The Solitary House (With Bonus Novels Bleak House and the Woman in White)

by Lynn Shepherd

  Of all his playful speeches (playful, yet always fully meaning what they expressed) none seemed to be more to the taste of Mr. Jarndyce than this. I had often new temptations, afterwards, to wonder whether it was really singular, or only singular to me, that he, who was probably the most grateful of mankind upon the least occasion, should so desire to escape the gratitude of others.

  We were all enchanted. I felt it a merited tribute to the engaging qualities of Ada and Richard, that Mr. Skimpole, seeing them for the first time, should be so unreserved, and should lay himself out to be so exquisitely agreeable. They (and especially Richard) were naturally pleased, for similar reasons, and considered it no common privilege to be so freely confided in by such an attractive man. The more we listened, the more gaily Mr. Skimpole talked. And what with his fine hilarious manner, and his engaging candour, and his genial way of lightly tossing his own weaknesses about, as if he had said, “I am a child, you know! You are designing people compared with me” (he really made me consider myself in that light); “but I am gay and innocent; forget your worldly arts and play with me!”—the effect was absolutely dazzling.

  He was so full of feeling too, and had such a delicate sentiment for what was beautiful or tender, that he could have won a heart by that alone. In the evening when I was preparing to make tea, and Ada was touching the piano in the adjoining room and softly humming a tune to her cousin Richard, which they had happened to mention, he came and sat down on the sofa near me, and so spoke of Ada that I almost loved him.

  “She is like the morning,” he said. “With that golden hair, those blue eyes, and that fresh bloom on her cheek, she is like the summer morning. The birds here will mistake her for it. We will not call such a lovely young creature as that, who is a joy to all mankind, an orphan. She is the child of the universe.”

  Mr. Jarndyce, I found, was standing near us, with his hands behind him, and an attentive smile upon his face.

  “The universe,” he observed, “makes rather an indifferent parent, I am afraid.”

  “O! I don’t know!” cried Mr. Skimpole buoyantly.

  “I think I do know,” said Mr. Jarndyce.

  “Well!” cried Mr. Skimpole, “you know the world (which in your sense is the universe), and I know nothing of it, so you shall have your way. But if I had mine,” glancing at the cousins, “there should be no brambles of sordid realities in such a path as that. It should be strewn with roses; it should lie through bowers, where there was no spring, autumn, nor winter, but perpetual summer. Age or change should never wither it. The base word money should never be breathed near it!”

  Mr. Jarndyce patted him on the head with a smile, as if he had been really a child; and passing a step or two on, and stopping a moment, glanced at the young cousins. His look was thoughtful, but had a benignant expression in it which I often (how often!) saw again: which has long been engraven on my heart. The room in which they were, communicating with that in which he stood, was only lighted by the fire. Ada sat at the piano; Richard stood beside her, bending down. Upon the wall, their shadows blended together, surrounded by strange forms, not without a ghostly motion caught from the unsteady fire, though reflecting from motionless objects. Ada touched the notes so softly, and sang so low, that the wind, sighing away to the distant hills, was as audible as the music. The mystery of the future, and the little clue afforded to it by the voice of the present, seemed expressed in the whole picture.

  But it is not to recall this fancy, well as I remember it, that I recall the scene. First, I was not quite unconscious of the contrast in respect of meaning and intention, between the silent look directed that way, and the flow of words that had preceded it. Secondly, though Mr. Jarndyce’s glance, as he withdrew it, rested for but a moment on me, I felt as if, in that moment, he confided to me—and knew that he confided to me, and that I received the confidence—his hope that Ada and Richard might one day enter on a dearer relationship.

  Mr. Skimpole could play on the piano, and the violoncello; and he was a composer—had composed half an opera once, but got tired of it—and played what he composed with taste. After tea we had quite a little concert, in which Richard—who was enthralled by Ada’s singing, and told me that she seemed to know all the songs that ever were written—and Mr. Jarndyce, and I, were the audience. After a little while I missed, first Mr. Skimpole, and afterwards Richard; and while I was thinking how could Richard stay away so long, and lose so much, the maid who had given me the keys looked in at the door, saying, “If you please, miss, could you spare a minute?”

