M

r Bucket and his fat forefinger are much in consultation together under existing circumstances. When Mr Bucket has a matter of this pressing interest under his

consideration, the fat forefinger seems to rise to the dignity of a familiar demon. He puts it to his ears, and it whispers information; he puts it to his lips, and it enjoins him to secrecy; he rubs it over his nose, and it sharpens his scent; he shakes it before a guilty man, and it charms him to his destruction. The Augurs of the Detective Temple invariably, predict, that when Mr Bucket and that finger are much in conference, a terrible avenger will be heard of before long.

Otherwise mildly studious in his observation of human nature, on the whole a benignant philosopher not disposed to be severe upon the follies of mankind, Mr Bucket pervades a vast number of houses, and strolls about an infinity of streets; to outward appearance rather languishing for want of an object. He is in the friendliest condition towards his species, and will drink with most of them. He is free with his money, affable in his manners, innocent in his conversation—but, through the placid stream of his life, there glides an undercurrent of forefinger.

Time and place cannot bind Mr Bucket. Like man in the abstract, he is here today and gone tomorrow—but, very unlike man indeed, he is here again the next day. This evening he will be casually looking into the iron extinguishers at the door of Sir

Leicester Dedlock’s house in town; and tomorrow morning he will be walking on the leads at Chesney Wold, where erst the old man walked whose ghost is propitiated with a hundred guineas. Drawers, desks, pockets, all things belonging to him, Mr Bucket examines. A few hours afterwards, he and the Roman will be alone together, comparing forefingers.

It is likely that these occupations are irreconcileable with home enjoyment, but it is certain that Mr Bucket at present does not go home. Though in general he highly appreciates the society of Mrs Bucket—a lady of a natural detective genius, which if it had been improved by professional exercise might have done great things, but which has paused at the level of a clever amateur—he holds himself aloof from that dear solace. Mrs Bucket is dependent on their lodger (fortunately an amiable lady in whom she takes an interest) for companionship and conversation.

A great crowd assembles in Lincoln’s Inn Fields on the day of the funeral. Sir Leicester Dedlock attends the ceremony in person; strictly speaking, there are only three other human followers, that is to say, Lord Doodle, William Buffy, and the debilitated cousin (thrown in as a make-weight), but the amount of inconsolable carriages is immense. The Peerage contributes more four-wheeled affliction than has ever been seen in that neighbourhood. Such is the assemblage of armorial bearings on coach panels, that the Heralds’ College might be supposed to have lost its father and mother at a blow. The Duke of Foodle sends a splendid pile of dust and ashes, with silver wheel-boxes, patent axles, all the last improvements, and three bereaved worms, six feet high, holding on behind, in a bunch of woe. All the state coachmen in London seem plunged into mourning; and if that dead old man of the rusty

garb, be not beyond a taste in horseflesh (which appears impossible), it must be highly gratified this day.

Quiet among the undertakers, and the equipages, and the calves of so many legs all steeped in grief, Mr Bucket sits concealed in one of the inconsolable carriages, and at his ease surveys the crowd through the lattice blinds. He has a keen eye for a crowd—as for what not?—and looking here and there, now from this side of the carriage, now from the other, now up at the house windows, now along the people’s heads, nothing escapes him.

“And there you are, my partner, eh?” says Mr Bucket to himself, apostrophising Mrs Bucket, stationed, by his favour, on the steps of the deceased’s house.

“And so you are. And so you are! And very well indeed you are looking, Mrs Bucket!”

The procession has not started yet, but is waiting for the cause of its assemblage to be brought out. Mr Bucket, in the foremost emblazoned carriage, uses his two fat forefingers to hold the lattice a hair’s breadth open while he looks.

And it says a great deal for his attachment, as a husband, that he is still occupied with Mrs B. “There you are, my partner, eh?” he murmuringly repeats. “And our lodger with you. I’m taking notice of you, Mrs Bucket; I hope you’re all right in your health, my dear!”

Not another word does Mr Bucket say; but sits with most attentive eyes, until the sacked depository of noble secrets is brought down—Where are all those secrets now? Does he keep them yet? Did they fly with him on that sudden journey?—and until the procession moves, and Mr Bucket’s view is changed. After which, he composes himself for an easy ride; and takes note

of the fittings of the carriage, in case he should ever find such knowledge useful.

Contrast enough between Mr Tulkinghorn shut up in his dark carriage, and Mr Bucket shut up in his. Between the immeasurable track of space beyond the little wound that has thrown the one into the fixed sleep which jolts so heavily over the stones of the streets, and the narrow track of blood which keeps the other in the watchful state expressed in every hair of his head! But it is all one to both; neither is troubled about that.

Mr Bucket sits out the procession, in his own easy manner, and glides from the carriage when the opportunity he has settled with himself arrives. He makes for Sir Leicester Dedlock’s, which is at present a sort of home to him, where he comes and goes as he likes at all hours, where he is always welcome and made much of, where he knows the whole establishment, and walks in an atmosphere of mysterious greatness.

No knocking or ringing for Mr Bucket. He has caused himself to be provided with a key, and can pass in at his pleasure. As he is crossing the hall, Mercury informs him, “Here’s another letter for, you, Mr Bucket, come by post,” and gives it him.

“Another one, eh?” says Mr Bucket.

If Mercury should chance to be possessed by any lingering curiosity as to Mr Bucket’s letters, that wary person is not the man to gratify it. Mr Bucket looks at him, as if his face were a vista of some miles in length, and he were leisurely contemplating the same.

“Do you happen to carry a box?” says Mr Bucket. Unfortunately Mercury is no snuff-taker.

“Could you fetch me a pinch from anywheres?” says Mr

Bucket. “Thankee. It don’t matter what it is; I’m not particular as to the kind. Thankee!”

Having leisurely helped himself from a canister borrowed from somebody downstairs for the purpose, and having made a considerable show of tasting it, first with one side of his nose and then with the other, Mr Bucket, with much deliberation, pronounces it of the right sort, and goes on, letter in hand.

Now, although Mr Bucket walks upstairs to the little library within the larger one, with the face of a man who receives some scores of letters every day, it happens that much correspondence is not incidental to his life. He is no great scribe; rather handling his pen like the pocket-staff he carries about with him always convenient to his grasp; and discourages correspondence with himself in others, as being too artless and direct a way of doing delicate business. Further, he often sees damaging letters produced in evidence, and has occasion to reflect that it was a green thing to write them. For these reasons he has very little to do with letters, either as sender or receiver. And yet he has received a round half dozen, within the last twenty-four hours.

“And this,” says Mr Bucket, spreading it out on the table, “is in the same hand, and consists of the same two words.”

What two words?

He turns the key in the door, ungirdles his black pocket-book (book of fate to many), lays another letter by it, and reads, boldly written in each, “LADY DEDLOCK.”

“Yes, yes,” says Mr Bucket. “But I could have made the money without this anonymous information.”

Having put the letters in his book of Fate, and girdled it up again, he unlocks the door just in time to admit his dinner, which

is brought upon a goodly tray, with a decanter of sherry. Mr Bucket frequently observes, in friendly circles where there is no restraint, that he likes a toothful of your fine old brown East Inder sherry better than anything you can offer him. Consequently he fills and empties his glass, with a smack of his lips; and is proceeding with his refreshment, when an idea enters his mind.

Mr Bucket softly opens the door of communication between that room and the next, and looks in. The library is deserted, and the fire is sinking low. Mr Bucket’s eye, after taking a pigeon-flight round the room, alights upon a table where letters are usually put as they arrive. Several letters for Sir Leicester are upon it. Mr Bucket draws near, and examines the directions. “No,” he says, “there’s none in that hand. It’s only me as is written to. I can break it to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, tomorrow.”

With that, he returns to finish his dinner with a good appetite; and after a light nap, is summoned into the drawing-room. Sir Leicester has received him there these several evenings past, to know whether he has anything to report. The debilitated cousin (much exhausted by the funeral), and Volumnia, are in attendance.

Mr Bucket makes three distinctly different bows to these three people. A bow of homage to Sir Leicester, a bow of gallantry to Volumnia, and a bow of recognition to the debilitated cousin; to whom it airily says, “You are a swell about town, and you know me, and I know you.” Having distributed these little specimens of his tact, Mr Bucket rubs his hands.

“Have you anything new to communicate, officer?” inquires Sir Leicester. “Do you wish to hold any conversation with me in private?”

“Why—not tonight, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.”

“Because my time,” pursues Sir Leicester, “is wholly at your disposal, with a view to the vindication of the outraged majesty of the law.”

Mr Bucket coughs, and glances at Volumnia, rouged and necklaced, as though he would respectfully observe, “I do assure you, you’re a pretty creetur. I’ve seen hundreds worse-looking at your time of life, I have indeed.”

The fair Volumnia, not quite unconscious perhaps of the humanising influence of her charms, pauses in the writing of cocked-hat notes, and meditatively adjusts the pearl necklace. Mr Bucket prices that decoration in his mind, and thinks it as likely as not that Volumnia is writing poetry.

“If I have not,” pursues Sir Leicester, “in the most emphatic manner, adjured you, officer, to exercise your utmost skill in this atrocious case, I particularly desire to take the present opportunity of rectifying any omission I may have made. Let no expense be a consideration. I am prepared to defray all charges. You can incur none, in pursuit of the object you have undertaken, that I shall hesitate for a moment to bear.”

Mr Bucket made Sir Leicester’s bow again, as a response to this liberality.

“My mind,” Sir Leicester adds, with generous warmth, “has not, as may be easily supposed, recovered its tone since the late diabolical occurrence. It is not likely ever to recover its tone. But it is full of indignation tonight, after undergoing the ordeal of consigning to the tomb the remains of a faithful, a zealous, a devoted adherent.”

Sir Leicester’s voice trembles, and his grey hair stirs upon his

head. Tears are in his eyes; the best part of his nature is aroused. “I declare,” he says, “I solemnly declare, that until this crime is

discovered, and, in the course of justice, punished, I almost feel as if there were a stain upon my name. A gentleman who has devoted a large portion of his life to me, a gentleman who has devoted the last day of his life to me, a gentleman who has constantly sat at my table and slept under my roof, goes from my house to his own, and is struck down within an hour of his leaving my house. I cannot say but that he may have been followed from my house, watched at my house, even first marked because of his association with my house—which may have suggested his possessing greater wealth, and being altogether of greater importance than his own retiring demeanour would have indicated. If I cannot, with my means, and my influence, and my position, bring all the perpetrators of such a crime to light, I fail in the assertion of my respect for that gentleman’s memory, and of my fidelity towards one who was ever faithful to me.”

While he makes this protestation with great emotion and earnestness, looking round the room as if he were addressing an assembly, Mr Bucket glances at him with an observant gravity in which there might be, but for the audacity of the thought, a touch of compassion.

“The ceremony of today,” continues Sir Leicester, “strikingly illustrative of the respect in which my deceased friend;” he lays a stress on the word, for death levels all distinctions; “was held by the flower of the land, has, I say, aggravated the shock I have received from this most horrible and audacious crime. If it were my brother who had committed it, I would not spare him.”

Mr Bucket looks very grave. Volumnia remarks of the deceased

that he was the trustiest and dearest person!

“You must feel it as a deprivation to you, miss,” replies Mr Bucket, soothingly, “no doubt. He was calculated to be a deprivation, I’m sure he was.”

Volumnia gives Mr Bucket to understand, in reply, that her sensitive mind is fully made up never to get the better of it as long as she lives; that her nerves are unstrung forever; and that she has not the least expectation of smiling again. Meanwhile she folds up a cocked-hat for that redoubtable old general at Bath, descriptive of her melancholy condition.

“It gives a start to a delicate female,” says Mr Bucket, sympathetically, “but it’ll wear off.”

Volumnia wishes of all things to know what is doing? Whether they are going to convict, or whatever it is, that dreadful soldier? Whether he had any accomplices, or whatever the thing is called in the law? And a great deal more to the like artless purpose.

“Why you see, miss,” returns Mr Bucket, bringing the finger into persuasive action—and such is his natural gallantry, that he had almost said, my dear; “it ain’t easy to answer those questions at the present moment. Not at the present moment. I’ve kept myself on this case, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,” whom Mr Bucket takes into the conversation in right of his importance, “morning, noon, and night. But for a glass or two of sherry, I don’t think I could have had my mind so much upon the stretch as it has been. I could answer your questions, miss, but duty forbids it. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, will very soon be made acquainted with all that has been traced. And I hope that he may find it;” Mr Bucket again looks grave; “to his satisfaction.”

The debilitated cousin only hopes some fler’ll be executed—

zample. Thinks more interest’s wanted—get man hanged presentime—than get man place ten thousand a year. Hasn’t a doubt—zample—far better hang wrong fler than no fler.

“You know life, you know, sir,” says Mr Bucket, with a complimentary twinkle of his eye and crook of his finger, “and you can confirm what I’ve mentioned to this lady. You don’t want to be told, that, from information I have received, I have gone to work. You’re up to what a lady can’t be expected to be up to. Lord! especially in your elevated station of society, miss,” says Mr Bucket, quite reddening at another narrow escape from my dear.

“The officer, Volumnia,” observes Sir Leicester, “is faithful to his duty, and perfectly right.”

Mr Bucket murmurs, “Glad to have the honour of your approbation, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.”

“In fact, Volumnia,” proceeds Sir Leicester, “it is not holding up a good model for imitation, to ask the officer any such questions as you have put to him. He is the best judge of his own responsibility; he acts upon his responsibility. And it does not become us, who assist in making the laws, to impede or interfere with those who carry them into execution. Or,” says Sir Leicester, somewhat sternly, for Volumnia was going to cut in before he had rounded his sentence; “or who vindicate their outraged majesty.”

Volumnia with all humility explains that she has not merely the plea of curiosity to urge (in common with the giddy youth of her sex in general), but that she is perfectly dying with regret and interest for the darling man whose loss they all deplore.

“Very well, Volumnia,” returns Sir Leicester. “Then you cannot be too discreet.”

Mr Bucket takes the opportunity of a pause to be heard again.

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I have no objections to telling this lady, with your leave and among ourselves, that I look upon the case as pretty well complete. It is a beautiful case—a beautiful case—and what little is wanting to complete it, I expect to be able to supply in a few hours.”

“I am very glad indeed to hear it,” says Sir Leicester. “Highly creditable to you.”

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,” returns Mr Bucket, very seriously, “I hope it may at one and the same time do me credit, and prove satisfactory to all. When I depict it as a beautiful case, you see, miss,” Mr Bucket goes on, glancing gravely at Sir Leicester, “I mean from my point of view. As considered from other points of view, such cases will always involve more or less unpleasantness. Very strange things comes to our knowledge in families, miss; bless your heart, what you would think to be phenomenons, quite.”

Volumnia, with her innocent little scream, supposes so.

“Aye, and even in gen-teel families, in high families, in great families,” says Mr Bucket, again gravely eyeing Sir Leicester aside. “I have had the honour of being employed in high families before; and you have no idea—come, I’ll go so far as to say not even you have any idea, sir,” this to the debilitated cousin, “what games goes on!”

The cousin, who has been casting sofa-pillows on his head, in a prostration of boredom, yawns, “Vayli”—being the used-up for “very likely.”

Sir Leicester, deeming it time to dismiss the officer, here majestically interposes with the words, “Very good. Thank you!” and also with a wave of his hand, implying not only that there is an

end of the discourse, but that if high families fall into low habits they must take the consequences. “You will not forget, officer,” he adds, with condescension, “that I am at your disposal when you please.”

Mr Bucket (still grave) inquires if tomorrow morning, now, would suit, in case he should be as for’ard as he expects to be? Sir Leicester replies, “All times are alike to me.” Mr Bucket makes his three bows, and is withdrawing, when a forgotten point occurs to him.

“Might I ask, by the bye,” he says, in a low voice, cautiously returning, “who posted the Reward-bill on the staircase.”

“I ordered it to be put up there,” replies Sir Leicester.

“Would it be considered a liberty, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, if I was to ask you why?”

“Not at all. I chose it as a conspicuous part of the house. I think it cannot be too prominently kept before the whole establishment. I wish my people to be impressed with the enormity of the crime, the determination to punish it, and the hopelessness of escape. At the same time, officer, if you in your better knowledge of the subject see any objection—” Mr Bucket sees none now; the bill having been put up, had better not be taken down. Repeating his three bows he withdraws: closing the door on Volumnia’s little scream, which is a preliminary to her remarking that that charmingly horrible person is a perfect Blue Chamber.

In his fondness for society, and his adaptability to all grades, Mr Bucket is presently standing before the hall-fire—bright and warm on the early winter night—admiring Mercury.

“Why, you’re six foot two, I suppose?” says Mr Bucket. “Three,” says Mercury.

“Are you so much? But then, you see, you’re broad in proportion, and don’t look it. You’re not one of the weak-legged ones, you ain’t. Was you ever modelled now?” Mr Bucket asks, conveying the expression of an artist into the turn of his eye and head.

Mercury never was modelled.

“Then you ought to be, you know,” says Mr Bucket; “and a friend of mine that you’ll hear of one day as a Royal Academy Sculptor, would stand something handsome to make a drawing of your proportions for the marble. My Lady’s out, ain’t she?”

“Out to dinner.”

“Goes out pretty well every day, don’t she?” “Yes.”

“Not to be wondered at!” says Mr Bucket. “Such a fine woman as her, so handsome and so graceful and so elegant, is like a fresh lemon on a dinner-table, ornamental wherever she goes. Was your father in the same way of life as yourself?”

Answer in the negative.

“Mine was,” says Mr Bucket. “My father was first a page, then a footman, then a butler, then a steward, then an inn-keeper. Lived universally respected, and died lamented. Said with his last breath that he considered service the most honourable part of his career, and so it was. I’ve a brother in service, and a brother-in-law. My Lady a good temper?”

Mercury replies, “As good as you can expect.”

“Ah!” says Mr Bucket, “a little spoilt? A little capricious? Lord! What can you anticipate when they’re so handsome as that? And we like ’em all the better for it, don’t we?”

Mercury, with his hands in the pockets of his bright peach-

blossom small-clothes, stretches his symmetrical silk legs with the air of a man of gallantry, and can’t deny it. Come the roll of wheels and a violent ringing at the bell. “Talk of the angels,” says Mr Bucket. “Here she is!”

The doors are thrown open, and she passes through the hall. Still very pale, she is dressed in slight mourning, and wears two beautiful bracelets. Either their beauty, or the beauty of her arms, is particularly attractive to Mr Bucket. He looks at them with an eager eye, and rattles something in his pocket—halfpence perhaps.

Noticing him at his distance, she turns an inquiring look on the other Mercury who has brought her home.

“Mr Bucket, my Lady.”

Mr Bucket makes a leg, and comes forward, passing his familiar demon over the region of his mouth.

“Are you waiting to see Sir Leicester?” “No, my Lady, I’ve seen him!”

“Have you anything to say to me?” “Not just at present, my Lady.”

“Have you made any new discoveries?” “A few, my Lady.”

This is merely in passing. She scarcely makes a stop, and sweeps upstairs alone. Mr Bucket, moving towards the staircase- foot, watches her as she goes up the steps the old man came down to his grave; past murderous groups of statuary, repeated with their shadowy weapons on the wall; past the printed bill, which she looks at going by; out of view.

“She’s a lovely woman, too, she really is,” says Mr Bucket, coming back to Mercury. “Don’t look quite healthy, though.”

Is not quite healthy, Mercury informs him. Suffers much from headaches.

Really? That’s a pity! Walking, Mr Bucket would recommend for that. Well, she tries walking, Mercury rejoins. Walks sometimes for two hours, when she has them bad. By night, too.

“Are you sure you’re quite so much as six foot three?” asks Mr Bucket, “begging your pardon for interrupting you a moment?”

Not a doubt about it.

“You’re so well put together that I shouldn’t have thought it. But the household troops, though considered fine men, are built so straggling.—Walks by night, does she? When it’s moonlight, though?”

O yes. When it’s moonlight! Of course. O, of course!

Conversational and acquiescent on both sides.

“I suppose you ain’t in the habit of walking, yourself?” says Mr Bucket. “Not much time for it, I should say?”

Besides which, Mercury don’t like it. Prefers carriage exercise. “To be sure,” says Mr Bucket. “That makes a difference. Now I

think of it,” says Mr Bucket, warming his hands, and looking pleasantly at the blaze, “she went out walking, the very night of this business.”

“To be sure she did! I let her into the garden over the way.” “And left her there. Certainly you did. I saw you doing it.” “I didn’t see you,” says Mercury.

“I was rather in a hurry,” returns Mr Bucket, “for I was going to visit a aunt of mine that lives at Chelsea—next door but two to the old original Bun House—ninety year old the old lady is, a single woman, and got a little property. Yes, I chanced to be passing at the time. Let’s see. What time might it be? It wasn’t ten.”

“Half-past nine.”

“You’re right. So it was. And if I don’t deceive myself, my Lady was muffled in a loose black mantle, with a deep fringe to it?”

“Of course she was.”

Of course she was. Mr Bucket must return to a little work he has to get on with upstairs; but he must shake hands with Mercury in acknowledgment of his agreeable conversation, and will he— this is all he asks—will he, when he has a leisure half-hour, think of bestowing it on that Royal Academy Sculptor, for the advantage of both parties?

Chapter 54

Springing A Mine

efreshed by sleep, Mr Bucket rises betimes in the morning, and prepares for a field-day. Smartened up by the aid of a clean shirt and a wet hairbrush, with which

instrument, on occasions of ceremony, he lubricates such thin locks as remain to him after his life of severe study, Mr Bucket lays in a breakfast of two mutton chops as a foundation to work upon, together with tea, eggs, toast, and marmalade, on a corresponding scale. Having much enjoyed these strengthening matters, and having held subtle conference with his familiar demon, he confidently instructs Mercury “just to mention quietly to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, that whenever he’s ready for me, I’m ready for him.” A gracious message being returned, that Sir Leicester will expedite his dressing and join Mr Bucket in the library within ten minutes, Mr Bucket repairs to that apartment; and stands before the fire, with his finger on his chin, looking at the blazing coals.

Thoughtful Mr Bucket is; as a man may be, with weighty work to do; but composed, sure, confident. From the expression of his face, he might be a famous whist-player for a large stake—say a hundred guineas certain—with the game in his hand, but with a high reputation involved in his playing his hand out to the last card, in a masterly way. Not in the least anxious or disturbed is Mr Bucket when Sir Leicester appears; but he eyes the baronet aside as he comes slowly to his easy chair, with that observant gravity of

yesterday, in which there might have been yesterday, but for the audacity of the idea, a touch of compassion.

“I am sorry to have kept you waiting, officer, but I am rather later than my usual hour this morning. I am not well. The agitation, and the indignation from which I have recently suffered, have been too much for me. I am subject to—gout;” Sir Leicester was going to say indisposition, and would have said it to anybody else, but Mr Bucket palpably knows all about it; “and recent circumstances have brought it on.”

As he takes his seat with some difficulty, and with an air of pain, Mr Bucket draws a little nearer, standing with one of his large hands on the library table.

“I am not aware, officer,” Sir Leicester observes, raising his eyes to his face, “whether you wish us to be alone; but that is entirely as you please. If you do, well and good. If not, Miss Dedlock would be interested—”

“Why, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,” returns Mr Bucket, with his head persuasively on one side, and his forefinger pendant at one ear like an earring, “we can’t be too private, just at present. You will presently see that we can’t be too private. A lady, under any circumstances, and especially in Miss Dedlock’s elevated station of society, can’t but be agreeable to me; but speaking without a view to myself, I will take the liberty of assuring you that I know we can’t be too private.”

“That is enough.”

“So much so, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,” Mr Bucket resumes, “that I was on the point of asking your permission to turn the key in the door.”

“By all means.” Mr Bucket skilfully and softly takes that

precaution; stooping on his knee for a moment, from mere force of habit, so to adjust the key in the lock as that no one shall peep in from the outer-side.

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I mentioned yesterday evening, that I wanted but a very little to complete this case. I have now completed it, and collected proof against the person who did this crime.”

“Against the soldier?”

“No, Sir Leicester Dedlock; not the soldier.”

Sir Leicester looks astounded, and inquires, “Is the man in custody?”

Mr Bucket tells him, after a pause, “It was a woman.”

Sir Leicester leans back in his chair, and breathlessly ejaculates, “Good Heaven!”

“Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,” Mr Bucket begins, standing over him with one hand spread out on the library table, and the forefinger of the other in impressive use, “it’s my duty to prepare you for a train of circumstances that may, and I go so far as to say that will, give you a shock. But Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, you are a gentleman; and I know what a gentleman is, and what a gentleman is capable of. A gentleman can bear a shock, when it must come, boldly and steadily. A gentleman can make up his mind to stand up against almost any blow. Why, take yourself, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. If there’s a blow to be inflicted on you, you naturally think of your family. You ask yourself, how would all them ancestors of yours, away to Julius Caesar—not to go beyond him at present—have borne that blow; you remember scores of them that would have borne it well; and you bear it well on their accounts, and to maintain the family

credit. That’s the way you argue, and that’s the way you act, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.”

Sir Leicester, leaning back in his chair, and grasping the elbows, sits looking at him with a stony face.

“Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock,” proceeds Mr Bucket, “thus preparing you, let me beg of you not to trouble your mind for a moment, as to anything having come to my knowledge. I know so much about so many characters, high and low, that a piece of information more or less, don’t signify a straw. I don’t suppose there’s a move on the board that would surprise me; and as to this or that move having taken place, why my knowing it is no odds at all; any possible move whatever (provided it’s in a wrong direction) being a probable move according to my experience. Therefore, what I say to you, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, is, don’t you go and let yourself be put out of the way, because of my knowing anything of your family affairs.”

“I thank you for your preparation,” returns Sir Leicester, after a silence, without moving hand, foot, or feature; “which I hope is not necessary, though I give it credit for being well intended. Be so good as to go on. Also—” Sir Leicester seems to shrink in the shadow of his figure—“also to take a seat, if you have no objection.”

None at all. Mr Bucket brings a chair, and diminishes his shadow. “Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, with this short preface I come to the point. Lady Dedlock—”

Sir Leicester raises himself in his seat, and stares at him fiercely. Mr Bucket brings the finger into play as an emollient.

“Lady Dedlock, you see, she’s universally admired. That’s what her Ladyship is; she’s universally admired,” says Mr Bucket.

“I would greatly prefer, officer,” Sir Leicester returns, stiffly, “my Lady’s name being entirely omitted from this discussion.”

“So would I, Sir Leicester Dedlock Baronet, but—it’s impossible.”

“Impossible?”

Mr Bucket shakes his relentless head.

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it’s altogether impossible. What I have got to say, is about her Ladyship. She is the pivot it all turns on.”

“Officer,” retorts Sir Leicester, with a fiery eye, and a quivering lip, “you know your duty. Do your duty; but be careful not to overstep it. I would not suffer it. I would not endure it. You bring my Lady’s name into this communication upon your responsibility—upon your responsibility. My Lady’s name is not a name for common persons to trifle with!”

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I say what I must say; and no more.”

“I hope it may prove so. Very well. Go on. Go on, sir!”

Glancing at the angry eyes which now avoid him, and at the angry figure trembling from head to foot, yet striving to be still, Mr Bucket feels his way with his forefinger, and in a low voice proceeds.

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it becomes my duty to tell you that the deceased Mr Tulkinghorn long entertained mistrusts and suspicions of Lady Dedlock.”

“If he had dared to breathe them to me, sir—which he never did—I would have killed him myself!” exclaims Sir Leicester, striking his hand upon the table. But, in the very heat and fury of the act, he stops, fixed by the knowing eyes of Mr Bucket, whose

forefinger is slowly going, and who, with mingled confidence and patience, shakes his head.

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, the deceased Mr Tulkinghorn was deep and close; and what he fully had in his mind in the very beginning, I can’t quite take upon myself to say. But I know from his lips, that he long ago suspected Lady Dedlock of having discovered, through the sight of some handwriting—in this very house, and when you yourself, Sir Leicester Dedlock, were present—the existence, in great poverty, of a certain person, who had been her lover before you courted her, and who ought to have been her husband;” Mr Bucket stops, and deliberately repeats, “ought to have been her husband; not a doubt about it. I know from his lips, that when that person soon afterwards died, he suspected Lady Dedlock of visiting his wretched lodging, and his wretcheder grave, alone and in secret. I know from my own inquiries, and through my eyes and ears, that Lady Dedlock did make such visit, in the dress of her own maid; for the deceased Mr Tulkinghorn employed me to reckon up her Ladyship—if you’ll excuse my making use of the term we commonly employ—and I reckoned her up, so far, completely. I confronted the maid, in the chambers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, with a witness who had been Lady Dedlock’s guide; and there couldn’t be the shadow of a doubt that she had worn the young woman’s dress, unknown to her. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I did endeavour to pave the way a little towards these unpleasant disclosures yesterday, by saying that very strange things happened even in high families sometimes. All this, and more, has happened in your own family, and to and through your own Lady. It’s my belief that the deceased Mr Tulkinghorn followed up these inquiries to the hour of his death; and that he

and Lady Dedlock even had bad blood between them upon the matter, that very night. Now, only you put that to Lady Dedlock, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet; and ask her Ladyship whether, even after he had left here, she didn’t go down to his chambers with the intention of saying something further to him, dressed in a loose black mantle with a deep fringe to it.”

Sir Leicester sits like a statute, gazing at the cruel finger that is probing the life-blood of his heart.

“You put that to her Ladyship, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, from me, Inspector Bucket of the Detective. And if her Ladyship makes any difficulty about admitting of it, you tell her that’s it no use; that Inspector Bucket knows it, and knows that she passed the soldier as you called him (though he’s not in the army now), and knows that she knows she passed him, on the staircase. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, why do I relate all this?”

Sir Leicester, who has covered his face with his hands, uttering a single groan, requests him to pause for a moment. By-and-by, he takes his hands away; and so preserves his dignity and outward calmness, though there is no more colour in his face than in his white hair, that Mr Bucket is a little awed by him. Something frozen and fixed is upon his manner, over and above its usual shell of haughtiness; and Mr Bucket soon detects an unusual slowness in his speech, with now and then a curious trouble in beginning, which occasions him to utter inarticulate sounds. With such sounds he now breaks silence; soon, however, controlling himself to say, that he does not comprehend why a gentleman so faithful and zealous as the late Mr Tulkinghorn should have communicated to him nothing of this painful, this distressing, this unlooked-for, this overwhelming, this incredible intelligence.

“Again, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,” returns Mr Bucket, “put it to her Ladyship to clear that up. Put it to her Ladyship, if you think right, from Inspector Bucket of the Detective. You’ll find, or I’m much mistaken, that the deceased Mr Tulkinghorn had the intention of communicating the whole to you, as soon as he considered it ripe; and further, that he had given her Ladyship so to understand. Why, he might have been going to reveal it on the very morning when I examined the body! You don’t know what I’m going to say and do, five minutes from this present time, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet; and supposing I was to be picked off now, you might wonder why I hadn’t done it, don’t you see?”

True. Sir Leicester, avoiding with some trouble, those obtrusive sounds, says, “True.” At this juncture, a considerable noise of voices is heard in the hall. Mr Bucket, after listening, goes to the library-door, softly unlocks and opens it, and listens again. Then he draws in his head, and whispers, hurriedly, but composedly, “Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this unfortunate family affair has taken air, as I expected it might; the deceased Mr Tulkinghorn being cut down so sudden. The chance to hush it, is to let in these people, now in a wrangle with your footmen. Would you mind sitting quiet—on the family account—while I reckon ’em up? And would you just throw in a nod, when I seem to ask you for it?”

Sir Leicester indistinctly answers, “Officer. The best you can, the best you can!” and Mr Bucket, with a nod and a sagacious crook of the forefinger, slips down into the hall, where the voices quickly die away. He is not long in returning, a few paces ahead of Mercury, and a brother deity also powdered and in peach-blossom smalls, who bear between them a chair in which is an incapable old man. Another man and two women come behind. Directing the

pitching of the chair, in an affable and easy manner, Mr Bucket dismisses the Mercuries, and locks the door again. Sir Leicester looks on at this invasion of the sacred precincts with an icy stare.

“Now, perhaps you may know me, ladies and gentlemen,” says Mr Bucket, in a confidential voice. “I am Inspector Bucket of the Detective, I am; and this,” producing the tip of his convenient little staff from his breast pocket, “is my authority. Now, you wanted to see Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Well! You do see him; and, mind you, it ain’t every one as is admitted to that honour. Your name, old gentleman, is Smallweed; that’s what your name is; I know it well.”

“Well, and you never heard any harm of it!” cried Mr Smallweed, in a shrill loud voice.

“You don’t happen to know why they killed the pig, do you?” retorts Mr Bucket, with a steadfast look, but without loss of temper.

“No!”

“Why, they killed him,” says Mr Bucket, “on account of his having so much cheek. Don’t you get into the same position, because it isn’t worthy of you. You ain’t in the habit of conversing with a deaf person, are you?”

“Yes,” snarls Mr Smallweed, “my wife’s deaf.”

“That accounts for your pitching your voice so high. But as she ain’t here, just pitch it an octave or two lower, will you, and I’ll not only be obliged to you, but it’ll do you more credit,” says Mr Bucket. “This other gentleman is in the preaching line, I think?”

“Name of Chadband,” Mr Smallweed puts in, speaking henceforth in a much lower key.

“Once had a friend and brother serjeant of the same name,”

says Mr Bucket, offering his hand, “and consequently feel a liking for it. Mrs Chadband, no doubt?”

“And Mrs Snagsby,” Mr Smallweed introduces.

“Husband a law-stationer, and friend of my own,” says Mr Bucket. “Love him like a brother!—Now, what’s up?”

“Do you mean what business have we come upon?” Mr Smallweed asks, a little dashed by the suddenness of this turn!

“Ah! You know what I mean. Let us hear what it’s all about in presence of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Come!”

Mr Smallweed, beckoning Mr Chadband, takes a moment’s counsel with him in a whisper. Mr Chadband, expressing a considerable amount of oil from the pores of his forehead and the palms of his hands, says aloud, “Yes. You first!” and retires to his former place.

“I was the client and friend of Mr Tulkinghorn,” pipes Grandfather Smallweed, then; “I did business with him. I was useful to him, and he was useful to me. Krook, dead and gone, was my brother-in-law. He was own brother to a brimstone magpie— leastways Mrs Smallweed. I come into Krook’s property. I examined all his papers and all his effects. They was all dug out under my eyes. There was a bundle of letters belonging to a dead- and-gone lodger, as was hid away at the back of a shelf in the side of Lady Jane’s bed—his cat’s bed. He hid all manner of things away, everywheres. Mr Tulkinghorn wanted ’em and got ’em, but I looked ’em over first. I’m a man of business, and I took a squint at ’em. They was letters from the lodger’s sweetheart, and she signed Honoria. Dear me, that’s not a common name, Honoria, is it? There’s no lady in this house that signs Honoria, is there? O no, I don’t think so! O no, I don’t think so! And not in the same hand,

perhaps? O no, I don’t think so!”

Here Mr Smallweed, seized with a fit of coughing in the midst of his triumph, breaks off to ejaculate, “O, dear me! O Lord! I’m shaken all to pieces!”

“Now, when you’re ready,” says Mr Bucket, after awaiting his recovery, “to come to anything that concerns Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, here the gentleman sits, you know.”

“Haven’t I come to it, Mr Bucket?” cries Grandfather Smallweed. “Isn’t the gentleman concerned yet? Not with Captain Hawdon and his ever affectionate Honoria, and their child into the bargain? Come, then, I want to know where those letters are. That concerns me, if it don’t concern Sir Leicester Dedlock. I will know where they are. I won’t have ’em disappear so quietly. I handed ’em over to my friend and solicitor, Mr Tulkinghorn; not to anybody else.”

“Why he paid you for them, you know, and handsome, too,” says Mr Bucket.

“I don’t care for that. I want to know who’s got ’em. And I tell you what we want—what we all here want, Mr Bucket. We want more painstaking and search-making into this murder. We know where the interest and the motive was, and you have not done enough. If George the vagabond dragoon had any hand in it, he was only an accomplice, and was set on. You know what I mean as well as any man.”

“Now, I tell you what,” says Mr Bucket, instantaneously altering his manner, coming close to him, and communicating an extraordinary fascination to the forefinger, “I am damned if I am going to have my case spoilt, or interfered with, or anticipated by so much as half a second of time, by any human being in creation.

You want more painstaking and search-making? You do? Do you see this hand, and do you think that I don’t know the right time to stretch it out, and put it on the arm that fired that shot?

Such is the dread power of the man, and so terribly evident it is that he makes no idle boast, that Mr Smallweed begins to apologise. Mr Bucket, dismissing his sudden anger, checks him.

“The advice I give you is, don’t you trouble your head about the murder. That’s my affair. You keep half an eye on the newspapers; and I shouldn’t wonder if you was to read something about it before long, if you look sharp. I know my business, and that’s all I’ve got to say to you on that subject. Now about those letters. You want to know who’s got ’em. I don’t mind telling you. I have got ’em. Is that the packet?”

Mr Smallweed looks, with greedy eyes, at the little bundle Mr Bucket produces from a mysterious part of his coat, and identifies it as the same.

“What have you got to say next?” asks Mr Bucket. “Now, don’t open your mouth too wide, because you don’t look handsome when you do it.”

“I want five hundred pound.”

“No, you don’t; you mean fifty,” says Mr Bucket, humorously. It appears, however, that Mr Smallweed means five hundred.

“That is, I am deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to consider (without admitting or promising anything) this bit of business,” says Mr Bucket; Sir Leicester mechanically bows his head; “and you ask me to consider a proposal of five hundred pounds. Why, it’s an unreasonable proposal! Two fifty would be bad enough, but better than that. Hadn’t you better say two fifty?”

Mr Smallweed is quite clear that he had better not.

