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

by Lynn Shepherd

  “Your ladyship,” replies Mr. Guppy, again referring to his paper, “I am coming to that. Dash these notes! O! ‘Mrs. Chadband.’ Yes.” Mr. Guppy draws his chair a little forward, and seats himself again. My Lady reclines in her chair composedly, though with a trifle less of graceful ease than usual, perhaps; and never falters in her steady gaze. “A—stop a minute, though!” Mr. Guppy refers again. “E.S. twice? O yes! Yes, I see my way now, right on.”

  Rolling up the slip of paper as an instrument to point his speech with, Mr. Guppy proceeds.

  “Your ladyship, there is a mystery about Miss Esther Summerson’s birth and bringing up. I am informed of that fact, because—which I mention in confidence—I know it in the way of my profession at Kenge and Carboy’s. Now, as I have already mentioned to your ladyship, Miss Summerson’s image is imprinted on my art. If I could clear this mystery for her, or prove her to be well related, or find that having the honour to be a remote branch of your ladyship’s family she had a right to be made a party in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, why, I might make a sort of a claim upon Miss Summerson to look with an eye of more decided favour on my proposals than she has exactly done as yet. In fact, as yet she hasn’t favoured them at all.”

  A kind of angry smile just dawns upon my Lady’s face.

  “Now, it’s a very singular circumstance, your ladyship,” says Mr. Guppy, “though one of those circumstances that do fall in the way of us professional men—which I may call myself, for though not admitted, yet I have had a present of my articles made to me by Kenge and Carboy, on my mother’s advancing from the principal of her little income the money for the stamp, which comes heavy—that I have encountered the person who lived as servant with the lady who brought Miss Summerson up, before Mr. Jarndyce took charge of her. That lady was a Miss Barbary, your ladyship.”

  Is the dead colour on my Lady’s face, reflected from the screen which has a green silk ground, and which she holds in her raised hand as if she had forgotten it; or is it a dreadful paleness that has fallen on her?

  “Did your ladyship,” says Mr. Guppy, “ever happen to hear of Miss Barbary?”

  “I don’t know. I think so. Yes.”

  “Was Miss Barbary at all connected with your ladyship’s family?”

  My Lady’s lips move, but they utter nothing. She shakes her head.

  “Not connected?” says Mr. Guppy. “O! Not to your ladyship’s knowledge, perhaps? Ah! But might be? Yes.” After each of these interrogatories, she has inclined her head. “Very good! Now, this Miss Barbary was extremely close—seems to have been extraordinarily close for a female, females being generally (in common life at least) rather given to conversation—and my witness never had an idea whether she possessed a single relative. On one occasion, and only one, she seems to have been confidential to my witness, on a single point; and she then told her that the little girl’s real name was not Esther Summerson, but Esther Hawdon.”

  “My God!”

  Mr. Guppy stares. Lady Dedlock sits before him, looking him through, with the same dark shade upon her face, in the same attitude even to the holding of the screen, with her lips a little apart, her brow a little contracted, but, for the moment, dead. He sees her consciousness return, sees a tremor pass across her frame like a ripple over water, sees her lips shake, sees her compose them by a great effort, sees her force herself back to the knowledge of his presence, and of what he has said. All this, so quickly, that her exclamation and her dead condition seem to have passed away like the features of those long-preserved dead bodies sometimes opened up in tombs, which, struck by the air like lightning, vanish in a breath.

  “Your ladyship is acquainted with the name of Hawdon?”

  “I have heard it before.”

  “Name of any collateral, or remote, branch of your ladyship’s family?”

  “No.”

  “Now, your ladyship,” says Mr. Guppy. “I come to the last point of the case, so far as I have got it up. It’s going on, and I shall gather it up closer and closer as it goes on. Your ladyship must know—if your ladyship don’t happen, by any chance, to know already—that there was found dead at the house of a person named Krook, near Chancery Lane, some time ago, a law-writer in great distress. Upon which law-writer there was an Inquest; and which law-writer was an anonymous character, his name being unknown. But, your ladyship, I have discovered very lately, that that law-writer’s name was Hawdon.”

