Bleak House

Bleak House (1852).  

Sir Leicester Dedlock and Honoria, Lady Dedlock (his junior by more than 20 years) live at his estate of Chesney Wold.  Lady Dedlock is beautiful and her comings and goings are considered the choicest gossip among the "fashionable intelligence."  Unknown to Sir Leicester, Lady Dedlock had a lover before she married Sir Leicester and had a child by him, Esther Summerson. Lady Dedlock, believing her daughter is dead, has chosen to live out her days 'bored to death' as a fashionable lady of the world.  Lady Dedlock is  a beneficiary under one of the wills in Jarndyce and Jarndyce in which, unknowingly, so is Esther Summerson.