“Then,” says Mr Bucket, “let’s hear Mr Chadband. Lord! Many a time I’ve heard my old fellow-serjeant of that name; and a moderate man he was in all respects, as ever I come across!”

Thus invited, Mr Chadband steps forth, and, after a little sleek smiling, and a little oil-grinding with the palms of his hands, delivers himself as follows:

“My friends, we are now—Rachael my wife, and I—in the mansions of the rich and great. Why are we now in the mansions of the rich and great, my friends? Is it because we are invited? Because we are bidden to feast with them, because we are bidden to rejoice with them, because we are bidden to play the lute with them, because we are bidden to dance with them? No. Then why are we here, my friends? Air we in possession of a sinful secret, and doe we require corn, and wine, and oil—or, what is much the same thing, money—for the keeping thereof? Probably so, my friends.”

“You’re a man of business, you are,” returns Mr Bucket, very attentive; “and consequently you’re going on to mention what the nature of your secret is. You are right. You couldn’t do better.”

“Let us then, my brother, in a spirit of love,” says Mr Chadband, with a cunning eye, “proceed untoe it. Rachael, my wife, advance!”

Mrs Chadband, more than ready, so advances as to jostle her husband into the background, and confronts Mr Bucket with a hard frowning smile.

“Since you want to know what we know,” says she, “I’ll tell you. I helped to bring up Miss Hawdon, her Ladyship’s daughter. I was in the service of her Ladyship’s sister, who was very sensitive to the disgrace her Ladyship brought upon her, and gave out, even to

her Ladyship, that the child was dead—she was very nearly so— when she was born. But she’s alive, and I know her.” With these words, and a laugh, and laying a bitter stress on the word “Ladyship,” Mrs Chadband folds her arms, and looks implacably at Mr Bucket.

“I suppose now,” returns that officer, “you will be expecting a twenty-pound note, or a present of about that figure?”

Mrs Chadband merely laughs, and contemptuously tells him he can “offer” twenty pence.

“My friend the law-stationer’s good lady over there,” says Mr Bucket, luring Mrs Snagsby forward with the finger. “What may your game be, ma’am?”

Mrs Snagsby is at first prevented, by tears and lamentations, from stating the nature of her game: but by degrees it confusedly comes to light, that she is a woman overwhelmed with injuries and wrongs, whom Mr Snagsby has habitually deceived, abandoned, and sought to keep in darkness, and whose chief comfort, under her afflictions, has been the sympathy of the late Mr Tulkinghorn; who showed so much commiseration for her, on one occasion of his calling in Cook’s Court in the absence of her perjured husband, that she has of late habitually carried to him all her woes. Everybody it appears, the present company excepted, has plotted against Mrs Snagsby’s peace. There is Mr Guppy, clerk to Kenge and Carboy, who was at first as open as the sun at noon, but who suddenly shut up as close as midnight, under the influence—no doubt—of Mr Snagsby’s suborning and tampering. There is There was Mr Weevle, friend of Mr Guppy, who lived mysteriously up a court, owing to the like coherent causes. There was Krook, deceased; there was Nimrod, deceased; and there was Jo,

deceased; and they were “all in it.” In what, Mrs Snagsby does not with particularity express; but she knows that Jo was Mr Snagsby’s son, “as well as if a trumpet had spoken it,” and she followed Mr Snagsby when he went on his last visit to the boy, and if he was not his son why did he go? The one occupation of her life has been, for some time back, to follow Mr Snagsby to and fro, and up and down, and to piece suspicious circumstances together— and every circumstance that has happened has been most suspicious; and in this way she has pursued her object of detecting and confounding her false husband, night and day. Thus did it come to pass that she brought the Chadbands and Mr Tulkinghorn together, and conferred with Mr Tulkinghorn on the change in Mr Guppy, and helped to turn up the circumstances in which the present company are interested, casually, by the wayside; being still, and ever, on the great high road that is to terminate in Mr Snagsby’s full exposure and a matrimonial separation. All this, Mrs Snagsby, as an injured woman, and the friend of Mrs Chadband, and the follower of Mr Chadband, and the mourner of the late Mr Tulkinghorn, is here to certify under the seal of confidence, with very possible confusion and involvement possible and impossible; having no pecuniary motive whatever, no scheme or project but the one mentioned; and bringing here, and taking everywhere, her own dense atmosphere of dust, arising from the ceaseless working of her mill of jealousy.

While this exordium is in hand—and it takes some time—Mr Bucket, who has seen through the transparency of Mrs Snagsby’s vinegar at a glance, confers with his familiar demon, and bestows his shrewd attention on the Chadbands and Mr Smallweed. Sir Leicester Dedlock remains immoveable, with the same icy surface

upon him: except that he once or twice looks towards Mr Bucket, as relying on that officer alone of all mankind.

“Very good,” says Mr Bucket. “Now I understand you, you know; and, being deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to look into this little matter,” again Sir Leicester mechanically bows in confirmation of the statement, “can give it my fair and full attention. Now I won’t allude to conspiring to extort money, or anything of that sort, because we are men and women of the world here, and our object is to make things pleasant. But I will tell you what I do wonder at; I am surprised that you should think of making a noise below in the hall. It was so opposed to your interests. That’s what I look at.”

“We wanted to get in,” pleads Mr Smallweed.

“Why, of course, you wanted to get in,” Mr Bucket assents with cheerfulness: “but for a old gentleman at your time of life—what I call truly venerable, mind you!—with his wits sharpened, as I have no doubt they are, by the loss of the use of his limbs, which occasions all his animation to mount up into his head—not to consider that if he don’t keep such a business as the present as close as possible it can’t be worth a mag to him, is so curious! You see your temper got the better of you; that’s where you lost ground,” says Mr Bucket, in an argumentative and friendly way.

“I only said I wouldn’t go, without one of the servants came up to Sir Leicester Dedlock,” returns Mr Smallweed.

“That’s it! That’s where your temper got the better of you. Now, you keep it under another time, and you’ll make money by it. Shall I ring for them to carry you down?”

“When are we to hear more of this?” Mrs Chadband sternly demands.

“Bless your heart for a true woman! Always curious, your delightful sex is!” replies Mr Bucket, with gallantry. “I shall have the pleasure of giving you a call tomorrow or next day—not forgetting Mr Smallweed and his proposal of two fifty.”

“Five hundred!” exclaims Mr Smallweed.

“All right! Nominally five hundred;” Mr Bucket has his hand on the bell-rope; “shall I wish you good day for the present, on the part of myself and the gentleman of the house?” he asks in an insinuating tone.

Nobody having the hardihood to object to his doing so, he does it, and the party retire as they came up. Mr Bucket follows them to the door; and, returning, says with an air of serious business:—

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it’s for you to consider whether or not to buy this up. I should recommend, on the whole, it’s being bought up myself; and I think it may be bought pretty cheap. You see, that little pickled cucumber of a Mrs Snagsby has been used by all sides of the speculation, and has done a deal more harm in bringing odds and ends together than if she had meant it. Mr Tulkinghorn, deceased, he held all these horses in his hand, and could have drove ’em his own way, I haven’t a doubt; but he was fetched off the box head-foremost, and now they have got their legs over the traces, and are all dragging and pulling their own ways. So it is, and such is life. The cat’s away, and the mice they play; the frost breaks up, and the water runs. Now, with regard to the party to be apprehended.”

Sir Leicester seems to wake, though his eyes have been wide open; and he looks intently at Mr Bucket, as Mr Bucket refers to his watch.

“The party to be apprehended is now in this house,” proceeds

Mr Bucket, putting up his watch with a steady hand, and with rising spirits, “and I’m about to take her into custody in your presence. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, don’t you say a word, nor yet stir. There’ll be no noise, and no disturbance at all. I’ll come back in the course of the evening if agreeable to you, and endeavour to meet your wishes respecting this unfortunate family matter, and the nobbiest way of keeping it quiet. Now Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, don’t you be nervous on account of the apprehension at present coming off. You shall see the whole case clear, from first to last.”

Mr Bucket rings, goes to the door, briefly whispers Mercury, shuts the door, and stands behind it with his arms folded. After a suspense of a minute or two, the door slowly opens, and a French woman enters. Mademoiselle Hortense.

The moment she is in the room, Mr Bucket claps the door to, and puts his back against it. The suddenness of the noise occasions her to turn; and then, for the first time, she sees Sir Leicester Dedlock in his chair.

“I ask your pardon,” she mutters hurriedly. “They tell me there was no one here.”

Her step towards the door brings her front to front with Mr Bucket. Suddenly a spasm shoots across her face, and she turns deadly pale.

“This is my lodger, Sir Leicester Dedlock,” says Mr Bucket, nodding at her. “This foreign young woman has been my lodger for some weeks back.”

“What do Sir Leicester care for that, you think, my angel?” returns Mademoiselle, in a jocular strain.

“Why, my angel,” returns Mr Bucket, “we shall see.”

Mademoiselle Hortense eyes him with a scowl upon her tight face, which gradually changes into a smile of scorn. “You are very mysterieuse. Are you drunk?”

“Tolerable sober, my angel,” returns Mr Bucket.

“I come from arriving at this so detestable house with your wife. Your wife have left me, since some minutes. They tell me downstairs that your wife is here. I come here, and your wife is not here. What is the intention of this fool’s play, say then?” Mademoiselle demands, with her arms composedly crossed, but with something in her dark cheek beating like a clock.

Mr Bucket merely shakes the finger at her.

“Ah, my God, you are an unhappy idiot!” cries Mademoiselle, with a toss of her head and a laugh.—“Leave me to pass downstairs, great pig.” With a stamp of her foot, and a menace.

“Now, Mademoiselle,” says Mr Bucket, in a cool determined way, “you go and sit down upon that sofy.”

“I will not sit down upon nothing,” she replies, with a shower of nods.

“Now, Mademoiselle,” repeats Mr Bucket, making no demonstration, except with the finger; “you sit down upon that sofy.”

“Why?”

“Because I take you into custody on a charge of murder, and you don’t need to be told it. Now, I want to be polite to one of your sex and a foreigner, if I can. If I can’t, I must be rough; and there’s rougher ones outside. What I am to be, depends on you. So I recommend you, as a friend, afore another half a blessed moment has passed over your head, to go and sit down upon that sofy.”

Mademoiselle complies, saying in a concentrated voice, while

that something in her cheek beats fast and hard, “You are a Devil.”

“Now, you see,” Mr Bucket proceeds approvingly “you’re comfortable, and conducting yourself as I should expect a foreign young woman of your sense to do. So I’ll give you a piece of advice, and it’s this, Don’t you talk too much. You’re not expected to say anything here, and you can’t keep too quiet a tongue in your head. In short, the less you Parlay, the better, you know.” Mr Bucket is very complacent over this French explanation.

Mademoiselle, with that tigerish expansion of the mouth, and her black eyes darting fire upon him, sits upright on the sofa in a rigid state, with her hands clenched—and her feet too, one might suppose—muttering, “O, you Bucket, you are a Devil!”

“Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,” says Mr Bucket, and from this time forth the finger never rests, “this young woman, my lodger, was her Ladyship’s maid at the time I have mentioned to you; and this young woman, besides being extraordinary vehement and passionate against her Ladyship after being discharged—”

“Lie!” cries Mademoiselle. “I discharge myself.”

“Now, why don’t you take my advice?” returns Mr Bucket, in an impressive, almost in an imploring tone. “I’m surprised at the indiscreetness you commit. You’ll say something that’ll be used against you, you know. You’re sure to come to it. Never you mind what I say, till it’s given in evidence. It’s not addressed to you.”

“Discharge, too!” cries Mademoiselle, furiously, “by her Ladyship! Eh, my faith, a pretty Ladyship! Why, I r-r-r-ruin my character by remaining with a Ladyship so infame!”

“Upon my soul I wonder at you!” Mr Bucket remonstrates. “I

thought the French were a polite nation, I did, really. Yet to hear a female going on like that, before Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet!”

“He is a poor abused!” cries Mademoiselle. “I spit upon his house, upon his name, upon his imbecility,” all of which she makes the carpet represent. “Oh, that he is a great man! O yes, superb! O heaven! Bah!”

“Well, Sir Leicester Dedlock,” proceeds Mr Bucket, “this intemperate foreigner also angrily took it into her head that she had established a claim upon Mr Tulkinghorn, deceased, by attending on the occasion I told you of, at his chambers; though she was liberally paid for her time and trouble.”

“Lie!” cries Mademoiselle. “I ref-use his money altogezzer.”

(“If you will Parlay, you know,” says Mr Bucket, parenthetically, “you must take the consequences.) Now, whether she became my lodger, Sir Leicester Dedlock, with any deliberate intention then of doing this deed and blinding me, I give no opinion on; but she lived in my house, in that capacity, at the time that she was hovering about the chambers of the deceased Mr Tulkinghorn with a view to a wrangle, and likewise persecuting and half frightening the life out of an unfortunate stationer.”

“Lie!” cries Mademoiselle. “All lie!”

“The murder was committed, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and you know under what circumstances. Now, I beg of you to follow me close with your attention for a minute or two. I was sent for, and the case was entrusted to me. I examined the place, and the body, and the papers, and everything. From information I received (from a clerk in the same house) I took George into custody, as having been seen hanging about there, on the night, and at very nigh the time, of the murder; also, as having been

overheard in high words with the deceased on former occasions— even threatening him, as the witness made out. If you ask me, Sir Leicester Dedlock, whether from the first I believed George to be the murderer, I tell you candidly No; but he might be, notwithstanding; and there was enough against him to make it my duty to take him, and get him kept under remand. Now, observe!”

As Mr Bucket bends forward in some excitement—for him— and inaugurates what he is going to say with one ghostly beat of his forefinger in the air, Mademoiselle Hortense fixes her black eyes upon him with a dark frown, and sets her dry lips closely and firmly together.

“I went home, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, at night, and found this young woman having supper with my wife, Mrs Bucket. She had made a mighty show of being fond of Mrs Bucket from her first offering herself as our lodger, but that night she made more than ever—in fact overdid it. Likewise she overdid her respect, and all that, for the lamented memory of the deceased Mr Tulkinghorn. By the living Lord it flashed upon me, as I sat opposite to her at the table and saw her with a knife in her hand, that she had done it!”

Mademoiselle is hardly audible, in straining through her teeth and lips the words “You are a Devil.”

“Now where,” pursues Mr Bucket, had she been on the night of the murder? She had been to the theayter. (She really was there, I have since found, both before the deed and after it.) I knew I had an artful customer to deal with, and that proof would be very difficult; and I laid a trap for her—such a trap as I never laid yet, and such a venture as I never made yet. I worked it out in my mind while I was talking to her at supper. When I went upstairs to

bed, our house being small and this young woman’s ears sharp, I stuffed the sheet into Mrs Bucket’s mouth that she shouldn’t say a word of surprise, and told her all about it.—My dear, don’t you give your mind to that again, or I shall link your feet together at the ankles.” Mr Bucket, breaking off, has made a noiseless descent upon Mademoiselle, and laid his heavy hand upon her shoulder.

“What is the matter with you now?” she asks him.

“Don’t you think any more,” returns Mr Bucket, with admonitory finger, “of throwing yourself out of window. That’s what’s the matter with me. Come! Just take my arm. You needn’t get up; I’ll sit down by you. Now, take my arm, will you. I’m a married man, you know; you’re acquainted with my wife. Just take my arm.”

Vainly endeavouring to moisten those dry lips, with a painful sound, she struggles with herself and complies.

“Now we’re all right again. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this case could never have been the case it is, but for Mrs Bucket, who is a woman in fifty thousand—in a hundred and fifty thousand! To throw this young woman off her guard, I have never set foot in our house since; though I’ve communicated with Mrs Bucket, in the baker’s loaves and in the milk, as often as required. My whispered words to Mrs Bucket, when she had the sheet in her mouth were, ‘My dear, can you throw her off continually with natural accounts of my suspicions against George, and this, and that, and t’other? Can you do without rest, and keep watch upon her night and day? Can you undertake to say, She shall do nothing without my knowledge, she shall be my prisoner without suspecting it, she shall no more escape from me than from death, and her life shall be my life, and her soul my soul, till I have got her, if she did this

murder?’ Mrs Bucket says to me, as well as she could speak, on account of the sheet, ‘Bucket, I can!’ And she has acted up to it glorious!”

“Lies!” Mademoiselle interposes. “All lies, my friend!”

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, how did my calculations come out under these circumstances? When I calculated that this impetuous young woman would overdo it in new directions, was I wrong or right? I was right. What does she try to do? Don’t let it give you a turn? To throw the murder on her Ladyship.”

Sir Leicester rises from his chair, and staggers down again. “And she got encouragement in it from hearing that I was

always here, which was done a’ purpose. Now, open that pocket- book of mine, Sir Leicester Dedlock, if I may take the liberty of throwing it towards you, and look at the letter sent to me, each with the two words, LADY DEDLOCK, in it. Open the one directed to yourself, which I stopped this very morning, and read the three words, LADY DEDLOCK, MURDERESS, in it. These letters have been falling about like a shower of lady-birds. What do you say now to Mrs Bucket, from her spy-place, having seen them all written by this young woman? What do you say to Mrs Bucket having, within this half-hour, secured the corresponding ink and paper, fellow half-sheets, and what not? What do you say to Mrs Bucket having watched the posting of ’em every one by this young woman, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet?” Mr Bucket asks, triumphant in his admiration of his lady’s genius.

Two things are especially observable, as Mr Bucket proceeds to a conclusion. First, that he seems imperceptibly to establish a dreadful right of property in Mademoiselle. Secondly, that the very atmosphere she breathes seems to narrow and contract about

her, as if a close net, or a pall, were being drawn nearer and yet nearer around her breathless figure.

“There’s no doubt that her Ladyship was on the spot at the eventful period,” says Mr Bucket; “and my foreign friend here saw her, I believe from the upper part of the staircase. Her Ladyship and George and my foreign friend were all pretty close on one another’s heels. But that don’t signify any more, so I’ll not go into it. I found the wadding of the pistol with which the deceased Mr Tulkinghorn was shot. It was a bit of the printed description of your house at Chesney Wold. Not much in that, you’ll say, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. No. But when my foreign friend here is so thoroughly off her guard as to think it a safe time to tear up the rest of that leaf, and when Mrs Bucket puts the pieces together and finds the wadding wanting, it begins to look like Queer street.”

“These are very long lies,” Mademoiselle interposes. “You prose great deal. Is it that you have almost all finished, or are you speaking always?”

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,” proceeds Mr Bucket, who delights in a full title, and does violence to himself when he dispenses with any fragment of it, “the last point in the case which I am now going to mention, shows the necessity of patience in our business, and never doing a thing in a hurry. I watched this young woman yesterday, without her knowledge, when she was looking at the funeral, in company with my wife, who planned to take her there; and I had so much to convict her, and I saw such an expression in her face, and my mind so rose against her malice towards her Ladyship, and the time was altogether such a time for bringing down what you may call retribution upon her, that if I

had been a younger hand with less experience, I should have taken her, certain. Equally, last night, when her Ladyship, as is so universally admired I am sure, come home, looking—why, Lord! a man might almost say like Venus rising from the ocean, it was so unpleasant and inconsistent to think of her being charged with a murder of which she was innocent, that I felt quite to want to put an end to the job. What should I have lost? Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I should have lost the weapon. My prisoner here proposed to Mrs Bucket, after the departure of the funeral, that they should go, per buss, a little ways into the country, and take tea at a very decent house of entertainment. Now, near that house of entertainment there’s a piece of water. At tea, my prisoner got up to fetch her pocket-handkerchef from the bedroom where the bonnets was; she was rather a long time gone, and came back a little out of wind. As soon as they came home this was reported to me by Mrs Bucket, along with her observations and suspicious. I had the piece of water dragged by moonlight, in presence of a couple of our men, and the pocket-pistol was brought up before it had been there half-a-dozen hours. Now, my dear, put your arm a little further through mine, and hold it steady, and I sha’n’t hurt you!”

In a trice Mr Bucket snaps a handcuff on her wrist. “That’s one,” says Mr Bucket. “Now the other, darling. Two, and all told!”

He rises; she rises too. “Where,” she asks him, darkening her large eyes until their drooping lids almost conceal them—and yet they stare, “where is your false, your treacherous and cursed wife?”

“She’s gone forrard to the Police Office,” returns Mr Bucket. “You’ll see her there, my dear.”

“I would like to kiss her?” exclaims Mademoiselle Hortense, panting tigress-like.

“You’d bite her, I suspect,” says Mr Bucket.

“I would!” making her eyes very large. “I would love to tear her, limb from limb.”

“Bless you, darling,” says Mr Bucket, with the greatest composure; “I’m fully prepared to hear that. Your sex have such a surprising animosity against one another, when you do differ. You don’t mind me half so much, do you?”

“No. Though you are a Devil still.”

“Angel and devil by turns, eh?” cries Mr Bucket. “But I am in my regular employment, you must consider. Let me put your shawl tidy. I’ve been lady’s maid to a good many before now. Anything wanting to the bonnet? There’s a cab at the door.”

Mademoiselle Hortense, casting an indignant eye at the glass, shakes herself perfectly neat in one shake, and looks, to do her justice, uncommonly genteel.

“Listen then, my angel,” says she, after several sarcastic nods. “You are very spiritual. But can you restore him back to life?”

Mr Bucket answers, “Not exactly.”

“That is droll. Listen yet one time. You are very spiritual. Can you make a honourable lady of Her?”

“Don’t be so malicious,” says Mr Bucket.

“Or a haughty gentleman of Him?” cries Mademoiselle, referring to Sir Leicester with ineffable disdain. “Eh! O then regard him! The poor infant! Ha! ha! ha!”

“Come, come, why this is worse Parlaying than the other,” says Mr Bucket. “Come along!”

“You cannot do these things? Then you can do as you please

with me. It is but the death, it is all the same. Let us go, my angel. Adieu you old man, grey. I pity you, and I des-pise you!”

With these last words, she snaps her teeth together, as if her mouth closed with a spring. It is impossible to describe how Mr Bucket gets her out, but he accomplishes that feat in a manner peculiar to himself; enfolding and pervading her like a cloud, and hovering away with her as if he were a homely Jupiter, and she the object of his affections.

Sir Leicester, left alone, remains in the same attitude as though he were still listening, and his attention were still occupied. At length he gazes round the empty room, and finding it deserted, rises unsteadily to his feet, pushes back his chair, and walks a few steps, supporting himself by the table. Then he stops; and, with more of those inarticulate sounds, lifts up his eyes and seems to stare at something.

Heaven knows what he sees. The green, green woods of Chesney Wold, the noble house, the pictures of his forefathers, strangers defacing them, officers of police coarsely handling his most precious heirlooms, thousands of fingers pointing at him, thousands of faces sneering at him. But if such shadows flit before him to his bewilderment, there is one other shadow which he can name with something like distinctness even yet, and to which alone he addresses his tearing of his white hair, and his extended arms.

It is she, in association with whom, saving that she has been for years a main fibre of the root of his dignity and pride, he has never had a selfish thought. It is she whom he has loved, admired, honoured, and set up for the world to respect. It is she, who, at the core of all the constrained formalities and conventionalities of his

life, has been a stock of living tenderness and love, susceptible as nothing else is of being struck with the agony he feels. He sees her, almost to the exclusion of himself; and cannot bear to look upon her cast down from the high place she has graced so well.

And, even to the point of his sinking on the ground, oblivious of his suffering, he can yet pronounce her name with something like distinctness in the midst of those intrusive sounds, and in a tone of mourning and compassion rather than reproach.

Chapter 55

Flight

nspector Bucket of the Detective has not yet struck his great blow, as just now chronicled, but is yet refreshing himself with sleep preparatory to his field-day, when, through the night and along the freezing wintry roads, a chaise and pair comes

out of Lincolnshire, making its way towards London.

Railroads shall soon traverse all this country, and with a rattle and a glare the engine and train shall shoot like a meteor over the wide night-landscape, turning the moon paler; but, as yet, such things are non-existent in these parts, though not wholly unexpected. Preparations are afoot, measurements are made, ground is staked out. Bridges are begun, and their not yet united piers desolately look at one another over roads and streams, like brick and mortar couples with an obstacle to their union; fragments of embankments are thrown up, and left as precipices with torrents of rusty carts and barrows tumbling over them; tripods of tall poles appear on hill-tops, where there are rumours of tunnels; everything looks chaotic, and abandoned in fell hopelessness. Along the freezing roads, and through the night, the post-chaise makes its way without a railroad on its mind.

Mrs Rouncewell, so many years housekeeper at Chesney Wold, sits within the chaise; and by her side sits Mrs Bagnet with her grey cloak and umbrella. The old girl would prefer the bar in front, as being exposed to the weather, and a primitive sort of perch more in accordance with her usual course of travelling; but Mrs

Rouncewell is too thoughtful of her comfort to admit of her proposing it. The old lady cannot make enough of the old girl. She sits, in her stately manner, holding her hand, and, regardless of its roughness, puts it often to her lips. “You are a mother, my dear soul,” says she many times, “and you found out my George’s mother!”

“Why, George,” returns Mrs Bagnet, “was always free with me, ma’am, and when he said at our house to my Woolwich, that of all the things my Woolwich could have to think of when he grew to be a man, the comfortablest would be that he had never brought a sorrowful line into his mother’s face, or turned a hair of her head grey, then I felt sure, from his way, that something fresh had brought his own mother into his mind. I had often known him say to me, in past times, that he had behaved bad to her.”

“Never, my dear!” returns Mrs Rouncewell, bursting into tears “My blessing on him, never! He was always fond of me, and loving to me, was my George! But he had a bold spirit, and he ran a little wild, and went for a soldier. And I know he waited at first, in letting us know about himself, till he should rise to be an officer; and when he didn’t rise, I know he considered himself beneath us, and wouldn’t be a disgrace to us. For he had a lion heart, had my George, always from a baby!”

The old lady’s hands stray about her as of yore, while she recalls, all in a tremble, what a likely lad, what a fine lad, what a gay good-humoured clever lad he was; how they all took to him, down at Chesney Wold; how Sir Leicester took to him when he was a young gentleman; how the dogs took to him; how even the people, who had been angry with him, forgave him the moment he was gone, poor boy. And now to see him after all, and in a prison

too! And the broad stomacher heaves, and the quaint upright old- fashioned figure bends under its load of affectionate distress.

Mrs Bagnet, with the instinctive skill of a good warm heart, leaves the old housekeeper to her emotions for a little while—not without passing the back of her hand across her own motherly eyes—and presently chirps up in her cheery manner:—

“So I says to George when I goes to call him in to tea (he pretended to be smoking his pipe outside), ‘What ails you this afternoon, George, for gracious sake? I have seen all sorts, and I have seen you pretty often in season and out of season, abroad and at home, and I never see you so melancholy penitent.’ ‘Why, Mrs Bagnet,’ says George, ‘it’s because I am melancholy and penitent both, this afternoon, that you see me so.’ ‘What have you done, old fellow?’ I says. ‘Why, Mrs Bagnet,’ says George, shaking his head, ‘what I have done has been done this many a long year, and is best not tried to be undone now. If I ever get to Heaven, it won’t be for being a good son to a widowed mother; I say no more. Now, ma’am, when George says to me that it’s best not tried to be undone now, I have my thoughts as I have often had before, and I draw it out of George how he comes to have such things on him that afternoon. Then George tells me that he has seen by chance, at the lawyer’s office, a fine old lady that has brought his mother plain before him; and he runs on about that old lady till he quite forgets himself, and paints her picture to me as she used to be, years upon years back. So I says to George when he has done, who is this old lady he has seen? And George tells me it’s Mrs Rouncewell, housekeeper for more than half a century to the Dedlock family down at Chesney Wold in Lincolnshire. George has frequently told me before that he’s a Lincolnshire man, and I says

to my old Lignum that night, ‘Lignum, that’s his mother for five- and-for-ty pound!’“ All this Mrs Bagnet now relates for the twentieth time at least within the last four hours. Trilling it out, like a kind of bird; with a pretty high note, that it may be audible to the old lady above the hum of the wheels.

“Bless you, and thank you,” says Mrs Rouncewell. “Bless you, and thank you, my worthy soul!”

“Dear heart!” cries Mrs Bagnet, in the most natural manner. “No thanks to me, I am sure. Thanks to yourself, ma’am, for being so ready to pay ’em! And mind once more, ma’am, what you had best do on finding George to be your own son, is, to make him—for your sake—have every sort of help to put himself in the right, and clear himself of a charge of which he is as innocent as you or me. It won’t do to have truth and justice on his side; he must have law and lawyers,” exclaims the old girl, apparently persuaded that the latter form a separate establishment, and have dissolved partnership with truth and justice for ever and a day.

“He shall have,” says Mrs Rouncewell, “all the help that can be got for him in the world, my dear. I will spend all I have, and thankfully, to procure it. Sir Leicester will do his best, the whole family will do their best. I—I know something, my dear; and will make my own appeal, as his mother parted from him all these years, and finding him in a jail at last.”

The extreme disquietude of the old housekeeper’s manner in saying this, her broken words, and her wringing of her hands, make a powerful impression on Mrs Bagnet, and would astonish her but that she refers them all to her sorrow for her son’s condition. And yet Mrs Bagnet wonders, too, why Mrs Rouncewell should murmur so distractedly, “My Lady, my Lady, my Lady!”

over and over again.

The frosty night wears away, and the dawn breaks, and the post-chaise comes rolling on through the early mist, like the ghost of a chaise departed. It has plenty of spectral company, in ghosts of trees and hedges, slowly vanishing and giving place to the realities of day. London reached, the travellers alight; the old housekeeper in great tribulation and confusion; Mrs Bagnet, quite fresh and collected—as she would be, if her next point, with no new equipage and outfit, were the Cape of Good Hope, the Island of Ascension, Hong Kong, or any other military station.

But when they set out for the prison where the trooper is confined, the old lady has managed to draw about her, with her lavender-coloured dress, much of the staid calmness which is its usual accompaniment. A wonderfully grave, precise, and handsome piece of old china she looks; though her heart beats fast, and her stomacher is ruffled more than even the remembrance of this wayward son has ruffled it these many years.

Approaching the cell, they find the door opening and a warder in the act of coming out. The old girl promptly makes a sign of entreaty to him to say nothing; assenting, with a nod, he suffers them to enter as he shuts the door.

So, George, who is writing at his table, supposing himself to be alone, does not raise his eyes, but remains absorbed. The old housekeeper looks at him, and those wandering hands of hers are quite enough for Mrs Bagnet’s confirmation; even if she could see the mother and the son together, knowing what she knows, and doubt their relationship.

Not a rustle of the housekeeper’s dress, not a gesture, not a word betrays her. She stands looking at him as he writes on, all

unconscious, and only her fluttering hands give utterance to her emotions. But they are very eloquent; very, very eloquent. Mrs Bagnet understands them. They speak of gratitude, of joy, of grief, of hope; of inextinguishable affection, cherished with no return since this stalwart man was a stripling; of a better son loved less, and this son loved so fondly and so proudly; and they speak in such touching language, that Mrs Bagnet’s eyes brim up with tears, and they run glistening down her sun-brown face.

“George Rouncewell! O my dear child, turn and look at me!”

The trooper starts up, clasps his mother round the neck, and falls down on his knees before her. Whether in a late repentance, whether in the first association that comes back upon him, he puts his hands together as a child does when it says its prayers, and raising them towards her breast, bows down his head, and cries.

“My George, my dearest son! Always my favourite, and my favourite still, where have you been these cruel years and years? Grown such a man, too, grown such a fine strong man. Grown so like what I knew he must be, if it pleased God he was alive!”

She can ask, and he can answer, nothing connected for a time. All that time the old girl, turned away, leans one arm against the whitened wall, leans her honest forehead upon it, wipes her eyes with her serviceable grey cloak, and quite enjoys herself like the best of old girls as she is.

“Mother,” says the trooper, when they are more composed; “forgive me first of all, for I know my need of it.”

Forgive him! She does it with all her heart and soul. She always has done it. She tells him how she has had it written in her will, these many years, that he was her beloved son George. She has never believed any ill of him, never. If she had died without this

happiness—and she is an old woman now, and can’t look to live very long—she would have blessed him with her last breath, if she had had her senses, as her beloved son George.

“Mother, I have been an undutiful trouble to you, and I have my reward; but of late years I have had a kind of glimmering of a purpose in me, too. When I left home I didn’t care much, mother— I am afraid not a great deal—for leaving; and went away and ’listed, harum-scarum, making believe to think that I cared for nobody, no not I, and that nobody cared for me.”

The trooper has dried his eyes, and put away his handkerchief: but there is an extraordinary contrast between his habitual manner of expressing himself and carrying himself, and the softened tone in which he speaks, interrupted occasionally by a half-stifled sob.

“So I wrote a line home, mother, as you too well know, to say I had ‘listed under another name, and I went abroad. Abroad, at one time I thought I would write home next year, when I might be better off; and when that year was out I thought I would write home next year, when I might be better off; and when that year was out again, perhaps I didn’t think much about it. So on, from year to year, through a service of ten years, till I began to get older, and to ask myself why should I ever write?”

“I don’t find any fault, child—but not to ease my mind, George?

Not a word to your loving mother, who was growing older, too?”

This almost overturns the trooper afresh; but he sets himself up with a great, rough, sounding clearance of his throat.

“Heaven forgive me, mother, but I thought there would be small consolation then in hearing anything about me. There were you, respected and esteemed. There was my brother, as I read in

chance north-country papers now and then, rising to be prosperous and famous. There was I a dragoon, roving, unsettled, not self-made like him, but self-unmade—all my earlier advantages thrown away, all my little learning unlearnt, nothing picked up but what unfitted me for most things that I could think of. What business had I to make myself known? After letting all that time go by me, what good could come of it? The worst was past with you, mother. I knew by that time (being a man) how you had mourned for me, and wept for me, and prayed for me; and the pain was over, or was softened down, and I was better in your mind as it was.”

The old lady sorrowfully shakes her head; and taking one of his powerful hands, lays it lovingly upon her shoulder.

“No, I don’t say that it was so, mother, but that I made it out to be so. I said just now what good could come of it? Well, my dear mother, some good might have come of it to myself—and there was the meanness of it. You would have sought me out; you would have purchased my discharge; you would have taken me down to Chesney Wold; you would have brought me and my brother and my brother’s family together; you would all have considered anxiously how to do something for me, and set me up as a respectable civilian. But how could any of you feel sure of me, when I couldn’t so much as feel sure of myself? How could you help regarding as an incumbrance and a discredit to you, an idle dragooning chap, who was an incumbrance and a discredit to himself, excepting under discipline? How could I look my brother’s children in the face, and pretend to set them an example—I, the vagabond boy, who had run away from home, and been the grief and unhappiness of my mother’s life? ‘No, George.’

Such were my words, mother, when I passed this in review before me: ‘You have made your bed. Now, lie upon it.’”

Mrs Rouncewell, drawing up her stately form, shakes her head at the old girl with a swelling pride upon her, as much as to say, “I told you so!” The old girl relieves her feelings, and testifies her interest in the conversation, by giving the trooper a great poke between the shoulders with her umbrella; this action she afterwards repeats, at intervals, in a species of affectionate lunacy: never failing, after the administration of each of these remonstrances, to resort to the whitened wall and the grey cloak again.

“This was the way I brought myself to think, mother, that my best amends was to lie upon that bed I had made, and die upon it. And I should have done it (though I have been to see you more than once down at Chesney Wold, when you little thought of me), but for my old comrade’s wife here, who I find has been too many for me. But I thank her for it. I thank you for it, Mrs Bagnet, with all my heart and might.”

To which Mrs Bagnet responds with two pokes.

And now the old lady impresses upon her son George, her own dear recovered boy, her joy and pride, the light of her eyes, the happy close of her life, and every fond name she can think of, that he must be governed by the best advice obtainable by money and influence; that he must yield up his case to the greatest lawyers that can be got; that he must act, in this serious plight, as he shall be advised to act; and must not be self-willed, however right, but must promise to think only of his poor old mother’s anxiety and suffering until he is released, or he will break her heart.

“Mother, ’tis little enough to consent to,” returns the trooper,

stopping her with a kiss; “tell me what I shall do, and I’ll make a late beginning, and do it. Mrs Bagnet, you’ll take care of my mother, I know?”

A very hard poke from the old girl’s umbrella.

“If you’ll bring her acquainted with Mr Jarndyce and Miss Summerson, she will find them of her way of thinking, and they will give her the best advice and assistance.”

“And, George,” says the old lady, “we must send with all haste for your brother. He is a sensible sound man as they tell me—out in the world beyond Chesney Wold, my dear, though I don’t know much of it myself—and will be of great service.”

“Mother,” returns the trooper, “is it too soon to ask a favour?” “Surely not, my dear.”

“Then grant me this one great favour. Don’t let my brother know.”

“Not know what, my dear?”

“Not know of me. In fact, mother, I can’t bear it; I can’t make up my mind to it. He has proved himself so different from me, and has done so much to raise himself while I have been soldiering, that I haven’t brass enough in my composition, to see him in this place and under this charge. How could a man like him be expected to have any pleasure in such a discovery? It’s impossible. No, keep my secret from him, mother; do me a greater kindness than I deserve, and keep my secret from my brother, of all men.”

“But not always, dear George?”

“Why, mother, perhaps not for good and all—though I may come to ask that too—but keep it now, I do entreat you. If it’s ever broke to him that his Rip of a brother has turned up, I could wish,” says the trooper, shaking his head very doubtfully, “to break it

myself; and be governed, as to advancing or retreating, by the way in which he seems to take it.”

As he evidently has a rooted feeling on this point, and as the depth of it is recognised in Mrs Bagnet’s face, his mother yields her implicit assent to what he asks. For this he thanks her kindly.

