Oh my while I was writing away you posted Joan - I think Mr. Jarndyce gets as much fun from having Mr. Skimpole living with him to buck up a jolly as y'all felt at your work plus in the days before radio Skimpole could fill the house with music.
Yes Laura, it reminded me of a place I stayed at years ago in Rye - I thought it was the Smuggler's Inn but maybe not - I do remember though this warren of rooms with short flights of very old wooden stairs going every which way, some only one or two steps at the entry to a door that led to a small room.
Have you noticed there appears to be a pattern in these early chapters describing a confusing, disorganized, clutter all jumbled crying for order - the streets they travel in London have dogs, horses, Foot passengers, jostling one another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, crust upon crust of mud, nearby barges, skippers with pipes in their mouths, ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards And then among wasted candles is the registrar's red table and the silk gowns, with bills, cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, injunctions, affidavits, issues, references to masters, masters' reports, mountains of costly nonsense,
At Lincolnshire we have both a trail of rooms in the office of Mr. Tulkinghorn and the attentions to Mrs. Deadlock - as many cast-iron boxes in his office with that name outside as if the present baronet were the coin of the conjuror's trick and were constantly being juggled through the whole set. Across the hall, and up the stairs, and along the passages, and through the rooms, which are very brilliant in the season and very dismal out of it--fairy-land to visit, but a desert to live in-- And then the attentions revolving about Mrs. Deadlock - from her maid to the manager of the Italian Opera, knows her weaknesses, prejudices, follies, haughtinesses, and caprices and lives upon as accurate a calculation and as nice a measure of her moral nature as her dressmaker takes of her physical proportions. Is a new dress, a new custom, a new singer, a new dancer, a new form of jewellery, a new dwarf or giant, a new chapel, a new anything,
In the next chapter everything seems orderly and the word is used, even Esther's living at a series of homes but when she hits London the discombobulation begin. It starts with her reading and not understanding so her response is to straighten her bonnet looking at her reflection in a glass that on the other side she sees a shabby room, dusty tables, and at the piles of writings, and at a bookcase full of the most inexpressive-looking books that ever had anything to say for themselves. Then I went on, thinking, thinking, thinking; and the fire went on, burning, burning, burning; and the candles went on flickering and guttering, and there were no snuffers
Next we have the jumble of everything Jellyby - children literally crying, household items, disconnected events involving nearly everyone who lives and helps in the house, even the clothes are described as a jumble.
Next morning they take a walk leaving Crumbs, dust, and waste-paper...Some pewter pots and a milk-can hung on the area railings; out the open door they met the cook coming out of a public-house - and again they feel confused by the streets that actually end up a circuitous paths leading only a short distances to the next jumble. After meeting Miss Flite again they come upon Krook's with jumble after jumble - the one on bottles alone is, quantities of dirty bottles--blacking bottles, medicine bottles, ginger-beer and soda- water bottles, pickle bottles, wine bottles, ink bottles;
Before we even read the description you shared Laura of the Jarndyce rooms we are treated to another jumble of scenes. Wheels sent the road drift flying about our heads like spray from a water-mill. Presently we lost the light, presently saw it, presently lost it, presently saw it, and turned into an avenue of trees and cantered up towards where it was beaming brightly. It was in a window of what seemed to be an old-fashioned house with three peaks in the roof in front and a circular sweep leading to the porch. A bell was rung as we drew up, and amidst the sound of its deep voice in the still air, and the distant barking of some dogs, and a gush of light from the opened door, and the smoking and steaming of the heated horses, and the quickened beating of our own hearts, we alighted in no inconsiderable confusion.
Even the keys are organized and matched to locks when Esther has them under her care.
The only calm order seems to be surrounding Esther and the Garden in Lincoln Inn when court is not in session - Miss Flite's room and curiously at night - when ever night is described it is with a wonderment and clarity that is the opposite of these daytime scenes.