  “And what is that to me?”

  “Aye, your ladyship, that’s the question! Now, your ladyship, a queer thing happened after that man’s death. A lady started up; a disguised lady, your ladyship, who went to look at the scene of action and went to look at his grave. She hired a crossing-sweeping boy to show it her. If your ladyship would wish to have the boy produced in corroboration of this statement, I can lay my hand upon him at any time.”

  The wretched boy is nothing to my Lady, and she does not wish to have him produced.

  “Oh, I assure your ladyship it’s a very queer start indeed,” says Mr. Guppy. “If you was to hear him tell about the rings that sparkled on her fingers when she took her glove off, you’d think it quite romantic.”

  There are diamonds glittering on the hand that holds the screen. My Lady trifles with the screen, and makes them glitter more; again with that expression which in other times might have been so dangerous to the young man of the name of Guppy.

  “It was supposed, your ladyship, that he left no rag or scrap behind him by which he could be possibly identified. But he did. He left a bundle of old letters.”

  The screen still goes, as before. All this time, her eyes never once release him.

  “They were taken and secreted. And tomorrow night, your ladyship, they will come into my possession.”

  “Still I ask you, what is this to me?”

  “Your ladyship, I conclude with that.” Mr. Guppy rises. “If you think there’s enough, in this chain of circumstances put together—in the undoubted strong likeness of this young lady to your ladyship, which is a positive fact for a jury—in her having been brought up by Miss Barbary—in Miss Barbary stating Miss Summerson’s real name to be Hawdon—in your ladyship’s knowing both these names very well—and in Hawdon’s dying as he did—to give your ladyship a family interest in going further into the case, I will bring these papers here. I don’t know what they are, except that they are old letters: I have never had them in my possession yet. I will bring those papers here, as soon as I get them; and go over them for the first time with your ladyship. I have told your ladyship my object. I have told your ladyship that I should be placed in a very disagreeable situation, if any complaint was made; and all is in strict confidence.”

  Is this the full purpose of the young man of the name of Guppy, or, has he any other? Do his words disclose the length, breadth, depth, of his object and suspicion in coming here; or if not, what do they hide? He is a match for my Lady there. She may look at him, but he can look at the table, and keep that witness-box face of his from telling anything.

  “You may bring the letters,” says my Lady, “if you choose.”

  “Your ladyship is not very encouraging, upon my word and honour,” says Mr. Guppy, a little injured.

  “You may bring the letters,” she repeats, in the same tone, “if you—please.”

  “It shall be done. I wish your ladyship good day.”

  On a table near her is a rich bauble of a casket, barred and clasped like an old strong-chest. She, looking at him still, takes it to her and unlocks it.

  “Oh! I assure your ladyship I am not actuated by any motives of that sort,” says Mr. Guppy; “and I couldn’t accept anything of the kind. I wish your ladyship good day, and am much obliged to you all the same.”

  So the young man makes his bow, and goes downstairs; where the supercilious Mercury does not consider himself called upon to leave his Olympus by the hall-fire, to let the young man out.

  As Sir Leicester basks in his library, and dozes over his newspaper, is there
no influence in the house to startle him; not to say, to make the very trees at Chesney Wold fling up their knotted arms, the very portraits frown, the very armour stir?

  No. Words, sobs, and cries, are but air; and air is so shut in and shut out throughout the house in town, that sounds need be uttered trumpet-tongued indeed by my Lady in her chamber, to carry any faint vibration to Sir Leicester’s ears; and yet this cry is in the house, going upward from a wild figure on its knees.

  “O my child, my child! Not dead in the first hours of her life, as my cruel sister told me; but sternly nurtured by her, after she had renounced me and my name! O my child, O my child!”

