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

by Lynn Shepherd

  The whole court, adult as well as boy, is sleepless for that night, and can do nothing but wrap up its many heads, and talk of the ill-fated house, and look at it. Miss Flite has been bravely rescued from her chamber, as if it were in flames, and accommodated with a bed at the Sol’s Arms. The Sol neither turns off its gas nor shuts its door, all night; for any kind of public excitement makes good for the Sol, and causes the court to stand in need of comfort. The house has not done so much in the stomachic article of cloves, or in brandy-and-water warm, since the Inquest. The moment the pot-boy heard what had happened, he rolled up his shirt-sleeves tight to his shoulders and said, “There’ll be a run upon us!” In the first outcry, Young Piper dashed off for the fire-engines; and returned in triumph at a jolting gallop, perched up aloft on the Phoenix, and holding on to that fabulous creature with all his might, in the midst of helmets and torches. One helmet remains behind after careful investigation of all chinks and crannies; and slowly paces up and down before the house, in company with one of the two policemen who have likewise been left in charge thereof. To this trio, everybody in the court, possessed of sixpence, has an insatiate desire to exhibit hospitality in a liquid form.

  Mr. Weevle and his friend Mr. Guppy are within the bar at the Sol, and are worth anything to the Sol that the bar contains if they will only stay there. “This is not a time,” says Mr. Bogsby, “to haggle about money,” though he looks something sharply after it, over the counter; “give your orders you two gentlemen, and you’re welcome to whatever you put a name to.”

  Thus entreated, the two gentlemen (Mr. Weevle especially) put names to so many things that in course of time they find it difficult to put a name to anything quite distinctly; though they still relate, to all new-comers, some version of the night they have had of it, and of what they said, and what they saw. Meanwhile, one or other of the policemen often flits about the door, and pushing it open a little way at the full length of his arm, looks in from outer gloom. Not that he has any suspicions, but that he may as well know what they are up to, in there.

  Thus, night pursues its leaden course; finding the court still out of bed through the unwonted hours, still treating and being treated, still conducting itself similarly to a court that has had a little money left it unexpectedly. Thus, night at length with slow-retreating steps departs, and the lamplighter going his rounds like an executioner to a despotic king, strikes off the little heads of fire that have aspired to lessen the darkness. Thus, the day cometh, whether or no.

  And the day may discern, even with its dim London eye, that the court has been up all night. Over and above the faces that have fallen drowsily on tables, and the heels that lie prone on hard floors instead of beds, the brick and mortar physiognomy of the very court itself looks worn and jaded. And now the neighbourhood waking up, and beginning to hear of what has happened, comes streaming in, half-dressed, to ask questions; and the two policemen and the helmet (who are far less impressible externally than the court) have enough to do to keep the door.

  “Good gracious, gentlemen!” says Mr. Snagsby, coming up. “What’s this I hear!”

  “Why, it’s true,” returns one of the policemen. “That’s what it is. Now move on here, come!”

  “Why, good gracious, gentlemen,” says Mr. Snagsby, somewhat promptly backed away, “I was at this door last night betwixt ten and eleven o’clock, in conversation with the young man who lodges here.”

  “Indeed?” returns the policeman. “You will find the young man next door then. Now move on here, some of you.”

  “Not hurt, I hope?” says Mr. Snagsby.

  “Hurt? No. What’s to hurt him!”

  Mr. Snagsby, wholly unable to answer this, or any question, in his troubled mind, repairs to the Sol’s Arms, and finds Mr. Weevle languishing over tea and toast; with a considerable expression on him of exhausted excitement, and exhausted tobacco-smoke.

  “And Mr. Guppy likewise!” quoth Mr. Snagsby. “Dear, dear, dear! What a fate there seems in all this! And my lit—”

  Mr. Snagsby’s power of speech deserts him in the formation of the words “my little woman.” For, to see that injured female walk into the Sol’s Arms at that hour of the morning and stand before the beer-engine, with her eyes fixed upon him like an accusing spirit, strikes him dumb.

