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

by Lynn Shepherd

  Jo comes out of Tom-all-Alone’s, meeting the tardy morning which is always late in getting down there, and munches his dirty bit of bread as he comes along. His way lying through many streets, and the houses not yet being open, he sits down to breakfast on the door-step of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and gives it a brush when he has finished, as an acknowledgment of the accommodation. He admires the size of the edifice, and wonders what it’s all about. He has no idea, poor wretch, of the spiritual destitution of a coral reef in the Pacific, or what it costs to look up the precious souls among the cocoanuts and bread-fruit.

  He goes to his crossing, and begins to lay it out for the day. The town awakes; the great tee-totum is set up for its daily spin and whirl; all that unaccountable reading and writing, which has been suspended for a few hours, recommences. Jo, and the other lower animals, get on in the unintelligible mess as they can. It is market day. The blinded oxen, over-goaded, overdriven, never guided, run into wrong places and are beaten out; and plunge, red-eyed and foaming, at stone walls; and often sorely hurt the innocent, and often sorely hurt themselves. Very like Jo and his order; very, very like!

  A band of music comes and plays. Jo listens to it. So does a dog—a drover’s dog, waiting for his master outside a butcher’s shop, and evidently thinking about those sheep he has had upon his mind for some hours, and is happily rid of. He seems perplexed respecting three or four; can’t remember where he left them; looks up and down the street, as half expecting to see them astray; suddenly pricks up his ears and remembers all about it. A thoroughly vagabond dog, accustomed to low company and public-houses; a terrific dog to sheep; ready at a whistle to scamper over their backs, and tear out mouthfuls of their wool; but an educated, improved, developed dog, who has been taught his duties and knows how to discharge them. He and Jo listen to the music, probably with much the same amount of animal satisfaction; likewise, as to awakened association, aspiration or regret, melancholy or joyful reference to things beyond the senses, they are probably upon a par. But, otherwise, how far above the human listener is the brute!

  Turn that dog’s descendants wild, like Jo, and in a very few years they will so degenerate that they will lose even their bark—but not their bite.

  The day changes as it wears itself away, and becomes dark and drizzly. Jo fights it out, at his crossing, among the mud and wheels, the horses, whips, and umbrellas, and gets but a scanty sum to pay for the unsavoury shelter of Tom-all-Alone’s. Twilight comes on; gas begins to start up in the shops; the lamplighter, with his ladder, runs along the margin of the pavement. A wretched evening is beginning to close in.

  In his chambers, Mr. Tulkinghorn sits meditating an application to the nearest magistrate tomorrow morning for a warrant. Gridley, a disappointed suitor, has been here today, and has been alarming. We are not to be put in bodily fear, and that ill-conditioned fellow shall be held to bail again. From the ceiling, foreshortened Allegory, in the person of one impossible Roman upside down, points with the arm of Samson (out of joint, and an odd one) obtrusively toward the window. Why should Mr. Tulkinghorn, for such no-reason, look out of window? Is the hand not always pointing there? So he does not look out of window.

  And if he did, what would it be to see a woman going by? There are women enough in the world, Mr. Tulkinghorn thinks—too many; they are at the bottom of all that goes wrong in it, though, for the matter of that, they create business for lawyers. What would it be to see a woman going by, even though she were going secretly? They are all secret. Mr. Tulkinghorn knows that, very well.

  But they are not all like the woman who now leaves him and his house behind; between whose plain dress, and her refined manner, there is something exceedingly inconsistent. She should be an upper servant by her attire, yet, in her air and step, though both are hurried and assumed—as far as she can assume in the muddy streets, which she treads with an unaccustomed foot—she is a lady. Her face is veiled, and still she sufficiently betrays herself to make more than one of those who pass her look round sharply.

  She never turns her head. Lady or servant, she has a purpose in her, and can follow it. She never turns her head, until she comes to the crossing where Jo plies with his broom. He crosses with her, and begs. Still, she does not turn her head until she has landed on the other side. Then, she slightly beckons to him, and says, “Come here!”

