteen, especially near the beginning, might seem slower than other installments within the novel, but nevertheless, it still manages to be extremely important in how the novel informs us of changes in both the murder case of Mr. Tulkinghorn, and in laying the overall groundwork for character relationships in the novel moving forward (more specifically, the relationship between Esther, Mr. Woodcourt, and Mr. Jarndyce).
As we see in both Dickens’ working notes and in the installment itself, Caddy has fallen ill. Esther, caring deeply for Caddy, decides to visit, even temporarily moving out to London for faster travel, as per Mr. Jarndyce’s recommendation. Caddy’s illness only worsens, and soon Mr. Jarndyce advises the group to appoint Mr. Woodcourt as her doctor. Esther agrees with him. This interaction as a whole is part of what makes this installment interesting in how it builds its characters’ relationships. We already know that the main reason for Mr. Jarndyce’s recommendation of Mr. Woodcourt seemingly stems from his work with the impoverished and those who are unable to afford medical care, but looking deeper, it really seems as if Mr. Jarndyce is pushing Esther towards Mr. Woodcourt.
This is seemingly supported by Dickens’ notes as well. In the working notes for Bleak House, Dickens wrote: “Esther and Allan? Yes. Carry on gently.” From my analysis of this, I was able to infer that despite having Esther accept the marriage proposal from Mr. Jarndyce, he may have still been juggling the idea of Esther and Mr. Woodcourt’s relationship progressing into a romantic type. Despite Dickens’ claims about not considering public feedback in his serial publications, I do believe that with this installment, Dickens was “testing the waters” in public reaction about moving forward with Esther and Mr. Woodcourt’s relationship.
Furthermore, we are also able to see Esther’s own hesitance with her “new” relationship to Mr. Jarndyce through her interactions with Ada. When Esther is talking to Ada, we are able to see that Esther notices Ada’s discomfort throughout their interaction. While she has no real reason to associate this reaction with her engagement to Mr. Jarndyce, she still worries over this idea, wondering if the change between them has had a negative impact on her darling, Ada. When we later find out, however, that Ada’s upset had been stemming from her guilt in hiding her marriage with Richard from Esther and Mr. Jarndyce, Esther reprimands herself for being “selfish” in thinking that Ada was upset over her engagement. This, coupled with Dickens’ working notes, points to the idea that Esther may be looking for problems in her engagement.
This part of the installment lays the foundation for the overall ending, since Esther does end up marrying Mr. Woodcourt instead of Mr. Jarndyce, who was interestingly unbothered by Esther breaking off their engagement. Furthermore, installment sixteen also moves to lay the groundwork for other relationships, such as the relationship between George and his own family, as well as for the case of the murder about Mr. Tulkinghorn. From the way that we see the murder presented in the novel, it’s easy to fall into the “murder mystery” side of things. In installment sixteen, however, we see that the novel decided not to continue the story in this way.
In fact, the murder of Mr. Tulkinghorn is investigated in a way that serves to ultimately lead Lady Deadlocke to her own death, and essentially is solved rather quickly, unbeknownst to Lady Deadlocke herself. Interestingly, we also see many of the subplots that Dickens had introduced begin to tie up; George comes to terms with his family relationship, Madam Hortense’s threat to Mr. Tulkinghorn becomes realized, and we even see an interesting side to Mr. Bucket through his investigation and interactions with the Deadlockes.
Despite the novel seemingly trying to trick its readers into believing that Lady Deadlocke was Mr. Tulkinghorn’s killer, it does not take this direction. Instead, Dickens expertly uses this investigation as a means to lead Lady Deadlocke to her death. In a previous installment, we are made aware that Lady Deadlocke is frightened to the point of fleeing her position. The main thing that keeps her there, however, is Mr. Tulkinhorn, who threatens that if she leaves, he will not be obliged to inform her of his further actions regarding her situation. With her status threatened, and seemingly under heavy suspicion from Mr. Bucket, who is investigating the murder, it leads her towards running away, which ultimately heads towards her death.
Another very important twist to this installment reveals that the letters that Krook had previously taken from his former tenant had actually survived the case of spontaneous combustion, and that Krook’s brother-in-law, Grandfather Smallweed had gone through them after Krook’s death. He reveals that the letters had previously belonged to Krook’s lodger, Captin Hawdon. This twist, at the end of installment sixteen, is also very important to the rest of the novel in how it affects Lady Deadlocke’s fate. Before this, we were led to believe that both the paperwork connecting Lady Deadlocke to her ex-lover was destroyed, along with Esther’s striking resemblance to Lady Deadlocke, effectively “destroying” the evidence of her having had Esther out of wedlock. With this new development, however, the evidence that we had thought to have been previously destroyed had actually survived.
Overall, the sixteenth installment of Bleak House proved to be very important to the rest of the novel in how it developed character relationships and interactions, in starting to tie up the loose ends of the novel’s subplots, and in building events towards the novel’s conclusion. Due to the work that this installment does in laying out Lady Deadlocke’s eventual death, and due to Dickens seemingly using this installment to “test the waters” for pushing the boundaries of Esther’s romantic relationship with Mr. Woodcourt, these events are able to fit into the novel in a smooth way, despite the slower pacing of this installment compared to the rest of Bleak House. Through analyzing both the text and Dickens’ working notes, I believe that Dickens was intentional in how he went about finishing the novel. The overall events of this installment were very thoughtfully planned out, and while there most likely was an audience-response nature to Esther and Mr. Woodcourt’s romantic relationship, true to its serial format, we are able to see that the idea was something that Dickens had entertained beforehand.