“In all other respects, my dear mother, I’ll be as tractable and obedient as you can wish; on this one alone, I stand out. So now I am ready even for the lawyers. I have been drawing up,” he glances at his writing on the table, “an exact account of what I knew of the deceased, and how I came to be involved in this unfortunate affair. It’s entered, plain and regular, like an orderly- book; not a word in it but what’s wanted for the facts. I did intend to read it, straight on end, whensoever I was called upon to say anything in my defence. I hope I may be let to do it still; but I have no longer a will of my own in this case, and whatever is said or done, I give my promise not to have any.”

Matters being brought to this so far satisfactory pass, and time being on the wane, Mrs Bagnet proposes a departure. Again and again the old lady hangs upon her son’s neck, and again and again the trooper holds her to his broad chest.

“Where are you going to take my mother, Mrs Bagnet?”

“I am going to the town house, my dear, the family house. I have some business there, that must be looked to directly,” Mrs Rouncewell answers.

“Will you see my mother safe there, in a coach, Mrs Bagnet?

But of course I know you will. Why should I ask it!”

Why indeed, Mrs Bagnet expresses with the umbrella.

“Take her, my old friend, and take my gratitude along with you. Kisses to Quebec and Malta, love to my godson, a hearty shake of

the hand to Lignum, and this for yourself, and I wish it was ten thousand pound in gold, my dear!” So saying, the trooper puts his lips to the old girl’s tanned forehead, and the door shuts upon him in his cell.

No entreaties on the part of the good old housekeeper will induce Mrs Bagnet to retain the coach for her own conveyance home. Jumping out cheerfully at the door of the Dedlock mansion, and handing Mrs Rouncewell up the steps, the old girl shakes hands and trudges off; arriving soon afterwards in the bosom of the Bagnet family, and falling to washing the greens as if nothing had happened.

My Lady is in that room in which she held her last conference with the murdered man, and is sitting where she sat that night, and is looking at the spot where he stood upon the hearth, studying her so leisurely, when a tap comes at the door. Who is it? Mrs Rouncewell. What has brought Mrs Rouncewell to town so unexpectedly?

“Trouble, my Lady. Sad trouble. O, my Lady, may I beg a word with you?”

What new occurrence is it that makes this tranquil old woman tremble so? Far happier than her Lady, as her Lady has often thought, why does she falter in this manner, and look at her with such strange mistrust!

“What is the matter? Sit down and take your breath.”

“O, my Lady, my Lady. I have found my son—my youngest, who went away for a soldier so long ago. And he is in prison.”

“For debt?”

“O no, my Lady; I would have paid any debt, and joyful.” “For what is he in prison then?”

“Charged with a murder, my Lady, of which he is as innocent as—as I am. Accused of the murder of Mr Tulkinghorn.”

What does she mean by this look and this imploring gesture?

Why does she come so close? What is the letter that she holds? “Lady Dedlock, my dear Lady, my good Lady, my kind Lady!

You must have a heart to feel for me, you must have a heart to forgive me. I was in this family before you were born. I am devoted to it. But think of my dear son wrongfully accused.”

“I do not accuse him.”

“No, my Lady, no. But others do, and he is in prison and in danger. O Lady Dedlock, if you can say but a word to help to clear him, say it!”

What delusion can this be? What power does she suppose is in the person she petitions, to avert this unjust suspicion, if it be unjust? Her Lady’s handsome eyes regard her with astonishment, almost with fear.

“My Lady, I came away last night from Chesney Wold to find my son in my old age, and the step upon the Ghost’s Walk was so constant and so solemn that I never heard the like in all these years. Night after night, as it has fallen dark, the sound has echoed through your rooms, but last night it was awfullest. And as it fell dark last night, my Lady, I got this letter.”

“What letter is it?”

“Hush! Hush!” The housekeeper looks round, and answers in a frightened whisper: “My Lady, I have not breathed a word of it, I don’t believe what’s written in it, I know it can’t be true, I am sure and certain that it is not true. But my son is in danger, and you must have a heart to pity me. If you know of anything that is not known to others, if you have any suspicion, if you have any clue at

all, and any reason for keeping it in your own breast, O my dear Lady, think of me, and conquer that reason, and let it be known! This is the most I consider possible. I know you are not a hard lady, but you go your own way always, without help, and you are not familiar with your friends; and all who admire you—and all do—as a beautiful and elegant lady, know you to be one far away from themselves, who can’t be approached close. My Lady, you may have some proud or angry reasons for disdaining to utter something that you know; if so, pray, O pray, think of a faithful servant whose whole life has been passed in this family which she dearly loves, and relent, and help to clear my son! My Lady, my good Lady,” the old housekeeper pleads with genuine simplicity, “I am so humble in my place, and you are by nature so high and distant, that you may not think what I feel for my child; but I feel so much, that I have come here to make so bold as to beg and pray you not to be scornful of us, if you can do us any right or justice at this fearful time!”

Lady Dedlock raises her without one word, until she takes the letter from her hand.

“Am I to read this?”

“When I am gone, my Lady, if you please; and then remembering the most that I consider possible.”

“I know of nothing I can do. I know of nothing I reserve, that can affect your son. I have never accused him.”

“My Lady, you may pity him the more, under a false accusation, after reading the letter.”

The old housekeeper leaves her with the letter in her hand. In truth she is not a hard lady naturally; and the time has been when the sight of the venerable figure suing to her with such strong

earnestness would have moved her to great compassion. But, so long accustomed to suppress emotion, and keep down reality; so long schooled for her own purposes, in that destructive school which shuts up the natural feelings of the heart, like flies in amber, and spreads one uniform and dreary gloss over the good and bad, the feeling and the unfeeling, the sensible and the senseless; she had subdued even her wonder until now.

She opens the letter. Spread out upon the paper is a printed account of the discovery of the body, as it lay face downward on the floor, shot through the heart; and underneath is written her own name, with the word Murderess attached.

It falls out of her hand. How long it may have lain upon the ground, she knows not; but it lies where it fell, when a servant stands before her announcing a young man of the name of Guppy. The words have probably been repeated several times, for they are ringing in her head before she begins to understand them.

“Let him come in!”

He comes in. Holding the letter in her hand, which she has taken from the floor, she tries to collect her thoughts. In the eyes of Mr Guppy she is the same Lady Dedlock, holding the same prepared, proud, chilling state.

“Your Ladyship may not be at first disposed to excuse this visit from one who has never been very welcome to your Ladyship— which he don’t complain of, for he is bound to confess that there never has been any particular reason on the face of things, why he should be; but I hope when I mention my motives to your Ladyship, you will not find fault with me,” says Mr Guppy.

“Do so.”

“Thank your Ladyship. I ought first to explain to your

Ladyship,” Mr Guppy sits on the edge of a chair, and puts his hat on the carpet at his feet, “that Miss Summerson, whose image as I formerly mentioned to your Ladyship was at one period of my life imprinted on my art until erased by circumstances over which I had no control, communicated to me, after I had the pleasure of waiting on your Ladyship last, that she particularly wished me to take no steps whatever in any matter at all relating to her. And Miss Summerson’s wishes being to me a law (except as connected with circumstances over which I have no control), I consequently never expected to have the distinguished honour of waiting on your Ladyship again.”

And yet he is here now, Lady Dedlock moodily reminds him. “And yet I am here now,” Mr Guppy admits. “My object being

to communicate to your Ladyship, under the seal of confidence, why I am here.”

He cannot do so, she tells him, too plainly or too briefly.

“Nor can I,” Mr Guppy returns, with a sense of injury upon him, “too particularly request your Ladyship to take particular notice that it’s no personal affair of mine that brings me here. I have no interested views of my own to serve in coming here. If it was not for my promise to Miss Summerson, and my keeping of it sacred,—I, in point of fact, shouldn’t have darkened these doors again, but should have seen ’em further first.”

Mr Guppy considers this a favourable moment for sticking up his hair with both hands.

“Your Ladyship will remember when I mention it, that the last time I was here, I run against a party very eminent in our profession, and whose loss we all deplore. That party certainly did from that time apply himself to cutting in against me in a way that

I will call sharp practice, and did make it, at every turn and point, extremely difficult for me to be sure that I hadn’t inadvertently led up to something contrary to Miss Summerson’s wishes. Self-praise is no recommendation; but I may say for myself that I am not so bad a man of business neither.”

Lady Dedlock looks at him in stern inquiry. Mr Guppy immediately withdraws his eyes from her face, and looks anywhere else.

“Indeed, it has been made so hard,” he goes on, “to have any idea what that party was up to in combination with others, that until the loss which we all deplore, I was gravelled—an expression which your Ladyship, moving in the higher circles, will be so good as to consider tantamount to knocked over. Small likewise—a name by which I refer to another party, a friend of mine that your Ladyship is not acquainted with—got to be so close and double- faced that at times it wasn’t easy to keep one’s hands off his ed. However, what with the exertion of my humble abilities, and what with the help of a mutual friend by the name of Mr Tony Weevle (who is of a high aristocratic turn, and has your Ladyship’s portrait always hanging up in his room), I have now reasons for an apprehension, as to which I come to put your Ladyship upon your guard. First, will your Ladyship allow me to ask you whether you have had any strange visitors this morning? I don’t mean fashionable visitors, but such visitors, for instance, as Miss Barbary’s old servant, or as a person without the use of his lower extremities, carried upstairs similarly to a Guy?”

“No!”

“Then I assure your Ladyship that such visitors have been here and have been received here. Because I saw them at the door, and

waited at the corner of the square till they came out, and took half- an-hour’s turn afterwards to avoid them.”

“What have I to do with that, or what have you? I do not understand you. What do you mean?”

“Your Ladyship, I come to put you on your guard. There may be no occasion for it. Very well. Then I have only done my best to keep my promise to Miss Summerson. I strongly suspect (from what Small has dropped, and from what we have corkscrewed out of him) that those letters I was to have brought to your Ladyship were not destroyed when I supposed they were. That if there was anything to be blown upon, it is blown upon. That the visitors I have alluded to have been here this morning to make money of it. And that the money is made, or making.”

Mr Guppy picks up his hat and rises.

“Your Ladyship, you know best, whether there’s anything in what I say, or whether there’s nothing. Something or nothing, I have acted up to Miss Summerson’s wishes in letting things alone, and in undoing what I had begun to do, as far as possible; that’s sufficient for me. In case I should be taking a liberty in putting your Ladyship on your guard when there’s no necessity for it, you will endeavour, I should hope, to outlive my presumption, and I shall endeavour to outlive your disapprobation. I now take my farewell of your Ladyship, and assure you that there’s no danger of your ever being waited on by me again.”

She scarcely acknowledges these parting words by any look; but when he has been gone a little while she rings her bell.

“Where is Sir Leicester?”

Mercury reports that he is at present shut up in the library, alone.

“Has Sir Leicester had any visitors this morning?”

Several on business. Mercury proceeds to a description of them, which has been anticipated by Mr Guppy. Enough: he may go.

So! All is broken down. Her name is in these many mouths, her husband knows his wrongs, her shame will be published—may be spreading while she thinks about it—and in addition to the thunderbolt so long foreseen by her, so unforeseen by him, she is denounced by an invisible accuser as the murderess of her enemy. Her enemy he was, and she has often, often, often, wished him dead. Her enemy he is, even in his grave. This dreadful accusation comes upon her, like a new torment at his lifeless hand. And when she recalls how she was secretly at his door that night, and how she may be represented to have sent her favourite girl away, so soon before, merely to release herself from observation, she

shudders as if the hangman’s hands were at her neck.

She has thrown herself upon the floor, and lies with her hair all wildly scattered, and her face buried in the cushions of a couch. She rises up, hurries to and fro, flings herself down again, and rocks and moans. The horror that is upon her, is unutterable. If she really were the murderess, it could hardly be, for the moment, more intense.

For, as her murderous perspective, before the doing of the deed, however subtle the precautions for its commission, would have been closed up by a gigantic dilatation of the hateful figure, preventing her from seeing any consequences beyond it; and as those consequences would have rushed in, in an unimagined flood, the moment the figure was laid low—which always happens when a murder is done; so, now she sees that when he used to be on the watch before her, and she used to think, “if some mortal

stroke would but fall on this old man and take him from my way!” it was but wishing that all he held against her in his hand might be flung to the winds, and chance-sown in many places. So, too, with the wicked relief she has felt in his death. What was his death but the keystone of a gloomy arch removed, and now the arch begins to fall in a thousand fragments, each crushing and mangling piecemeal!

Thus, a terrible impression steals upon and overshadows her, that from this pursuer, living or dead—obdurate and imperturbable before her in his well-remembered shape, or not more obdurate and imperturbable in his coffin-bed,—there is no escape but in death. Hunted, she flies. The complication of her shame, her dread, remorse, and misery, overwhelms her at its height; and even her strength of self-reliance is overturned and whirled away, like a leaf before a mighty wind.

She hurriedly addresses these lines to her husband, seals, and leaves them on her table.

“If I am sought for, or accused of, his murder, believe that I am wholly innocent. Believe no other good of me; for I am innocent of nothing else that you have heard, or will hear, laid to my charge. He prepared me on that fatal night, for his disclosure of my guilt to you. After he had left me, I went out, on pretence of walking in the garden where I sometimes walk, but really to follow him, and make one last petition that he would not protract the dreadful suspense on which I have been racked by him, you do not know how long, but would mercifully strike next morning.

“I found his house dark and silent. I rang twice at his door, but there was no reply, and I came home.

“I have no home left. I will encumber you no more. May you, in your just resentment, be able to forget the unworthy woman on whom you have wasted a most generous devotion—who avoids you, only with a deeper shame than that with which she hurries from herself—and who writes this last adieu!”

She veils and dresses quickly, leaves all her jewels and her money, listens, goes downstairs at a moment when the hall is empty, opens and shuts the great door; flutters away, in the shrill, frosty wind.

Chapter 56

Pursuit

mpassive, as behoves its high breeding, the Dedlock town- house stares at the other houses in the street of dismal grandeur, and gives no outward sign of anything going wrong within. Carriages rattle, doors are battered at, the world exchanges calls; ancient charmers with skeleton throats, and peachy cheeks that have a rather ghastly bloom upon them seen by daylight, when indeed these fascinating creatures look like Death and the Lady fused together, dazzle the eyes of men. Forth from the frigid Mews come easily swinging carriages guided by short-legged coachmen in flaxen wigs, deep sunk into downy hammercloths; and up behind mount luscious Mercuries, bearing sticks of state, and wearing cocked hats broadwise: a spectacle for

the Angels.

The Dedlock town house changes not externally, and hours pass before its exalted dulness is disturbed within. But Volumnia the fair, being subject to the prevalent complaint of boredom, and finding that disorder attacking her spirits with some virulence, ventures at length to repair to the library for change of scene. Her gentle tapping at the door producing no response, she opens it and peeps in; seeing no one there, takes possession.

The sprightly Dedlock is reputed, in that grass-grown city of the ancients, Bath, to be stimulated by an urgent curiosity, which impels her on all convenient and inconvenient occasions to sidle about with a golden glass at her eye, peering into objects of every

description. Certain it is that she avails herself of the present opportunity of hovering over her kinsman’s letters and papers, like a bird; taking a short peck at this document, and a blink with her head on one side at that document, and hopping about from table to table, with her glass at her eye in an inquisitive and restless manner. In the course of these researches she stumbles over something; and turning her glass in that direction, sees her kinsman lying on the ground like a felled tree.

Volumnia’s pet little scream acquires a considerable augmentation of reality from this surprise, and the house is quickly in commotion. Servants tear up and down stairs, bells are violently rung, doctors are sent for, and Lady Dedlock is sought in all directions, but not found. Nobody has seen or heard her since she last rang her bell. Her letter to Sir Leicester is discovered on her table;—but it is doubtful yet whether he has not received another missive from another world, requiring to be personally answered; and all the living languages, and all the dead, are as one to him.

They lay him down upon his bed, and chafe, and rub, and fan, and put ice to his head, and try every means of restoration. Howbeit the day has ebbed away and it is night in his room, before his stertorous breathing lulls, or his fixed eyes show any consciousness of the candle that is occasionally passed before them. But when this change begins it goes on; and by and by he nods, or moves his eyes, or even his hand, in token that he hears and comprehends.

He fell down, this morning, a handsome stately gentleman; somewhat infirm, but of a fine presence, and with a well-filled face. He lies upon his bed, an aged man with sunken cheeks, the

decrepit shadow of himself. His voice was rich and mellow: and he had so long been thoroughly persuaded of the weight and import to mankind of any word he said, that his words really had come to sound as if there were something in them. But now he can only whisper; and what he whispers sounds like what it is—mere jumble and jargon.

His favourite and faithful housekeeper stands at his bedside. It is the first fact he notices, and he clearly derives pleasure from it. After vainly trying to make himself understood in speech, he makes signs for a pencil. So inexpressively, that they cannot at first understand him; it is his old housekeeper who makes out what he wants, and brings him a slate.

After pausing for some time, he slowly scrawls upon it, in a hand that is not his, “Chesney Wold?”

No, she tells him; he is in London. He was taken ill in the library, this morning. Right thankful she is that she happened to come to London, and is able to attend upon him.

“It is not an illness of any serious consequence, Sir Leicester. You will be much better tomorrow, Sir Leicester. All the gentlemen say so.” This, with the tears coursing down her fair old face.

After making a survey of the room, and looking with particular attention all round the bed where the doctors stand, he writes “My Lady.”

“My Lady went out, Sir Leicester, before you were taken ill, and don’t know of your illness yet.”

He points again, in great agitation, at the two words. They all try to quiet him, but he points again with increased agitation. On their looking at one another, not knowing what to say, he takes the

slate once more, and writes “My Lady. For God’s sake, where?” And makes an imploring moan.

It is though better that his old housekeeper should give him Lady Dedlock’s letter, the contents of which no one knows or can surmise. She opens it for him, and puts it out for his perusal. Having read it twice by a great effort, he turns it down so that it shall not be seen, and lies moaning. He passes into a kind of relapse, or into a swoon; and it is an hour before he opens his eyes, reclining on his faithful and attached old servant’s arm. The doctors know that he is best with her; and, when not actively engaged about him, stand aloof.

The slate comes into requisition again; but the word he wants to write, he cannot remember. His anxiety, his eagerness, and affliction, at this pass, are pitiable to behold. It seems as if he must go mad, in the necessity he feels for haste, and the inability under which he labours of expressing to do what, or to fetch whom. He has written the letter B, and there stopped. Of a sudden, in the height of his misery, he puts Mr before it. The old housekeeper suggests Bucket. Thank Heaven! That’s his meaning.

Mr Bucket is found to be downstairs, by appointment. Shall he come up?

There is no possibility of misconstruing Sir Leicester’s burning wish to see him, or the desire he signifies to have the room cleared of every one but the housekeeper. It is speedily done; and Mr Bucket appears. Of all men upon earth, Sir Leicester seems fallen from his high estate to place his sole trust and reliance upon this man.

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I’m sorry to see you like this. I hope you’ll cheer up. I’m sure you will, on account of the family

credit.”

Sir Leicester puts her letter in his hand, and looks intently in his face while he reads it. A new intelligence comes into Mr Bucket’s eye, as he reads on; with one hook of his finger, while that eye is still glancing over the words, he indicates, “Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I understand you.”

Sir Leicester writes upon the slate. “Full forgiveness. Find—” Mr Bucket stops his hand.

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I’ll find her. But my search after her must be begun out of hand. Not a minute must be lost.”

With the quickness of thought he follows Sir Leicester Dedlock’s look towards a little box upon a table.

“Bring it here, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet? Certainly. Open it with one of these here keys? Certainly. The littlest key? To be sure. Take the notes out? So I will. Count ’em? That’s soon done. Twenty and thirty’s fifty, and twenty’s seventy, and fifty’s one twenty, and forty’s one sixty. Take ’em for expenses? That I’ll do, and render an account of course. Don’t spare money? No, I won’t.” The velocity and certainty of Mr Bucket’s interpretation on all these heads is little short of miraculous. Mrs Rouncewell, who holds the light, is giddy with the swiftness of his eyes and hands,

as he starts up, furnished for his journey.

“You’re George’s mother, old lady; that’s about what you are, I believe?” says Mr Bucket, aside, with his hat already on, and buttoning his coat.

“Yes, sir, I am his distressed mother.”

“So I thought, according to what he mentioned to me just now. Well, then, I’ll tell you something. You needn’t be distressed no more. Your son’s all right. Now don’t you begin a-crying; because

what you’ve got to do is to take care of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and you won’t do that by crying. As to your son, he’s all right, I tell you; and he sends his loving duty, and hoping you’re the same. He’s discharged honourable; that’s about what he is; with no more imputation on his character than there is on yours, and yours is a tidy one, I’ll bet a pound. You may trust me, for I took your son. He conducted himself in a game way, too, on that occasion; and he’s a fine-made man, and you’re a fine-made old lady, and you’re a mother and son, the pair of you, as might be showed for models in a caravan. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, what you’ve trusted to me, I’ll go through with. Don’t you be afraid of my turning out of my way, right or left; or taking a sleep, or a wash, or a shave, till I have found what I go in search of. Say everything as is kind and forgiving on your part? Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I will. And I wish you better, and these family affairs smoothed over—as, Lord! many other family affairs equally has been, and equally will be, to the end of time.”

With this peroration, Mr Bucket, buttoned up, goes quietly out, looking steadily before him as if he were already piercing the night in quest of the fugitive.

His first step is to take himself to Lady Dedlock’s rooms, and look all over them for any trifling indication that may help him. The rooms are in darkness now; and to see Mr Bucket with a wax- light in his hand, holding it above his head, and taking a sharp mental inventory of the many delicate objects so curiously at variance with himself, would be to see a sight,—which nobody does see, as he is particular to lock himself in.

“A spicy boudoir this,” says Mr Bucket, who feels in a manner furbished up in his French by the blow of the morning. “Must

have cost a sight of money. Rum articles to cut away from, these; she must have been hard put to it!”

Opening and shutting table-drawers, and looking into caskets and jewel-cases, he sees the reflection of himself in various mirrors, and moralises thereon.

“One might suppose I was a moving in the fashionable circles, and getting myself up for Almack’s,” says Mr Bucket. “I begin to think I must be a swell in the Guards, without knowing it.”

Ever looking about, he has opened a dainty little chest in an inner drawer. His great hand, turning over some gloves which it can scarcely feel, they are so light and soft within it, comes upon a white handkerchief.

“Hum! Let’s have a look at you,” says Mr Bucket, putting down the light. “What should you be kept by yourself for? What’s your motive? Are you her Ladyship’s property, or somebody else’s? You’ve got a mark upon you, somewheres or another, I suppose?”

He finds it as he speaks, “Esther Summerson.”

“Oh!” says Mr Bucket, pausing with his finger at his ear. “Come, I’ll take you.”

He completes his observations as quietly and carefully as he has carried them on, leaves everything else precisely as he found it, glides away after some five minutes in all, and passes into the street. With a glance upward at the dimly lighted windows of Sir Leicester’s room, he sets off, full swing, to the nearest coach-stand, picks out the horse for his money, and directs to be driven to the Shooting Gallery. Mr Bucket does not claim to be a scientific judge of horses; but he lays out a little money on the principal events in that line, and generally sums up his knowledge of the subject in the remark, that when he see a horse as can go, he knows him.

His knowledge is not at fault in the present instance. Clattering over the stones at a dangerous pace, yet thoughtfully bringing his keen eyes to bear on every slinking creature whom he passes in the midnight streets, and even on the lights in upper windows where people are going or gone to bed, and on all the turnings that he rattles by, and alike on the heavy sky, and on the earth where the snow lies thin—for something may present itself to assist him, anywhere—he dashes to his destination at such a speed, that when he stops, the horse half smothers him in a cloud of steam.

“Unbear him half a moment to freshen him up, and I’ll be back.”

He runs up the long wooden entry, and finds the trooper smoking his pipe.

“I thought I should, George, after what you have gone through, my lad. I haven’t a word to spare. Now, honour! All to save a woman. Miss Summerson that was here when Gridley died—that was the name, I know—all right!—where does she live?”

The trooper has just come from there and gives him the address near Oxford-street.

“You won’t repent it, George. Good night!”

He is off again with an impression of having seen Phil sitting by the frosty fire, staring at him open-mouthed; and gallops away again, and gets out in a cloud of steam again.

Mr Jarndyce, the only person up in the house, is just going to bed; rises from his book, on hearing the rapid ringing at the bell; and comes down to the door in his dressing-gown.

“Don’t be alarmed, sir.” In a moment his visitor is confidential with him in the hall, has shut the door, and stands with his hand upon the lock. “I’ve had the pleasure of seeing you before.

Inspector Bucket. Look at that handkerchief, sir; Miss Esther Summerson’s. Found it myself put away in a drawer of Lady Dedlock’s, quarter of an hour ago. Not a moment to lose. Matter of life or death. You know Lady Dedlock?”

“Yes.”

“There has been a discovery there, today. Family affairs have come out. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has had a fit—apoplexy or paralysis—and couldn’t be brought to, and precious time has been lost. Lady Dedlock disappeared this afternoon, and left a letter for him that looks bad. Run your eye over it. Here it is!”

Mr Jarndyce having read it, asks him what he thinks?

“I don’t know. It looks like suicide. Anyways there’s more and more danger, every minute, of its drawing to that. I’d give a hundred pound an hour to have got the start of the present time. Now, Mr Jarndyce, I am employed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to follow her and find her—to save her, and take her his forgiveness. I have money and full power, but I want something else. I want Miss Summerson.”

Mr Jarndyce in a troubled voice, repeats “Miss Summerson?” “Now, Mr Jarndyce,”—Mr Bucket has read his face with the

greatest attention all along—“I speak to you as a gentleman of a humane heart, and under such pressing circumstances as don’t often happen. If ever delay was dangerous, it’s dangerous now; and if ever you couldn’t afterwards forgive yourself for causing it, this is the time. Eight or ten hours, worth, as I tell you, a hundred pound a-piece at least, have been lost since Lady Dedlock disappeared. I am charged to find her. I am Inspector Bucket. Besides all the rest that’s heavy on her, she has upon her, as she believes, suspicion of murder. If I follow her alone, she, being in

ignorance of what Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has communicated to me, may be driven to desperation. But if I follow her in company with a young lady, answering to the description of a young lady that she has a tenderness for—I ask no question, and I say no more than that—she will give me credit for being friendly. Let me come up with her, and he able to have the hold upon her of putting that young lady for’ard, and I’ll save her and prevail with her if she is alive. Let me come up with her alone —a harder matter—and I’ll do my best; but I don’t answer for what the best may be. Time flies; it’s getting on for one o’clock. When one strikes, there’s another hour gone; and it’s worth a thousand pound now, instead of a hundred.”

This is all true, and the pressing nature of the case cannot he questioned. Mr Jarndyce begs him to remain there, while he speaks to Miss Summerson. Mr Bucket says he will; but acting on his usual principle, does no such thing—following upstairs instead, and keeping his man in sight. So he remains, dodging and lurking about in the gloom of the staircase, while they confer. In a very little time, Mr Jarndyce comes down, and tells him that Miss Summerson will join him directly, and place herself under his protection, to accompany him where he pleases. Mr Bucket, satisfied, expresses high approval; and awaits her coming at the door.

There, he mounts a high tower in his mind, and looks out, far and wide. Many solitary figures he perceives, creeping through the streets; many solitary figures out on heaths, and roads, and lying under haystacks. But the figure that he seeks, is not among them. Other solitaries he perceives, in nooks of bridges, looking over; and in shadowed places down by the river’s level; and a dark,

dark, shapeless object drifting with the tide, more solitary than all, clings with a drowning hold on his attention.

Where is she? Living or dead, where is she? If, as he folds the handkerchief and carefully puts it up, it were able, with an enchanted power, to bring before him the place where she found it, and the night landscape near the cottage where it covered the little child, would he descry her there? On the waste, where the brick-kilns are burning with a pale blue flare; where the straw- roofs of the wretched huts in which the bricks are made, are being scattered by the wind, where the clay and water are hard frozen, and the mill in which the gaunt blind horse goes round all day, looks like an instrument of human torture;—traversing this deserted blighted spot, there is a lonely figure with the sad world to itself, pelted by the snow and driven by the wind, and cast out, it would seem, from all companionship. It is the figure of a woman, too; but it is miserably dressed, and no such clothes ever came through the hall, and out at the great door, of the Dedlock mansion.

Chapter 57

Esther’s Narrative

had gone to bed and fallen asleep, when my Guardian knocked at the door of my room and begged me to get up directly. On my hurrying to speak to him and learn what had happened, he told me, after a word or two of preparation, that there had been a discovery at Sir Leicester Dedlock’s. That my mother had fled. That a person was now at our door who was empowered to convey to her the fullest assurances of affectionate protection and forgiveness, if he could possibly find her; and that I was sought for to accompany him, in the hope that my entreaties might prevail upon her, if his failed. Something to this general purpose I made out; but I was thrown into such a tumult of alarm, and hurry, and distress, that in spite of every effort I could make to subdue my agitation, I did not seem, to myself, fully to recover my

right mind until hours had passed.

But I dressed and wrapped up expeditiously without waking Charley, or any one; and went down to Mr Bucket, who was the person entrusted with the secret. In taking me to him my Guardian told me this, and also explained how it was that he had come to think of me. Mr Bucket, in a low voice, by the light of my Guardian’s candle, read to me, in the hall, a letter that my mother had left upon her table; and, I suppose within ten minutes of my having been aroused, I was sitting beside him, rolling swiftly through the streets.

His manner was very keen, and yet considerate when he

explained to me that a great deal might depend on my being able to answer, without confusion, a few questions that he wished to ask me. These were, chiefly, whether I had had much communication with my mother (to whom he only referred as Lady Dedlock); when and where I had spoken with her last; and how she had become possessed of my handkerchief. When I had satisfied him on these points, he asked me particularly to consider—taking time to think—whether, within my knowledge, there was any one, no matter where, in whom she might be at all likely to confide, under circumstances of the last necessity. I could think of no one but my Guardian. But, by-and-by, I mentioned Mr Boythorn. He came into my mind, as connected with his old chivalrous manner of mentioning my mother’s name; and with what my Guardian had informed me of his engagement to her sister, and his unconscious connection with her unhappy story.

My companion had stopped the driver while we held this conversation, that we might the better hear each other. He now told him to go on again; and said to me, after considering within himself for a few moments, that he had made up his mind how to proceed. He was quite willing to tell me what his plan was, but I did not feel clear enough to understand it.

We had not driven very far from our lodgings, when we stopped in a bye street, at a public-looking place lighted up with gas. Mr Bucket took me in and sat me in an armchair, by a bright fire. It was now past one, as I saw by the clock against the wall. Two police officers, looking in their perfectly neat uniform not at all like people who were up all night, were quietly writing at a desk; and the place seemed very quiet, altogether, except for some beating and calling out at distant doors underground, to which

nobody paid any attention.

A third man in uniform, whom Mr Bucket called, and to whom he whispered his instructions, went out; and then the two others advised together, while one wrote from Mr Bucket’s subdued dictation. It was a description of my mother that they were busy with; for Mr Bucket brought it to me when it was done, and read it in a whisper. It was very accurate indeed.

The second officer, who had attended to it closely, then copied it out, and called in another man in uniform (there were several in an outer room) who took it up and went away with it. All this was done with the greatest despatch, and without the waste of a moment; yet nobody was at all hurried. As soon as the paper was sent out upon its travels, the two officers resumed their former quiet work of writing with neatness and care. Mr Bucket thoughtfully came and warmed the soles of his boots, first one and then the other, at the fire.

“Are you well wrapped up, Miss Summerson?” he asked me, as his eyes met mine. “It’s a desperate sharp night for a young lady to be out in.”

I told him I cared for no weather, and was warmly clothed.

“It may be a long job,” he observed; “but so that it ends well, never mind, miss.”

“I pray to Heaven it may end well!” said I.

He nodded comfortingly. “You see, whatever you do, don’t you go and fret yourself. You keep yourself cool, and equal for anything that may happen; and it’ll be the better for you, the better for me, the better for Lady Dedlock, and the better for Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.”

He was really very kind and gentle; and as he stood before the

fire warming his boots, and rubbing his face with his forefinger, I felt a confidence in his sagacity which reassured me. It was not yet a quarter to two, when I heard horses’ feet and wheels outside. “Now, Miss Summerson,” said he, “we are off, if you please!”

He gave me his arm, and the two officers courteously bowed me out, and we found at the door a phaeton or barouche, with a postilion and post horses. Mr Bucket handed me in, and took his own seat on the box. The man in uniform whom he had sent to fetch this equipage, then handed him up a dark lantern at his request; and when he had given a few directions to the driver, we rattled away.

I was far from sure that I was not in a dream. We rattled with great rapidity through such a labyrinth of streets, that I soon lost all idea where we were; except that we had crossed and recrossed the river, and still seemed to be traversing a low-lying, water-side, dense neighbourhood of narrow thoroughfares, chequered by docks and basins, high piles of warehouses, swing-bridges, and masts of ships. At length we stopped at the corner of a little slimy turning, which the wind from the river, rushing up it, did not purify; and I saw my companion, by the light of his lantern, in conference with several men, who looked like a mixture of police and sailors. Against the mouldering wall by which they stood, there was a bill, on which I could discern the words, “FOUND DROWNED;” and this, and an inscription about Drags, possessed me with the awful suspicion shadowed forth in our visit to that place.

I had no need to remind myself that I was not there, by the indulgence of any feeling of mine, to increase the difficulties of the search, or to lessen its hopes, or enhance its delays. I remained

quiet; but what I suffered in that dreadful spot I never can forget. And still it was like the horror of a dream. A man yet dark and muddy, in long swollen sodden boots and a hat like them, was called out of a boat, and whispered with Mr Bucket, who went away with him down some slippery steps—as if to look at something secret that he had to show. They came back, wiping their hands upon their coats, after turning over something wet; but thank God it was not what I feared!

After some further conference, Mr Bucket (whom everybody seemed to know and defer to) went in with the others at a door, and left me in the carriage; while the driver walked up and down by his horses, to warm himself. The tide was coming in, as I judged from the sound it made; and I could hear it break at the end of the alley, with a little rush towards me. It never did so—and I thought it did so, hundreds of times, in what can have been at the most a quarter of an hour, and probably was less—but the thought shuddered through me that it would cast my mother at the horses’ feet.

Mr Bucket came out again, exhorting the others to be vigilant, darkened his lantern, and once more took his seat. “Don’t you be alarmed, Miss Summerson, on account of our coming down here,” he said, turning to me. “I only want to have everything in train, and to know that it is in train by looking after it myself. Get on, my lad!”

We appeared to retrace the way we had come. Not that I had taken note of any particular objects in my perturbed state of mind, but judging from the general character of the streets. We called at another office or station for a minute, and crossed the river again. During the whole of this time, and during the whole search, my

companion, wrapped up on the box, never relaxed in his vigilance a single moment; but, when we crossed the bridge he seemed, if possible, to be more on the alert than before. He stood up to look over the parapet; he alighted, and went back after a shadowy female figure that flitted past us; and he gazed into the profound black pit of water, with a face that made my heart die within me. The river had a fearful look, so overcast and secret, creeping away so fast between the low flat lines of shore: so heavy with indistinct and awful shapes, both of substance and shadow: so deathlike and mysterious. I have seen it many times since then, by sunlight and by moonlight, but never free from the impressions of that journey. In my memory, the lights upon the bridge are always burning dim; the cutting wind is eddying round the homeless woman whom we pass; the monotonous wheels are whirling on; and the light of the carriage lamps reflected back, looks palely in upon me—a face, rising out of the dreaded water.

Clattering and clattering through the empty streets, we came at length from the pavement on to dark smooth roads, and began to leave the houses behind us. After a while, I recognised the familiar way to Saint Albans. At Barnet, fresh horses were ready for us, and we changed and went on. It was very cold indeed; and the open country was white with snow, though none was falling then.

“An old acquaintance of yours, this road, Miss Summerson,” said Mr Bucket, cheerfully.

“Yes,” I returned. “Have you gathered any intelligence?” “None that can be quite depended on as yet,” he answered;

“but it’s early times as yet.”

He had gone into every late or early public-house where there was a light (there were not a few at that time, the road being then

much frequented by drovers), and had got down to talk to the turnpike keepers. I had heard him ordering drink, and chinking money, and making himself agreeable and merry everywhere; but whenever he took his seat upon the box again, his face resumed its watchful steady look, and he always said to the driver in the same business tone, “Get on, my lad!”

With all these stoppages, it was between five and six o’clock and we were yet a few miles short of Saint Albans, when he came out of one of these houses and handed me in a cup of tea.

“Drink it, Miss Summerson, it’ll do you good. You’re beginning to get more yourself now, ain’t you?”

I thanked him, and said I hoped so.

“You was what you may call stunned at first,” he returned, “and Lord! no wonder. Don’t speak loud, my dear. It’s all right. She’s on ahead.”

I don’t know what joyful exclamation I made, or was going to make, but he put up his finger, and I stopped myself.

“Passed through here on foot, this evening, about eight or nine. I heard of her first at the archway toll, over at Highgate, but couldn’t make quite sure. Traced her all along, on and off. Picked her up at one place, and dropped her at another; but she’s before us now, safe. Take hold of this cup and saucer, Ostler. Now, if you wasn’t brought up to the butter trade, look out and see if you can catch half-a-crown in your t’other hand. One, two, three, and there you are! Now, my lad, try a gallop!”

We were soon in Saint Albans, and alighted a little before day, when I was just beginning to arrange and comprehend the occurrences of the night, and really to believe that they were not a dream. Leaving the carriage at the posting-house, and ordering

fresh horses to be ready, my companion gave me his arm, and we went towards home.

“As this is your regular abode, Miss Summerson, you see,” he observed, “I should like to know whether you’ve been asked for by any stranger answering the description, or whether Mr Jarndyce has. I don’t much expect it, but it might be.”