  “My dear,” says Mr. Snagsby, when his tongue is loosened, “will you take anything? A little—not to put too fine a point upon it—drop of shrub?”

  “No,” says Mrs. Snagsby.

  “My love, you know these two gentlemen?”

  “Yes!” says Mrs. Snagsby; and in a rigid manner acknowledges their presence, still fixing Mr. Snagsby with her eye.

  The devoted Mr. Snagsby cannot bear this treatment. He takes Mrs. Snagsby by the hand, and leads her aside to an adjacent cask.

  “My little woman, why do you look at me in that way? Pray don’t do it.”

  “I can’t help my looks,” says Mrs. Snagsby, “and if I could I wouldn’t.”

  Mr. Snagsby, with his cough of meekness, rejoins,—“Wouldn’t you really, my dear?” and meditates. Then coughs his cough of trouble, and says, “This is a dreadful mystery, my love!” still fearfully disconcerted by Mrs. Snagsby’s eye.

  “It is,” returns Mrs. Snagsby, shaking her head, “a dreadful mystery.”

  “My little woman,” urges Mr. Snagsby, in a piteous manner, “don’t, for goodness’ sake, speak to me with that bitter expression, and look at me in that searching way! I beg and entreat you not to do it. Good Lord, you don’t suppose that I would go spontaneously combusting any person, my dear?”

  “I can’t say,” returns Mrs. Snagsby.

  On a hasty review of his unfortunate position, Mr. Snagsby “can’t say,” either. He is not prepared positively to deny that he may have had something to do with it. He has had something—he don’t know what—to do with so much in this connexion that is mysterious, that it is possible he may even be implicated, without knowing it, in the present transaction. He faintly wipes his forehead with his handkerchief, and gasps.

  “My life,” says the unhappy stationer, “would you have any objections to mention why, being in general so delicately circumspect in your conduct, you come into a Wine-Vaults before breakfast?”

  “Why do you come here?” inquires Mrs. Snagsby.

  “My dear, merely to know the rights of the fatal accident which has happened to the venerable party who has been—combusted.” Mr. Snagsby has made a pause to suppress a groan. “I should then have related them to you, my love, over your French roll.”

  “I dare say you would! You relate everything to me, Mr. Snagsby.”

  “Every—my lit—?”

  “I should be glad,” says Mrs. Snagsby, after contemplating his increased confusion with a severe and sinister smile, “if you would come home with me; I think you may be safer there, Mr. Snagsby, than anywhere else.”

  “My love, I don’t know but what I may be, I am sure. I am ready to go.”

  Mr. Snagsby casts his eye forlornly round the bar, gives Messrs. Weevle and Guppy good morning, assures them of the satisfaction with which he sees them uninjured, and accompanies Mrs. Snagsby from the Sol’s Arms. Before night, his doubt whether he may not be responsible for some inconceivable part in the catastrophe which is the talk of the whole neighbourhood, is almost resolved into certainty by Mrs. Snagsby’s pertinacity in that fixed gaze. His mental sufferings are so great, that he entertains wandering ideas of delivering himself up to justice, and requiring to be cleared, if innocent, and punished with the utmost rigour of the law, if guilty.

  Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, having taken their breakfast, step into Lincoln’s Inn to take a little walk about the square, and clear as many of the dark cobwebs out of their brains as a little walk may.

  “There can be no more favourable time than the present, Tony,” says Mr. Guppy, after they have broodingly made out the four sides of the square, “for a word or two between us, upon a point on which we must, with very littl
e delay, come to an understanding.”

  “Now, I tell you what, William G.!” returns the other, eyeing his companion with a bloodshot eye. “If it’s a point of conspiracy, you needn’t take the trouble to mention it. I have had enough of that, and I ain’t going to have any more. We shall have you taking fire next, or blowing up with a bang.”