  When I was shut out with her in the hall, she said, holding up her hands, “Oh if you please, miss, Mr. Carstone says would you come upstairs to Mr. Skimpole’s room. He has been took, miss!”

  “Took?” said I.

  “Took, miss. Sudden,” said the maid.

  I was apprehensive that his illness might be of a dangerous kind; but of course, I begged her to be quiet and not disturb any one; and collected myself, as I followed her quickly upstairs, sufficiently to consider what were the best remedies to be applied if it should prove to be a fit. She threw open a door, and I went into a chamber; where to my unspeakable surprise, instead of finding Mr. Skimpole stretched upon the bed, or prostrate on the floor, I found him standing before the fire smiling at Richard, while Richard, with a face of great embarrassment, looked at a person on the sofa, in a white great-coat, with smooth hair upon his head and not much of it, which he was wiping smoother, and making less of, with a pocket-handkerchief.

  “Miss Summerson,” said Richard hurriedly, “I am glad you are come. You will be able to advise us. Our friend, Mr. Skimpole—don’t be alarmed!—is arrested for debt.”

  “And, really, my dear Miss Summerson,” said Mr. Skimpole, with his agreeable candour, “I never was in a situation, in which that excellent sense, and quiet habit of method and usefulness, which anybody must observe in you who has the happiness of being a quarter of an hour in your society, was more needed.”

  The person on the sofa, who appeared to have a cold in his head, gave such a very loud snort, that he startled me.

  “Are you arrested for much, sir?” I inquired of Mr. Skimpole.

  “My dear Miss Summerson,” said he, shaking his head pleasantly, “I don’t know. Some pounds, odd shillings, and halfpence, I think, were mentioned.”

  “It’s twenty-four pound, sixteen, and sevenpence ha’penny,” observed the stranger. “That’s wot it is.”

  “And it sounds—somehow it sounds,” said Mr. Skimpole, “like a small sum?”

  The strange man said nothing, but made another snort. It was such a powerful one, that it seemed quite to lift him out of his seat.

  “Mr. Skimpole,” said Richard to me, “has a delicacy in applying to my cousin Jarndyce, because he has lately—I think, sir, I understood you that you had lately—”

  “Oh, yes!” returned Mr. Skimpole, smiling. “Though I forgot how much it was, and when it was, Jarndyce would readily do it again; but I have the epicure-like feeling that I would prefer a novelty in help; that I would rather,” and he looked at Richard and me, “develop generosity in a new soil, and in a new form of flower.”

  “What do you think will be best, Miss Summerson?” said Richard, aside.

  I ventured to inquire, generally, before replying, what would happen if the money were not produced.

  “Jail,” said the strange man, coolly putting his handkerchief into his hat, which was on the floor at his feet. “Or Coavinses.”

  “May I ask, sir, what is—”

  “Coavinses?” said the strange man. “A ’ouse.”

  Richard and I looked at one another again. It was a most singular thing that the arrest was our embarrassment, and not Mr. Skimpole’s. He observed us with a genial interest; but there seemed, if I may venture on such a contradiction, nothing selfish in it. He had entirely washed his hands of the difficulty, and it had become ours.

  “I thought,” he suggested, as if good-naturedly to help us
out, “that being parties in a Chancery suit concerning (as people say) a large amount of property, Mr. Richard or his beautiful cousin, or both, could sign something, or make over something, or give some sort of undertaking, or pledge, or bond? I don’t know what the business name of it may be, but I suppose there is some instrument within their power that would settle this?”

  “Not a bit on it,” said the strange man.

  “Really?” returned Mr. Skimpole. “That seems odd, now, to one who is no judge of these things!”

  “Odd or even,” said the stranger gruffly, “I tell you, not a bit on it!”

  “Keep your temper, my good fellow, keep your temper!” Mr. Skimpole gently reasoned with him, as he made a little drawing of his head on the fly-leaf of a book. “Don’t be ruffled by your occupation. We can separate you from your office; we can separate the individual from the pursuit. We are not so prejudiced as to suppose that in private life you are otherwise than a very estimable man, with a great deal of poetry in your nature, of which you may not be conscious.”