As we ascended the hill, he looked about him with a sharp eye—the day was now breaking—and reminded me that I had come down it one night, as I had reason for remembering, with my little servant and poor Jo: whom he called Toughey.

I wondered how he knew that.

“When you passed a man upon the road, just yonder, you know,” said Mr Bucket.

Yes, I remembered that too, very well. “That was me,” said Mr Bucket.

Seeing my surprise, he went on:—

“I drove down in a gig that afternoon, to look after that boy. You might have heard my wheels when you came out to look after him yourself, for I was aware of you and your little maid going up, when I was walking the horse down. Making an inquiry or two about him in the town, I soon heard what company he was in; and was coming among the brick-fields to look for him, when I observed you bringing him home here.”

“Had he committed any crime?” I asked.

“None was charged against him,” said Mr Bucket, coolly lifting off his hat; “but I suppose he wasn’t over particular. No. What I wanted him for, was in connection with keeping this very matter of Lady Dedlock quiet. He had been making his tongue more free than welcome, as to a small accidental service he had been paid

for by the deceased Mr Tulkinghorn; and it wouldn’t do at any sort of price, to have him playing those games. So having warned him out of London, I made an afternoon of it to warn him to keep out of it now he was away, and go farther from it, and maintain a bright look out that I didn’t catch him coming back again.”

“Poor creature!” said I.

“Poor enough,” assented Mr Bucket, “and trouble enough, and well enough away from London, or anywhere else. I was regularly turned on my back when I found him taken up by your establishment, I do assure you.”

I asked him why? “Why, my dear?” said Mr Bucket. “Naturally there was no end to his tongue then. He might as well have been born with a yard and a half of it, and a remnant over.”

Although I remember this conversation now, my head was in confusion at the time, and my power of attention hardly did more than enable me to understand that he entered into these particulars to divert me. With the same kind intention, manifestly, he often spoke to me of indifferent things, while his face was busy with the one object that he had in view. He still pursued this subject as we turned in at the garden gate.

“Ah!” said Mr Bucket. “Here we are, and a nice retired place it is. Puts a man in mind of the country house in the Woodpecker tapping, that was known by the smoke which so gracefully curled. They’re early with the kitchen fire, and that denotes good servants. But what you’ve always got to be careful of with servants, is, who comes to see ’em; you never know what they’re up to, if you don’t know that. And another thing, my dear. Whenever you find a young man behind the kitchen door, you give that young man in charge on suspicion of being secreted in a

dwelling-house with an unlawful purpose.”

We were now in front of the house; he looked attentively and closely at the gravel for footprints, before he raised his eyes to the windows.

“Do you generally put that elderly young gentleman in the same room, when he’s on a visit here, Miss Summerson?” he inquired, glancing at Mr Skimpole’s usual chamber.

“You know Mr Skimpole!” said I.

“What do you call him again?” returned Mr Bucket, bending down his ear. “Skimpole, is it? I’ve often wondered what his name might be. Skimpole. Not John, I should say, nor yet Jacob?”

“Harold,” I told him.

“Harold. Yes. He’s a queer bird is Harold,”—said Mr Bucket, eyeing me with great expression.

“He is a singular character,” said I.

“No idea of money,” observed Mr Bucket.—“He takes it though!”

I involuntarily returned for answer, that I perceived Mr Bucket knew him.

“Why, now I’ll tell you, Miss Summerson,” he rejoined. “Your mind will be all the better for not running on one point too continually, and I’ll tell you for a change. It was him as pointed out to me where Toughey was. I made up my mind, that night, to come to the door and ask for Toughey, if that was all; but, willing to try a move or so first if any such was on the board, I just pitched up a morsel of gravel at that window where I saw a shadow. As soon as Harold opens it and I have had a look at him, thinks I, you’re the man for me. So I smoothed him down a bit, about not wanting to disturb the family after they was gone to bed, and about it’s being

a thing to be regretted that charitable young ladies should harbour vagrants; and then, when I pretty well understood his ways, I said, I should consider a fypunnote well bestowed if I could relieve the premises of Toughey without causing any noise or trouble. Then says he, lifting up his eyebrows in the gayest way, ‘it’s no use mentioning a fypunnote to me, my friend, because I’m a mere child in such matters, and have no idea of money.’ Of course I understood what his taking it so easy meant; and being now quite sure he was the man for me, I wrapped the note round a little stone and threw it up to him. Well! He laughs and beams, and looks as innocent as you like, and says, ‘But I don’t know the value of these things. What am I to do with this?’ ‘Spend it, sir,’ says I. ‘But I shall be taken in,’ he says, ‘they won’t give me the right change, I shall lose it, it’s no use to me.’ Lord you never saw such a face as he carried it with! Of course he told me where to find Toughey, and I found him.”

I regarded this as very treacherous on the part of Mr Skimpole, towards my Guardian, and as passing the usual bounds of his childish innocence.

“Bounds, my dear?” returned Mr Bucket. “Bounds? Now, Miss Summerson, I’ll give you a piece of advice that your husband will find useful when you are happily married and have got a family about you. Whenever a person says to you that they are as innocent as can be in all concerning money, look well after your own money, for they are dead certain to collar it, if they can. Whenever a person proclaims to you ‘In worldly matters I’m a child,’ you consider that that person is only a-crying off from being held accountable, and that you have got that person’s number, and it’s Number One. Now, I am not a poetical man myself, except in a

vocal way when it goes round a company, but I’m a practical one, and that’s my experience. So’s this rule. Fast and loose in one thing. Fast and loose in everything. I never knew it fail. No more will you. Nor no one. With which caution to the unwary, my dear, I take the liberty of pulling this here bell, and so go back to our business.”

I believe it had not been for a moment out of his mind, any more than it had been out of my mind, or out of his face. The whole household were amazed to see me, without any notice, at that time in the morning, and so accompanied; and their surprise was not diminished by my inquiries. No one, however, had been there. It could not be doubted that this was the truth.

“Then, Miss Summerson,” said my companion, “we can’t be too soon at the cottage where those brickmakers are to be found. Most inquiries there I leave to you, if you will be so good as to make ’em. The naturalest way is the best way, and the naturalest way is your own way.”

We set off again immediately. On arriving at the cottage, we found it shut up, and apparently deserted; but one of the neighbours who knew me, and who came out when I was trying to make some one hear, informed me that the two women and their husbands now lived together in another house, made of loose rough bricks, which stood on the margin of the piece of ground where the kilns were, and where the long rows of bricks were drying. We lost no time in repairing to this place, which was within a few hundred yards; and as the door stood ajar, I pushed it open.

There were only three of them sitting at breakfast; the child lying asleep on a bed in the corner. It was Jenny, the mother of the dead child, who was absent. The other woman rose on seeing me;

and the men, though they were, as usual, sulky and silent, each gave me a morose nod of recognition. A look passed between them when Mr Bucket followed me in, and I was surprised to see that the woman evidently knew him.

I had asked leave to enter of course. Liz (the only name by which I knew her) rose to give me her own chair, but I sat down on a stool near the fire, and Mr Bucket took a corner of the bedstead. Now that I had to speak, and was among people with whom I was not familiar, I became conscious of being hurried and giddy. It was very difficult to begin, and I could not help bursting into tears.

“Liz,” said I, “I have come a long way in the night and through the snow, to inquire after a lady—”

“Who has been here you know,” Mr Bucket struck in, addressing the whole group, with a composed propitiatory face; “that’s the lady the young lady means. The lady that was here last night, you know.”

“And who told you as there was anybody here?” inquired Jenny’s husband, who had made a surly stop in his eating, to listen, and now measured him with his eye.

“A person of the name of Michael Jackson, in a blue welveteen waistcoat with a double row of mother of pearl buttons,” Mr Bucket immediately answered.

“He had as good mind his own business, whoever he is,” growled the man.

“He’s out of employment I believe,” said Mr Bucket, apologetically for Michael Jackson, “and so gets talking.”

The woman had not resumed her chair, but stood faltering with her hand upon its broken back, looking at me. I thought she would have spoken to me privately, if she had dared. She was still in this

attitude of uncertainty, when her husband, who was eating with a lump of bread and fat in one hand, and his clasp-knife in the other, struck the handle of his knife violently on the table, and told her with an oath to mind her business at any rate, and sit down.

“I should like to have seen Jenny very much,” said I, “for I am sure she would have told me all she could about this lady, whom I am very anxious indeed—you cannot think how anxious—to overtake. Will Jenny be here soon? Where is she?”

The woman had a great desire to answer, but the man, with another oath, openly kicked at her foot with his heavy boot. He left it to Jenny’s husband to say what he chose, and after a dogged silence the latter turned his shaggy head towards me.

“I’m not partial to gentlefolks coming into my place, as you’ve heerd me say afore now, I think, miss. I let their places be, and it’s curous they can’t let my place be. There’d be a pretty shine made if I was to go a-wisiting them, I think. Howsoever, I don’t so much complain of you as of some others; and I’m agreeable to make you a civil answer, though I give notice that I’m not a going to be drawed like a badger. Will Jenny be here soon? No she won’t. Where is she? She’s gone up to Lunnun.”

“Did she go last night?” I asked.

“Did she go last night? Ah! she went last night,” he answered, with a sulky jerk of his head.

“But was she here when the lady came? And what did the lady say to her? And where is the lady gone? I beg and pray you to be so kind as to tell me,” said I, “for I am in great distress to know.”

“If my master would let me speak, and not say a word of harm—” the womanly timidly began.

“Your master,” said her husband, muttering an imprecation

with slow emphasis, “will break your neck, if you meddle with wot don’t concern you.”

After another silence, the husband of the absent woman, turning to me again, answered me with his usual grumbling unwillingness.

“Wos Jenny here when the lady come? Yes, she wos here when the lady come. Wot did the lady say to her? Well, I’ll tell you wot the lady said to her. She said, ‘You remember me as come one time to talk to you about the young lady as had been a wisiting of you? You remember me as give you somethink handsome for a handkercher wot she had left?’ Ah, she remembered. So we all did. Well, then, wos that young lady up at the house now? No, she warn’t up at the house now. Well, then, lookee here. The lady was upon a journey all alone, strange as we might think it, and could she rest herself where you’re a-setten, for a hour or so. Yes she could, and so she did. Then she went—it might be at twenty minutes past eleven, and it might be at twenty minutes past twelve; we ain’t got no watches here to know the time by, nor yet clocks. Where did she go? I don’t know where she go’d. She went one way, and Jenny went another; one went right to Lunnun, and t’other went right from it. That’s all about it. Ask this man. He heerd it all, and see it all. He knows.”

The other man repeated, “That’s all about it.” “Was the lady crying?” I inquired.

“Devil a bit,” returned the first man. “Her shoes was the worse, and her clothes was the worse, but she warn’t—not as I see.”

The woman sat with her arms crossed, and her eyes upon the ground. Her husband had turned his seat a little, so as to face her; and kept his hammer-like hand upon the table, as if it were in

readiness to execute his threat if she disobeyed him.

“I hope you will not object to my asking your wife,” said I, “how the lady looked?”

“Come, then!” he gruffly cried to her. “You hear what she says.

Cut it short, and tell her.”

“Bad,” replied the woman. “Pale and exhausted. Very bad.” “Did she speak much?”

“Not much, but her voice was hoarse.”

She answered, looking all the while at her husband for leave. “Was she faint?” said I. “Did she eat or drink here?”

“Go on!” said the husband, in answer to her look. “Tell her and cut it short.”

“She had a little water, Miss, and Jenny fetched her some bread and tea. But she hardly touched it.”

“And when she went from here”—I was proceeding, when Jenny’s husband impatiently took me up.

“When she went from here, she went right away Nor’ard by the high road. Ask on the road if you doubt me, and see if it warn’t so. Now, there’s the end. That’s all about it.”

I glanced at my companion; and finding that he had already risen and was ready to depart, thanked them for what they had told me, and took my leave. The woman looked full at Mr Bucket as he went out, and he looked full at her.

“Now, Miss Summerson,” he said to me, as we walked quickly away. “They’ve got her ladyship’s watch among ’em. That’s a positive fact.”

“You saw it?” I exclaimed.

“Just as good as saw it,” he returned. “Else why should he talk about his ‘twenty minutes past,’ and about his having no watch to

tell the time by? Twenty minutes! He don’t usually cut his time so fine as that. If he comes to half hours, it’s as much as he does. Now, you see, either her ladyship gave him that watch, or he took it. I think she gave it him. Now, what should she give it him for? What should she give it him for?”

He repeated this question to himself several times as we hurried on; appearing to balance between a variety of answers that arose in his mind.

“If time could be spared,” said Mr Bucket—“which is the only thing that can’t be spared in this case—I might get it out of that woman; but it’s too doubtful a chance to trust to, under present circumstances. They are up to keeping a close eye upon her, and any fool knows that a poor creetur like her, beaten and kicked and scarred and bruised from head to foot, will stand by the husband that ill uses her, through thick and thin. There’s something kept back. It’s a pity but what we had seen the other woman.”

I regretted it exceedingly; for she was very grateful, and I felt sure would have resisted no entreaty of mine.

“It’s possible, Miss Summerson,” said Mr Bucket, pondering on it, “that her ladyship sent her up to London with some word for you, and it’s possible that her husband got the watch to let her go. It don’t come out altogether so plain as to please me, but it’s on the cards. Now, I don’t take kindly to laying out the money of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, on these Roughs, and I don’t see my way to the usefulness of it at present. No! So far, our road, Miss Summerson, is for’ard—straight ahead—and keeping everything quiet!”

We called at home once more, that I might send a hasty note to my Guardian, and then we hurried back to where we had left the

carriage. The horses were brought out as soon as we were seen coming, and we were on the road again in a few minutes.

It had set in snowing at daybreak, and it now snowed hard. The air was so thick with the darkness of the day and the density of the fall, that we could see but a very little way in any direction. Although it was extremely cold, the snow was but partially frozen, and it churned—with a sound as if it were a beach of small shells— under the hoofs of the horses, into mire and water. They sometimes slipped and floundered for a mile together, and we were obliged to come to a standstill to rest them. One horse fell three times in this first stage, and trembled so, and was so shaken, that the driver had to dismount from his saddle and lead him at last.

I could eat nothing, and could not sleep; and I grew so nervous under those delays, and the slow pace at which we travelled, that I had an unreasonable desire upon me to get out and walk. Yielding to my companion’s better sense, however, I remained where I was. All this time, kept fresh by a certain enjoyment of the work in which he was engaged, he was up and down at every house we came to; addressing people whom he had never beheld before, as old acquaintances; running in to warm himself at every fire he saw; talking and drinking and shaking hands at every bar and tap; friendly with every waggoner, wheelwright, blacksmith, and toll- taker; yet never seeming to lose time, and always mounting to the box again with his watchful, steady face, and his business-like “Get on, my lad!”

When we were changing horses the next time, he came from the stable yard, and with the wet snow encrusted upon him, and dropping off him—plashing and crashing through it to his wet

knees, as he had been doing frequently since we left Saint Albans—and spoke to me at the carriage side.

“Keep up your spirits. It’s certainly true that she came on here, Miss Summerson. There’s not a doubt of the dress by this time, and the dress has been seen here.”

“Still on foot?” said I.

“Still on foot. I think the gentleman you mentioned must be the point she’s aiming at; and yet I don’t like his living down in her own part of the country, neither.”

“I know so little,” said I. “There may be some one else nearer here, of whom I never heard.”

“That’s true. But whatever you do, don’t you fall a crying, my dear; and don’t you worry yourself no more than you can help. Get on, my lad!”

The sleet fell all that day unceasingly, a thick mist came on early, and it never rose or lightened for a moment. Such roads I had never seen. I sometimes feared we had missed the way and got into the ploughed grounds, or the marshes. If I ever thought of the time I had been out, it presented itself as an indefinite period of great duration; and I seemed, in a strange way, never to have been free from the anxiety under which I then laboured.

As we advanced, I began to feel misgivings that my companion lost confidence. He was the same as before with all the roadside people, but he looked graver when he sat by himself on the box. I saw his finger uneasily going across and across his mouth, during the whole of one long weary stage. I overheard that he began to ask the drivers of coaches and other vehicles coming towards us, what passengers they had seen in other coaches and vehicles that were in advance. Their replies did not encourage him. He always

gave me a reassuring beck of his finger, and lift of his eyelid as he got upon the box again; but he seemed perplexed now, when he said, “Get on, my lad!”

At last, when we were changing, he told me that he had lost the track of the dress so long that he began to be surprised. It was nothing, he said, to lose such a track for one while, and to take it up for another while, and so on; but it had disappeared here in an unaccountable manner, and we had not come upon it since. This corroborated the apprehensions I had formed, when he began to look at direction-posts, and to leave the carriage at cross roads for a quarter of an hour at a time, while he explored them. But, I was not to be downhearted, he told me; for it was as likely as not that the next stage might set us right again.

The next stage, however, ended as that one ended; we had no new clue. There was a spacious inn here, solitary, but a comfortable substantial building, and as we drove in under a large gateway before I knew it, where a landlady and her pretty daughters came to the carriage door, entreating me to alight and refresh myself while the horses were making ready, I thought it would be uncharitable to refuse. They took me upstairs to a warm room, and left me there.

It was at the corner of the house, I remember, looking two ways. On one side, to a stable-yard open to a by-road, where the ostlers were unharnessing the splashed and tired horses from the muddy carriage; and beyond that to the by-road itself, across which the sign was heavily swinging; on the other side, to a wood of dark pine-trees. Their branches were incumbered with snow, and it silently dropped off in wet heaps while I stood at the window. Night was setting in, and its bleakness was enhanced by the

contrast of the pictured fire glowing and gleaming in the window- pane. As I looked among the stems of the trees, and followed the discoloured marks in the snow where the thaw was sinking into it and undermining it, I thought of the motherly face brightly set off by daughters that had just now welcomed me, and of my mother lying down in such a wood to die.

I was frightened when I found them all about me, but I remembered that before I fainted I tried very hard not to do it; and that was some little comfort. They cushioned me up, on a large sofa by the fire; and then the comely landlady told me that I must travel no further tonight, but must go to bed. But this put me into such a tremble lest they should detain me there, that she soon recalled her words, and compromised for a rest of half-an-hour.

A good endearing creature she was. She, and her three fair girls all so busy about me. I was to take hot soup and broiled fowl, while Mr Bucket dried himself and dined elsewhere; but I could not do it when a snug round table was presently spread by the fireside, though I was very unwilling to disappoint them. However, I could take some toast and some hot negus; and as I really enjoyed that refreshment, it made some recompense.

Punctual to the time, at the half-hour’s end the carriage came rumbling under the gateway, and they took me down, warmed, refreshed, comforted by kindness, and safe (I assured them) not to faint any more. After I had got in and had taken a grateful leave of them all, the youngest daughter—a blooming girl of nineteen, who was to be the first married, they had told me—got upon the carriage step, reached in, and kissed me. I have never seen her, from that hour, but I think of her to this hour as my friend.

The transparent windows with the fire and light, looking so

bright and warm from the cold darkness out of doors, were soon gone, and again we were crushing and churning the loose snow. We went on with toil enough; but the dismal roads were not much worse than they had been, and the stage was only nine miles. My companion smoking on the box—I had thought at the last inn of begging him to do so, when I saw him standing at a great fire in a comfortable cloud of tobacco—was as vigilant as ever; and as quickly down and up again, when we came to any human abode or any human creature. He had lighted his little dark lantern, which seemed to be a favourite with him, for we had lamps to the carriage; and every now and then he turned it upon me, to see that I was doing well. There was a folding-window to the carriage- head, but I never closed it, for it seemed like shutting out hope.

We came to the end of the stage, and still the lost trace was not recovered. I looked at him anxiously when we stopped to change; but I knew by his yet graver face, as he stood watching the ostlers, that he had heard nothing. Almost in an instant afterwards, as I leaned back in my seat, he looked in, with his lighted lantern in his hand, an excited and quite different man.

“What is it?” said I, starting. “Is she here?”

“No, no. Don’t deceive yourself, my dear. Nobody’s here. But I’ve got it!”

The crystallised snow was in his eyelashes, in his hair, lying in ridges on his dress. He had to shake it from his face, and get his breath, before he spoke to me.

“Now, Miss Summerson,” said he, beating his finger on the apron, “don’t you be disappointed at what I’m a-going to do. You know me. I’m Inspector Bucket, and you can trust me. We’ve come a long way; never mind. Four horses out there for the next stage

up! Quick!”

There was a commotion in the yard, and a man came running out of the stables to know “if he meant up or down?”

“Up, I tell you! Up! Ain’t it English? Up!”

“Up?” said I, astonished. “To London! Are we going back?” “Miss Summerson,” he answered, “back. Straight back as a die.

You know me. Don’t be afraid. I’ll follow the other, by G—.” “The other?” I repeated. “Who?”

“You called her Jenny, didn’t you? I’ll follow her. Bring those two pair out here, for a crown a man. Wake up, some of you!”

“You will not desert this lady we are in search of; you will not abandon her on such a night, and in such a state of mind as I know her to be in!” said I, in an agony, and grasping his hand.

“You are right, my dear, I won’t. But I’ll follow the other. Look alive here with them horses. Send a man fo’rard in the saddle to the next stage, and let him send another for’ard again, and order four on, up, right through. My darling, don’t you be afraid!”

These orders, and the way in which he ran about the yard, urging them, caused a general excitement that was scarcely less bewildering to me than the sudden change. But, in the height of the confusion, a mounted man galloped away to order the relays, and our horses were put to with great speed.

“My dear,” said Mr Bucket, jumping to his seat, and looking in again—“you’ll excuse me if I’m too familiar—don’t you fret and worry yourself no more than you can help. I say nothing else at present; but you know me, my dear; now, don’t you?”

I endeavoured to say that I knew he was far more capable than I of deciding what we ought to do; but was he sure that this was right? Could I not go forward by myself in search of—I grasped his

hand again in my distress, and whispered it to him—of my own mother.

“My dear,” he answered, “I know, I know, and would I put you wrong, do you think? Inspector Bucket. Now you know me, don’t you?”

What could I say but yes!

“Then you keep up as good a heart as you can, and you rely upon me for standing by you, no less than by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Now, are you right there?”

“All right, sir!”

“Off she goes, then. And get on, my lads!”

We were again upon the melancholy road by which we had come; tearing up the miry sleet and thawing snow, as if they were torn up by a water-wheel.

Chapter 58

A Wintry Day And Night

till impassive, as behoves its breeding, the Dedlock town house carries itself as usual towards the street of dismal grandeur. There are powdered heads from time to time in

the little windows of the hall, looking out at the untaxed powder falling all day from the sky; and, in the same conservatory, there is peach blossom turning itself exotically to the great hall fire from the nipping weather out of doors. It is given out that my Lady has gone down into Lincolnshire, but is expected to return presently.

Rumour, busy overmuch, however, will not go down into Lincolnshire. It persists in flitting and chattering about town. It knows that that poor unfortunate man, Sir Leicester, has been sadly used. It hears, my dear child, all sorts of shocking things. It makes the world, of five miles round, quite merry. Not to know that there is something wrong at the Dedlocks’ is to augur yourself unknown. One of the peachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats, is already apprised of all the principal circumstances that will come out before the Lords, on Sir Leicester’s application for a bill of divorce.

At Blaze and Sparkle’s the jewellers, and at Sheen and Gloss’s the mercers, it is and will be for several hours the topic of the age, the feature of the century. The patronesses of those establishments, albeit so loftily inscrutable, being as nicely weighed and measured there as any other article of the stock-in- trade, are perfectly understood in this new fashion by the rawest

hand behind the counter. “Our people, Mr Jones,” said Blaze and Sparkle to the hand in question on engaging him, “our people, sir, are sheep—mere sheep. Where two or three marked ones go, all the rest follow. Keep those two or three in your eye, Mr Jones, and you have the flock.” So, likewise, Sheen and Gloss to their Jones, in reference to knowing where to have the fashionable people, and how to bring what they (Sheen and Gloss) choose, into fashion. On similar unerring principles, Mr Sladdery the librarian, and indeed the great farmer of gorgeous sheep, admits this very day, “Why yes, sir, there certainly are reports concerning Lady Dedlock, very current indeed among my high connection, sir. You see, my high connection must talk about something, sir; and it’s only to get a subject into vogue with one or two ladies I could name, to make it go down with the whole. Just what I should have done with those ladies, sir, in the case of any novelty you had left to me to bring in, they have done of themselves in this case through knowing Lady Dedlock, and being perhaps a little innocently jealous of her too, sir. You’ll find, sir, that this topic will be very popular among my high connection. If it had been a speculation, sir, it would have brought money. And when I say so, you may trust to my being right, sir; for I have made it my business to study my high connection, and to be able to wind it up like a clock, sir.”

Thus rumour thrives in the capital, and will not go down into Lincolnshire. By half-past five, post meridian, Horse Guards’ time, it has even elicited a new remark from the Honourable Mr Stables, which bids fair to outshine the old one, on which he has so long rested his colloquial reputation. This sparkling sally is to the effect that, although he always knew she was the best-groomed woman in the stud, he had no idea she was a bolter. It is immensely

received in turf-circles.

At feasts and festivals also—in firmaments she has often graced, and among constellations she outshone but yesterday, she is still the prevalent subject. What is it? Who is it? When was it? Where was it? How was it? She is discussed by her dear friends with all the genteelest slang in vogue, with the last new word, the last new manner, the last new drawl, and the perfection of polite indifference. A remarkable feature of the theme is, that it is found to be so inspiring that several people come out upon it who never came out before—positively say things! William Buffy carries one of these smartnesses from the place where he dines, down to the House, where the Whip for his party hands it about with his snuff- box, to keep men together who want to be off, with such effect that the Speaker (who has had it privately insinuated into his own ear under the corner of his wig) cries “Order at the bar!” three times without making an impression.

And not the least amazing circumstance connected with her being vaguely the town talk, is, that people hovering on the confines of Mr Sladdery’s high connection, people who know nothing and ever did know nothing about her, think it essential to their reputation to pretend that she is their topic too; and to retail her at second-hand with the last new word and the last new manner, and the last new drawl, and the last new polite indifference, and all the rest of it, all at second-hand but considered equal to new, in inferior systems and to fainter stars. If there be any man of letters, art, or science among these little dealers, how noble in him to support the feeble sisters on such majestic crutches!

So goes the wintry day outside the Dedlock mansion. How

within it?

Sir Leicester lying in his bed can speak a little, though with difficulty and indistinctness. He is enjoined to silence and to rest, and they have given him some opiate to lull his pain; for his old enemy is very hard with him. He is never asleep, though sometimes he seems to fall into a dull waking doze. He caused his bedstead to be moved out nearer to the window, when he heard it was such inclement weather; and his head to be so adjusted, that he could see the driving snow and sleet. He watches it as it falls, throughout the whole wintry day.

Upon the least noise in the house, which is kept hushed, his hand is at the pencil. The old housekeeper, sitting by him, knows what he would write, and whispers, “No, he has not come back yet, Sir Leicester. It was late last night when he went. He has been but a little time gone yet.”

He withdraws his hand, and falls to looking at the sleet and snow again, until they seem, by being looked at, to fall so thick and fast, that he is obliged to close his eyes for a minute on the giddy whirl of white flakes and icy blots.

He began to look at them as soon as it was light. The day is not yet far spent, when he conceives it to be necessary that her rooms should be prepared for her. It is very cold and wet. Let there be good fires. Let them know that she is expected. Please see to it yourself. He writes to this purpose on his slate, and Mrs Rouncewell with a heavy heart obeys.

“For I dread, George,” the old lady says to her son, who waits below to keep her company when she has a little leisure; “I dread, my dear, that my Lady will never more set foot within these walls.”

“That’s a bad presentiment, mother.”

“Nor yet within the walls of Chesney Wold, my dear.” “That’s worse. But why, mother!”

“When I saw my Lady yesterday, George, she looked to me— and I may say at me too—as if the step on the Ghost’s Walk had almost walked her down.”

“Come, come! You alarm yourself with old-story fears, mother.” “No I don’t, my dear. No I don’t. It’s going on for sixty year that

I have been in this family, and I never had any fears for it before. But it’s breaking up, my dear; the great old Dedlock family is breaking up.”

“I hope not, mother.”

“I am thankful I have lived long enough to be with Sir Leicester in this illness and trouble; for I know I am not too old, nor too useless, to be a welcomer sight to him than anybody else in my place would be. But the step on the Ghost’s Walk will walk my Lady down, George; it has been many a day behind her, and now it will pass her, and go on.”

“Well, mother dear, I say again, I hope not.”

“Ah, so do I, George,” the old lady returns, shaking her head, and parting her folded hands. “But if my fears come true, and he has to know it, who will tell him!”

“Are these her rooms?”

“These are my Lady’s rooms, just as she left them.”

“Why now,” says the trooper, glancing round him, and speaking in a lower voice, “I begin to understand how you come to think as you do think, mother. Rooms get an awful look about them when they are fitted up, like these, for one person you are used to see in them, and that person is away under any shadow: let alone being

God knows where.”

He is not far out. As all partings foreshadow the great final one,—so, empty rooms, bereft of a familiar presence, mournfully whisper what your room and what mine must one day be. My Lady’s state has a hollow look, thus gloomy and abandoned; and in the inner apartment, where Mr Bucket last night made his secret perquisition, the traces of her dresses and her ornaments, even the mirrors accustomed to reflect them when they were a portion of herself, have a desolate and vacant air. Dark and cold as the wintry day is, it is darker and colder in these deserted chambers than in many a hut, that will barely exclude the weather; and though the servants heap fires in the grates, and set the couches and the chairs within the warm glass screens that let their ruddy light shoot through to the furthest corners, there is a heavy cloud upon the rooms which no light will dispel.

The old housekeeper and her son remain until the preparations are complete, and then she returns upstairs. Volumnia has taken Mrs Rouncewell’s place in the meantime: though pearl necklaces and rouge pots however calculated to embellish Bath, are but indifferent comforts to the invalid under present circumstances. Volumnia, not being supposed to know (and indeed not knowing) what is the matter, has found it a ticklish task to offer appropriate observations; and consequently has supplied their place with distracting smoothings of the bed linen, elaborate locomotion on tiptoe, vigilant peeping at her kinsman’s eyes, and one exasperating whisper to herself of “He is asleep.” In disproof of which superfluous remark, Sir Leicester has indignantly written on the slate, “I am not.”

Yielding, therefore, the chair at the bedside to the quaint old

housekeeper, Volumnia sits at a table a little removed, sympathetically sighing. Sir Leicester watches the sleet and snow, and listens for the returning steps that he expects. In the ears of his old servant, looking as if she had stepped out of an old picture- frame to attend a summoned Dedlock to another world, the silence is fraught with echoes of her own words, “Who will tell him!”

He has been under his valet’s hands this morning, to be made presentable; and is as well got up as the circumstances will allow. He is propped with pillows, his grey hair is brushed in its usual manner, his linen is arranged to a nicety, and he is wrapped in a responsible dressing gown. His eyeglass and his watch are ready to his hand. It is necessary—less to his own dignity now perhaps, than for her sake—that he should be seen as little disturbed, and as much himself, as may be. Women will talk, and Volumnia, though a Dedlock, is no exceptional case. He keeps her here, there is little doubt, to prevent her talking somewhere else. He is very ill: but he makes his present stand against distress of mind and body, most courageously.

The fair Volumnia being one of those sprightly girls who cannot long continue silent without imminent peril of seizure by the dragon Boredom, soon indicates the approach of that monster with a series of undisguisable yawns. Finding it impossible to suppress those yawns by any other process than conversation, she compliments Mrs Rouncewell on her son; declaring that he positively is one of the finest figures she ever saw, and as soldierly a looking person she should think, as what’s his name, her favourite Life Guardsman—the man she dotes on—the dearest of creatures—who was killed at Waterloo.

Sir Leicester hears this tribute with so much surprise, and

stares about him in such a confused way, that Mrs Rouncewell feels it necessary to explain.

“Miss Dedlock don’t speak of my eldest son, Sir Leicester, but my youngest. I have found him. He has come home.”

Sir Leicester breaks silence with a harsh cry. “George? Your son George come home, Mrs Rouncewell?”

The old housekeeper wipes her eyes. “Thank God. Yes, Sir Leicester.”

Does this discovery of some one lost, this return of some one so long gone, come upon him as a strong confirmation of his hopes? Does he think, “Shall I not, with the aid I have, recall her safely after this; there being fewer hours in her case than there are years in his?”

It is of no use entreating him; he is determined to speak now, and he does. In a thick crowd of sounds, but still intelligibly enough to be understood.

“Why did you not tell me, Mrs Rouncewell?”

“It happened only yesterday, Sir Leicester, and I doubted your being well enough to be talked to of such things.”

Besides, the giddy Volumnia now remembers with her little scream that nobody was to have known of his being Mrs Rouncewell’s son, and that she was not to have told. But Mrs Rouncewell protests, with warmth enough to swell the stomacher, that of course she would have told Sir Leicester as soon as he got better.

“Where is your son George, Mrs Rouncewell?” asks Sir Leicester.

Mrs Rouncewell, not a little alarmed by his disregard of the doctor’s injunctions, replies, in London.

“Where in London?”

Mrs Rouncewell is constrained to admit that he is in the house. “Bring him here to my room. Bring him directly.”

The old lady can do nothing but go in search of him. Sir Leicester, with such power of movement as he has, arranges himself a little, to receive him. When he has done so, he looks out again at the falling sleet and snow, and listens again for the returning steps. A quantity of straw has been tumbled down in the street to deaden the noises there, and she might be driven to the door perhaps without his hearing wheels. He is lying thus, apparently forgetful of his newer and minor surprise, when the housekeeper returns, accompanied by her trooper son. Mr George approaches softly to the bedside, makes his bow, squares his chest, and stands, with his face flushed, very heartily ashamed of himself. “Good Heaven, and it is really George Rouncewell!” exclaims

Sir Leicester. “Do you remember me, George?”

The trooper needs to look at him, and to separate this sound from that sound, before he knows what he has said; but doing this, and being a little helped by his mother, he replies:

“I must have a very bad memory, indeed, Sir Leicester, if I failed to remember you.”

“When I look at you, George Rouncewell,” Sir Leicester observes with difficulty, “I see something of a boy at Chesney Wold—I remember well—very well.”

He looks at the trooper until tears come into his eyes, and then he looks at the sleet and snow again.

“I ask your pardon, Sir Leicester,” says the trooper, “but would you accept of my arms to raise you up. You would lie easier, Sir Leicester, if you would allow me to move you.”

“If you please, George Rouncewell; if you will be so good.”

The trooper takes him in his arms like a child, lightly raises him, and turns him with his face more towards the window. “Thank you. You have your mother’s gentleness,” returns Sir Leicester, “and your own strength. Thank you.”

He signs to him with his hand not to go away. George quietly remains at the bedside, waiting to be spoken to.

“Why did you wish for secrecy?” It takes Sir Leicester some time to ask this.

“Truly I am not much to boast of, Sir Leicester, and I—I should still, Sir Leicester, if you was not so indisposed—which I hope you will not be long—I should still hope for the favour of being allowed to remain unknown in general. That involves explanations not very hard to be guessed at, not very well timed here, and not very creditable to myself. However opinions may differ on a variety of subjects, I should think it would be universally agreed, Sir Leicester, that I am not much to boast of.”

“You have been a soldier,” observes Sir Leicester, “and a faithful one.”

George makes his military bow. “As far as that goes, Sir Leicester, I have done my duty under discipline, and it was the least I could do.”

“You find me,” says Sir Leicester, whose eyes are much attracted towards him, “far from well, George Rouncewell.”

“I am very sorry both to hear it and to see it, Sir Leicester.”

“I am sure you are. No. In addition to my older malady, I have had a sudden and bad attack. Something that deadens—” making an endeavour to pass one hand down one side; “and confuses—” touching his lips.

George, with a look of assent and sympathy, makes another bow. The different times when they were both young men (the trooper much the younger of the two), and looked at one another down at Chesney Wold, arise before them both and soften both.

Sir Leicester, evidently with a great determination to say, in his own manner, something that is on his mind before relapsing into silence, tries to raise himself among his pillows a little more. George observant of the action, takes him in his arms again and places him as he desires to be. “Thank you, George. You are another self to me. You have often carried my spare gun at Chesney Wold, George. You are familiar to me in these strange circumstances, very familiar.” He has put Sir Leicester’s sounder arm over his shoulder in lifting him up, and Sir Leicester is slow in drawing it away again, as he says these words.

“I was about to add,” he presently goes on, “I was about to add, respecting this attack, that it was unfortunately simultaneous with a slight misunderstanding between my Lady and myself. I do not mean that there was any difference between us (for there has been none), but that there was a misunderstanding of certain circumstances important only to ourselves, which deprives me, for a little while, of my Lady’s society. She has found it necessary to make a journey,—I trust will shortly return. Volumnia, do I make myself intelligible? The words are not quite under my command, in the manner of pronouncing them.”

Volumnia understands him perfectly; and in truth he delivers himself with far greater plainness than could have been supposed possible a minute ago. The effort by which he does so, is written in the anxious and labouring expression of his face. Nothing but the strength of his purpose enables him to make it.

“Therefore, Volumnia, I desire to say in your presence—and in the presence of my old retainer and friend, Mrs Rouncewell, whose truth and fidelity no one can question—and in the presence of her son George, who comes back like a familiar recollection of my youth in the home of my ancestors at Chesney Wold—in case I should relapse, in case I should not recover, in case I should lose both my speech and the power of writing, though I hope for better things—” The old housekeeper weeping silently; Volumnia in the greatest agitation, with the freshest bloom on her cheeks; the trooper with his arms folded and his head a little bent, respectfully attentive.

“Therefore I desire to say, and to call you all to witness— beginning, Volumnia, with yourself, most solemnly—that I am on unaltered terms with Lady Dedlock. That I assert no cause whatever of complaint against her. That I have ever had the strongest affection for her, and that I retain it undiminished. Say this to herself, and to every one. If you ever say less than this, you will be guilty of deliberate falsehood to me.”