  Jo follows her, a pace or two, into a quiet court.

  “Are you the boy I’ve read of in the papers?” she asked behind her veil.

  “I don’t know,” says Jo, staring moodily at the veil, “nothink about no papers. I don’t know nothink about nothink at all.”

  “Were you examined at an Inquest?”

  “I don’t know nothink about no—where I was took by the beadle, do you mean?” says Jo. “Was the boy’s name at the Inkwhich, Jo?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s me!” says Jo.

  “Come farther up.”

  “You mean about the man?” says Jo, following. “Him as wos dead?”

  “Hush! Speak in a whisper! Yes. Did he look, when he was living, so very ill and poor?”

  “O jist!” says Jo.

  “Did he look like—not like you?” says the woman with abhorrence.

  “O not so bad as me,” says Jo. “I’m a reg’lar one I am! You didn’t know him, did you?”

  “How dare you ask me if I knew him?”

  “No offence, my Lady,” says Jo, with much humility; for even he has got at the suspicion of her being a lady.

  “I am not a lady. I am a servant.”

  “You are a jolly servant!” says Jo, without the least idea of saying anything offensive; merely as a tribute of admiration.

  “Listen and be silent. Don’t talk to me, and stand farther from me! Can you show me all those places that were spoken of in the account I read? The place he wrote for, the place he died at, the place where you were taken to, and the place where he was buried? Do you know the place where he was buried?”

  Jo answers with a nod; having also nodded as each other place was mentioned.

  “Go before me, and show me all those dreadful places. Stop opposite to each, and don’t speak to me unless I speak to you. Don’t look back. Do what I want, and I will pay you well.”

  Jo attends closely while the words are being spoken; tells them off on his broom-handle, finding them rather hard: pauses to consider their meaning; considers it satisfactory, and nods his ragged head.

  “I’m fly,” says Jo. “But fen larks, you know. Stow hooking it!”

  “What does the horrible creature mean?” exclaims the servant, recoiling from him.

  “Stow cutting away, you know!” says Jo.

  “I don’t understand you. Go on before! I will give you more money than you ever had in your life.”

  Jo screws up his mouth into a whistle, gives his ragged head a rub, takes his broom under his arm and leads the way; passing deftly with his bare feet, over the hard stones, and through the mud and mire.

  Cook’s Court. Jo stops. A pause.

  “Who lives here?”

  “Him wot give him his writing, and give me half a bull,” says Jo, in a whisper, without looking over his shoulder.

  “Go on to the next.”

  Krook’s house. Jo stops again. A longer pause.

  “Who lives here?”

  “He lived here,” Jo answers as before.

  After a silence he is asked, “In which room?”

  “In the back room up there. You can see the winder from this corner. Up there! That’s where I see him stritched out. This is the public ouse where I was took to.”

  “Go on to the next!”

  It is a longer walk to the next; but Jo, relieved of his first suspicions, sticks to the forms imposed upon him, and does not look round. By many devious ways, reeking with offence of many kinds, they come to the little tunnel of a court, and to the gas-lamp (lighted now), and to the iron gate.

  “He was put t
here,” says Jo, holding to the bars and looking in.

  “Where? O, what a scene of horror!”

  “There!” says Jo, pointing. “Over yinder. Among them piles of bones, and close to that there kitchin winder! They put him wery nigh the top. They was obliged to stamp upon it to git it in. I could unkiver it for you with my broom, if the gate was open. That’s why they locks it, I s’pose,” giving it a shake. “It’s always locked. Look at the rat!” cries Jo, excited. “Hi! Look! There he goes! Ho! Into the ground!”

  The servant shrinks into a corner—into a corner of that hideous archway, with its deadly stains contaminating her dress; and putting out her two hands, and passionately telling him to keep away from her, for he is loathsome to her, so remains for some moments. Jo stands staring, and is still staring when she recovers herself.

  “Is this place of abomination, consecrated ground?”

  “I don’t know nothink of consequential ground,” says Jo, still staring.

  “Is it blessed?”

  “WHICH?” says Jo, in the last degree amazed.