  The stranger only answered with another violent snort; whether in acceptance of the poetry-tribute, or in disdainful rejection of it, he did not express to me.

  “Now, my dear Miss Summerson, and my dear Mr. Richard,” said Mr. Skimpole gaily, innocently, and confidingly, as he looked at his drawing with his head on one side; “here you see me utterly incapable of helping myself, and entirely in your hands! I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!”

  “My dear Miss Summerson,” said Richard, in a whisper, “I have ten pounds that I received from Mr. Kenge. I must try what that will do.”

  I possessed fifteen pounds, odd shillings, which I had saved from my quarterly allowance during several years. I had always thought that some accident might happen which would throw me, suddenly, without any relation, or any property, on the world; and had always tried to keep some little money by me, that I might not be quite penniless. I told Richard of my having this little store, and having no present need of it; and I asked him delicately to inform Mr. Skimpole, while I should be gone to fetch it, that we would have the pleasure of paying his debt.

  When I came back, Mr. Skimpole kissed my hand, and seemed quite touched. Not on his own account (I was again aware of that perplexing and extraordinary contradiction), but on ours; as if personal considerations were impossible with him, and the contemplation of our happiness alone affected him. Richard, begging me, for the greater grace of the transaction, as he said, to settle with Coavinses (as Mr. Skimpole now jocularly called him), I counted out the money and received the necessary acknowledgment. This, too, delighted Mr. Skimpole.

  His compliments were so delicately administered, that I blushed less than I might have done; and settled with the stranger in the white coat, without making any mistakes. He put the money in his pocket, and shortly said, “Well, then, I’ll wish you a good evening, miss.”

  “My friend,” said Mr. Skimpole, standing with his back to the fire, after giving up the sketch when it was half finished, “I should like to ask you something, without offence.”

  I think the reply was, “Cut away, then!”

  “Did you know this morning, now, that you were coming out on this errand?” said Mr. Skimpole.

  “Know’d it yes’day aft’noon at tea-time,” said Coavinses.

  “It didn’t affect your appetite? Didn’t make you at all uneasy?”

  “Not a bit,” said Coavinses. “I know’d if you wos missed today, you wouldn’t be missed tomorrow. A day makes no such odds.”

  “But when you came down here,” proceeded Mr. Skimpole, “it was a fine day. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, the lights and shadows were passing across the fields, the birds were singing.”

  “Nobody said they warn’t, in my hearing,” returned Coavinses.

  “No,” observed Mr. Skimpole. “But what did you think upon the road?”

  “Wot do you mean?” growled Coavinses, with an appearance of strong resentment. “Think! I’ve got enough to do, and little enough to get for it, without thinking. Thinking!” (with profound contempt).

  “Then you didn’t think, at all events,” proceeded Mr. Skimpole, “to this effect. ‘Harold Skimpole loves to see the sun shine; loves to hear the wind blow; loves to watch the changing lights and shadows; loves to hear the birds, those choristers in Nature’s great cathedral. And does it seem to me that I am about to deprive Harold Skimpole of his share in such possessions, which are his only birthright!’ You thought nothing to that effect?”

  “I—certainly—did—NOT,” said Coavinses, whose doggedness in utterly renouncing the idea was of that intense kind that he could only give adequate expression to it by putting a long interval between each word, and accompanying the last with a jerk that might have dislocated his neck.

  “Very odd and very curious, the mental process is, in you men of business!” said Mr. Skimpole, thoughtfully. “Thank you, my friend. Good night.”

  As our absence had been long enough already to seem strange downstairs, I returned at once, and found Ada sitting at work by the fireside talking to her cousin John. Mr. Skimpole presently appeared, and Richard shortly after him. I was sufficiently engaged, during the remainder of the evening, in taking my first lesson in backgammon from Mr. Jarndyce, who was very fond of the game, and from whom I wished of course to learn it as quickly as I could, in order that I might be of the very small use of being able to play when he had no better adversary. But I thought, occasionally, when Mr. Skimpole played some fragments of his own compositions; or when, both at the piano and the violoncello, and at our table, he preserved, with an absence of all effort, his delightful spirits and his easy flow of conversation, that Richard and I seemed to retain the transferred impression of having been arrested since dinner, and that it was very curious altogether.