Volumnia tremblingly protests that she will observe his injunctions to the letter.

“My Lady is too high in position, too handsome, too accomplished, too superior in most respects to the best of those by whom she is surrounded, not to have her enemies and traducers, I dare say. Let it be known to them, as I make it known to you, that being of sound mind, memory, and understanding, I revoke no disposition I have made in her favour. I abridge nothing I have ever bestowed upon her. I am on unaltered terms with her, and I recall—having the full power to do it if I were so disposed, as you see—no act I have done for her advantage and happiness.”

His formal array of words might have at any other time, as it has often had, something ludicrous in it; but at this time, it is serious and affecting. His noble earnestness, his fidelity, his gallant shielding of her, his generous conquest of his own wrong and his own pride for her sake, are simply honourable, manly, and true. Nothing less worthy can be seen through the lustre of such qualities in the commonest mechanic, nothing less worthy can be seen in the best-born gentleman. In such a light both aspire alike, both rise alike, both children of the dust shine equally.

Overpowered by his exertions, he lays his head back on his pillows, and closes his eyes; for not more than a minute; when he again resumes his watching of the weather, and his attention to the muffled sounds. In the rendering of those little services, and in the manner of their acceptance, the trooper has become installed as necessary to him. Nothing has been said, but it is quite understood. He falls a step or two backward to be out of sight, and mounts guard a little behind his mother’s chair.

The day is now beginning to decline. The mist, and the sleet into which the snow has all resolved itself, are darker, and the blaze begins to tell more vividly upon the room walls and furniture. The gloom augments; the bright gas springs up in the streets; and the pertinacious oil lamps which yet hold their ground there, with their source of life half frozen and half thawed, twinkle gaspingly, like fiery fish out of water—as they are. The world, which has been rumbling over the straw and pulling at the bell “to inquire,” begins to go home, begins to dress, to dine, to discuss its dear friend, with all the last new modes, as already mentioned.

Now, does Sir Leicester become worse; restless, uneasy, and in great pain. Volumnia lighting a candle (with a predestined

aptitude for doing something objectionable) is bidden to put it out again, for it is not yet dark enough. Yet it is very dark too; as dark as it will be all night. By-and-by she tries again. No! Put it out. It is not dark enough yet.

His old housekeeper is the first to understand that he is striving to uphold the fiction with himself that it is not growing late.

“Dear Sir Leicester, my honoured master,” she softly whispers, “I must, for your own good, and my duty, take the freedom of begging and praying that you will not lie here in the lone darkness, watching and waiting, and dragging through the time. Let me draw the curtains and light the candles, and make things more comfortable about you. The church-clocks will strike the hours just the same, Sir Leicester, and the night will pass away just the same. My Lady will come back just the same.”

“I know it, Mrs Rouncewell, but I am weak—and he has been so long gone.”

“Not so very long, Sir Leicester. Not twenty-four hours yet.” “But that is a long time. O it is a long time!”

He says it with a groan that wrings her heart.

She knows that this is not a period for bringing the rough light upon him; she thinks his tears too sacred to be seen, even by her. Therefore, she sits in the darkness for a while, without a word; then gently begins to move about; now stirring the fire, now standing at the dark window looking out. Finally he tells her, with recovered self-command, “As you say, Mrs Rouncewell, it is no worse for being confessed. It is getting late, and they are not come. Light the room!” When it is lighted, and the weather shut out, it is only left to him to listen.

But they find that, however dejected and ill he is, he brightens

when a quiet pretence is made of looking at the fires in her rooms, and being sure that everything is ready to receive her. Poor pretence as it is, these allusions to her being expected keep up hope within him.

Midnight comes, and with it the same blank. The carriages in the streets are few, and other late sounds in that neighbourhood there are none, unless a man so very nomadically drunk as to stray into the frigid zone goes brawling and bellowing along the pavement. Upon this wintry night it is so still, that listening to the intense silence is like looking at intense darkness. If any distant sound be audible in this case, it departs through the gloom like a feeble light in that, and all is heavier than before.

The corporation of servants are dismissed to bed (not unwilling to go, for they were up all last night), and only Mrs Rouncewell and George keep watch in Sir Leicester’s room. As the night lags tardily on—or rather when it seems to stop altogether, at between two and three o’clock—they find a restless craving on him to know more about the weather, now he cannot see it. Hence George, patrolling regularly every half hour to the rooms so carefully looked after, extends his march to the hall-door, looks about him, and brings back the best report he can make of the worst of nights; the sleet still falling, and even the stone footways lying ankle-deep in icy sludge.

Volumnia in her room up a retired landing on the staircase— the second turning past the end of the carving and gilding—a cousinly room containing a fearful abortion of a portrait of Sir Leicester, banished for its crimes, and commanding in the day a solemn yard, planted with dried-up shrubs like antediluvian specimens of black tea—is a prey to horrors of many kinds. Not

last nor least among them, possibly, is a horror of what may befall her little income, in the event, as she expresses it, “of anything happening” to Sir Leicester. Anything, in this sense, meaning one thing only, and that the last thing that can happen to the consciousness of any baronet in the known world.

An effect of these horrors is, that Volumnia finds she cannot go to bed in her own room, or sit by the fire in her own room, but must come forth with her fair head tied up in a profusion of shawl, and her fair form enrobed in drapery, and parade the mansion like a ghost: particularly haunting the rooms, warm and luxurious, prepared for one who still does not return. Solitude under such circumstances being not to be thought of, Volumnia is attended by her maid, who, impressed from her own bed for that purpose, extremely cold, very sleepy, and generally an injured maid as condemned by circumstances to take office with a cousin, when she had resolved to be maid to nothing less than ten thousand a year, has not a sweet expression of countenance.

The periodical visits of the trooper to these rooms, however, in the course of his patrolling, is an assurance of protection and company, both to mistress and maid, which renders them very acceptable in the small hours of the night. Whenever he is heard advancing, they both make some little decorative preparation to receive him; at other times, they divide their watches into short scraps of oblivion, and dialogues, not wholly free from acerbity, as to whether Miss Dedlock, sitting with her feet upon the fender, was or was not falling into the fire when rescued (to her great displeasure) by her guardian genius the maid.

“How is Sir Leicester, now, Mr George?” inquires Volumnia, adjusting her cowl over her head.

“Why, Sir Leicester is much the same, miss. He is very low and ill, and he even wanders a little sometimes.”

“Has he asked for me?” inquires Volumnia tenderly.

“Why no, I can’t say he has, miss. Not within my hearing, that is to say.”

“This is a truly sad time, Mr George.”

“It is indeed, miss. Hadn’t you better go to bed?”

“You had a deal better go to bed, Miss Dedlock,” quoth the maid, sharply.

But Volumnia answers No! No! She may be asked for, she may be wanted at a moment’s notice. She never should forgive herself “if anything was to happen” and she was not on the spot. She declines to enter on the question, mooted by the maid, how the spot comes to be there, and not in her own room (which is nearer to Sir Leicester’s); but staunchly declares that on the spot she will remain. Volumnia further makes a merit of not having “closed an eye”—as if she had twenty or thirty—though it is hard to reconcile this statement with her having most indisputably opened two within five minutes.

But when it comes to four o’clock, and still the same blank, Volumnia’s constancy begins to fail her, or rather it begins to strengthen; for she now considers that it is her duty to be ready for the morrow, when much may be expected of her; that, in fact, howsoever anxious to remain upon the spot, it may be required of her, as an act of self-devotion, to desert the spot. So, when the trooper reappears with his “Hadn’t you better go to bed, miss?” and when the maid protests, more sharply than before, “You had a deal better go to bed, Miss Dedlock!” she meekly rises and says, “Do with me what you think best!”

Mr George undoubtedly thinks it best to escort her on his arm to the door of her cousinly chamber, and the maid as undoubtedly thinks it best to hustle her into bed with mighty little ceremony. Accordingly, these steps are taken; and now the trooper, in his rounds, has the house to himself.

There is no improvement in the weather. From the portico, from the eaves, from the parapet, from every ledge, and post and pillar, drips the thawed snow. It has crept, as if for shelter, into the lintels of the great door—under it into the corners of the windows, into every chink and crevice of retreat, and there wastes and dies. It is falling still; upon the roof, upon the skylight; even through the skylight, and drip, drip, drip, with the regularity of the Ghost’s Walk, on the stone floor below.

The trooper, his old recollections awakened by the solitary grandeur of a great house—no novelty to him once at Chesney Wold—goes up the stairs and through the chief rooms, holding up his light at arm’s length. Thinking of his varied fortunes within the last few weeks, and of his rustic boyhood, and of the two periods of his life so strangely brought together across the wide intermediate space; thinking of the murdered man whose image is fresh in his mind; thinking of the lady who has disappeared from these very rooms, and the tokens of whose recent presence are all here; thinking of the master of the house upstairs, and of the foreboding “Who will tell him!” he looks here and looks there, and reflects how he might see something now, which it would tax his boldness to walk up to, lay his hand upon, and prove to be a fancy. But it is all blank; blank as the darkness above and below, while he goes up the great staircase again; blank as the oppressive silence.

“All is still in readiness, George Rouncewell?”

“Quite orderly and right, Sir Leicester.” “No word of any kind?”

The trooper shakes his head.

“No letter that can possibly have been overlooked?”

But he knows there is no such hope as that, and lays his head down without looking for an answer.

Very familiar to him, as he said himself some hours ago, George Rouncewell lifts him into easier positions through the long remainder of the blank wintry night; and, equally familiar with his unexpressed wish, extinguishes the light, and undraws the curtains at the first late break of day. The day comes like a phantom. Cold, colourless, and vague, it sends a warning streak before it of a deathlike hue, as if it cried out, “Look what I am bringing you, who watch there! Who will tell him!”

Chapter 59

Esther’s Narrative

t was three o’clock in the morning when the houses outside London did at last begin to exclude the country, and to close us in with streets. We had made our way along roads in a far

worse condition than when we had traversed them by daylight, both the fall and the thaw having lasted ever since; but the energy of my companion had never slackened. It had only been, as I thought, of less assistance than the horses in getting us on, and it had often aided them. They had stopped exhausted halfway up hills, they had been driven through streams of turbulent water, they had slipped down and become entangled with the harness; but he and his little lantern had been always ready, and when the mishap was set right, I had never heard any variation in his cool “Get on, my lads!”

The steadiness and confidence with which he had directed our journey back, I could not account for. Never wavering, he never even stopped to make an inquiry until we were within a few miles of London. A very few words, here and there, were then enough for him; and thus we came, at between three and four o’clock in the morning, into Islington.

I will not dwell on the suspense and anxiety with which I reflected all this time, that we were leaving my mother farther and farther behind every minute. I think I had some strong hope that he must be right, and could not fail to have a satisfactory object in following this woman; but I tormented myself with questioning it,

and discussing it, during the whole journey. What was to ensue when we found her, and what could compensate us for this loss of time, were questions also that I could not possibly dismiss; my mind was quite tortured by long dwelling on such reflections, when we stopped.

We stopped in a high-street, where there was a coach-stand. My companion paid our two drivers, who were as completely covered with splashes as if they had been dragged along the roads like the carriage itself; and giving them some brief direction where to take it, lifted me out of it, and into a hackney-coach he had chosen from the rest.

“Why, my dear,” he said, as he did this. “How wet you are!”

I had not been conscious of it. But the melted snow had found its way into the carriage; and I had got out two or three times when a fallen horse was plunging and had to be got up; and the wet had penetrated my dress. I assured him it was no matter; but the driver, who knew him, would not be dissuaded by me from running down the street to his stable, whence he brought an armful of clean dry straw. They shook it out and strewed it well about me, and I found it warm and comfortable.

“Now, my dear,” said Mr Bucket, with his head in at the window after I was shut up. “We’re going to mark this person down. It may take a little time, but you don’t mind that. You’re pretty sure that I’ve got a motive. Ain’t you?”

I little thought what it was—little thought in how short a time I should understand it better; but I assured him that I had confidence in him.

“So you may have, my dear,” he returned. “And I tell you what! If you only repose half as much confidence in me as I repose in

you, after what I’ve experienced of you, that’ll do. Lord! you’re no trouble at all. I never see a young woman in any station of society—and I’ve seen many elevated ones too—conduct herself like you have conducted yourself, since you was called out of your bed. You’re a pattern, you know, that’s what you are,” said Mr Bucket warmly; “you’re a pattern.”

I told him I was very glad, as indeed I was, to have been no hindrance to him; and that I hoped I should be none now.

“My dear,” he returned, “when a young lady is as mild as she’s game, and as game as she’s mild, that’s all I ask, and more than I expect. She then becomes a Queen, and that’s about what you are yourself.”

With these encouraging words—they really were encouraging to me under those lonely and anxious circumstances—he got upon the box, and we once more drove away. Where we drove, I neither knew then, nor have ever known since; but we appeared to seek out the narrowest and worst streets in London. Whenever I saw him directing the driver, I was prepared for our descending into a deeper complication of such streets, and we never failed to do so.

Sometimes we emerged upon a wider thoroughfare, or came to a larger building than the generality, well lighted. Then we stopped at offices like those we had visited when we began our journey, and I saw him in consultation with others. Sometimes he would get down by an archway, or at a street corner, and mysteriously show the light of his little lantern. This would attract similar lights from various dark quarters, like so many insects, and a fresh consultation would be held. By degrees we appeared to contract our search within narrower and easier limits. Single police officers on duty could now tell Mr Bucket what he wanted

to know, and point to him where to go. At last we stopped for a rather long conversation between him and one of these men, which I supposed to be satisfactory from his manner of nodding from time to time. When it was finished he came to me, looking very busy and very attentive.

“Now, Miss Summerson,” he said to me, “you won’t be alarmed whatever comes off, I know. It’s not necessary for me to give you any further caution, than to tell you that we have marked this person down, and that you may be of use to me before I know it myself. I don’t like to ask such a thing, my dear, but would you walk a little way?”

Of course I got out directly, and took his arm.

“It ain’t so easy to keep your feet,” said Mr Bucket; “but take time.”

Although I looked about me confusedly and hurriedly, as we crossed a street, I thought I knew the place.

“Are we in Holborn?” I asked him.

“Yes,” said Mr Bucket. “Do you know this turning?” “It looks like Chancery Lane.”

“And was christened so, my dear,” said Mr Bucket.

We turned down it; and as we went, shuffling through the sleet, I heard the clock strike half-past five. We passed on in silence, and as quickly as we could with such a foothold; when some one coming towards us on the narrow pavement, wrapped in a cloak, stopped and stood aside to give me room. In the same moment I heard an exclamation of wonder, and my own name, from Mr Woodcourt. I knew his voice very well.

It was so unexpected, and so—I don’t know what to call it, whether pleasant or painful—to come upon it after my feverish

wandering journey, and in the midst of the night, that I could not keep back the tears from my eyes. It was like hearing his voice in a strange country.

“My dear Miss Summerson, that you should be out at this hour, and in such weather!” He had heard from my Guardian of my having been called away on some uncommon business, and said so to dispense with any explanation. I told him that we had but just left a coach, and were going—but then I was obliged to look at my companion.

“Why, you see, Mr Woodcourt;” he had caught the name from me; “we are a-going at present into the next street.—Inspector Bucket.”

Mr Woodcourt, disregarding my remonstrances, had hurriedly taken off his cloak, and was putting it about me. “That’s a good move, too,” said Mr Bucket, assisting, “a very good move.”

“May I go with you?” said Mr Woodcourt. I don’t know whether to me or my companion.

“Why, lord!” exclaimed Mr Bucket, taking the answer on himself. “Of course you may.”

It was all said in a moment, and they took me between them, wrapped in a cloak.

“I have just left Richard,” said Mr Woodcourt. “I have been sitting with him since ten o’clock last night.”

“O dear me, he is ill!”

“No, no, believe me; not ill, but not quite well. He was depressed and faint—you know he gets so worried and so worn sometimes—and Ada sent to me of course; and when I came home I found her note, and came straight here. Well! Richard revived so much after a little while, and Ada was so happy, and so convinced

of its being my doing, though God knows I had little enough to do with it, that I remained with him until he had been fast asleep some hours. As fast asleep as she is now, I hope!”

His friendly and familiar way of speaking of them, his unaffected devotion to them, the grateful confidence with which I knew he inspired my darling, and the comfort he was to her; could I separate all this from his promise to me? How thankless I must have been if it had not recalled the words he said to me, when he was so moved by the change in my appearance; “I will accept him as a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!”

We now turned into another narrow street. “Mr Woodcourt,” said Mr Bucket, who had eyed him closely as we came along, “our business takes us to a law-stationer’s here; a certain Mr Snagsby’s. What, you know him, do you?” He was so quick that he saw it in an instant.

“Yes, I know a little of him, and have called upon him at this place.”

“Indeed, sir?” said Mr Bucket. “Then will you be so good as to let me leave Miss Summerson with you for a moment, while I go and have half a word with him?”

The last police officer with whom he had conferred was standing silently behind us. I was not aware of it until he struck in, on my saying I heard some one crying.

“Don’t be alarmed, miss,” he returned. “It’s Snagsby’s servant.” “Why, you see,” said Mr Bucket, “the girl’s subject to fits, and has ’em bad upon her tonight. A most contrary circumstance it is, for I want certain information out of that girl, and she must be

brought to reason somehow.”

“At all events, they wouldn’t be up yet, if it wasn’t for her, Mr

Bucket,” said the other man. “She’s been at it pretty well all night, sir.”

“Well, that’s true,” he returned. “My light’s burnt out. Show yours a moment.”

All this passed in a whisper, a door or two from the house in which I could faintly hear crying and moaning. In the little round of light produced for the purpose, Mr Bucket went up to the door and knocked. The door was opened, after he had knocked twice; and he went in, leaving us standing in the street.

“Miss Summerson,” said Mr Woodcourt; “if, without obtruding myself on your confidence, I may remain near you, pray let me do so.”

“You are truly kind,” I answered. “I need wish to keep no secret of my own from you; if I keep any it is another’s.”

“I quite understand. Trust me, I will remain near you only so long as I can fully respect it.”

“I trust implicitly to you,” I said. “I know and deeply feel how sacredly you keep your promise.”

After a short time the little round of light shone out again, and Mr Bucket advanced towards us in it with his earnest face. “Please to come in, Miss Summerson,” he said, “and sit down by the fire. Mr Woodcourt, from information I have received I understand you are a medical man. Would you look to this girl and see if anything can be done to bring her round. She has a letter somewhere that I particularly want. It’s not in her box, and I think it must be about her; but she is so twisted and clenched up, that she is difficult to handle without hurting.”

We all three went into the house together; although it was cold and raw, it smelt close too from being up all night. In the passage,

behind the door, stood a scared, sorrowful-looking little man in a grey coat, who seemed to have a naturally polite manner, and spoke meekly.

“Downstairs if you please, Mr Bucket,” said he. “The lady will excuse the front kitchen; we use it as our workaday sitting-room. The back is Guster’s bedroom, and in it she’s a-carrying on, poor thing, to a frightful extent!”

We went downstairs, followed by Mr Snagsby, as I soon found the little man to be. In the front kitchen, sitting by the fire, was Mrs Snagsby, with very red eyes and a very severe expression of face.

“My little woman,” said Mr Snagsby, entering behind us, “to wave—not to put too fine a point upon it, my dear—hostilities, for one single moment, in the course of this prolonged night, here is Inspector Bucket, Mr Woodcourt and a lady.”

She looked very much astonished, as she had reason for doing, and looked particularly hard at me.

“My little woman,” said Mr Snagsby, sitting down in the remotest corner by the door, as if he were taking a liberty, “it is not unlikely that you may inquire of me why Inspector Bucket, Mr Woodcourt, and a lady, call upon us in Cook’s Court, Cursitor Street, at the present hour. I don’t know. I have not the least idea. If I was to be informed, I should despair of understanding, and I’d rather not be told.”

He appeared so miserable, sitting with his head upon his hand, and I appeared so unwelcome, that I was going to offer an apology, when Mr Bucket took the matter on himself.

“Now, Mr Snagsby,” said he, “the best thing you can do, is to go along with Mr Woodcourt to look after your Guster—”

“My Guster, Mr Bucket!” cried Mr Snagsby. “Go on, sir, go on.

I shall be charged with that next.”

“And to hold the candle,” pursued Mr Bucket without correcting himself, “or hold her, or make yourself useful in any way you’re asked. Which there’s not a man alive more ready to do; for you’re a man of urbanity and suavity, you know, and you’ve got the sort of heart that can feel for another. (Mr Woodcourt, would you be so good as to see to her, and if you can get that letter from her, to let me have it as soon as ever you can?)” As they went out, Mr Bucket made me sit down in a corner by the fire, and take off my wet shoes, which he turned up to dry upon the fender; talking all the time.

“Don’t you be at all put out, miss, by the want of a hospitable look from Mrs Snagsby there, because she’s under a mistake altogether. She’ll find that out, sooner than will be agreeable to a lady of her generally correct manner of forming her thoughts, because I’m a going to explain it to her.” Here, standing on the hearth with his wet hat and shawls in his hand, himself a pile of wet, he turned to Mrs Snagsby. “Now the first thing that I say to you, as a married woman, possessing what you may call charms, you know—‘Believe me, if all those endearing, and cetrer’—you’re well acquainted with the song, because it’s in vain for you to tell me that you and good society are strangers—charms—attractions, mind you, that ought to give you confidence in yourself—is, that you’ve done it.”

Mrs Snagsby looked rather alarmed, relented a little, and faltered, what did Mr Bucket mean?

“What does Mr Bucket mean?” he repeated; and I saw, by his face, that all the time he talked he was listening for the discovery

of the letter—to my own great agitation; for I knew then how important it must be; “I’ll tell you what he means, ma’am. Go and see Othello acted. That’s the tragedy for you.”

Mrs Snagsby consciously asked why.

“Why?” said Mr Bucket. “Because you’ll come to that, if you don’t look out. Why, at the very moment while I speak, I know what your mind’s not wholly free from, respecting this young lady. But shall I tell you who this young lady is? Now, come, you’re what I call an intellectual woman—with your soul too large for your body, if you come to that, and chafing it—and you know me, and you recollect where you saw me last, and what was talked of in that circle. Don’t you? Yes! Very well. This young lady is that young lady.”

Mrs Snagsby appeared to understand the reference better than I did at the time.

“And Toughey—him as you call Jo—was mixed up in the same business, and no other; and the law-writer that you know of, was mixed up in the same business, and no other; and your husband, with no more knowledge of it than your great-grandfather, was mixed up (by Mr Tulkinghorn, deceased, his best customer) in the same business, and no other; and the whole bileing of people was mixed up in the same business, and no other. And yet a married woman, possessing your attractions, shuts her eyes (and sparklers too), and goes and runs her delicate-formed head against a wall. Why, I am ashamed of you! (I expected Mr Woodcourt might have got it, by this time.)”

Mrs Snagsby shook her head, and put her handkerchief to her eyes.

“Is that all?” said Mr Bucket, excitedly. “No. See what happens.

Another person mixed up in that business and no other, a person in a wretched state, comes here tonight, and is seen a-speaking to your maid-servant; and between her and your maid-servant there passes a paper that I would give a hundred pound for, down. What do you do? You hide and you watch ’em, and you pounce upon that maid-servant—knowing what she’s subject to, and what a little thing will bring ’em on—in that surprising manner, and with that severity, that, by the Lord, she goes off and keeps off, when a Life may be hanging upon that girl’s words!”

He so thoroughly meant what he said now, that I involuntarily clasped my hands, and felt the room turning away from me. But it stopped. Mr Woodcourt came in, put a paper into his hand, and went away again.

“Now, Mrs Snagsby, the only amends you can make,” said Mr Bucket, rapidly glancing at it, “is to let me speak a word to this young lady in private here. And if you know of any help that you can give to that gentleman in the next kitchen there, or can think of any one thing that’s likelier than another to bring the girl round, do your swiftest and best!” In an instant she was gone, and he had shut the door. “Now, my dear, you’re steady, and quite sure of yourself?”

“Quite,” said I.

“Whose writing is that?”

It was my mother’s. A pencil-writing, on a crushed and torn piece of paper, blotted with wet. Folded roughly like a letter, and directed to me at my Guardian’s.

“You know the hand,” he said; “and if you are firm enough to read it to me, do! But be particular to a word.”

It had been written in portions, at different times. I read what

follows:—

“I came to the cottage with two objects. First, to see the dear one, if I could, once more—but only to see her—not to speak to her, or let her know that I was near. The other object, to elude pursuit, and to be lost. Do not blame the mother for her share. The assistance that she rendered me, she rendered on my strongest assurance that it was for the dear one’s good. You remember her dead child. The men’s consent I bought, but her help was freely given.”

“‘I came.’ That was written,” said my companion, “when she rested there. It bears out what I made of it. I was right.”

The next was written at another time.

“I have wandered a long distance, and for many hours, and I know that I must soon die. These streets! I have no purpose but to die. When I left, I had a worse; but I am saved from adding that guilt to the rest. Cold, wet, and fatigue, are sufficient causes for my being found dead: but I shall die of others, though I suffer from these. It was right that all that had sustained me should give way at once, and that I should die of terror and my conscience.”

“Take courage,” said Mr Bucket. “There’s only a few words more.”

Those, too, were written at another time. To all appearance, almost in the dark.

“I have done all I could to be lost. I shall be soon forgotten so,

and shall disgrace him least. I have nothing about me by which I can be recognised. This paper I part with now. The place where I shall lie down, if I can yet get so far, has been often in my mind. Farewell. Forgive.”

Mr Bucket, supporting me with his arm, lowered me gently into my chair. “Cheer up! Don’t think me hard with you, my dear, but, as soon as ever you feel equal to it, get your shoes on and be ready.”

I did as he required; but I was left there a long time, praying for my unhappy mother. They were all occupied with the poor girl, and I heard Mr Woodcourt directing them, and speaking to her often. At length he came in with Mr Bucket; and said that as it was important to address her gently, he thought it best that I should ask her for whatever information we desired to obtain. There was no doubt that she could now reply to questions, if she were soothed, and not alarmed. The questions, Mr Bucket said, were how she came by the letter, what passed between her and the person who gave her the letter, and where the person went. Holding my mind as steadily as I could to these points, I went into the next room with them. Mr Woodcourt would have remained outside, but at my solicitation went in with us.

The poor girl was sitting on the floor where they had laid her down. They stood around her though at a little distance, that she might have air. She was not pretty, and looked weak and poor; but she had a plaintive and a good face, though it was still a little wild. I kneeled on the ground beside her, and put her poor head on my shoulder; whereupon she drew her arm round my neck, and burst into tears.

“My poor girl,” said I, laying my face against her forehead; for indeed I was crying too, and trembling; “it seems cruel to trouble you now, but more depends on our knowing something about this letter, than I could tell you in an hour.”

She began piteously declaring that she didn’t mean any harm, she didn’t mean any harm, Mrs Snagsby.

“We are all sure of that,” said I. “But pray tell me how you got it.”

“Yes, dear lady, I will, and tell you true. I’ll tell true, indeed, Mrs Snagsby.”

“I am sure of that,” said I. “And how was it?”

“I had been out on an errand, dear lady—long after it was dark—quite late; and when I came home, I found a common- looking person, all wet and muddy, looking up at our house. When she saw me coming in at the door, she called me back, and said did I live here? and I said yes, and she said she knew only one or two places about here, but had lost her way, and couldn’t find them. O what shall I do, what shall I do! They won’t believe me! She didn’t say any harm to me, and I didn’t say any harm to her, indeed, Mrs Snagsby!”

It was necessary for her mistress to comfort her; which she did, I must say, with a good deal of contribution; before she could be got beyond this.

“She could not find those places,” said I.

“No!” cried the girl, shaking her head. “No! Couldn’t find them. And she was so faint, and lame, and miserable, O so wretched! that if you had seen her, Mr Snagsby, you’d have given her half-a- crown, I know!”

“Well, Guster, my girl,” said he, at first not knowing what to

say. “I hope I should.”

“And yet she was so well spoken,” said the girl, looking at me with wide-open eyes, “that it made a person’s heart bleed. And so she said to me, did I know the way to the burying-ground? And I asked her which burying-ground? And she said the poor burying- ground. And I told her I had been a poor child myself, and it was according to parishes. But she said she meant a poor burying- ground not very far from here, where there was an archway, and a step, and an iron gate.”

As I watched her face, and soothed her to go on, I saw that Mr Bucket received this with a look which I could not separate from one of alarm.

“O dear, dear!” cried the girl, pressing her hair back with her hands, “what shall I do, what shall I do! She meant the burying- ground where the man was buried that took the sleeping stuff— that you came home and told us of, Mr Snagsby—that frightened me so, Mrs Snagsby. O I am frightened again. Hold me!”

“You are so much better now,” said I. “Pray, pray tell me more.”

“Yes I will, yes I will! But don’t be angry with me, that’s a dear lady, because I have been so ill.”

Angry with her, poor soul!

“There, now I will, now I will. So she said, could I tell her how to find it, and I said yes, and I told her; and she looked at me with eyes like almost as if she was blind, and herself all waving back. And so she took out the letter, and showed it me, and said if she was to put that in the post-office, it would be rubbed out and not minded and never sent; and would I take it from her, and send it, and the messenger would be paid at the house? And so I said yes,

if it was no harm, and she said no—no harm. And so I took it from her, and she said she had nothing to give me, and I said I was poor myself and consequently wanted nothing. And so she said God bless you! and went.”

“And did she go—?”

“Yes,” cried the girl, anticipating the inquiry, “yes! she went the way I had shown her. Then I came in, and Mrs Snagsby came behind me from somewhere, and laid hold of me, and I was frightened.”

Mr Woodcourt took her kindly from me. Mr Bucket wrapped me up, and immediately we were in the street. Mr Woodcourt hesitated, but I said, “Don’t leave me now!” and Mr Bucket added, “You’ll be better with us, we may want you; don’t lose time!”

I have the most confused impressions of that walk. I recollect that it was neither night nor day; that morning was dawning, but the street lamps were not yet put out; that the sleet was still falling, and that all the ways were deep with it. I recollect a few chilled people passing in the streets. I recollect the wet housetops, the clogged and bursting gutters and water-spouts, the mounds of blackened ice and snow over which we passed, the narrowness of the courts by which we went. At the same time I remember that the poor girl seemed to be yet telling her story audibly and plainly in my hearing; that I could feel her resting on my arm; that the stained house fronts put on human shapes and looked at me; that great water gates seemed to be opening and closing in my head, or in the air; and that the unreal things were more substantial than the real.

At last we stood under a dark and miserable covered way, where one lamp was burning over an iron gate, and where the

morning faintly struggled in. The gate was closed. Beyond it, was a burial-ground—a dreadful spot in which the night was very slowly stirring; but where I could dimly see heaps of dishonoured graves and stones, hemmed in by filthy houses, with a few dull lights in their windows, and on whose walls a thick humidity broke out like a disease. On the step at the gate, drenched in the fearful wet of such a place, which oozed and splashed down everywhere, I saw, with a cry of pity and horror, a woman lying—Jenny, the mother of the dead child.

I ran forward, but they stopped me, and Mr Woodcourt entreated me with the greatest earnestness, even with tears, before I went up to the figure, to listen for an instant to what Mr Bucket said. I did so, as I thought. I did so, as I am sure.

“Miss Summerson, you’ll understand me, if you think a moment. They changed clothes at the cottage.”

They changed clothes at the cottage. I could repeat the words in my mind, and I knew what they meant of themselves; but I attached no meaning to them in any other connection.

“And one returned,” said Mr Bucket, “and one went on. And the one that went on, only went on a certain way agreed upon to deceive, and then turned across country, and went home. Think a moment!”

I could repeat this in my mind too, but I had not the least idea what it meant. I saw before me, lying on the step, the mother of the dead child. She lay there, with one arm creeping round a bar of the iron gate, and seeming to embrace it. She lay there, who had so lately spoken to my mother. She lay there, a distressed, unsheltered, senseless creature. She who had brought my mother’s letter, who could give me the only clue to where my

mother was; she who was to guide us to rescue and save her whom we had sought so far, who had come to this condition by some means connected with my mother that I could not follow, and might be passing beyond our reach and help at that moment; she lay there, and they stopped me! I saw, but did not comprehend, the solemn and compassionate look in Mr Woodcourt’s face. I saw, but did not comprehend, his touching the other on the breast to keep him back. I saw him stand uncovered in the bitter air, with a reverence for something. But my understanding for all this was gone.

I even heard it said between them:

“Shall she go?”

“She had better go. Her hands should be the first to touch her.

They have a higher right than ours.”

I passed on to the gate, and stooped down. I lifted the heavy head, put the long dank hair aside, and turned the face. And it was my mother, cold and dead.

Chapter 60

Perspective

proceed to other passages of my narrative. From the goodness of all about me, I derived such consolation as I can never think of unmoved. I have already said so much of myself, and so much still remains, that I will not dwell upon my sorrow. I had an illness, but it was not a long one; and I would avoid even this mention of it, if I could quite keep down the

recollection of their sympathy.

I proceed to other passages of my narrative.

During the time of my illness, we were still in London, where Mrs Woodcourt had come, on my Guardian’s invitation, to stay with us. When my Guardian thought me well and cheerful enough to talk with him in our old way—though I could have done that sooner, if he would have believed me—I resumed my work, and my chair beside his. He had appointed the time himself, and we were alone.

“Dame Trot,” said he, receiving me with a kiss, “welcome to the Growlery again, my dear. I have a scheme to develop, little woman. I purpose to remain here, perhaps for six months, perhaps for a longer time—as it may be. Quite to settle here for a while, in short.”

“And in the meanwhile leave Bleak House?” said I.

“Aye, my dear? Bleak House,” he returned, “must learn to take care of itself.”

I thought his tone sounded sorrowful; but, looking at him, I saw

his kind face lighted up by its pleasantest smile.

“Bleak House,” he repeated; and his tone did not sound sorrowful, I found, “must learn to take care of itself. It is a long way from Ada, my dear, and Ada stands much in need of you.”

“It is like you, Guardian,” said I, “to have been taking that into consideration, for a happy surprise to both of us.”

“Not so disinterested either, my dear, if you mean to extol me for that virtue; since, if you were generally on the road, you could be seldom with me. And besides, I wish to hear as much and as often of Ada as I can, in this condition of estrangement from poor Rick. Not of her alone, but of him too, poor fellow.”

“Have you seen Mr Woodcourt, this morning, Guardian?” “I see Mr Woodcourt every morning, Dame Durden.” “Does he still say the same of Richard?”

“Just the same. He knows of no direct bodily illness that he has; on the contrary, he believes that he has none. Yet he is not easy about him; who can be?”

My dear girl had been to see us lately, every day; sometimes twice in a day. But we had foreseen, all along, that this would only last until I was quite myself. We knew full well that her fervent heart was as full of affection and gratitude towards her cousin John as it had ever been, and we acquitted Richard of laying any injunctions upon her to stay away; but we knew on the other hand that she felt it a part of her duty to him, to be sparing of her visits at our house. My Guardian’s delicacy had soon perceived this, and had tried to convey to her that he thought she was right.

“Dear, unfortunate, mistaken Richard,” said I. “When will he awake from his delusion!”

“He is not in the way to do so now, my dear,” replied my

Guardian. “The more he suffers, the more averse he will be to me: having made me the principal representative of the great occasion of his suffering.”

I could not help adding, “So unreasonably!”

“Ah, Dame Trot, Dame Trot!” returned my Guardian, “what shall we find reasonable in Jarndyce and Jarndyce! Unreason and injustice at the top, unreason and injustice at the heart and at the bottom, unreason and injustice from beginning to end—if it ever has an end—how should poor Rick, always hovering near it, pluck reason out of it? He no more gathers grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles, than older men did, in old times.”

His gentleness and consideration for Richard, whenever we spoke of him, touched me so, that I was always silent on this subject very soon.

“I suppose the Lord Chancellor, and the Vice Chancellors, and the whole Chancery battery of great guns, would be infinitely astonished by such unreason and injustice in one of their suitors,” pursued my Guardian. “When those learned gentlemen begin to raise moss-roses from the powder they sow in their wigs, I shall begin to be astonished too!”

He checked himself in glancing towards the window to look where the wind was, and leaned on the back of my chair instead.

“Well, well, little woman! To go on, my dear. This rock we must leave to time, chance, and hopeful circumstance. We must not shipwreck Ada upon it. She cannot afford, and he cannot afford, the remotest chance of another separation from a friend. Therefore, I have particularly begged of Woodcourt, and I now particularly beg of you, my dear, not to move this subject with Rick. Let it rest. Next week, next month, next year, sooner or later,

he will see me with clearer eyes. I can wait.”

But I had already discussed it with him, I confessed; and so, I thought, had Mr Woodcourt.

“So he tells me,” returned my Guardian. “Very good. He has made his protest, and Dame Durden has made hers, and there is nothing more to be said about it. Now, I come to Mrs Woodcourt. How do you like her, my dear?”

In answer to this question, which was oddly abrupt, I said I liked her very much, and thought she was more agreeable than she used to be.

“I think so too,” said my Guardian. “Less pedigree? Not so much of Morgan-ap—what’s his name?”

That was what I meant, I acknowledged; though he was a very harmless person, even when we had had more of him.

“Still, upon the whole, he is as well in his native mountains,” said my Guardian. “I agree with you. Then, little woman, can I do better for a time than retain Mrs Woodcourt here?”

No. And yet—My Guardian looked at me, waiting for what I had to say.

I had nothing to say. At least I had nothing in my mind that I could say. I had an undefined impression that it might have been better if we had had some other inmate, but I could hardly have explained why, even to myself. Or, if to myself, certainly not to anybody else.