  *

  CHAPTER 30

  ESTHER’S NARRATIVE

  Richard had been gone away some time, when a visitor came to pass a few days with us. It was an elderly lady. It was Mrs. Woodcourt, who, having come from Wales to stay with Mrs. Bayham Badger and having written to my guardian, “by her son Allan’s desire,” to report that she had heard from him and that he was well, “and sent his kind remembrances to all of us,” had been invited by my guardian to make a visit to Bleak House. She stayed with us nearly three weeks. She took very kindly to me, and was extremely confidential: so much so that sometimes she almost made me uncomfortable. I had no right, I knew very well, to be uncomfortable because she confided in me, and I felt it was unreasonable; still, with all I could do, I could not quite help it.

  She was such a sharp little lady, and used to sit with her hands folded in each other, looking so very watchful while she talked to me, that perhaps I found that rather irksome. Or perhaps it was her being so upright and trim; though I don’t think it was that, because I thought that quaintly pleasant. Nor can it have been the general expression of her face, which was very sparkling and pretty for an old lady. I don’t know what it was. Or at least if I do, now, I thought I did not then. Or at least—but it don’t matter.

  Of a night when I was going upstairs to bed, she would invite me into her room, where she sat before the fire in a great chair; and, dear me, she would tell me about Morgan ap Kerrig until I was quite low-spirited! Sometimes she recited a few verses from Crumlinwallinwer and the Mewlinnwillinwodd (if those are the right names, which I dare say they are not), and would become quite fiery with the sentiments they expressed. Though I never knew what they were (being in Welsh), further than that they were highly eulogistic of the lineage of Morgan ap Kerrig.

  “So, Miss Summerson,” she would say to me with stately triumph, “this, you see, is the fortune inherited by my son. Wherever my son goes, he can claim kindred with Ap Kerrig. He may not have money, but he always has what is much better—family, my dear.”

  I had my doubts of their caring so very much for Morgan ap Kerrig, in India and China; but of course I never expressed them. I used to say it was a great thing to be so highly connected.

  “It is, my dear, a great thing,” Mrs. Woodcourt would reply. “It has its disadvantages; my son’s choice of a wife, for instance, is limited by it; but the matrimonial choice of the Royal family is limited, in much the same manner.”

  Then she would pat me on the arm and smooth my dress, as much as to assure me that she had a good opinion of me, the distance between us notwithstanding.

  “Poor Mr. Woodcourt, my dear,” she would say, and always with some emotion, for with her lofty pedigree she had a very affectionate heart, “was descended from a great Highland family, the MacCoorts of MacCoort. He served his king and country as an officer in the Royal Highlanders, and he died on the field. My son is one of the last representatives of two old families. With the blessing of Heaven he will set them up again, and unite them with another old family.”

  It was in vain for me to try to change the subject, as I used to try—only for the sake of novelty—or perhaps because—but I need not be so particular. Mrs. Woodcourt never would let me change it.

  “My dear,” she said one night, “you have so much sense, and you look at the world in a quiet manner so superior to your time of life, that it is a comfort to me to talk to you about these family matters of mine. You don’t know much of my son, my dear; but you know enough of him, I dare say, to recollect him?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I recollect him.”

  “Yes, my dear. Now, my dear, I think you are a judge of character, and I should like to have your opinion of him?”

  “O, Mrs. Woodcourt,” said I, “that is so difficult.”

  “Why is it so difficult, my dear?” she returned. “I don’t see it myself.”

  “To give an opinion—”

  “On so slight an acquaintance, my dear. That’s true.”

  I didn’t mean that; because Mr. Woodcourt had been at our house a good deal altogether, and had become quite intimate with my guardian. I said so, and added that he seemed to be very clever in his profession—we thought—and that his kindness and gentleness to Miss Flite were above all praise.

  “You do him justice!” said Mrs. Woodcourt, pressing my hand. “You define him exactly. Allan is a dear fellow, and in his profession faultless. I say it, though I am his mother. Still, I must confess he is not without faults, love.”

  “None of us are,” said I.

  “Ah! But his really are faults that he might correct, and ought to correct,” returned the sharp old lady, sharply shaking her head. “I am so much attached to you, that I may confide in you, my dear, as a third party wholly disinterested, that he is fickleness itself.”