  “Is it blessed?”

  “I’m blest if I know,” says Jo, staring more than ever; “but I shouldn’t think it warn’t. Blest?” repeats Jo, something troubled in his mind. “It an’t done it much good if it is. Blest? I should think it was t’othered myself. But I don’t know nothink!”

  The servant takes as little heed of what he says, as she seems to take of what she has said herself. She draws off her glove, to get some money from her purse. Jo silently notices how white and small her hand is, and what a jolly servant she must be to wear such sparkling rings.

  She drops a piece of money in his hand, without touching it, and shuddering as their hands approach. “Now,” she adds, “show me the spot again!”

  Jo thrusts the handle of his broom between the bars of the gate, and with his utmost power of elaboration, points it out. At length, looking aside to see if he has made himself intelligible, he finds that he is alone.

  His first proceeding, is, to hold the piece of money to the gas-light, and to be overpowered at finding that it is yellow—gold. His next, is, to give it a one-sided bite at the edge, as a test of its quality. His next, to put it in his mouth for safety, and to sweep the step and passage with great care. His job done, he sets off for Tom-all-Alone’s; stopping in the light of innumerable gas-lamps to produce the piece of gold, and give it another one-sided bite, as a reassurance of its being genuine.

  The Mercury in powder is in no want of society tonight, for my Lady goes to a grand dinner, and three or four balls. Sir Leicester is fidgety, down at Chesney Wold, with no better company than the gout; he complains to Mrs. Rouncewell that the rain makes such a monotonous pattering on the terrace, that he can’t read the paper, even by the fireside in his own snug dressing-room.

  “Sir Leicester would have done better to try the other side of the house, my dear,” says Mrs. Rouncewell to Rosa. “His dressing-room is on my Lady’s side. And in all these years I never heard the step upon the Ghost’s Walk, more distinct than it is tonight!”

  *

  CHAPTER 17

  ESTHER’S NARRATIVE

  Richard very often came to see us while we remained in London (though he soon failed in his letter-writing), and with his quick abilities, his good spirits, his good temper, his gaiety and freshness, was always delightful. But, though I liked him more and more, the better I knew him, I still felt more and more, how much it was to be regretted that he had been educated in no habits of application and concentration. The system which had addressed him in exactly the same manner as it had addressed hundreds of other boys, all varying in character and capacity, had enabled him to dash through his tasks, always with fair credit, and often with distinction; but in a fitful, dazzling way that had confirmed his reliance on those very qualities in himself, which it had been most desirable to direct and train. They were good qualities, without which no high place can be meritoriously won; but, like fire and water, though excellent servants, they were very bad masters. If they had been under Richard’s direction, they would have been his friends; but Richard being under their direction, they became his enemies.

  I write down these opinions, not because I believe that this or any other thing was so, because I thought so; but only because I did think so, and I want to be quite candid about all I thought and did. These were my thoughts about Richard. I thought I often observed besides, how right my guardian was in what he had said; and that the uncertainties and delays of the Chancery suit had imparted to his nature something of the careless spirit of a gamester, who felt that he was part of a great gaming system.

  Mr. and Mrs. Bayham Badger coming one afternoon, when my guardian was not at home, in the course of conversation I naturally inquired after Richard.

  “Why, Mr. Carstone,” said Mrs. Badger, “is very well, and is, I assure you, a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser used to say of me that I was always better than land a-head and a breeze a-starn to the midshipmen’s mess when the purser’s junk had become as tough as the fore-topsel weather earings. It was his naval way of mentioning generally that I was an acquisition to any society. I may render the same tribute, I am sure, to Mr. Carstone. But I—you won’t think me premature if I mention it?”

  I said no, as Mrs. Badger’s insinuating tone seemed to require such an answer.

  “Nor Miss Clare?” said Mrs. Bayham Badger, sweetly.

  Ada said no, too, and looked uneasy.

  “Why, you see, my dears,” said Mrs. Badger—“you’ll excuse me calling you my dears?”

  We entreated Mrs. Badger not to mention it.