“You see,” said my Guardian, “our neighbourhood is in Woodcourt’s way, and he can come here to see her as often as he likes, which is agreeable to them both; and she is familiar to us, and fond of you.

Yes. That was undeniable. I had nothing to say against it. I

could not have suggested a better arrangement; but I was not quite easy in my mind. Esther, Esther, why not? Esther, think!

“It is a very good plan indeed, dear Guardian, and we could not do better.”

“Sure, little woman?”

Quite sure. I had had a moment’s time to think, since I had urged that duty on myself, and I was quite sure.

“Good,” said my Guardian. “It shall be done. Carried unanimously.”

“Carried unanimously,” I repeated, going on with my work.

It was a cover for his book-table that I happened to be ornamenting. It had been laid by on the night preceding my sad journey, and never resumed. I showed it to him now, and he admired it highly. After I had explained the pattern to him, and all the great effects that were to come out by-and-by, I thought I would go back to our last theme.

“You said dear Guardian, when we spoke of Mr Woodcourt before Ada left us, that you thought he would give a long trial to another country. Have you been advising him since?”

“Yes, little woman; pretty often.” “Has he decided to do so?”

“I rather think not.”

“Some other prospect has opened to him, perhaps?” said I. “Why—yes—perhaps,” returned my Guardian, beginning his

answer in a very deliberate manner. “About half a year hence or so, there is a medical attendant for the poor to be appointed at a certain place in Yorkshire. It is a thriving place, pleasantly situated; streams and streets, town and country, mill and moor; and seems to present an opening for such a man. I mean, a man

whose hopes and aims may sometimes lie (as most men’s sometimes do, I dare say) above the ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough after all, if it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good service leading to no other. All generous spirits are ambitious, I suppose; but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road, instead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is of the kind I care for. It is Woodcourt’s kind.”

“And will he get this appointment?” I asked.

“Why, little woman,” returned my Guardian, smiling, “not being an oracle, I cannot confidently say; but I think so. His reputation stands very high; there were people from that part of the country in the shipwreck; and, strange to say, I believe the best man has the best chance. You must not suppose it to be a fine endowment. It is a very, very commonplace affair, my dear; an appointment to a great amount of work and a small amount of pay; but better things will gather about it, it may be fairly hoped.”

“The poor of that place will have reason to bless the choice, if it falls on Mr Woodcourt, Guardian.”

“You are right, little woman; that I am sure they will.”

We said no more about it, nor did he say a word about the future of Bleak House. But it was the first time I had taken my seat at his side in my mourning dress, and that accounted for it, I considered.

I now began to visit my dear girl every day, in the dull dark corner where she lived. The morning was my usual time; but whenever I found I had an hour or so to spare, I put on my bonnet and bustled off to Chancery Lane. They were both so glad to see me at all hour and used to brighten up so when they heard me opening the door and coming in (being quite at home, I never

knocked), that I had no fear of becoming troublesome just yet.

On these occasions I frequently found Richard absent. At other times he would be writing, or reading papers in the Cause, at that table of his, so covered with papers, which was never disturbed. Sometimes I would come upon him, lingering at the door of Mr Vholes’s office. Sometimes I would meet him in the neighbourhood, lounging about, and biting his nails. I often met him wandering in Lincoln’s Inn, near the place where I had first seen him, O how different, how different!

That the money Ada brought him was melting away with the candles I used to see burning after dark in Mr Vholes’s office, I knew very well. It was not a large amount in the beginning; he had married in debt; and I could not fail to understand, by this time, what was meant by Mr Vholes’s shoulder being at the wheel—as I still heard it was. My dear made the best of housekeepers, and tried hard to save; but I knew that they were getting poorer and poorer every day.

She shone in the miserable corner like a beautiful star. She adorned and graced it so, that it became another place. Paler than she had been at home, and a little quieter than I had thought natural when she was yet so cheerful and hopeful, her face was so unshadowed, that I half believed she was blinded by her love for Richard to his ruinous career.

I went one day to dine with them, while I was under this impression. As I turned into Symond’s Inn, I met little Miss Flite coming out. She had been to make a stately call upon the wards in Jarndyce, as she still called them, and had derived the highest gratification from that ceremony. Ada had already told me that she called every Monday at five o’clock, with one little extra white bow

in her bonnet, which never appeared there at any other time, and with her largest reticule of documents on her arm.

“My dear!” she began. “So delighted! How do you do! So glad to see you. And are you going to visit our interesting Jarndyce wards? To be sure! Our beauty is at home, my dear, and will be charmed to see you.”

“Then Richard has not come in yet?” said I. “I am glad of that, for I was afraid of being a little late.”

“No he is not come in,” returned Miss Flite. “He has had a long day in court. I left him there, with Vholes. You don’t like Vholes, I hope? Don’t like Vholes. Dan-gerous man!”

“I am afraid you see Richard oftener than ever now?” said I. “My dearest,” returned Miss Flite, “daily and hourly. You know

what I told you of the attraction on the Chancellor’s table? My dear, next to myself he is the most constant suitor in court. He begins quite to amuse our little party. Ve-ry friendly little party, are we not?”

It was miserable to hear this from her poor mad lips, though it was no surprise.

“In short, my valued friend,” pursued Miss Flite, advancing her lips to my ear, with an air of equal patronage and mystery, “I must tell you a secret. I have made him my executor. Nominated, constituted, and appointed him. In my will. Ye-es.”

“Indeed?” said I.

“Ye-es,” repeated Miss Flite, in her most genteel accents, “my executor, administrator, and assign. (Our Chancery phrases, my love.) I have reflected that if I should wear out, he will be able to watch that judgment. Being so very regular in his attendance.”

It made me sigh to think of him.

“I did at one time mean,” said Miss Flite, echoing the sigh, “to nominate, constitute, and appoint poor Gridley. Also very regular, my charming girl. I assure you, most exemplary! But he wore out, poor man, so I have appointed his successor. Don’t mention it. This is in confidence.”

She carefully opened her reticule a little way, and showed me a folded piece of paper inside, as the appointment of which she spoke.

“Another secret, my dear. I have added to my collection of birds.”

“Really, Miss Flite?” said I, knowing how it pleased her to have her confidence received with an appearance of interest.

She nodded several times, and her face became overcast and gloomy. “Two more. I call them the wards in Jarndyce. They are caged up with all the others. With Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach!”

The poor soul kissed me, with the most troubled look I had ever seen in her; and went her way. Her manner of running over the names of her birds, as if she were afraid of hearing them even from her own lips, quite chilled me.

This was not a cheering preparation for my visit, and I could have dispensed with the company of Mr Vholes, when Richard (who arrived within a minute or two after me) brought him to share our dinner. Although it was a very plain one, Ada and Richard were for some minutes both out of the room together, helping to get ready what we were to eat and drink. Mr Vholes took that opportunity of holding a little conversation in a low voice

with me. He came to the window where I was sitting, and began upon Symond’s Inn.

“A dull place, Miss Summerson, for a life that is not an official one,” said Mr Vholes, smearing the glass with his black glove, to make it clearer for me.

“There is not much to see here,” said I.

“Nor to hear, miss,” returned Mr Vholes. “A little music does occasionally stray in; but we are not musical in the law, and soon eject it. I hope Mr Jarndyce is as well as his friends could wish him?”

I thanked Mr Vholes, and said he was quite well.

“I have not the pleasure to be admitted among the number of his friends myself,” said Mr Vholes, “and I am aware that the gentlemen of our profession are sometimes regarded in such quarters with an unfavourable eye. Our plain course, however, under good report and evil report, and all kinds of prejudice, (we are the victims of prejudice) is to have everything openly carried on. How do you find Mr C looking, Miss Summerson?”

“He looks very ill. Dreadfully anxious.” “Just so,” said Mr Vholes.

He stood behind me, with his long black figure reaching nearly to the ceiling of those low rooms; feeling the pimples on his face as if they were ornaments, and speaking inwardly and evenly as though there were not a human passion or emotion in his nature.

“Mr Woodcourt is in attendance upon Mr C, I believe?” he resumed.

“Mr Woodcourt is his disinterested friend,” I answered.

“But I mean in professional attendance, medical attendance.” “That can do little for an unhappy mind,” said I.

“Just so,” said Mr Vholes.

So slow, so eager, so bloodless and gaunt, I felt as if Richard were wasting away beneath the eyes of this adviser, and there were something of the Vampire in him.

“Miss Summerson,” said Mr Vholes, very slowly rubbing his gloved hands, as if, to his cold sense of touch, they were much the same in black kid or out of it, “this was an ill-advised marriage of Mr C’s.”

I begged he would excuse me for discussing it. They had been engaged when they were both very young, I told him (a little indignantly), and when the prospect before them was much fairer and brighter. When Richard had not yielded himself to the unhappy influence which now darkened his life.

“Just so,” assented Mr Vholes again. “Still, with a view to everything being openly carried on, I will, with your permission, Miss Summerson, observe to you that I consider this a very ill- advised marriage, indeed. I owe the opinion, not only to Mr C’s connections, against whom I should naturally wish to protect myself, but also to my own reputation—dear to myself, as a professional man aiming to keep respectable; dear to my three girls at home, for whom I am striving to realise some little independence; dear, I will even say, to my aged father, whom it is my privilege to support.”

“It would become a very different marriage, a much happier and better marriage, another marriage altogether, Mr Vholes,” said I, “if Richard were persuaded to turn his back on the fatal pursuit in which you are engaged with him.”

Mr Vholes, with a noiseless cough—or rather gasp—into one of his black gloves, inclined his head as if he did not wholly dispute

even that.

“Miss Summerson,” he said, “it may be so; and I freely admit that the young lady who has taken Mr C’s name upon herself in so ill-advised a manner—you will I am sure not quarrel with me for throwing out that remark again, as a duty I owe to Mr C’s connections—is a highly genteel young lady. Business has prevented me from mixing much with general society, in any but a professional character; still I trust I am competent to perceive that she is a highly genteel young lady. As to beauty, I am not a judge of that myself, and I never did give much attention to it from a boy; but I dare say the young lady is equally eligible, in that point of view. She is considered so (I have heard) among the clerks in the Inn, and it is a point more in their way than in mine. In reference to Mr C.’s pursuit of his interests—”

“O! His interests, Mr Vholes!”

“Pardon me,” returned Mr Vholes, going on in exactly the same inward and dispassionate manner. “Mr C takes certain interests under certain wills disputed in the suit. It is a term we use. In reference to Mr C’s pursuit of his interests, I mentioned to you, Miss Summerson, the first time I had the pleasure of seeing you, in my desire that everything should be openly carried on—I used those words, for I happened afterwards to note them in my diary, which is producible at any time—I mentioned to you that Mr C had laid down the principle of watching his own interests; and that when a client of mine laid down a principle which was not of an immoral (that is to say, unlawful) nature, it devolved upon me to carry it out. I have carried it out; I do carry it out. But I will not smooth things over, to any connection of Mr C’s, on any account. As open as I was to Mr Jarndyce, I am to you. I regard it in the

light of a professional duty to be so, though it can be charged to no one. I openly say, unpalatable as it may be, that I consider Mr, C’s affairs in a very bad way, that I consider Mr C himself in a very bad way, and that I regard this as an exceedingly ill-advised marriage.—Am I here, sir? Yes, I thank you; I am here, Mr C, and enjoying the pleasure of some agreeable conversation with Miss Summerson, for which I have to thank you very much, sir!”

He broke off thus, in answer to Richard, who addressed him as he came into the room. By this time I too well understood Mr Vholes’s scrupulous way of saving himself and his respectability, not to feel that our worst fears did but keep pace with his client’s progress.

We sat down to dinner, and I had an opportunity of observing Richard, anxiously. I was not disturbed by Mr Vholes (who took off his gloves to dine), though he sat opposite to me at the small table; for I doubt if, looking up at all, he once removed his eyes from his host’s face. I found Richard thin and languid, slovenly in his dress, abstracted in his manner, forcing his spirits now and then, and at other intervals relapsing into a dull thoughtfulness. About his large bright eyes that used to be so merry, there was a wanness and a restlessness that changed them altogether. I cannot use the expression that he looked old. There is a ruin of youth which is not like age; and into such a ruin, Richard’s youth and youthful beauty had all fallen away.

He ate little, and seemed indifferent what it was; showed himself to be much more impatient than he used to be; and was quick, even with Ada. I thought, at first, that his old light-hearted manner was all gone; but it shone out of him sometimes, as I had occasionally known little momentary glimpses of my own old face

to look out upon me from the glass. His laugh had not quite left him either; but it was like the echo of a joyful sound, and that is always sorrowful.

Yet he was as glad as ever in his old affectionate way, to have me there; and we talked of the old times pleasantly. These did not appear to be interesting to Mr Vholes, though he occasionally made a gasp which I believe was his smile. He rose shortly after dinner, and said that with the permission of the ladies he would retire to his office.

“Always devoted to business, Vholes!” cried Richard.

“Yes, Mr C,” he returned, “the interests of clients are never to be neglected, sir. They are paramount in the thoughts of a professional man like myself, who wishes to preserve a good name among his fellow-practitioners and society at large. My denying myself the pleasure of the present agreeable conversation, may not be wholly irrespective of your own interests, Mr C.”

Richard expressed himself quite sure of that, and lighted Mr Vholes out. On his return he told us, more than once, that Vholes was a good fellow, a safe fellow, a man who did what he pretended to do, a very good fellow, indeed! He was so defiant about it, that it struck me he had begun to doubt Mr Vholes.

Then he threw himself on the sofa, tired out; and Ada and I put things to rights, for they had no other servant than the woman who attended to the chambers. My dear girl had a cottage piano there, and quietly sat down to sing some of Richard’s favourites; the lamp being first removed into the next room, as he complained of its hurting his eyes.

I sat between them at my dear girl’s side, and felt very melancholy listening to her sweet voice. I think Richard did too; I

think he darkened the room for that reason. She had been singing some time, rising between-whiles to bend over him and speak to him; when Mr Woodcourt came in. Then he sat down by Richard; and half playfully, half earnestly, quite naturally and easily, found out how he felt, and where he had been all day. Presently he proposed to accompany him in a short walk on one of the bridges, as it was a moonlight airy night; and Richard readily consenting, they went out together.

They left my dear girl still sitting at the piano, and me still sitting beside her. When they were gone out, I drew my arm round her waist. She put her left hand in mine (I was sitting on that side), but kept her right upon the keys—going over and over them, without striking any note.

“Esther, my dearest,” she said, breaking silence, “Richard is never so well, and I am never so easy about him, as when he is with Allan Woodcourt. We have to thank you for that.”

I pointed out to my darling how this could scarcely be, because Mr Woodcourt had come to her cousin John’s house, and had known us all there; and because he had always liked Richard, and Richard had always liked him, and—and so forth.

“All true,” said Ada; “but that he is such a devoted friend to us, we owe to you.”

I thought it best to let my dear girl have her way, and to say no more about it. So I said as much. I said it lightly, because I felt her trembling.

“Esther, my dearest, I want to be a good wife, a very, very good wife indeed. You shall teach me.”

I teach! I said no more; for I noticed the hand that was fluttering over the keys, and I knew that it was not I who ought to

speak; that it was she who had something to say to me.

“When I married Richard, I was not insensible to what was before him. I had been perfectly happy for a long time with you, and I had never known any trouble or anxiety, so loved and cared for; but I understood the danger he was in, dear Esther.”

“I know, I know, my darling.”

“When we were married, I had some little hope that I might be able to convince him of his mistake; that he might come to regard it in a new way as my husband, and not pursue it all the more desperately for my sake—as he does. But if I had not had that hope, I would have married him just the same, Esther. Just the same!”

In the momentary firmness of the hand that was never still—a firmness inspired by the utterance of these last words, and dying away with them—I saw the confirmation of her earnest tones.

“You are not to think, my dearest Esther, that I fail to see what you see, and fear what you fear. No one can understand him better than I do. The greatest wisdom that ever lived in the world could scarcely know Richard better than my love does.”

She spoke so modestly and softly, and her trembling hand expressed such agitation, as it moved to and fro upon the silent notes! My dear, dear girl!

“I see him at his worst, every day. I watch him in his sleep. I know every change of his face. But when I married Richard I was quite determined, Esther, if Heaven would help me, never to show him that I grieved for what he did, and so to make him more unhappy. I want him, when he comes home, to find no trouble in my face. I want him, when he looks at me, to see what he loved in me. I married him to do this, and this supports me.”

I felt her trembling more. I waited for what was yet to come, and I now thought I began to know what it was.

“And something else supports me, Esther.”

She stopped a minute. Stopped speaking only; her hand was still in motion.

“I look forward a little while, and I don’t know what great aid may come to me. When Richard turns his eyes upon me then, there may be something lying on my breast more eloquent than I have been, with greater power than mine to show him his true course, and win him back.”

Her hand stopped now. She clasped me in her arms, and I clasped her in mine.

“If that little creature should fail too, Esther, I still look forward. I look forward a long while, through years and years, and think that then, when I am growing old, or when I am dead perhaps, a beautiful woman, his daughter, happily married, may be proud of him and a blessing to him. Or that a generous brave man, as handsome as he used to be, as hopeful, and far more happy, may walk in the sunshine with him, honouring his grey head, and saying to himself, ‘I thank God this is my father! ruined by a fatal inheritance, and restored through me!’”

O, my sweet girl, what a heart was that which beat so fast against me!

“These hopes uphold me, my dear Esther, and I know they will. Though sometimes even they depart from me, before a dread that arises when I look at Richard.”

I tried to cheer my darling, and asked her what it was? Sobbing and weeping, she replied:—

“That he may not live to see his child.”

Chapter 61

A Discovery

T

he days when I frequented that miserable corner which my dear girl brightened, can never fade in my remembrance. I never see it, and I never wish to see it,

now; I have been there only once since; but in my memory there is a mournful glory shining on the place, which will shine forever.

Not a day passed, without my going there, of course. At first I found Mr Skimpole there, on two or three occasions, idly playing the piano, and talking in his usual vivacious strain. Now, besides my very much mistrusting the probability of his being there without making Richard poorer, I felt as if there were something in his careless gaiety, too inconsistent with what I knew of the depths of Ada’s life. I clearly perceived, too, that Ada shared my feelings. I therefore resolved, after much thinking of it, to make a private visit to Mr Skimpole, and try delicately to explain myself. My dear girl was the great consideration that made me bold.

I set off one morning, accompanied by Charley, for Somers Town. As I approached the house, I was strongly inclined to turn back, for I felt what a desperate attempt it was to make an impression on Mr Skimpole, and how extremely likely it was that he would signally defeat me. However, I thought that being there, I would go through with it. I knocked with a trembling hand at Mr Skimpole’s door—literally with a hand, for the knocker was gone—and after a long parley gained admission from an Irishwoman, who was in the area when I knocked, breaking up the

lid of a water-bucket with a poker to light the fire with.

Mr Skimpole, lying on the sofa in his room, playing the flute a little, was enchanted to see me. Now, who should receive me, he asked? Who would I prefer for mistress of the ceremonies? Would I have his Comedy daughter, his Beauty daughter, or his Sentiment daughter? Or would I have all the daughters at once, in a perfect nosegay?

I replied, half defeated already, that I wished to speak to himself only, if he would give me leave.

“My dear Miss Summerson, most joyfully! Of course,” he said, bringing his chair near mine, and breaking into his fascinating smile, “of course it’s not business. Then it’s pleasure!”

I said it certainly was not business that I came upon, but it was not quite a pleasant matter.

“Then, my dear Miss Summerson,” said he, with the frankest gaiety, “don’t allude to it. Why should you allude to anything that is not a pleasant matter? I never do. And you are a much pleasanter creature, in every point of view, than I. You are perfectly pleasant; I am imperfectly pleasant; then, if I never allude to an unpleasant matter, how much less should you! So, that’s disposed of, and we will talk of something else.”

Although I was embarrassed, I took courage to intimate that I still wished to pursue the subject.

“I should think it a mistake,” said Mr Skimpole, with his airy laugh, “if I thought Miss Summerson capable of making one. But I don’t!”

“Mr Skimpole,” said I, raising my eyes to his, “I have so often heard you say that you are unacquainted with the common affairs of life—”

“Meaning our three banking-house friends, L, S, and who’s the junior partner? D?” said Mr Skimpole, brightly. “Not an idea of them!”

“—That, perhaps,” I went on, “you will excuse my boldness on that account. I think you ought most seriously to know that Richard is poorer than he was.”

“Dear me!” said Mr Skimpole. “So am I, they tell me.” “And in very embarrassed circumstances.”

“Parallel case exactly!” said Mr Skimpole, with a delighted countenance.

“This at present naturally causes Ada much secret anxiety; and as I think she is less anxious when no claims are made upon her by visitors, and as Richard has one uneasiness always heavy on his mind, it has occurred to me to take the liberty of saying that—if you would—not—” I was coming to the point with great difficulty, when he took me by both hands, and, with a radiant face and in the liveliest way, anticipated it.

“Not go there? Certainly not, my dear Miss Summerson, most assuredly not. Why should I go there? When I go anywhere, I go for pleasure. I don’t go anywhere for pain, because I was made for pleasure. Pain comes to me when it wants me. Now I have had very little pleasure at our dear Richard’s, lately, and your practical sagacity demonstrates why. Our young friends, losing the youthful poetry which was once so captivating in them, begin to think, ‘this is a man who wants pounds.’ So I am; I always want pounds; not for myself, but because tradespeople always want them of me. Next, our young friends begin to think, becoming mercenary, ‘this is the man who had pounds,—who borrowed them;’ which I did. I always borrow pounds. So our young friends, reduced to prose

(which is much to be regretted), degenerate in their power of imparting pleasure to me. Why should I go to see them therefore? Absurd!”

Through the beaming smile with which he regarded me, as he reasoned thus, there now broke forth a look of disinterested benevolence quite astonishing.

“Besides,” he said, pursuing his argument, in his tone of light- hearted conviction, “if I don’t go anywhere for pain—which would be a perversion of the intention of my being, and a monstrous thing to do—why should I go anywhere to be the cause of pain? If I went to see our young friends in their present ill-regulated state of mind, I should give them pain. The associations with me would be disagreeable. They might say, ‘this is the man who had pounds, and who can’t pay pounds,’ which I can’t, of course; nothing could be more out of the question! Then, kindness requires that I shouldn’t go near them—and I won’t.”

He finished by genially kissing my hand, and thanking me. Nothing but Miss Summerson’s fine tact, he said, would have found this out for him.

I was much disconcerted; but I reflected that if the main point were gained, it mattered little how strangely he perverted everything leading to it. I had determined to mention something else, however, and I thought I was not to be put off in that.

“Mr Skimpole,” said I, “I must take the liberty of saying, before I conclude my visit, that I was much surprised to learn, on the best authority, some little time ago, that you knew with whom that poor boy left Bleak House, and that you accepted a present on that occasion. I have not mentioned it to my Guardian, for I fear it would hurt him unnecessarily; but I may say to you that I was

much surprised.”

“No? Really surprised, my dear Miss Summerson?” he returned, inquiringly, raising his pleasant eyebrows.

“Greatly surprised.”

He thought about it for a little while, with a highly agreeable and whimsical expression of face; then quite gave it up, and said, in his most engaging manner:

“You know what a child I am. Why surprised?”

I was reluctant to enter minutely into that question; but as he begged I would, for he was really curious to know, I gave him to understand, in the gentlest words I could use, that his conduct seemed to involve a disregard of several moral obligations. He was much amused and interested when he heard this, and said, “No, really?” with ingenuous simplicity. “You know I don’t pretend to be responsible. I never could do it. Responsibility is a thing that has always been above me—or below me,” said Mr Skimpole, “I don’t even know which; but, as I understand the way in which my dear Miss Summerson (always remarkable for her practical good sense and clearness) puts this case, I should imagine it was chiefly a question of money, do you know?”

I incautiously gave a qualified assent to this.

“Ah! Then you see,” said Mr Skimpole, shaking his head, “I am hopeless of understanding it.”

I suggested, as I rose to go, that it was not right to betray my Guardian’s confidence for a bribe.

“My dear Miss Summerson,” he returned, with a candid hilarity that was all his own, “I can’t be bribed.”

“Not by Mr Bucket?” said I.

“No,” said he. “Not by anybody. I don’t attach any value to

money. I don’t care about it, I don’t know about it, I don’t want it, I don’t keep it—it goes away from me directly. How can I be bribed?”

I showed that I was of a different opinion, though I had not the capacity for arguing the question.

“On the contrary,” said Mr Skimpole, “I am exactly the man to be placed in a superior position, in such a case as that. I am above the rest of mankind, in such a case as that. I can act with philosophy, in such a case as that. I am not warped by prejudices, as an Italian baby is by bandages. I am as free as the air. I feel myself as far above suspicion as Caesar’s wife.”

Anything to equal the lightness of his manner, and the playful impartiality with which he seemed to convince himself, as he tossed the matter about like a ball of feathers, was surely never seen in anybody else!

“Observe the case, my dear Miss Summerson. Here is a boy received into the house and put to bed, in a state that I strongly object to. The boy being in bed, a man arrives—like the house that Jack built. Here is the man who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Here is a banknote produced by the man who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Here is the Skimpole who accepts the banknote produced by the man who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Those are the facts. Very well. Should the Skimpole have refused the note? Why should the Skimpole have refused the note? Skimpole protests to Bucket; ‘what’s this for? I don’t understand it, it is of no use to me, take it away.’ Bucket still entreats Skimpole to

accept it. Are there reasons why Skimpole, not being warped by prejudices, should accept it? Yes. Skimpole, perceives them. What are they? Skimpole reasons with himself, this is a tamed, lynx, an active police officer, an intelligent man, a person of a peculiarly directed energy and great subtlety both of conception and execution, who discovers our friends and enemies for us when they run away, recovers our property for us when we are robbed, avenges us comfortably when were are murdered. This active police officer and intelligent man has acquired, in the exercise of his art, a strong faith in money; he finds it very useful to him, and he makes it very useful to society. Shall I shake that faith in Bucket, because I want it myself; shall I deliberately blunt one of Bucket’s weapons; shall I possibly paralyse Bucket, in his next detective operation? And again. If it is blameable in Skimpole to take the note, it is blameable in Bucket to offer the note—much more blameable in Bucket, because he is the knowing man. Now, Skimpole wishes to think well of Bucket; Skimpole deems it essential, in its little place, to the general cohesion of things, that he should think well of Bucket. The State expressly asks him to trust to Bucket. And he does. And that’s all he does!”

I had nothing to offer in reply to this exposition, and therefore took my leave. Mr Skimpole, however, who was in excellent spirits, would not hear of my returning home attended only by “Little Coavinses,” and accompanied me himself. He entertained me, on the way, with a variety of delightful conversation; and assured me, at parting, that he should never forget the fine tact with which I had found that out for him about our young friends.

As it so happened that I never saw Mr Skimpole again, I may at once finish what I know of his history. A coolness arose between

him and my Guardian, based chiefly on the foregoing grounds, and on his having heartlessly disregarded my Guardian’s entreaties (as we afterwards learned from Ada) in reference to Richard. His being heavily in my Guardian’s debt, had nothing to do with their separation. He died some five years afterwards, and left a diary behind him, with letters and other materials towards his Life; which was published, and which showed him to have been the victim of a combination on the part of mankind against an amiable child. It was considered very pleasant reading, but I never read more of it myself than the sentence on which I chanced to light on opening the book. It was this. “Jarndyce, in common with most other men I have known, is the Incarnation of Selfishness.”

And now I come to a part of my story, touching myself very nearly indeed, and for which I was quite unprepared when the circumstance occurred. Whatever little lingerings may have now and then revived in my mind, associated with my poor old face, had only revived as belonging to a part of my life that was gone— gone like my infancy or my childhood. I have suppressed none of my many weaknesses on that subject, but have written them as faithfully as my memory has recalled them. And I hope to do, and mean to do, the same down to the last words of these pages; which I see now, not so very far before me.

The months were gliding away; and my dear girl, sustained by the hopes she had confided to me, was the same beautiful star in the miserable corner. Richard, more worn and haggard, haunted the Court day after day; listlessly sat there the whole day long, when he knew there was no remote chance of the suit being mentioned; and became one of the stock sights of the place. I

wonder whether any of the gentlemen remembered him as he was when he first went there.

So completely was he absorbed in his fixed idea, that he used to avow in his cheerful moments, that he should never have breathed the fresh air now “but for Woodcourt.” It was only Mr Woodcourt who could occasionally divert his attention, for a few hours at a time; and rouse him, even when he sunk into a lethargy of mind and body that alarmed us greatly, and the returns of which became more frequent as the months went on. My dear girl was right in saying that he only pursued his errors the more desperately for her sake. I have no doubt that his desire to retrieve what he had lost, was rendered the more intense by his grief for his young wife, and became like the madness of a gamester.

I was there, as I have mentioned, at all hours. When I was there at night, I generally want home with Charley in a coach; sometimes my Guardian would meet me in the neighbourhood, and we would walk home together. One evening, he had arranged to meet me at eight o’clock. I could not leave, as I usually did, quite punctually to the time, for I was working for my dear girl, and had a few stitches more to do, to finish what I was about; but it was within a few minutes of the hour, when I bundled up my little work-basket, gave my darling my last kiss for the night, and hurried downstairs. Mr Woodcourt went with me, as it was dusk.

When we came to the usual place of meeting—it was close by, and Mr Woodcourt had often accompanied me before—my Guardian was not there. We waited half an hour, walking up and down; but there were no signs of him. We agreed that he was either prevented from coming, or that he had come, and gone away; and Mr Woodcourt proposed to walk home with me.

It was the first walk we had ever taken together, except that very short one to the usual place of meeting. We spoke of Richard and Ada the whole way. I did not thank him, in words, for what he had done—my appreciation of it had risen above all words then— but I hoped he might not be without some understanding of what I felt so strongly.

Arriving at home and going upstairs, we found that my Guardian was out, and that Mrs Woodcourt was out too. We were in the very same room into which I had brought my blushing girl, when her youthful lover, now her so altered husband, was the choice of her young heart; the very same room, from which my Guardian and I watched them going away through the sunlight, in the fresh bloom of their hope and promise.

We were standing by the opened window, looking down into the street, when Mr Woodcourt spoke to me. I learned in a moment that he loved me. I learned in a moment that my scarred face was all unchanged to him. I learned in a moment that what I had thought was pity and compassion, was devoted, generous, faithful love. O, too late to know it now, too late, too late. That was the first ungrateful thought I had. Too late.

“When I returned,” he told me, “when I came back, no richer than I went away, and found you nearly risen from a sick bed, yet so inspired by sweet consideration for others, and so free from a selfish thought—”

“O, Mr Woodcourt, forbear, forbear!” I entreated him. “I do not deserve your high praise. I had many selfish thoughts at that time, many!”

“Heaven knows, beloved of my life,” said he, “that my praise is not a lover’s praise, but the truth. You do not know what all

around you see in Esther Summerson, how many hearts she touches and awakens, what sacred admiration and what love she wins.”

“O, Mr Woodcourt,” cried I, “it is a great thing to win love, it is a great thing to win love! I am proud of it, and honoured by it; and the hearing of it causes me to shed these tears of mingled joy and sorrow—joy that I have won it, sorrow that I have not deserved it better; but I am not free to think of yours.”

I said it with a stronger heart; for when he praised me thus, and when I heard his voice thrill with his belief that what he said was true, I aspired to be more worthy of it. It was not too late for that. Although I close this unforeseen page in my life tonight, I could be worthier of it all through my life. And it was a comfort to me, and an impulse to me, and I felt a dignity rise up within me that was derived from him, when I thought so.

He broke the silence.

“I should poorly show the trust that I have in the dear one who will evermore be as dear to me as now,” and the deep earnestness with which he said it, at once strengthened me and made me weep, “if, after her assurance that she is not free to think of my love, I urged it. Dear Esther, let me only tell you that the fond idea of you which I took abroad, was exalted to the Heavens when I came home. I have always hoped, in the first hour when I seemed to stand in any ray of good fortune, to tell you this. I have always feared that I should tell it you in vain. My hopes and fears are both fulfilled tonight. I distress you. I have said enough.”

Something seemed to pass into my place that was like the Angel he thought me, and I felt so sorrowful for the loss he had sustained! I wished to help him in his trouble, as I had wished to

do when he showed that first commiseration for me.

“Dear Mr Woodcourt,” said I, “before we part tonight, something is left for me to say. I never could say it as I wish—I never shall—but—”

I had to think again of being more deserving of his love, and his affliction, before I could go on.

“—I am deeply sensible of your generosity, and I shall treasure its remembrance to my dying hour. I know full well how changed I am, I know you are not acquainted with my history, and I know what a noble love that is which is so faithful. What you have said to me, could have affected me so much from no other lips; for there are none that could give it such a value to me. It shall not be lost. It shall make me better.”

He covered his eyes with his hand, and turned away his head.

How could I ever be worthy of those tears?

“If, in the unchanged intercourse we shall have together—in tending Richard and Ada; and I hope in many happier scenes of life—you ever find anything in me which you can honestly think is better than it used to be, believe that it will have sprung up from tonight, and that I shall owe it to you. And never believe, dear dear Mr Woodcourt, never believe, that I forget this night; or that while my heart beats, it can be insensible to the pride and joy of having been beloved by you.”

He took my hand and kissed it. He was like himself again, and I felt still more encouraged.

“I am induced, by what you said just now,” said I, “to hope that you have succeeded in your endeavour?”

“I have,” he answered. “With such help from Mr Jarndyce, as you who know him so well can imagine him to have rendered me, I

have succeeded.”

“Heaven bless him for it,” said I, giving him my hand; “and Heaven bless you in all you do!”

“I shall do it better for the wish,” he answered; “it will make me enter on these new duties, as on another sacred trust from you.”

“Ah! Richard!” I exclaimed involuntarily, “what will he do when you are gone!”

“I am not required to go yet; I would not desert him, dear Miss Summerson, even if I were.”

One other thing I felt it needful to touch upon, before he left me. I knew that I should not be worthier of the love I could not take, if I reserved it.

“Mr Woodcourt,” said I, “you will be glad to know from my lips before I say Good night, that in the future, which is clear and bright before me, I am most happy, most fortunate, have nothing to regret or to desire.”

It was indeed a glad hearing to him, he replied.

“From my childhood I have been,” said I, “the object of the untiring goodness of the best of human beings; to whom I am so bound by every tie of attachment, gratitude, and love, that nothing I could do in the compass of a life could express the feelings of a single day.”

“I share those feelings,” he returned; “You speak of Mr Jarndyce.”

“You know his virtues well,” said I, “but few can know the greatness of his character as I know it. All its highest and best qualities have been revealed to me in nothing more brightly, than in the shaping out of that future in which I am so happy. And if your highest homage and respect had not been his already,—

which I know they are,—they would have been his, I think, on this assurance, and in the feeling it would have awakened in you towards him for my sake.”

He fervently replied, that indeed indeed they would have been.

I gave him my hand again.

“Good night,” I said; “Good-bye.”

“The first, until we meet tomorrow: the second, as a farewell to this theme between us for ever?”

“Yes.”

“Good night; good-bye!”

He left me, and I stood at the dark window watching the street. His love, in all its constancy and generosity, had come so suddenly upon me, that he had not left me a minute when my fortitude gave way again, and the street was blotted out by my rushing tears.

But they were not tears of regret and sorrow. No. He had called me the beloved of his life, and had said I would be evermore as dear to him as I was then; and I felt as if my heart would not hold the triumph of having heard those words. My first wild thought had died away. It was not too late to hear them, for it was not too late to be animated by them to be good, true, grateful, and contented. How easy my path; how much easier than his!

Chapter 62

Another Discovery

had not the courage to see any one that night. I had not even the courage to see myself, for I was afraid that my tears might a little reproach me. I went up to my room in the dark, and

prayed in the dark, and lay down in the dark to sleep. I had no need of any light to read my Guardian’s letter by, for I knew it by heart. I took it from the place where I kept it, and repeated its contents by its own clear light of integrity and love, and went to sleep with it on my pillow.

I was up very early in the morning, and called Charley to come for a walk. We bought flowers for the breakfast-table, and came back and arranged them, and were as busy as possible. We were so early, that I had good time still for Charley’s lesson, before breakfast; Charley (who was not in the least improved in the old defective article of grammar) came through it with great applause; and we were altogether very notable. When my Guardian appeared, he said, “Why, little woman, you look fresher than your flowers!” And Mrs Woodcourt repeated and translated a passage from the Mewlinwillinwodd, expressive of my being like a mountain with the sun upon it.

This was all so pleasant, that I hope it made me more like the mountain than I had been before. After breakfast, I waited my opportunity, and peeped about a little, until I saw my Guardian in his own room—the room of last night—by himself. Then I made an excuse to go in with my housekeeping keys, shutting the door after

me.

“Well, Dame Durden?” said my Guardian; the post had brought him several letters, and he was writing. “You want money!”

“No, indeed, I have plenty in hand.”

“There never was such a Dame Durden,” said my Guardian, “for making money last.”

He had laid down his pen, and leaned back in his chair looking at me. I have often spoken of his bright face, but I thought I had never seen it look so bright and good. There was a high happiness upon it, which made me think, “he has been doing some great kindness this morning.”

“There never was,” said my Guardian, musing as he smiled upon me, “such a Dame Durden for making money last.”

He had never yet altered his old manner. I loved it, and him, so much, that when I now went up to him and took my usual chair, which was always put at his side—for sometimes I read to him, and sometimes I talked to him, and sometimes I silently worked by him—I hardly liked to disturb it by laying my hand on his breast. But I found I did not disturb it at all.

“Dear Guardian,” said I, “I want to speak to you. Have I been remiss in anything?”

“Remiss in anything, my dear!”

“Have I not been what I have meant to be, since—I brought the answer to your letter, Guardian?”

“You have been everything I could desire, my love.”

“I am very glad indeed to hear that,” I returned. “You know, you said to me, was this the mistress of Bleak House? And I said, yes.”