  This supposititious phenomenon is so very disagreeable to Mr. Guppy that his voice quakes, as he says in a moral way, “Tony, I should have thought that what we went through last night, would have been a lesson to you never to be personal any more as long as you lived.” To which Mr. Weevle returns, “William, I should have thought it would have been a lesson to you never to conspire any more as long as you lived.” To which Mr. Guppy says, “Who’s conspiring?” To which Mr. Jobling replies, “Why, you are!” To which Mr. Guppy retorts, “No, I am not.” To which Mr. Jobling retorts again, “Yes, you are!” To which Mr. Guppy retorts, “Who says so?” To which Mr. Jobling retorts, “I say so!” To which Mr. Guppy retorts, “Oh, indeed?” To which Mr. Jobling retorts, “Yes, indeed!” And both being now in a heated state, they walk on silently for a while, to cool down again.

  “Tony,” says Mr. Guppy, then, “if you heard your friend out, instead of flying at him, you wouldn’t fall into mistakes. But your temper is hasty, and you are not considerate. Possessing in yourself, Tony, all that is calculated to charm the eye—”

  “Oh! Blow the eye!” cries Mr. Weevle, cutting him short. “Say what you have got to say!”

  Finding his friend in this morose and material condition, Mr. Guppy only expresses the finer feelings of his soul through the tone of injury in which he recommences:

  “Tony, when I say there is a point on which we must come to an understanding pretty soon, I say so quite apart from any kind of conspiring, however innocent. You know it is professionally arranged beforehand, in all cases that are tried, what facts the witnesses are to prove. Is it, or is it not, desirable that we should know what facts we are to prove on the inquiry into the death of this unfortunate old Mo—gentleman?” (Mr. Guppy was going to say, Mogul, but thinks gentleman better suited to the circumstances.)

  “What facts? The facts.”

  “The facts bearing on that inquiry. Those are”—Mr. Guppy tells them off on his fingers—“what we know of his habits; when you saw him last; what his condition was then; the discovery that we made, and how we made it.”

  “Yes,” says Mr. Weevle. “Those are about the facts.”

  “We made the discovery, in consequence of his having, in his eccentric way, an appointment with you at twelve o’clock at night, when you were to explain some writing to him, as you had often done before, on account of his not being able to read. I, spending the evening with you, was called down—and so forth. The inquiry being only into the circumstances touching the death of the deceased, it’s not necessary to go beyond these facts, I suppose you’ll agree?”

  “No!” returns Mr. Weevle, “I suppose not.”

  “And this is not a conspiracy, perhaps?” says the injured Guppy.

  “No,” returns his friend; “if it’s nothing worse than this, I withdraw the observation.”

  “Now, Tony,” says Mr. Guppy, taking his arm again, and walking him slowly on, “I should like to know, in a friendly way, whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of your continuing to live at that place?”

  “What do you mean?” says Tony stopping.

  “Whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of your continuing to live at that place?” repeats Mr. Guppy, walking him on again.

  “At what place? That place?” pointing in the direction of the rag and bottle shop.

  Mr. Guppy nods.

  “Why, I wouldn’t pass another night there, for any consideration that you could offer me,” says Mr. Weevle, haggardly staring.

  “Do you mean it though, Tony?”

  “Mean it! Do I look as if I mean it? I feel as if I do; I know that,” says Mr. Weevle, with a very genuine shudder.

  “Then the possibility, or probability—for such it must be considered—of your never being disturbed in possession of those effects, lately belonging to a lone old man who seemed to have no relation in the world; and the certainty of your being able to find out what he really had got stored up there; don’t weigh with you at all against last night, Tony, if I understand you?” says Mr. Guppy, biting his thumb with the appetite of vexation.

  “Certainly not. Talk in that cool way of a fellow’s living there?” cries Mr. Weevle, indignantly. “Go and live there yourself.”

  “O! I, Tony!” says Mr. Guppy, soothing him. “I have never lived there, and couldn’t get a lodging there now; whereas you have got one.”

  “You are welcome to it,” rejoins his friend, “and—ugh!—you may make yourself at home in it.”

  “Then you really and truly at this point,” says Mr. Guppy, “give up the whole thing, if I understand you, Tony?”