  It was late before we separated: for when Ada was going at eleven o’clock, Mr. Skimpole went to the piano, and rattled, hilariously, that the best of all ways, to lengthen our days, was to steal a few hours from Night, my dear! It was past twelve before he took his candle and his radiant face out of the room; and I think he might have kept us there, if he had seen fit, until daybreak. Ada and Richard were lingering for a few moments by the fire, wondering whether Mrs. Jellyby had yet finished her dictation for the day, when Mr. Jarndyce, who had been out of the room, returned.

  “Oh, dear me, what’s this, what’s this!” he said, rubbing his head and walking about with his good-humoured vexation. “What’s this they tell me? Rick, my boy, Esther, my dear, what have you been doing? Why did you do it? How could you do it? How much apiece was it?—The wind’s round again. I feel it all over me!”

  We neither of us quite knew what to answer.

  “Come, Rick, come! I must settle this before I sleep. How much are you out of pocket? You two made the money up, you know! Why did you? How could you?—O Lord, yes, it’s due east—must be!”

  “Really, sir,” said Richard, “I don’t think it would be honourable in me to tell you. Mr. Skimpole relied upon us—”

  “Lord bless you, my dear boy! He relies upon everybody!” said Mr. Jarndyce, giving his head a great rub, and stopping short.

  “Indeed, sir?”

  “Everybody! And he’ll be in the same scrape again, next week!” said Mr. Jarndyce, walking again at a great pace, with a candle in his hand that had gone out. “He’s always in the same scrape. He was born in the same scrape. I verily believe that the announcement in the newspapers when his mother was confined, was ‘On Tuesday last, at her residence in Botheration Buildings, Mrs. Skimpole of a son in difficulties.’ ”

  Richard laughed heartily, but added, “Still, sir, I don’t want to shake his confidence, or to break his confidence; and if I submit to your better knowledge again, that I ought to keep his secret, I hope you will consider before you press me any more. Of course, if you do press me, sir, I shall know I
am wrong, and will tell you.”

  “Well!” cried Mr. Jarndyce, stopping again, and making several absent endeavours to put his candlestick in his pocket. “I—here! Take it away, my dear. I don’t know what I am about with it; it’s all the wind—invariably has that effect—I won’t press you, Rick; you may be right. But really—to get hold of you and Esther—and to squeeze you like a couple of tender young Saint Michael’s oranges!—It’ll blow a gale in the course of the night!”

  He was now alternately putting his hands into his pockets, as if he were going to keep them there a long time; and taking them out again, and vehemently rubbing them all over his head.

  I ventured to take this opportunity of hinting that Mr. Skimpole, being in all such matters quite a child—

  “Eh, my dear?” said Mr. Jarndyce, catching at the word.

  “—Being quite a child, sir,” said I, “and so different from other people—”

  “You are right!” said Mr. Jarndyce, brightening. “Your woman’s wit hits the mark. He is a child—an absolute child. I told you he was a child, you know, when I first mentioned him.”

  Certainly! certainly! we said.

  “And he is a child. Now, isn’t he?” asked Mr. Jarndyce, brightening more and more.

  He was indeed, we said.

  “When you come to think of it, it’s the height of childishness in you—I mean me—” said Mr. Jarndyce, “to regard him for a moment as a man. You can’t make him responsible. The idea of Harold Skimpole with designs or plans, or knowledge of consequences! Ha, ha, ha!”

  It was so delicious to see the clouds about his bright face clearing, and to see him so heartily pleased, and to know, as it was impossible not to know, that the source of his pleasure was the goodness which was tortured by condemning, or mistrusting, or secretly accusing any one, that I saw the tears in Ada’s eyes, while she echoed his laugh, and felt them in my own.