“Yes,” said my Guardian, nodding his head. He had put his arm

about me, as if there were something to protect me from; and looked into my face, smiling.

“Since then,” said I, “we have never spoken on the subject except once.”

“And then I said, Bleak House was thinning fast; and so it was, my dear.”

“And I said,” I timidly reminded him, “but its mistress remained.”

He still held me in the same protecting manner, and with the same bright goodness in his face.

“Dear Guardian,” said I, “I know how you have felt all that has happened, and how considerate you have been. As so much time has passed, and as you spoke only this morning of my being so well again, perhaps you expect me to renew the subject. Perhaps I ought to do so. I will be the mistress of Bleak House when you please.”

“See!” he returned gaily, “what a sympathy there must be between us! I have had nothing else, poor Rick excepted—it’s a large exception—in my mind. When you came in, I was full of it. When shall we give Bleak House its mistress, little woman?”

“When you please.” “Next month!”

“Next month, dear Guardian.”

“The day on which I take the happiest and best step of my life— the day on which I shall be a man more exulting and more enviable than any other man in the world—the day on which I give Bleak House its little mistress—shall be next month, then,” said my Guardian.

I put my arms round his neck and kissed him, just as I had done

on the day when I brought my answer.

A servant came to the door to announce Mr Bucket, which was quite unnecessary, for Mr Bucket was already looking in over the servant’s shoulder. “Mr Jarndyce and Miss Summerson,” said he rather out of breath, “with all apologies for intruding, will you allow me to order up a person that’s on the stairs, and that objects to being left there in case of becoming the subject of observation in his absence? Thank you. Be so good as chair that there Member in this direction, will you?” said Mr Bucket, beckoning over the banisters.

This singular request produced an old man in a black skull-cap, unable to walk, who was carried up by a couple of bearers, and deposited in the room near the door. Mr Bucket immediately got rid of the bearers, mysteriously shut the door, and bolted it.

“Now you see, Mr Jarndyce,” he then began, putting down his hat, and opening his subject with a flourish of his well- remembered finger, “you know me, and Miss Summerson knows me. This gentleman likewise knows me, and his name is Smallweed. The discounting line is his line principally, and he’s what you may call a dealer in bills. That’s about what you are, you know, ain’t you?” said Mr Bucket, stopping a little to address the gentleman in question, who was exceedingly suspicious of him.

He seemed about to dispute this designation of himself, when he was seized with a violent fit of coughing.

“Now, Moral, you know!” said Mr Bucket, improving the accident. “Don’t you contradict when there ain’t no occasion, and you won’t be took in that way. Now, Mr Jarndyce, I address myself to you. I’ve been negotiating with this gentleman on behalf of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet; and one way and another I’ve been in

and out and about his premises a deal. His premises are the premises formerly occupied by Krook, Marine Store Dealer—a relation of this gentleman’s, that you saw in his lifetime, if I don’t mistake?”

My Guardian replied “Yes.”

“Well! You are to understand,” said Mr Bucket, “that this gentleman he come into Krook’s property, and a good deal of magpie property there was. Vast lots of waste paper among the rest. Lord bless you, of no use to nobody!”

The cunning of Mr Bucket’s eye, and the masterly manner in which he contrived, without a look or a word against which his watchful auditor could protest, to let us know that he stated the case according to previous agreement, and could say much more of Mr Smallweed if he thought it advisable, deprived us of any merit in quite understanding him. His difficulty was increased by Mr Smallweed’s being deaf as well as suspicious, and watching his face with the closest attention.

“Among them odd heaps of old papers, this gentleman, when he comes into the property, naturally begins to rummage, don’t you see?” said Mr Bucket.

“To which? Say that again,” cried Mr Smallweed, in a shrill sharp voice.

“To rummage,” repeated Mr Bucket. “Being a prudent man, and being accustomed to take care of your own affairs, you begin to rummage among the papers as you have come into; don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” cried Mr Smallweed.

“Of course you do,” said Mr Bucket, conversationally, “and much to blame you would be if you didn’t. And so you chance to find, you know,” Mr Bucket went on, stooping over him with an air

of cheerful raillery which Mr Smallweed by no means reciprocated, “and so you chance to find, you know, a paper with the signature of Jarndyce to it. Don’t you?”

Mr Smallweed glanced with a troubled eye at us, and grudgingly nodded assent.

“And coming to look at the paper, at your full leisure and convenience—all in good time, for you’re not curious to read it, and why should you be!—what do you find it to be but a Will, you see. That’s the drollery of it,” said Mr Bucket, with the same lively air of recalling a joke for the enjoyment of Mr Smallweed, who still had the same crestfallen appearance of not enjoying it at all; “what do you find it to be but a Will?”

“I don’t know that it’s good as a will, or as anything else,” snarled Smallweed.

Mr Bucket eyed the old man for a moment—he had slipped and shrunk down in his chair into a mere bundle—as if he were much disposed to pounce upon him; nevertheless, he continued to bend over him with the same agreeable air, keeping the corner of one of his eyes upon us.

“Notwithstanding which,” said Mr Bucket, “you get a little doubtful and uncomfortable in your mind about it, having a very tender mind of your own.”

“Eh? What do you say I have got of my own?” asked Mr Smallweed, with his hand to his ear.

“A very tender mind.”

“Ho! Well, go on,” said Mr Smallweed.

“And as you’ve heard a good deal mentioned regarding a celebrated Chancery will case, of the same name; and as you know what a card Krook was for buying all manner of old pieces of

furniter, and books, and papers, and what not, and never liking to part with ’em, and always a going to teach himself to read; you begin to think—and you never was more correct in your born days—’Ecod, if I don’t look about me, I may get into trouble regarding this will.’”

“Now, mind how you put it, Bucket,” cried the old man anxiously, with his hand at his ear. “Speak up; none of your brimstone tricks. Pick me up; I want to hear better. O Lord, I am shaken to bits!”

Mr Bucket had certainly picked him up at a dart. However, as soon as he could be heard through Mr Smallweed’s coughing, and his vicious ejaculations of “O my bones! O dear! I’ve no breath in my body! I’m worse than the chattering, clattering, brimstone pig at home!” Mr Bucket proceeded, in the same convivial manner as before.

“So, as I happen to be in the habit of coming about your premises, you take me into your confidence, don’t you?”

I think it would be impossible to make an admission with more ill-will, and a worse grace, than Mr Smallweed displayed when he admitted this; rendering it perfectly evident that Mr Bucket was the very last person he would have thought of taking into his confidence, if he could by any possibility have kept him out of it.

“And I go into the business with you,—very pleasant we are over it; and I confirm you in your well-founded fears, that you will- get-yourself-in-to-a-most precious line if you don’t come out with that there will,” said Mr Bucket, emphatically; “and accordingly you arrange with me that it shall be delivered up to this present Mr Jarndyce, on no conditions. If it should prove to be valuable, you trusting yourself to him for your reward; that’s about where it

is, ain’t it?”

“That’s what was agreed,” Mr Smallweed assented, with the same bad grace.

“In consequence of which,” said Mr Bucket, dismissing his agreeable manner all at once, and becoming strictly business-like, “you’ve got that will upon your person at present time; and the only thing that remains for you to do is, just to Out with it!”

Having given us one glance out of the watching corner of his eye, and having given his nose one triumphant rub with his forefinger, Mr Bucket stood with his eyes fastened on his confidential friend, and his hand stretched forth ready to take the paper and present it to my Guardian. It was not produced without much reluctance, and many declarations on the part of Mr Smallweed that he was a poor industrious man, and that he left it to Mr Jarndyce’s honour not to let him lose by his honesty. Little by little, he very slowly took from a breast-pocket a stained discoloured paper, which was much singed upon the outside, and a little burnt at the edges, as if it had long ago been thrown upon a fire, and hastily snatched off again. Mr Bucket lost no time in transferring this paper, with the dexterity of a conjuror, from Mr Smallweed to Mr Jarndyce. As he gave it to my Guardian, he whispered behind his fingers:—

“Hadn’t settled how to make their market of it. Quarrelled and hinted about it. I laid out twenty pound upon it. First, the avaricious grandchildren split upon him, on account of their objections to his living so unreasonably long, and then they split on one another. Lord! there ain’t one of the family that wouldn’t sell the other for a pound or two, except the old lady—and she’s only out of it because she’s too weak in her mind to drive a

bargain.”

“Mr Bucket,” said my Guardian aloud, “whatever the worth of this paper may be to any one, my obligations are great to you; and if it be of any worth, I hold myself bound to see Mr Smallweed remunerated accordingly.”

“Not according to your merits, you know,” said Mr Bucket, in friendly explanation to Mr Smallweed, “Don’t you be afraid of that. According to its value.”

“That is what I mean,” said my Guardian. “You may observe, Mr Bucket, that I abstain from examining this paper myself. The plain truth is, I have forsworn and abjured the whole business these many years, and my soul is sick of it. But Miss Summerson and I will immediately place the paper in the hands of my solicitor in the cause, and its existence shall be made known without delay to all other parties interested.”

“Mr Jarndyce can’t say fairer than that, you understand,” observed Mr Bucket to his fellow visitor. “And it being now made clear to you that nobody’s a-going to be wronged—which must be a great relief to your mind—we may proceed with the ceremony of chairing you home again.”

He unbolted the door, called in the bearers, wished us good morning, and with a look full of meaning, and a crook of his finger at parting, went his way.

We went our way too, which was to Lincoln’s Inn, as quickly as possible. Mr Kenge was disengaged; and we found him at his table in his dusty room, with the inexpressive-looking books, and the piles of papers. Chairs having been placed for us by Mr Guppy, Mr Kenge expressed the surprise and gratification he felt at the unusual sight of Mr Jarndyce in his office. He turned over his

double eyeglass as he spoke, and was more Conversation Kenge than ever.

“I hope,” said Mr Kenge, “that the genial influence of Miss Summerson,” he bowed to me, “may have induced Mr Jarndyce,” he bowed to him, “to forego some little of his animosity towards a Cause and towards a Court which are—shall I say, which take their place in the stately vista of the pillars of our profession?”

“I am inclined to think,” returned my Guardian, “that Miss Summerson has seen too much of the effects of the Court and the Cause to exert any influence in their favour. Nevertheless, they are a part of the occasion of my being here. Mr Kenge, before I lay this paper on your desk and have done with it, let me tell you how it has come into my hands.”

He did so shortly and distinctly.

“It could not, sir,” said Mr Kenge, “have been stated more plainly and to the purpose, if it had been a case at law.”

“Did you ever know English law, or equity either, plain and to the purpose?” said my Guardian.

“O fie!” said Mr Kenge.

At first he had not seemed to attach much importance to the paper, but when he saw it he appeared more interested, and when he had opened and read a little of it through his eyeglass, he became amazed. “Mr Jarndyce,” he said, looking off it, “you have perused this?”

“Not I!” returned my Guardian.

“But my dear sir,” said Mr Kenge, “it is a Will of later date than any in the suit. It appears to be all in the Testator’s handwriting. It is duly executed and attested. And even if intended to be cancelled, as might possibly be supposed to be denoted by these

marks of fire, it is not cancelled. Here it is, a perfect instrument!” “Well!” said my Guardian. “What is that to me?”

“Mr Guppy!” cried Mr Kenge, raising his voice.—“I beg your pardon, Mr Jarndyce.”

“Sir.”

“Mr Vholes of Symond’s Inn. My compliments. Jarndyce and Jarndyce. Glad to speak with him.”

Mr Guppy disappeared.

“You ask me what is this to you, Mr Jarndyce. If you had perused this document, you would have seen that it reduces your interest considerably, though still leaving it a very handsome one, still leaving it a very handsome one,” said Mr Kenge, waving his hand persuasively and blandly. “You would further have seen, that the interests of Mr Richard Carstone, and of Miss Ada Clare, now Mrs Richard Carstone, are very materially advanced by it.”

“Kenge,” said my Guardian, “if all the flourishing wealth that the suit brought into this vile court of Chancery could fall to my two young cousins, I should be well contented. But do you ask me to believe that any good is to come of Jarndyce and Jarndyce?”

“O really, Mr Jarndyce! Prejudice, prejudice. My dear sir, this is a very great country, a very great country. Its system of equity is a very great system, a very great system. Really, really!”

My Guardian said no more, and Mr Vholes arrived. He was modestly impressed by Mr Kenge’s professional eminence.

“How do you do, Mr Vholes? Will you be so good as to take a chair here by me, and look over this paper?”

Mr Vholes did as he was asked, and seemed to read it every word. He was not excited by it; but he was not excited by anything. When he had well examined it, he retired with Mr Kenge into a

window, and shading his mouth with his black glove, spoke to him at some length. I was not surprised to observe Mr Kenge inclined to dispute what he said before he had said much, for I knew that no two people ever did agree about anything in Jarndyce and Jarndyce. But he seemed to get the better of Mr Kenge, too, in a conversation that sounded as if it were almost composed of the words, “Receiver-General,” “Accountant-General,” “Report,” “Estate,” and “Costs.” When they had finished, they came back to Mr Kenge’s table, and spoke aloud.

“Well! But this is a very remarkable document, Mr Vholes?” said Mr Kenge.

Mr Vholes said, “Very much so.”

“And a very important document, Mr Vholes?” said Mr Kenge. Again Mr Vholes said, “Very much so.” “And as you say, Mr

Vholes, when the Cause is in the paper next Term, this document will be an unexpected and interesting feature in it,” said Mr Kenge, looking loftily at my Guardian.

Mr Vholes was gratified, as a smaller practitioner striving to keep respectable, to be confirmed in any opinion of his own by such an authority.

“And when,” asked my Guardian, rising after a pause, during which Mr Kenge had rattled his money, and Mr Vholes had picked his pimples, “when is next Term?”

“Next Term, Mr Jarndyce, will be next month,” said Mr Kenge. “Of course we shall at once proceed to do what is necessary with this document, and to collect the necessary evidence concerning it; and of course you will receive our usual notification of the Cause being in the paper.”

“To which I shall pay, of course, my usual attention.”

“Still bent, my dear sir,” said Mr Kenge, showing us through the the outer office to the door, “still bent, even with your enlarged mind, on echoing a popular prejudice? We are a prosperous community, Mr Jarndyce, a very prosperous community. We are a great country, Mr Jarndyce, we are a very great country. This is a great system, Mr Jarndyce, and would you wish a great country to have a little system? Now, really, really!”

He said this at the stair-head, gently moving his right hand as if it were a silver trowel, with which to spread the cement of his words on the structure of the system, and consolidate it for a thousand ages.

Chapter 63

Steel And Iron

eorge’s shooting-gallery is to let, and the stock is sold off, and George himself is at Chesney Wold, attending on Sir Leicester in his rides, and riding very near his bridle-rein, because of the uncertain hand with which he guides his horse. But not today is George so occupied. He is journeying today into the

iron country farther north, to look about him.

As he comes into the iron country farther north, such fresh green woods as those of Chesney Wold are left behind; and coal- pits and ashes, high chimneys and red bricks, blighted verdure, scorching fires, and a heavy never lightening cloud of smoke, become the features of the scenery. Among such objects rides the trooper, looking about him, and always looking for something he has come to find.

At last, on the black canal bridge of a busy town, with a clang of iron in it, and more fires and more smoke than he has seen yet, the trooper, swart with the dust of the coal roads, checks his horse, and asks the workman does he know the name of Rouncewell thereabouts?”

“Why, master,” quoth the workman, “do I know my own name?”

“’Tis so well known here, is it, comrade?” asked the trooper. “Rouncewells? Ah! you’re right.”

“And where might he be now?” asks the trooper, with a glance before him.

“The bank, the factory, or the house?” the workman wants to know.

“Hum! Rouncewells is so great apparently,” mutters the trooper, stroking his chin, “that I have as good as half a mind to go back again. Why I don’t know which I want. Should I find Mr Rouncewell at the factory, do you think?”

“’Tain’t easy to say where you’d find him—at this time of the day you might find either him or son there, if he’s in town; but his contracts take him away.”

And which is the factory? Why, he sees those chimneys—the tallest ones! Yes, he sees them. Well! let him keep his eye on those chimneys, going on as straight as ever he can, and presently he’ll see ’em down a turning on the left, shut in by a great brick wall which forms one side of the street. That’s Rouncewells.

The trooper thanks his informant, and rides slowly on, looking about him. He does not turn back, but puts up his horse (and is much disposed to groom him too) at a public house where some of Rouncewell’s hands are dining, as the ostler tells him. Some of Rouncewell’s hands have just knocked off for dinner time, and seem to be invading the whole town. They are very sinewy and strong, are Rouncewell’s hands—a little sooty too.

He comes to a gateway in the brick wall, looks in, and sees a great perplexity of iron lying about, in every stage, and in a vast variety of shapes; in bars, in wedges, in sheets; in tanks, in boilers, in axles, in wheels, in cogs, in cranks, in rails; twisted and wrenched into eccentric and perverse forms, as separate parts of machinery; mountains of it broken up, and rusty in its age; distant furnaces of it glowing and bubbling in its youth; bright fireworks of it showering about, under the blows of the steam hammer; red-

hot iron, white-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste, an iron smell, and a Babel of iron sounds.

“This is a place to make a make a man’s head ache, too!” says the trooper, looking about him for a counting-house. “Who comes here? This is very like me before I was set up. This ought to be my nephew, if likenesses run in families. Your servant, sir.”

“Yours, sir. Are you looking for any one?” “Excuse me. Young Mr Rouncewell, I believe?” “Yes.”

“I was looking for your father, sir. I wished to have a word with him.”

The young man, telling him he is fortunate in his choice of a time, for his father is there, leads the way to the office where he is to be found. “Very like me before I was set up—devilish like me!” thinks the trooper, as he follows. They come to a building in the yard; with an office on an upper floor. At sight of the gentleman in the office, Mr George turns very red.

“What name shall I say to my father?” asks the young man. George full of the idea of iron, in desperation answers “Steel,”

and is so presented. He is left alone with the gentleman in the office, who sits at a table with account-books before him, and some sheets of paper, blotted with hosts of figures and drawings of cunning shapes. It is a bare office, with bare windows, looking on the iron view below. Tumbled together on the table are some pieces of iron, purposely broken to be tested, at various periods of their service, in various capacities. There is iron-dust on everything; and the smoke is seen, through the windows, rolling heavily out of the tall chimneys, to mingle with the smoke from a vaporous Babylon of other chimneys.

“I am at your service, Mr Steel,” says the gentleman, when his visitor has taken a rustic chair.

“Well, Mr Rouncewell,” George replies, leaning forward, with his left arm on his knee, and his hat in his hand; and very chary of meeting his brother’s eye; “I am not without my expectations, that in the present visit I may prove to be more free than welcome. I have served as a dragoon in my day; and a comrade of mine that I was once rather partial to, was, if I don’t deceive myself, a brother of yours. I believe you had a brother who gave his family some trouble, and ran away, and never did any good but in keeping away?”

“Are you quite sure,” returns the ironmaster, in an altered voice, “that your name is Steel?”

The trooper falters and looks at him. His brother starts up, calls him by his name, and grasps him by both hands.

“You are too quick for me!” cries the trooper, with the tears springing out of his eyes. “How do you do, my dear old fellow. I never could have thought you would have been half so glad to see me as all this. How do you do, my dear old fellow, how do you do!”

They shake hands, and embrace each other, over and over again; the trooper still coupling his “How do you do, my dear old fellow!” with his protestation that he never thought his brother would have been half so glad to see him as all this!

“So far from it,” he declares, at the end of a full account of what has preceded his arrival there, “I had very little idea of making myself known. I thought, if you took by any means forgivingly to my name, I might gradually get myself up to the point of writing a letter. But I should not have been surprised, brother, if you had considered it anything but welcome news to hear of me.”

“We will show you at home what kind of news we think it, George,” returns his brother. “This is a great day at home, and you could not have arrived, you bronzed old soldier, on a better. I make an agreement with my son Watt today, that on this day twelvemonth he shall marry as pretty and as good a girl as you have seen in all your travels. She goes to Germany tomorrow, with one of your nieces, for a little polishing up in her education. We make a feast of the event, and you will be made the hero of it.”

Mr George is so entirely overcome at first by this prospect, that he resists the proposed honour with great earnestness. Being overborne, however, by his brother and his nephew—concerning whom he renews his protestations that he never could have thought they would have been half so glad to see him—he is taken home to an elegant house, in all the arrangements of which there is to be observed a pleasant mixture of the originally simple habits of the father and mother, with such as are suited to their altered station and the higher fortunes of their children. Here, Mr George is much dismayed by the graces and accomplishments of his nieces that are; and by the beauty of Rosa, his niece that is to be; and by the affectionate salutations of these young ladies, which he receives in a sort of dream. He is sorely taken aback, too, by the dutiful behaviour of his nephew; and has a woeful consciousness upon him of being a scapegrace. However, there is great rejoicing, and a very hearty company, and infinite enjoyment; and Mr George comes bluff and martial through it all; and his pledge to be present at the marriage and give away the bride, is received with universal favour. A whirling head has Mr George that night, when he lies down in the state-bed of his brother’s house, to think of all these things, and to see the images of his nieces (awful all the

evening in their floating muslins), waltzing, after the German manner, over his counterpane.

The brothers are closeted next morning in the ironmaster’s room; where the elder is proceeding, in his clear, sensible way, to show how he thinks he may best dispose of George in his business, when George squeezes his hand and stops him.

“Brother, I thank you a million times for your more than brotherly welcome, and a million times more to that for your more than brotherly intentions. But my plans are made. Before I say a word as to them, I wish to consult you upon one family point. How—” says the trooper, folding his arms, and looking with indomitable firmness at his brother—“how is my mother to be got to scratch me?”

“I am not sure that I understand you, George,” replies the ironmaster.

“I say, brother, how is my mother to be got to scratch me? She must be got to do it, somehow.”

“Scratch you out of her will, I think you mean?”

“Of course I do. In short,” says the trooper, folding his arms more resolutely yet, “I mean—to—scratch me?”

“My dear George,” returns his brother, “is it so indispensable that you should undergo that process?”

“Quite! Absolutely! I couldn’t be guilty of the meanness of coming back without it. I should never be safe not to be off again. I have not sneaked home to rob your children, if not yourself, brother, of your rights. I, who forfeited mine, long ago! If I am to remain, and hold up my head, I must be scratched. Come. You are a man of celebrated penetration and intelligence, and you can tell me how it’s to be brought about.”

“I can tell you, George,” replies the ironmaster, deliberately, “how it is not to be brought about, which I hope may answer the purpose as well. Look at our mother, think of her, recall her emotion when she recovered you. Do you believe there is a consideration in the world that would induce her to take such a step against her favourite son? Do you believe there is any chance of her consent, to balance against the outrage it would be to her (loving dear old lady!) to propose it? If you do, you are wrong. No, George! You must make up your mind to remain unscratched. I think,” there is an amused smile on the ironmaster’s face, as he watches his brother, who is pondering, deeply disappointed, “I think you may manage almost as well as if the thing were done, though.”

“How, brother?”

“Being bent upon it, you can dispose by will of anything you have the misfortune to inherit, in any way you like, you know.”

“That’s true!” says the trooper, pondering again. Then he wistfully asks, with his hand on his brother’s, “would you mind mentioning that, brother, to your wife and family?”

“Not at all.”

“Thank you. You wouldn’t object to say, perhaps, that although an undoubted vagabond, I am a vagabond of the harum scarum order, and not of the mean sort?”

The iron master, repressing his amused smile, assents.

“Thank you. Thank you. It’s a weight off my mind,” says the trooper, with a heave of his chest as he unfolds his arms, and puts a hand on each leg; “though I had set my heart on being scratched, too!”

The brothers are very like each other, sitting face to face; but a

certain massive simplicity, and absence of usage in the ways of the world, is all on the trooper’s side.

“Well,” he proceeds, throwing off his disappointment, “next and last, those plans of mine. You have been so brotherly as to propose to me to fall in here, and take my place among the products of your perseverance and sense. I thank you heartily. It’s more than brotherly, as I said before; and I thank you heartily for it,” shaking him a long time by the hand. “But the truth is, brother, I am a—I am a kind of a Weed, and it’s too late to plant me in a regular garden.”

“My dear George,” returns the elder, concentrating his strong steady brow upon him, and smiling confidently; “leave that to me, and let me try.”

George shakes his head. “You could do it, I have not a doubt, if anybody could; but it’s not to be done. Not to be done, sir! Whereas it so falls out, on the other hand, that I am able to be of some trifle of use to Sir Leicester Dedlock since his illness— brought on by family sorrows; and that he would rather have that help from our mother’s son than from anybody else.”

“Well, my dear George,” returns the other, with a very slight shade upon his open face, “if you prefer to serve in Sir Leicester Dedlock’s household brigade—”

“There it is, brother!” cries the trooper, checking him, with his hand upon his knee again: “there it is. You don’t take kindly to that idea; I don’t mind it. You are not used to being officered; I am. Everything about you is in perfect order and discipline; everything about me requires to be kept so. We are not accustomed to carry things with the same hand, or to look at ’em from the same point. I don’t say much about my garrison manners, because I found

myself pretty well at my ease last night, and they wouldn’t be noticed here, I dare say, once and away. But I shall get on best at Chesney Wold—where there’s more room for a Weed than there is here; and the dear old lady will be made happy besides. Therefore I accept of Sir Leicester Dedlock’s proposals. When I come over next year to give away the bride, or whenever I come, I shall have the sense to keep the household brigade in ambuscade, and not to manoeuvre it on your ground. I thank you heartily again, and am proud to think of the Rouncewells as they’ll be founded by you.”

“You know yourself, George,” says the elder brother, returning the grip of his hand, “and perhaps you know me better than I know myself. Take your way. So that we don’t quite lose one another again, take your way.”

“No fear of that!” returns the trooper. “Now, before I turn my horse’s head homewards, brother, I will ask you—if you’ll be so good—to look over a letter for me. I brought it with me to send from these parts, as Chesney Wold might be a painful name just now to the person it’s written to. I am not much accustomed to correspondence myself, and I am particular respecting this present letter, because I want it to be both straightforward and delicate.”

Herewith he hands a letter, closely written in somewhat pale ink but in a neat round hand, to the ironmaster, who reads as follows:

“Miss Esther Summerson,

“A communication having been made to me by Inspector Bucket of a letter to myself being found among the papers of a certain person, I take the liberty to make known to you that it was

but a few lines of instruction from abroad, when, where, and how to deliver an enclosed letter to a young and beautiful lady, then unmarried in England. I duly observed the same.

“I further take the liberty to make known to you, that it was got from me as a proof of hand-writing only, and that otherwise I would not have given it up as appearing to be the most harmless in my possession, without being previously shot through the heart.

“I further take the liberty to mention, that if I could have supposed a certain unfortunate gentleman to have been in existence, I never could and never would have rested until I had discovered his retreat, and shared my last farthing with him, as my duty and my inclination would have equally been. But he was (officially) reported drowned, and assuredly went over the side of a transport-ship at night in an Irish harbour, within a few hours of her arrival from the West Indies, as I have myself heard both from officers and men on board, and know to have been (officially) confirmed.

“I further take the liberty to state that in my humble quality as one of the rank and file, I am, and shall ever continue to be, your thoroughly devoted and admiring servant, and that I esteem the qualities you possess above all others, far beyond the limits of the present dispatch.

“I have the honour to be,

“GEORGE.”

“A little formal,” observes the elder brother, refolding it with a puzzled face.

“But nothing that might not be sent to a pattern young lady?” asks the younger.

“Nothing at all.”

Therefore it is sealed, and deposited for posting among the iron correspondence of the day. This done, Mr George takes a hearty farewell of the family party, and prepares to saddle and mount. His brother, however, unwilling to part with him so soon, proposes to ride with him in a light open carriage to the place where he will bait for the night, and there remain with him until morning: a servant riding, for so much of the journey, on the thorough-bred old grey from Chesney Wold. The offer being gladly accepted, is followed by a pleasant ride, a pleasant dinner, and a pleasant breakfast, all in brotherly communion. Then they once more shake hands long and heartily, and part; the ironmaster turning his face to the smoke and fires, and the trooper to the green country. Early in the afternoon, the subdued sound of his heavy military trot is heard on the turf in in the avenue, as he rides on with imaginary clank and jingle of accoutrements under the old elm trees.

Chapter 64

Esther’s Narrative

oon after I had had that conversation with my Guardian, he put a sealed paper in my hand one morning, and said, “This is for next month, my dear.” I found in it two

hundred pounds.

I now began very quietly to make such preparations as I thought were necessary. Regulating my purchases by my Guardian’s taste, which I knew very well of course, I arranged my wardrobe to please him, and hoped I should be highly successful. I did it all so quietly, because I was not quite free from my old apprehension that Ada would be rather sorry, and because my Guardian was quiet himself. I had no doubt that under all the circumstances we should be married in the most private and simple manner. Perhaps I should only have to say to Ada, “Would you like to come and see me married tomorrow, my pet?” Perhaps our wedding might even be as unpretending as her own, and I might not find it necessary to say anything about it until it was over. I thought that if I were to choose, I would like this best.

The only exception I made was Mrs Woodcourt. I told her that I was going to be married to my Guardian, and that we had been engaged for some time. She highly approved. She never could do enough for me; and was remarkably softened now, in comparison with what she had been when we first knew her. There was no trouble she would have not taken to have been of use to me; but I need hardly say that I only allowed her to take as little, as gratified

her kindness without tasking it.

Of course this was not a time to neglect my Guardian; and of course it was not a time for neglecting my darling. So I had plenty of occupation—which I was glad of; and as to Charley, she was absolutely not to be seen for needlework. To surround herself with great heaps of it—baskets full and tables full—and do a little, and spend a great deal of time in staring with her round eyes at what there was to do, and persuade herself that she was going to do it, were Charley’s great dignities and delights.

Meanwhile, I must say I could not agree with my Guardian on the subject of the Will, and I had some sanguine hopes of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. Which of us was right will soon appear, but I certainly did encourage expectations. In Richard, the discovery gave occasion for a burst of business and agitation that buoyed him up for a little time; but he had lost the elasticity even of hope now, and seemed to me to retain only its feverish anxieties. From something my Guardian said one day, when we were talking about this, I understood that my marriage would not take place until after the Term-time we had been told to look forward to; and I thought the more, for that, how rejoiced I should be if I could be married when Richard and Ada were a little more prosperous.

The Term was very near indeed, when my Guardian was called out of town, and went down into Yorkshire on Mr Woodcourt’s business. He had told me beforehand that his presence there would be necessary. I had just come in one night from my dear girl’s, and was sitting in the midst of all my new clothes, looking at them all around me, and thinking, when a letter from my Guardian was brought to me. It asked me to join him in the country; and mentioned by what stage-coach my place was taken,

and at what time in the morning I should have to leave town. It added in a postscript that I would not be many hours from Ada.

I expected few things less than a journey at that time, but I was ready for it in half-an-hour, and set off as appointed early next morning. I travelled all day, wondering all day what I could be wanted for at such a distance; now I thought it might be for this purpose, and now I thought it might be for that purpose; but I was never, never, never near the truth.

It was night when I came to my journey’s end, and found my Guardian waiting for me. This was a great relief, for towards evening I had begun to fear (the more so as his letter was a very short one) that he might be ill. However, there he was, as well as it was possible to be; and when I saw his genial face again at its brightest and best, I said to myself he has been doing some other great kindness. Not that it required much penetration to say that, because I knew that his being there at all was an act of kindness.

Supper was ready at the hotel, and when we were alone at table he said:

“Full of curiosity no doubt, little woman, to know why I have brought you here?”

“Well, Guardian,” said I, “without thinking myself a Fatima, or you a Blue Beard, I am a little curious about it.”

“Then to ensure your night’s rest, my love,” he returned, gaily, “I won’t wait until tomorrow to tell you. I have very much wished to express to Woodcourt, somehow, my sense of his humanity to poor unfortunate Jo, his inestimable services to my young cousins, and his value to us all. When it was decided that he should settle here, it came into my head that I might ask his acceptance of some unpretending and suitable little place, to lay his own head in. I

therefore caused such a place to be looked out for, and such a place was found on very easy terms, and I have been touching it up for him and making it habitable. However, when I walked over it the day before yesterday, and it was reported ready, I found that I was not housekeeper enough to know whether things were all as they ought to be. So I sent off for the best little housekeeper that could possibly be got, to come and give me her advice and opinion. And here she is,” said my Guardian, “laughing and crying both together!”

Because he was so dear, so good, so admirable. I tried to tell him what I thought of him, but I could not articulate a word.

“Tut, tut!” said my Guardian. “You make too much of it, little woman. Why how you sob, Dame Durden, how you sob!”

“It is with exquisite pleasure, Guardian—with a heart full of thanks.”

“Well, well,” said he. “I am delighted that you approve. I thought you would. I meant it as a pleasant surprise for the little mistress of Bleak House.”

I kissed him, and dried my eyes. “I know now!” said I. “I have seen this in your face a long while.”

“No; have you really, my dear?” said he. “What a Dame Durden it is to read a face!”

He was so quaintly cheerful that I could not long be otherwise, and was almost ashamed of having been otherwise at all. When I went to bed, I cried. I am bound to confess that I cried; but I hope it was with pleasure, though I am not quite sure it was with pleasure. I repeated every word of the letter twice over.

A most beautiful summer morning succeeded; and after breakfast we went out arm in arm, to see the house of which I was

to give my mighty housekeeping opinion. We entered a flower- garden by a gate in a side wall, of which he had the key; and the first thing I saw, was, that the beds and flowers were all laid out according to the manner of my beds and flowers at home.

“You see, my dear,” observed my Guardian, standing still, with a delighted face, to watch my looks; “knowing there could be no better plan, I borrowed yours.”

We went on by a pretty little orchard, where the cherries were nestling among the green leaves, and the shadows of the apple- trees were sporting on the grass, to the house itself,—a cottage, quite a rustic cottage of doll’s rooms; but such a lovely place, so tranquil and so beautiful, with such a rich and smiling country spread around it; with water sparkling away into the distance, here all overhung with summer growth, there turning a humming- mill; at its nearest point glancing through a meadow by the cheerful town, where cricket-players were assembling in bright groups, and a flag was flying from a white tent that rippled in the sweet west wind. And still, as we went through the pretty rooms, out at the little rustic verandah doors, and underneath the tiny wooden colonnades, garlanded with woodbine, jasmine, and honeysuckle, I saw in the papering on the walls, in the colours of the furniture, in the arrangement of all the pretty objects my little tastes and fancies, my little methods and inventions which they used to laugh at while they praised them, my odd ways everywhere.

I could not say enough in admiration of what was all so beautiful, but one secret doubt arose in my mind, when I saw this. I thought, O would he be the happier for it! Would it not have been better for his peace that I should not have been so brought before

him? Because, although I was not what he thought me, still he loved me very dearly, and it might remind him mournfully of what he believed he had lost. I did not wish him to forget me,—perhaps he might not have done so, without these aids to his memory,—but my way was easier than his, and I could have reconciled myself even to that, so that he had been made the happier for it.

“And now, little woman,” said my Guardian, whom I had never seen so proud and joyful as in showing me these things, and watching my appreciation of them, “now, last of all, for the name of this house.”

“What is it called, dear Guardian?” “My child,” said he, “come and see.”

He took me to the porch, which he had hitherto avoided, and said, pausing before we went out:—

“My dear child, don’t you guess the name?” “No!” said I.

We went out of the porch; and he showed me written over it, BLEAK HOUSE.

He led me to a seat among the leaves close by, and sitting down beside me, and taking my hand in his, spoke to me thus:

“My darling girl, in what there has been between us, I have, I hope, been really solicitous for your happiness. When I wrote you the letter to which you brought the answer,” smiling as he referred to it, “I had my own too much in view; but I had yours too. Whether, under different circumstances, I might ever have renewed the old dream I sometimes dreamed when you were very young, of making you my wife one day, I need not ask myself. I did renew it, and I wrote my letter, and you brought your answer. You are following what I say, my child?”

I was cold, and I trembled violently; but not a word he uttered was lost. As I sat looking fixedly at him, and the sun’s rays descended, softly shining through the leaves, upon his bare head, I felt as if the brightness on him must be like the brightness of the Angels.

“Hear me, my love, but do not speak. It is for me to speak now. When it was that I began to doubt whether what I had done would really make you happy, is no matter. Woodcourt came home, and I soon had no doubt at all.”

I clasped him round the neck, and hung my head upon his breast, and wept. “Lie lightly, confidently, here, my child,” said he, pressing me gently to him. “I am your Guardian and your father now. Rest confidently here.”

Soothingly, like the gentle rustling of the leaves; and genially, like the ripening weather; and radiantly and beneficently, like the sunshine; he went on.

“Understand me, my dear girl. I had no doubt of your being contented and happy with me, being so dutiful and so devoted; but I saw with whom you would be happier. That I penetrated his secret when Dame Durden was blind to it, is no wonder; for I knew the good that could never change in her, better far than she did. Well! I have long been in Allan Woodcourt’s confidence, although he was not, until yesterday, a few hours before you came here, in mine. But I would not have my Esther’s bright example lost; I would not have a jot of my dear girl’s virtues unobserved and unhonoured; I would not have her admitted on sufferance into the line of Morgan ap Kerrig, no, not for the weight in gold of all the mountains in Wales!”

He stopped to kiss me on the forehead, and I sobbed and wept

afresh. For I felt as if I could not bear the painful delight of his praise.