  I said, I should have thought it hardly possible that he could have been otherwise than constant to his profession, and zealous in the pursuit of it, judging from the reputation he had earned.

  “You are right again, my dear”; the old lady retorted, “but I don’t refer to his profession, look you.”

  “O!” said I.

  “No,” said she. “I refer, my dear, to his social conduct. He is always paying trivial attention to young ladies, and always has been, ever since he was eighteen. Now, my dear, he has never really cared for any one of them, and has never meant in doing this to do any harm, or to express anything but politeness and good nature. Still, it’s not right you know; is it?”

  “No,” said I, as she seemed to wait for me.

  “And it might lead to mistaken notions, you see, my dear.”

  I supposed it might.

  “Therefore, I have told him many times, that he really should be more careful, both in justice to himself and in justice to others. And he has always said, ‘Mother, I will be; but you know me better than anybody else does, and you know I mean no harm—in short, mean nothing.’ All of which is very true, my dear, but is no justification. However, as he is now gone so far away, and for an indefinite time, and as he will have good opportunities and introductions, we may consider this past and gone. And you, my dear,” said the old lady, who was now all nods and smiles; “regarding your dear self, my love?”

  “Me, Mrs. Woodcourt?”

  “Not to be always selfish, talking of my son, who has gone to seek his fortune, and to find a wife—when do you mean to seek your fortune and to find a husband, Miss Summerson? Hey, look you! Now you blush!”

  I don’t think I did blush—at all events, it was not important if I did—and I said my present fortune perfectly contented me, and I had no wish to change it.

  “Shall I tell you what I always think of you, and the fortune yet to come for you, my love?” said Mrs. Woodcourt.

  “If you believe you are a good prophet,” said I.

  “Why, then, it is that you will marry some one, very rich and very worthy, much older—five and twenty years, perhaps—than yourself. And you will be an excellent wife, and much beloved, and very happy.”

  “That is a good fortune,” said I. “But why is it to be mine?”

  “My dear,” she returned, “there’s suitability in it—you are so busy, and so neat, and so peculiarly situated altogether that there’s suitability in it, and it will come to pass. And nobody, my love, will congratulate you more sincerely on such a ma
rriage than I shall.”

  It was curious that this should make me uncomfortable, but I think it did. I know it did. It made me for some part of that night uncomfortable. I was so ashamed of my folly, that I did not like to confess it even to Ada; and that made me more uncomfortable still. I would have given anything not to have been so much in the bright old lady’s confidence, if I could have possibly declined it. It gave me the most inconsistent opinions of her. At one time I thought she was a story-teller, and at another time that she was the pink of truth. Now, I suspect that she was very cunning; next moment, I believed her honest Welsh heart to be perfectly innocent and simple. And, after all, what did it matter to me, and why did it matter to me? Why could not I, going up to bed with my basket of keys, stop to sit down by her fire, and accommodate myself for a little while to her, at least as well as to anybody else; and not trouble myself about the harmless things she said to me? Impelled towards her, as I certainly was, for I was very anxious that she should like me, and was very glad indeed that she did, why should I harp afterwards, with actual distress and pain, on every word she said, and weigh it over and over again in twenty scales? Why was it so worrying to me to have her in our house, and confidential to me every night, when I yet felt that it was better and safer, somehow, that she should be there than anywhere else? These were perplexities and contradictions that I could not account for. At least, if I could—but I shall come to all that by and by, and it is mere idleness to go on about it now.

  So, when Mrs. Woodcourt went away, I was sorry to lose her, but was relieved too. And then Caddy Jellyby came down; and Caddy brought such a packet of domestic news, that it gave us abundant occupation.

  First, Caddy declared (and would at first declare nothing else) that I was the best adviser that ever was known. This, my pet said, was no news at all; and this, I said, of course, was nonsense. Then Caddy told us that she was going to be married in a month; and that if Ada and I would be her bridesmaids, she was the happiest girl in the world. To be sure, this was news indeed; and I thought we never should have done talking about it, we had so much to say to Caddy, and Caddy had so much to say to us.