  “Because you really are, if I may take the liberty of saying so,” pursued Mrs. Badger, “so perfectly charming. You see, my dears, that although I am still young—or Mr. Bayham Badger pays me the compliment of saying so—”

  “No,” Mr. Badger called out, like some one contradicting at a public meeting. “Not at all!”

  “Very well,” smiled Mrs. Badger, “we will say still young.”

  (“Undoubtedly,” said Mr. Badger.)

  “My dears, though still young, I have had many opportunities of observing young men. There were many such on board the dear old Crippler, I assure you. After that, when I was with Captain Swosser in the Mediterranean, I embraced every opportunity of knowing and befriending the midshipmen under Captain Swosser’s command. You never heard them called the young gentlemen, my dears, and probably would not understand allusions to their pipe-claying their weekly accounts; but it is otherwise with me, for blue water has been a second home to me, and I have been quite a sailor. Again, with Professor Dingo.”

  (“A man of European reputation,” murmured Mr. Badger.)

  “When I lost my dear first, and became the wife of my dear second,” said Mrs. Badger, speaking of her former husbands as if they were parts of a charade, “I still enjoyed opportunities of observing youth. The class attendant on Professor Dingo’s lectures was a large one, and it became my pride, as the wife of an eminent scientific man seeking herself in science the utmost consolation it could impart, to throw our house open to students, as a kind of Scientific Exchange. Every Tuesday evening there was lemonade and a mixed biscuit, for all who chose to partake of those refreshments. And there was science to an unlimited extent.”

  (“Remarkable assemblies those, Miss Summerson,” said Mr. Badger, reverentially. “There must have been great intellectual friction going on there, under the auspices of such a man!”)

  “And now,” pursued Mrs. Badger, “now that I am the wife of my dear third, Mr. Badger, I still pursue those habits of observation which were formed during the lifetime of Captain Swosser, and adapted to new and unexpected purposes during the lifetime of Professor Dingo. I therefore have not come to the consideration of Mr. Carstone as a Neophyte. And yet I am very much of the opinion, my dears, that he has not chosen his profession advisedly.”

  Ada looked so very anxious now, that I asked Mrs. Badger on what she f
ounded her supposition?

  “My dear Miss Summerson,” she replied, “on Mr. Carstone’s character and conduct. He is of such a very easy disposition, that probably he would never think it worthwhile to mention how he really feels; but, he feels languid about the profession. He has not that positive interest in it which makes it his vocation. If he has any decided impression in reference to it, I should say it was that it is a tiresome pursuit. Now, this is not promising. Young men, like Mr. Allan Woodcourt, who take it from a strong interest in all that it can do, will find some reward in it through a great deal of work for a very little money, and through years of considerable endurance and disappointment. But I am quite convinced that this would never be the case with Mr. Carstone.”

  “Does Mr. Badger think so too?” asked Ada, timidly.

  “Why,” said Mr. Badger, “to tell the truth, Miss Clare, this view of the matter had not occurred to me until Mrs. Badger mentioned it. But when Mrs. Badger put it in that light, I naturally gave great consideration to it; knowing that Mrs. Badger’s mind, in addition to its natural advantages, has had the rare advantage of being formed by two such very distinguished (I will even say illustrious) public men as Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy and Professor Dingo. The conclusion at which I have arrived is—in short, is Mrs. Badger’s conclusion.”

  “It was a maxim of Captain Swosser’s,” said Mrs. Badger, “speaking in his figurative naval manner, that when you make pitch hot, you cannot make it too hot; and that if you only have to swab a plank, you should swab it as if Davy Jones were after you. It appears to me that this maxim is applicable to the medical, as well as to the nautical profession.”

  “To all professions,” observed Mr. Badger. “It was admirably said by Captain Swosser. Beautifully said.”

  “People objected to Professor Dingo when we were staying in the North of Devon, after our marriage,” said Mrs. Badger, “that he disfigured some of the houses and other buildings, by chipping off fragments of those edifices with his little geological hammer. But the Professor replied, that he knew of no building, save the Temple of Science. The principle is the same, I think?”