“Hush, little woman! Don’t cry; this is to be a day of joy. I have looked forward to it,” he said, exultingly, “for months on months! A few words more, Dame Trot, and I have said my say. Determined not to throw away one atom of my Esther’s worth, I took Mrs Woodcourt into a separate confidence. ‘Now, madam,’ said I, ‘I clearly perceive—and indeed I know, to boot—that your son loves my ward. I am further very sure that my ward loves your son, but will sacrifice her love to a sense of duty and affection, and will sacrifice it so completely, so entirely, so religiously, that you should never suspect it, though you watched her night and day.’ Then I told her all our story—ours—yours and mine. ‘Now, madam,’ said I, ‘come you, knowing this, and live with us. Come you, and see my child from hour to hour; set what you see, against her pedigree, which is this, and this’—for I scorned to mince it— ’and tell me what is the true legitimacy, when you shall have quite made up your mind on that subject.’ Why, honour to her old Welsh blood, my dear!” cried my Guardian, with enthusiasm, “I believe the heart it animates beats no less warmly, no less admiringly, no less lovingly, towards Dame Durden, than my own!”

He tenderly raised my head, and as I clung to him, kissed me in his old fatherly way again and again. What a light, now, on the protecting manner I had thought about.

“One more last word. When Allan Woodcourt spoke to you, my dear, he spoke with my knowledge and consent—but I gave him no encouragement, not I, for these surprises were my great reward, and I was too miserly to part with a scrap of it. He was to come, and tell me all that passed; and he did. I have no more to

say. My dearest, Allan Woodcourt stood beside your father when he lay dead—stood beside your mother. This is Bleak House. This day I give this house its little mistress; and before God, it is the brightest day in all my life!”

He rose and raised me with him. We were no longer alone. My husband—I have called him by that name full seven happy years now—stood at my side.

“Allan,” said my Guardian, “take from me, a willing gift, the best wife that ever a man had. What more can I say for you than that I know you deserve her! Take with her the little home she brings you. You know what she will make it, Allan; you know what she has made its namesake. Let me share its felicity sometimes, and what do I sacrifice? Nothing, nothing.”

He kissed me once again; and now the tears were in his eyes, as he said more softly:

“Esther, my dearest, after so many years, there is a kind of parting in this too. I know that my mistake has caused you some distress. Forgive your old Guardian, in restoring him to his old place in your affections; and blot it out of your memory. Allan, take my dear!”

He moved away from under the green roof of leaves, stopping in the sunlight outside, and turning cheerfully towards us, said:

“I shall be found about here somewhere. It’s a West wind, little woman, due West! Let no one thank me any more; for I am going to revert to my bachelor habits, and if anybody disregards this warning, I’ll run away and never come back!”

What happiness was ours that day, what joy, what rest, what hope, what gratitude, what bliss! We were to be married before the

month was out; but when we were to come and take possession of our own house, was to depend on Richard and Ada.

We all three went home together next day. As soon as we arrived in town, Allan went straight to see Richard, and to carry our joyful news to him and my darling. Late as it was, I meant to go to her for a few minutes before lying down to sleep; but I went home with my Guardian first, to make his tea for him, and to occupy the old chair by his side; for I did not like to think of its being empty so soon.

When we came home, we found that a young man had called three times in the course of that one day, to see me; and that, having been told, on the occasion of his third call, than I was not expected to return before ten o’clock at night, he had left word, “that he would call about then.” He had left his card three times. MR GUPPY.

As I naturally speculated on the object of these visits, and as I always associated something ludicrous with the visitor, it fell out that in laughing about Mr Guppy I told my Guardian of his old proposal, and his subsequent retraction. “After that,” said my Guardian, “we will certainly receive this hero.” So, instructions were given that Mr Guppy should be shown in, when he came again; and they were scarcely given when he did come again.

He was embarrassed when he found my Guardian with me, but recovered himself, and said, “How de do, sir?”

“How do you do, sir?” returned my Guardian.

“Thank you, sir, I am tolerable,” returned Mr Guppy. “Will you allow me to introduce my mother, Mrs Guppy of the Old Street Road, and my particular friend, Mr Weevle. That is to say, my friend has gone by the name of Weevle, but his name is really and

truly Jobling.”

My Guardian begged them to be seated, and they all sat down. “Tony,” said Mr Guppy to his friend, after an awkward silence.

“Will you open the case?”

“Do it yourself,” returned the friend, rather tartly.

“Well, Mr Jarndyce, sir,” Mr Guppy, after a moment’s consideration, began; to the great diversion of his mother, which she displayed by nudging Mr Jobling with her elbow, and winking at me in a most remarkable manner; “I had an idea that I should see Miss Summerson by herself, and was not quite prepared for your esteemed presence. But Miss Summerson has mentioned to you, perhaps, that something has passed between us on former occasions?”

“Miss Summerson,” returned my Guardian smiling, “has made a communication to that effect to me.”

“That,” said Mr Guppy, “makes matters easier. Sir, I have come out of my articles at Kenge and Carboy’s, and I believe with satisfaction to all parties. I am now admitted (after undergoing an examination that’s enough to badger a man blue, touching a pack of nonsense that he don’t want to know) on the roll of attorneys, and have taken out my certificate, if it would be any satisfaction to you to see it.”

“Thank you, Mr Guppy,” returned my Guardian. “I am quite willing—I believe I use a legal phrase—to admit the certificate.”

Mr Guppy therefore desisted from taking something out of his pocket, and proceeded without it.

“I have no capital myself, but my mother has a little property which takes the form of an annuity;” here Mr Guppy’s mother rolled her head as if she never could sufficiently enjoy the

observation, and put her handkerchief to her mouth, and again winked at me; “and a few pounds for expenses out of pocket in conducting business, will never be wanting, free of interest, which is an advantage, you know,” said Mr Guppy, feelingly.

“Certainly an advantage,” returned my Guardian.

“I have some connection,” pursued Mr Guppy, and it lays in the direction of Walcot Square, Lambeth. I have therefore taken a ouse in that locality, which, in the opinion of my friends, is a hollow bargain (taxes ridiculous, and use of fixtures included in the rent), and intend setting up professionally for myself there, forthwith.”

Here Mr Guppy’s mother fell into an extraordinary passion of rolling her head, and smiling waggishly at anybody who would look at her.

“It’s a six-roomer, exclusive of kitchens,” said Mr Guppy, “and in the opinion of my friends, a commodious tenement. When I mention my friends, I refer principally to my friend Jobling, who I believe has known me,” Mr Guppy looked at him with a sentimental air, “from boyhood’s hour?”

Mr Jobling confirmed this with a sliding movement of his legs. “My friend Jobling will render me his assistance in the capacity

of clerk, and will live in the ouse,” said Mr Guppy. “My mother will likewise live in the ouse, when her present quarter in the Old Street Road shall have ceased and expired; and consequently there will be no want of society. My friend Jobling is naturally aristocratic by taste; and besides being acquainted with the movements of the upper circles, fully backs me in the intentions I am now developing.”

Mr Jobling said “certainly,” and withdrew a little from the

elbow of Mr Guppy’s mother.

“Now, I have no occasion to mention to you, sir, you being in the confidence of Miss Summerson,” said Mr Guppy, “(mother, I wish you’d be so good as to keep still), that Miss Summerson’s image was formerly imprinted on my art, and that I made her a proposal of marriage.”

“That I have heard,” returned my Guardian.

“Circumstances,” pursued Mr Guppy, “over which I had no control but quite the contrary, weakened the impression of that image for a time. At which time, Miss Summerson’s conduct was highly genteel; I may even add, magnanimous.”

My Guardian patted me on the shoulder, and seemed much amused.

“Now, sir,” said Mr Guppy, “I have got into that state of mind myself, that I wish for a reciprocity of magnanimous behaviour. I wish to prove to Miss Summerson that I can rise to a height, of which perhaps she hardly thought me capable. I find that the image which I did suppose had been eradicated from my art, is not eradicated. It’s influence over me is still tremenjous; and yielding to it I am willing to overlook the circumstances over which none of us have had any control, and to renew those proposals to Miss Summerson which I had the honour to make at a former period. I beg to lay the ouse in Walcot Square, the business, and myself, before Miss Summerson for her acceptance.”

“Very magnanimous, indeed, sir,” observed my Guardian. “Well, sir,” returned Mr Guppy, with candour, “my wish is to be

magnanimous. I do not consider that in making this offer to Miss Summerson, I am by any means throwing myself away; neither is that the opinion of my friends. Still there are circumstances which

I submit may be taken into account as a set-off against any little drawbacks of mine, and so a fair and equitable balance arrived at.” “I take upon myself, sir,” said my Guardian, laughing as he rang the bell, “to reply to your proposals on behalf of Miss Summerson. She is very sensible of your handsome intentions,

and wishes you good evening, and wishes you well.”

“Oh!” said Mr Guppy, with a blank look. “Is that tantamount, sir, to acceptance, or rejection, or consideration?”

“To decided rejection, if you please,” returned my Guardian. Mr Guppy looked incredulously at his friend, and at his mother,

who suddenly turned very angry, and at the floor, and at the ceiling.

“Indeed?” said he. “Then, Jobling, if you was the friend you represent yourself, I should think you might hand my mother out of the gangway, instead of allowing her to remain where she ain’t wanted.”

But Mrs Guppy positively refused to come out of the gangway. She wouldn’t hear of it. “Why, get along with you,” said she to my Guardian, “what do you mean? Ain’t my son good enough for you? You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Get out with you!”

“My good lady!” returned my Guardian, “it is hardly reasonable to ask me to get out of my own room.”

“I don’t care for that,” said Mrs Guppy. “Get out with you. If we ain’t good enough for you, go and procure somebody that is good enough. Go along and find ’em.”

I was quite unprepared for the rapid manner in which Mrs Guppy’s power of jocularity merged into a power of taking the profoundest offence.

“Go along and find somebody that is good enough for you,”

repeated Mrs Guppy. “Get out!” Nothing seemed to astonish Mr Guppy’s mother so much, and to make her so very indignant, as our not getting out. “Why don’t you get out?” said Mrs Guppy. “What are you stopping here for?”

“Mother,” interposed her son, always getting before her, and pushing her back with one shoulder, as she sidled at my Guardian, “will you hold your tongue?”

“No, William,” she returned; “I won’t! not unless he gets out, I won’t!”

However, Mr Guppy and Mr Jobling together closed on Mr Guppy’s mother (who began to be quite abusive), and took her, very much against her will, downstairs; her voice rising a stair higher every time her figure got a stair lower, and insisting that we should immediately go and find somebody who was good enough for us, and above all things that we should get out.

Chapter 65

Beginning The World

T

he term had commenced, and my Guardian found an intimation from Mr Kenge that the Cause would come on in two days. As I had sufficient hopes of the will to be in a

flutter about it, Allan and I agreed to go down to the Court that morning. Richard was extremely agitated, and was so weak and low, though his illness was still of the mind, that my dear girl indeed had sore occasion to be supported. But she looked forward—a very little way now—to the help that was to come to her, and never drooped.

It was at Westminister that the Cause was to come on. It had come on there, I dare say, a hundred times before, but I could not divest myself of an idea that it might lead to some result now. We left home directly after breakfast, to be at Westminister Hall in good time; and walked down there through the lively streets—so happily and strangely it seemed!—together.

As we were going along, planning what we should do for Richard and Ada, I heard somebody calling “Esther! My dear Esther! Esther!” And there was Caddy Jellyby, with her head out of the window of a little carriage which she hired now to go about in to her pupils (she had so many), as if she wanted to embrace me at a hundred yards’ distance. I had written her a note to tell her of all that my Guardian had done, but had not had a moment to go and see her. Of course we turned back; and the affectionate girl was in that state of rapture, and was so overjoyed to talk about the

night when she brought me the flowers, and was so determined to squeeze my face (bonnet and all) between her hands, and go on in a wild manner altogether, calling me all kinds of precious names, and telling Allan I had done I don’t know what for her, that I was just obliged to get into the little carriage and calm her down, by letting her say and do exactly what she liked. Allan, standing at the window, was as pleased as Caddy; and I was as pleased as either of them; and I wonder that I got away as I did, rather than that I came off, laughing, and red, and anything, but tidy, and looking after Caddy, who looked after us out of the coach-window as long as she could see us.

This made us some quarter of an hour late, and when we came to Westminster Hall we found that the day’s business was begun. Worse than that, we found such an unusual crowd in the Court of Chancery that it was full to the door, and we could neither see nor hear what was passing within. It appeared to be something droll, for occasionally there was a laugh, and a cry of “Silence!” It appeared to be something interesting, for every one was pushing and striving to get nearer. It appeared to be something that made the professional gentlemen very merry, for there were several young counsellors in wigs and whiskers on the outside of the crowd, and when one of them told the others about it, they put their hands in their pockets, and quite doubled themselves up with laughter, and went stamping about the pavement of the hall.

We asked a gentleman by us, if he knew what cause was on? He told us Jarndyce and Jarndyce. We asked him if he knew what was doing in it? He said, really no he did not, nobody ever did; but as well as he could make out, it was over. Over for the day? we asked him. No he said; over for good.

Over for good!

When we heard this unaccountable answer, we looked at one another quite lost in amazement. Could it be possible that the Will had set things right at last, and that Richard and Ada were going to be rich? It seemed too good to be true. Alas, it was!

Our suspense was short; for a break up soon took place in the crowd, and the people came streaming out looking flushed and hot, and bringing a quantity of bad air with them. Still they were all exceedingly amused, and were more like people coming out from a Farce or a Juggler than from a court of Justice. We stood aside, watching for any countenance we knew; and presently great bundles of paper began to be carried out—bundles in bags, bundles too large to be got into any bags, immense masses of papers of all shapes and no shapes, which the bearers staggered under, and threw down for the time being, anyhow, on the Hall pavement, while they went back to bring out more. Even these clerks were laughing. We glanced at these papers, and seeing Jarndyce and Jarndyce everywhere, asked an official-looking person who was standing in the midst of them, whether the cause was over. “Yes,” he said; “it was all up with it at last!” and burst out laughing too.

At this juncture, we perceived Mr Kenge coming out of court with an affable dignity upon him, listening to Mr Vholes, who was deferential, and carried his own bag. Mr Vholes was the first to see us. “Here is Miss Summerson, sir,” he said. “And Mr Woodcourt.”

“O, indeed! Yes. Truly!” said Mr Kenge, raising his hat to me with polished politeness. “How do you do? Glad to see you. Mr Jarndyce is not here?”

No. He never came there, I reminded him.

“Really,” returned Mr Kenge, “it is as well that he is not here today, for his—shall I say, in my good friend’s absence, his indomitable singularity of opinion?—might have been strengthened, perhaps; not reasonably, but might have been strengthened.”

“Pray what has been done today?” asked Allan.

“I beg your pardon?” said Mr Kenge, with excessive urbanity. “What has been done today?”

“What has been done,” repeated Mr Kenge. “Quite so. Yes. Why, not much has been done; not much. We have been checked—brought up suddenly, I would say—upon the—shall I term it threshold?”

“Is this Will considered a genuine document, sir?” said Allan; “will you tell us that?”

“Most certainly, if I could,” said Mr Kenge; “but we have not gone into that, we have not gone into that.”

“We have not gone into that,” repeated Mr Vholes, as if his low inward voice were an echo.

“You are to reflect, Mr Woodcourt,” observed Mr Kenge, using his silver trowel, persuasively and smoothingly, “that this has been a great cause, that this has been a protracted cause, that this has been a complex cause. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has been termed, not inaptly, a Monument of Chancery practice.”

“And Patience has sat upon it a long time,” said Allan.

“Very well indeed, sir,” returned Mr Kenge, with a certain condescending laugh he had. “Very well! You are further to reflect, Mr Woodcourt,” becoming dignified to severity, “that on the numerous difficulties, contingencies, masterly fictions, and forms of procedure in this great cause, there has been expended

study, ability, eloquence, knowledge, intellect, Mr Woodcourt, high intellect. For many years, the—a—I would say the flower of the Bar, and the—a—I would presume to add, the matured autumnal fruits of the Woolsack—have been lavished upon Jarndyce and Jarndyce. If the public have the benefit, and if the country have the adornment, of this great Grasp, it must be paid for, in money or money’s worth, sir.”

“Mr Kenge,” said Allan, appearing enlightened all in a moment. “Excuse me, our time presses. Do I understand that the whole estate is found to have been absorbed in costs?”

“Hem! I believe so,” returned Mr Kenge. “Mr Vholes, what do

you say?”

“I believe so,” said Mr Vholes.

“And that thus the suit lapses and melts away?” “Probably,” returned Mr Kenge. “Mr Vholes?” “Probably,” said Mr Vholes.

“My dearest life,” whispered Allan, “this will break Richard’s heart!”

There was such a shock of apprehension in his face, and he knew Richard so perfectly, and I too had seen so much of his gradual decay, that what my dear girl had said to me in the fulness of her foreboding love, sounded like a knell in my ears.

“In case you should be wanting Mr C, sir,” said Mr Vholes, coming after us, “you’ll find him in court. I left him there resting himself a little. Good day, sir; good day, Miss Summerson.” As he gave me that slowly devouring look of his, while twisting up the strings of his bag, before he hastened with it, after Mr Kenge, the benignant shadow of whose conversational presence he seemed afraid to leave, he gave one gasp as if he had swallowed the last

morsel of this client, and his black buttoned-up unwholesome figure glided away to the low door at the end of the hall.

“My dear love,” said Allan, “leave to me for a little while, the charge you gave me. Go home with this intelligence, and come to Ada’s by-and-by.”

I would not let him take me to a coach, but entreated him to go to Richard without a moment’s delay, and leave me to do as he wished. Hurrying home, I found my Guardian, and told him gradually with what news I had returned. “Little woman,” said he, quite unmoved for himself, “to have done with the suit on any terms, is a greater blessing than I had looked for. But my poor young cousins!”

We talked about them all the morning, and discussed what it was possible to do. In the afternoon, my Guardian walked with me to Symond’s Inn, and left me at the door. I went upstairs. When my darling heard my footsteps, she came out into the small passage and threw her arms round my neck; but she composed herself directly, and said that Richard had asked for me several times. Allan had found him sitting in a corner of the court, she told me, like a stone figure. On being roused, he had broken away, and made as if he would have spoken in a fierce voice to the judge. He was stopped by his mouth being full of blood, and Allan had brought him home.

He was lying on the sofa with his eyes closed, when I went in. There were restoratives on the table; the room was made as airy as possible, and was darkened, and was very orderly and quiet. Allan stood behind him, watching him gravely. His face appeared to me to be quite destitute of colour, and, now that I saw him without his seeing me, I fully saw, for the first time, how worn away he was.

But he looked handsomer than I had seen him look for many a day.

I sat down by his side in silence. Opening his eyes by-and-by, he said, in a weak voice, but with his old smile, “Dame Durden, kiss me, my dear!”

It was a great comfort and surprise to me to find him in his low state cheerful and looking forward. He was happier, he said, in our intended marriage, than he could find words to tell me. My husband had been a guardian angel to him and Ada, and he blessed us both, and wished us all the joy that life could yield us. I almost felt as if my own heart would have broken, when I saw him take my husband’s hand, and hold it to his breast.

We spoke of the future as much as possible, and he said several times that he must be present at our marriage if he could stand upon his feet. Ada would contrive to take him, somehow, he said. “Yes, surely, dearest Richard!” But as my darling answered him thus hopefully, so serene and beautiful, with the help that was to come to her so near,—I knew—I knew!

It was not good for him to talk too much; and when he was silent, we were silent too. Sitting beside him, I made a pretence of working for my dear, as he had always been used to joke about my being busy. Ada leaned upon his pillow, holding his head upon her arm. He dozed often; and whenever he awoke without seeing him, said, first of all, “Where is Woodcourt?”

Evening had come on, when I lifted up my eyes, and saw my Guardian standing in the little hall. “Who is that, Dame Durden?” Richard asked me. The door was behind him, but he had observed in my face that some one was there.

I looked to Allen for advice, and as he nodded “Yes,” bent over

Richard and told him. My Guardian saw what passed, came softly by me in a moment, and laid his hand on Richard’s. “O sir,” said Richard, “you are a good man, you are a good man!” and burst into tears for the first time.

My Guardian, the picture of a good man, sat down in my place, keeping his hand on Richard’s.

“My dear Rick,” said he, “the clouds have cleared away, and it is bright now. We can see now. We were all bewildered, Rick, more or less. What matters! And how are you, my dear boy?”

“I am very weak, sir, but I hope I shall be stronger. I have to begin the world.”

“Ay, truly; well said!” cried my Guardian.

“I will not begin it in the old way now,” said Richard with a sad smile. “I have learned a lesson now, sir. It was a hard one; but you shall be assured, indeed, that I have learned it.”

“Well, well,” said my Guardian, comforting him; “well, well, well, dear boy!”

“I was thinking, sir,” resumed Richard, “that there is nothing on earth I should so much like to see as their house—Dame Durden’s and Woodcourt’s house. If I could be moved there when I begin to recover my strength, I feel as if I should get well there, sooner than anywhere.”

“Why, so have I been thinking, too, Rick,” said my Guardian, “and our little woman likewise; she and I have been talking of it, this very day. I dare say her husband won’t object. What do you think?”

Richard smiled; and lifted up his arm to touch him, as he stood behind the head of his couch.

“I say nothing of Ada,” said Richard, “but I think of her, and

have thought of her very much. Look at her! see her here, sir, bending over this pillow when she has so much need to rest upon it herself, my dear love, my poor girl!”

He clasped her in his arms, and none of us spoke. He gradually released her; and she looked upon us, and looked up to Heaven, and moved her lips.

“When I get down to Bleak House,” said Richard, “I shall have much to tell you, sir, and you will have much to show me. You will go, won’t you?”

“Undoubtedly, dear Rick.”

“Thank you; like you like you,” said Richard. “But it’s all like you. They have been telling me how you planned it, and how you remembered all Esther’s familiar tastes and ways. It will be like coming to the old Bleak House again.”

“And you will come there too, I hope, Rick. I am a solitary man now, you know, and it will be a charity to come to me. A charity to come to me, my love!” he repeated to Ada, as he gently passed his hand over her golden hair, and put a lock of it to his lips. (I think he vowed within himself to cherish her if she were left alone.)

“It was all a troubled dream?” said Richard, clasping both my Guardian’s hands eagerly.

“Nothing more, Rick; nothing more.”

“And you, being a good man, can pass it as such, and forgive and pity the dreamer, and be lenient and encouraging when he wakes?”

“Indeed I can. What am I but another dreamer, Rick?”

“I will begin the world!” said Richard, with a light in his eyes.

My husband drew a little nearer towards Ada, and I saw him solemnly lift up his hand to warn my Guardian.

“When shall I go from this place, to that pleasant country where the old times are, where I shall have strength to tell what Ada has been to me, where I shall be able to recall my many faults and blindnesses, where I shall prepare myself to be a guide to my unborn child?” said Richard. “When shall I go?”

“Dear Rick, when you are strong enough,” returned my Guardian.

“Ada, my darling!”

He sought to raise himself a little. Allan raised him so that she could hold him on her bosom: which was what he wanted.

“I have done you many wrongs, my own. I have fallen like a poor stray shadow on your way, I have married you to poverty and trouble, I have scattered your means to the winds. You will forgive me all this, my Ada, before I begin the world?”

A smile irradiated his face, as she bent to kiss him. He slowly laid his face down upon her bosom, drew his arms closer round her neck, and with one parting sob began the world. Not this world, O not this! The world that sets this right.

When all was still, at a late hour, poor crazed Miss Flite came weeping to me, and told me she had given her birds their liberty.

Chapter 66

Down In Lincolnshire

T

here is a hush upon Chesney Wold in these altered days, as there is upon a portion of the family history. The story goes, that Sir Leicester paid some who could have spoken

out, to hold their peace; but it is a lame story, feebly whispering and creeping about, and any brighter spark of life it shows soon dies away. It is known for certain that the handsome Lady Dedlock lies in the mausoleum in the park, where the trees arch darkly overhead, and the owl is heard at night making the woods ring; but whence she was brought home, to be laid among the echoes of that solitary place, or how she died, is all mystery. Some of her old friends, principally to be found among the peachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats, did once occasionally say, as they toyed in a ghastly manner with large fans—like charmers reduced to flirting with grim Death, after losing all their other beaux—did once occasionally say, when the World assembled together, that they wondered the ashes of the Dedlocks, entombed in the mausoleum, never rose against the profanation of her company. But the dead-and-gone Dedlocks take it very calmly, and have never been known to object.

Up from among the fern in the hollow, and winding by the bridle-road among the trees, comes sometimes to this lonely spot the sound of horses’ hoofs. Then may be seen Sir Leicester— invalided, bent, and almost blind, but of worthy presence yet— riding with a stalwart man beside him, constant to his bridle-rein.

When they come to a certain spot before the mausoleum door, Sir Leicester’s accustomed horse stops of his own accord, and Sir Leicester, pulling off his hat, is still for a few moments before they ride away.

War rages yet with the audacious Boythorn, though at uncertain intervals, and now hotly, and now coolly; flickering like an unsteady fire. The truth is said to be, that when Sir Leicester came down to Lincolnshire for good, Mr Boythorn showed a manifest desire to abandon his right of way, and do whatever Sir Leicester would: which Sir Leicester, conceiving to be a condescension to his illness or misfortune, took in such high dudgeon, and was so magnificently aggrieved by, that Mr Boythorn found himself under the necessity of committing a flagrant trespass to restore his neighbour to himself. Similarly Mr Boythorn continues to post tremendous placards on the disputed thoroughfare, and (with his bird upon his head) to hold forth vehemently against Sir Leicester in the sanctuary of his own home; similarly, also, he defies him as of old in the little church, by testifying a bland unconsciousness of his existence. But it is whispered that when he is most ferocious towards his old foe, he is really most considerate; and that Sir Leicester, in the dignity of being implacable, little supposes how much he is humoured. As little does he think how near together he and his antagonist have suffered, in the fortunes of two sisters, and his antagonist, who knows it now, is not the man to tell him. So the quarrel goes on to the satisfaction of both.

In one of the lodges of the park; that lodge within sight of the house where, once upon a time, when the waters were out down at Lincolnshire, my Lady used to see the Keeper’s child; the stalwart

man, the trooper formerly, is housed. Some relics of his old calling hang upon the walls, and these it is the chosen recreation of a little lame man about the stable-yard to keep gleaming bright. A busy little man he always is, in the polishing at harness-house doors, of stirrup-irons, bits, curb-chains, harness-bosses, anything in the way of a stable-yard that will take a polish: leading a life of friction. A shaggy little damaged man, withal, not unlike an old dog of some mongrel breed, who has been considerably knocked about. He answers to the name of Phil.

A goodly sight it is to see the grand old housekeeper (harder of hearing now) going to church on the arm of her son, and to observe—which few do, for the house is scant of company in these times—the relations of both towards Sir Leicester, and his towards them. They have visitors in the high summer weather, when a grey cloak and umbrella, unknown to Chesney Wold at other periods, are seen among the leaves; when two young ladies are occasionally found gambolling, in sequestered saw-pits, and such nooks of the park; and when the smoke of two pipes wreathes away into the fragrant evening air, from the trooper’s door. Then is a fife heard trolling within the lodge on the inspiring topic of the British Grenadiers; and, as the evening closes in, a gruff inflexible voice is heard to say, while two men pace together up and down, “But I never own to it before the old girl. Discipline must be maintained.”

The greater part of the house is shut up, and it is a show-house no longer; yet Sir Leicester holds his shrunken state in the long drawing-room for all that, and reposes in his old place before my Lady’s picture. Closed in by night with broad screens, and illumined only in that part, the light of the drawing-room seems

gradually contracting and dwindling until it shall be no more. A little more, in truth, and it will be all extinguished for Sir Leicester; and the damp door in the mausoleum which shuts so tight, and looks so obdurate, will have opened and received him.

Volumnia, growing with the flight of time pinker as to the red in her face, and yellower as to the white, reads to Sir Leicester in the long evenings, and is driven to various artifices to conceal her yawns: of which the chief and most efficacious is the insertion of the pearl necklace between her rosy lips. Longwinded treatises on the Buffy and Boodle question, showing how Buffy is immaculate and Boodle villainous, and how the country is lost by being all Boodle and no Buffy, or saved by being all Buffy and no Boodle (it must be one of the two, and cannot be anything else), are the staple of her reading. Sir Leicester is not particular what it is, and does not appear to follow it very closely; further than that he always comes broad awake the moment Volumnia ventures to leave off, and sonorously repeating her last word, begs with some displeasure to know if she finds herself fatigued? However, Volumnia, in the course of her bird-like hopping about and pecking at papers, has lighted on a memorandum concerning herself, in the event of “anything happening” to her kinsman, which is handsome compensation for an extensive course of reading, and holds even the dragon Boredom at bay.

The cousins generally are rather shy of Chesney Wold in its dulness, but take to it a little in the shooting season, when guns are heard in the plantations, and a few scattered beaters and keepers wait at the old places of appointment, for low-spirited twos and threes of cousins. The debilitated cousin, more debilitated by the deariness of the place, gets into a fearful state of

depression, groaning under penitential sofa-pillows in his gunless hours, and protesting that such fernal old jail’s—nough t’sew fler up—frever.

The only great occasions for Volumnia, in this changed aspect of the place in Lincolnshire, are those occasions, rare and widely separated, when something is to be done for the county, or the country, in the way of gracing a public ball. Then, indeed, does the tuckered slyph come out in fairy form, and proceed with joy under cousinly escort to the exhausted old assembly-room, fourteen heavy miles off; which, during three hundred and sixty-four days and nights of every ordinary year, is a kind of Antipodean lumber- room, full of old chairs and tables, upside down. Then, indeed, does she captivate all hearts by her condescension, by her girlish vivacity, and by her skipping about as in the days when the hideous old general with the mouth too full of teeth, had not cut one of them at two guineas each. Then does she twirl and twine, a pastoral nymph of good family, through the mazes of the dance. Then do the swains appear with tea, with lemonade, with sandwiches, with homage. Then is she kind and cruel, stately and unassuming, various, beautifully wilful. Then is there a singular kind of parallel between her and the little glass chandeliers of another age, embellishing that assembly-room; which, with their meagre stems, their spare little drops, their disappointing knobs were no drops are, their bare little stalks from which knobs and drops have both departed, and their little feeble prismatic twinkling, all seem Volumnias.

For the rest, Lincolnshire life to Volumnia is a vast blank of overgrown house looking out upon trees, sighing, wringing their hands, bowing their heads, and casting their tears upon the

window-panes in monotonous depression. A labyrinth of grandeur, less the property of an old family of human beings and their ghostly likenesses, than of an old family of echoings and thunderings which start out of their hundred graves at every sound, and go resounding through the building. A waste of unused passages and staircases, in which to drop a comb upon a bedroom floor at night is to send a stealthy footfall on an errand through the house. A place where few people care to go about alone; where a maid screams if an ash drops from the fire, takes to crying at all times and seasons, becomes the victim of a low disorder of the spirits, and gives warning and departs.

Thus Chesney Wold. With so much of itself abandoned to darkness and vacancy; with so little change under the summer shining or the wintry lowering; so sombre and motionless always—no flag flying now by day, no rows of light sparkling by night; with no family to come and go, no visitors to be the souls of pale cold shapes of rooms, no stir of life about it;—passion and pride, even to the stranger’s eye, have died away from the place of Lincolnshire, and yielded it to dull repose.

Chapter 67

The Close Of Esther’s Narrative

ull seven happy years I have been the mistress of Bleak House. The few words that I have to add to what I have written, are soon penned; then I, and the unknown friend

to whom I write, will part for ever. Not without much dear remembrance on my side. Not without some, I hope, on his or hers.

They gave my darling into my arms, and through many weeks I never left her. The little child who was to have done so much, was born before the turf was planted on his father’s grave. It was a boy; and I, my husband, and my Guardian, gave him his father name.

The help that my dear counted on, did come to her; though it came in the Eternal Wisdom, for another purpose. Though to bless and restore his mother, not his father, was the errand of this baby, its power was mighty to do it. When I saw the strength of the weak little hand, and how its touch could heal my darling’s heart, and raise up hope within her, I felt a new sense of the goodness and the tenderness of God.

They throve; and by degrees I saw my dear girl pass into my country garden, and walk there with her infant in her arms. I was married then. I was the happiest of the happy.

It was at this time that my Guardian joined us, and asked Ada when she would come home.

“Both houses are your home, my dear,” said he, “but the older

Bleak House claims priority. When you and my boy are strong enough to do it, come and take possession of your home.

Ada called him “her dearest cousin, John.” But he said, No, it must be Guardian now. He was her Guardian henceforth, and the boy’s; and he had an old association with the name. So she called him Guardian, and has called him Guardian ever since. The children know him by no other name—I say the children; I have two little daughters.

It is difficult to believe that Charley (round-eyed still, and not at all grammatical) is married to a miller in our neighbourhood; yet so it is; and even now, looking up from my desk as I write, early in the morning at my summer window, I see the very mill beginning to go round. I hope the miller will not spoil Charley; but he is very fond of her, and Charley is rather vain of such a match—for he is well to do, and was in great request. So far as my small maid is concerned, I might suppose Time to have stood for seven years as still as the mill did half an hour ago; since little Emma, Charley’s sister, is exactly what Charley used to be. As to Tom, Charley’s brother, I am really afraid to say what he did at school in ciphering, but I think it was Decimals. He is apprenticed to the miller, whatever it was; and is a good bashful fellow, always falling in love with somebody, and being ashamed of it.

Caddy Jellyby passed her very last holidays with us, and was a dearer creature than ever; perpetually dancing in and out of the house with the children, as if she had never given a dancing-lesson in her life. Caddy keeps her own little carriage now, instead of hiring one, and lives full two miles further westward than Newman Street. She works very hard, her husband (an excellent one) being lame, and able to do very little. Still, she is more than

contented, and does all she has to do with all her heart. Mr Jellyby spends his evenings at her new house with his head against the wall, as he used to do in her old one. I have heard that Mrs Jellyby was understood to suffer great mortification, from her daughter’s ignoble marriage and pursuits; but I hope she got over it in time. She has been disappointed in Borrioboola Gha, which turned out a failure in consequence of the King of Borrioboola wanting to sell everybody—who survived the climate—for Rum; but she has taken up with the rights of women to sit in Parliament, and Caddy tells me it is a mission involving more correspondence than the old one. I had almost forgotten Caddy’s poor little girl. She is not such a mite now; but she is deaf and dumb. I believe there never was a better mother than Caddy, who learns, in her scanty intervals of leisure, innumerable deaf and dumb arts, to soften the affliction of her child.

As if I were never to have done with Caddy, I am reminded here of Peepy and old Mr Turveydrop. Peepy is in the Custom-house, and doing extremely well. Old Mr Turveydrop, very apolectic, still exhibits his Deportment about town; still enjoys himself in the old manner; is still believed in, in the old way. He is constant in his patronage of Peepy, and is understood to have bequeathed him a favourite French clock in his dressing-room—which is not his property.

With the first money we saved at home, we added to our pretty house by throwing out a little Growlery expressly for my Guardian; which we inaugurated with great splendour the next time he came down to see us. I try to write all this lightly, because my heart is full in drawing to an end; but when I write of him, my tears will have their way.

I never look at him, but I hear our poor dear Richard calling him a good man. To Ada and her pretty boy, he is the fondest father; to me, he is what he has ever been, and what name can I give to that? He is my husband’s best and dearest friend, he is our children’s darling, he is the object of our deepest love and veneration. Yet while I feel towards him as if he were a superior being, I am so familiar with him, and so easy with him, that I almost wonder at myself. I have never lost my old names, nor has he lost his; nor do I ever, when he is with us, sit in any other place than in my old chair at his side. Dame Trot, Dame Durden, Little Woman!—all just the same as ever; and I answer, Yes, dear Guardian! just the same.

I have never known the wind to be in the East for a single moment, since the day when he took me to the porch to read the name. I remarked to him, once, that the wind seemed never in the East now: and he said, No, truly: it had finally departed from that quarter on that very day.

I think my darling girl is more beautiful than ever. The sorrow that has been in her face—for it is not there now—seems to have purified even its innocent expression, and to have given it a diviner quality. Sometimes, when I raise my eyes and see her, in the black dress that she still wears, teaching my Richard, I feel—it is difficult to express—as if it were so good to know that she remembers her dear Esther in her prayers.

I call him my Richard! But he says that he has two mamas, and I am one.

We are not rich in the bank, but we have always prospered, and we have quite enough. I never walk out with my husband, but I hear the people bless him. I never go into a house of any degree,

but I hear his praises, or see them in grateful eyes. I never lie down at night, but I know that in the course of that day he has alleviated pain, and soothed some fellow-creature in the time of need. I know that from the beds of those who were past recovery, thanks have often, often gone up in the last hour for his patient ministration. Is not this to be rich?

The people even praise Me as the doctor’s wife. The people even like Me as I go about, and make so much of me that I am quite abashed. I owe it all to him, my love, my pride! They like me for his sake, as I do everything I do in life for his sake.

A night or two ago, after bustling about preparing for my darling and my Guardian and little Richard, who are coming tomorrow, I was sitting out in the porch of all places, that dearly memorable porch, when Allan came home. So he said, “My precious little woman, what are you doing here?” And I said, “The moon is shining so brightly, Allan, and the night is so delicious, that I have been sitting here, thinking.”

“What have you been thinking about, my dear?” said Allan then.

“How curious you are!” said I. “I am almost ashamed to tell you, but I will. I have been thinking about my old looks—such as they were.”

“And what have you been thinking about them, my busy bee?” said Allan.

“I have been thinking that I thought it was impossible that you

could have loved me any better, even if I had retained them.” “—Such as they were?” said Allan laughing.

“Such as they were, of course.”

“My dear Dame Durden,” said Allan, drawing my arm through

his, “do you ever look in the glass?” “You know I do; you see me do it.”

“And don’t you know that you are prettier than you ever were?” I did not know that; I am not certain that I know it now. But I know that my dearest little pets are very pretty, and that my darling is very beautiful, and that my husband is very handsome, and that my Guardian has the brightest and most benevolent face that ever was seen; and that they can very well do without much

beauty in me—even supposing—.