  “You never,” returns Tony, with a most convincing steadfastness, “said a truer word in all your life. I do!”

  While they are so conversing, a hackney-coach drives into the square, on the box of which vehicle a very tall hat makes itself manifest to the public. Inside the coach, and consequently not so manifest to the multitude, though sufficiently so to the two friends, for the coach stops almost at their feet, are the venerable Mr. Smallweed and Mrs. Smallweed, accompanied by their granddaughter Judy.

  An air of haste and excitement pervades the party; and as the tall hat (surmounting Mr. Smallweed the younger) alights, Mr. Smallweed the elder pokes his head out of window, and bawls to Mr. Guppy, “How de do, sir! How de do!”

  “What do Chick and his family want here at this time of the morning, I wonder!” says Mr. Guppy, nodding to his familiar.

  “My dear sir,” cries Grandfather Smallweed, “would you do me a favour? Would you and your friend be so very obleeging as to carry me into the public-house in the court, while Bart and his sister bring their grandmother along? Would you do an old man that good turn, sir?”

  Mr. Guppy looks at his friend, repeating inquiringly, “the public-house in the court?” And they prepare to bear the venerable burden to the Sol’s Arms.

  “There’s your fare!” says the Patriarch to the coachman with a fierce grin, and shaking his incapable fist at him. “Ask me for a penny more, and I’ll have my lawful revenge upon you. My dear young men, be easy with me, if you please. Allow me to catch you round the neck. I won’t squeeze you tighter than I can help. O Lord! O dear me! O my bones!”

  It is well that the Sol is not far off, for Mr. Weevle presents an apoplectic appearance before half the distance is accomplished. With no worse aggravation of his symptoms, however, than the utterance of divers croaking sounds, expressive of obstructed respiration, he fulfils his share of the porterage, and the benevolent old gentleman is deposited by his own desire in the parlour of the Sol’s Arms.

  “O Lord!” gasps Mr. Smallweed, looking about him, breathless, from an arm-chair. “O dear me! O my bones and back! O my aches and pains! Sit down, you dancing, prancing, shambling, scrambling poll-parrot! Sit down!”

  This little apostrophe to Mrs. Smallweed is occasioned by a propensity on the part of that unlucky old lady, whenever she finds herself on her feet, to amble about, and “set” to inanimate objects, accompanying herself with a chattering noise, as in a witch dance. A nervous affection has probably as much to do with these demonstrations, as any imbecile intention in the poor old woman; but on the present occasion they are so particularly lively in connexion with the Windsor arm-chair, fellow to that in which Mr. Smallweed is seated, that she only quite desists when her grandchildren have held her down in it: her lord in the meanwhile bestowing upon her, with great volubility, the endearing epithet of “a pigheaded Jackdaw,” repeated a surprising number of times.

  “My dear sir,” Grandfather Smallweed then proceeds, addressing Mr. Guppy, “there has been a calamity here. Have you heard of it
, either of you?”

  “Heard of it, sir! Why, we discovered it.”

  “You discovered it. You two discovered it! Bart, they discovered it!”

  The two discoverers stare at the Smallweeds, who return the compliment.

  “My dear friends,” whines Grandfather Smallweed, putting out both his hands, “I owe you a thousand thanks for discharging the melancholy office of discovering the ashes of Mrs. Smallweed’s brother.”

  “Eh?” says Mr. Guppy.

  “Mrs. Smallweed’s brother, my dear friend—her only relation. We were not on terms, which is to be deplored now, but he never would be on terms. He was not fond of us. He was eccentric—he was very eccentric. Unless he has left a will (which is not at all likely) I shall take out letters of administration. I have come down to look after the property; it must be sealed up, it must be protected. I have come down,” repeats Grandfather Smallweed, hooking the air towards him with all his ten fingers at once, “to look after the property.”

  “I think, Small,” says the disconsolate Mr. Guppy, “you might have mentioned that the old man was your uncle.”

  “You two were so close about him that I thought you would like me to be the same,” returns that old bird, with a secretly glistening eye. “Besides, I wasn’t proud of him.”